God had a better plan

Soleil had a good life growing up. She had dreams of having the perfect husband, two children, and a house with a white picket fence. She was a cheerleader, she had a good family and she was popular. Soleil also had plans to complete high school, go to college and become a professor. However during her senior year she got pregnant and had a baby boy after high school. With the help of her mom, Zarina, Soleil was able to go on to college. She was living her best life in college and things were going as planned until she went through a bad relationship and depression and ended up getting kicked out of school. She began to lose herself in this world and started experimenting with drugs to numb the pain. It started with a prescription drug for depression which had her out of her mind most days. Then she started smoking marijuana, drinking alcohol, and hanging with the wrong crowd. She had this one particular friend, Jacoby, who always came to smoke marijuana with her and since it was free, she figured why not. One day Soleil noticed Jacoby putting something white on the blunt as he was rolling it, but he was her "friend" so she didn't think anything about it. That night she got so high she was terrified. Her heart was racing and she was sweating profusely but it didn't stop her from doing it again because she was lost mentally and spiritually. A few months later she found out he was lacing the blunt with crack cocaine but by then she was used to it and her body craved it. She did some terrible things while in her addiction and some terrible things were done to her. She had a gun put to her head, she was almost raped, and she stole from those she loved. She even went to jail a few times.

Soleil would get high in her mother's bathroom and then come out and try to look normal. She and her mom would have terrible fights because she thought her mom was always hard on her, not knowing at the time that her mom was stressed out from seeing her like that. Soleil would get high all night, sometimes for days, and when she would come down from her high she would cry and text her family asking for prayers. While in her addiction Soleil's dad was diagnosed with cancer and you would think that it would be a wake up call for Soleil but it wasn't. After she fed her father through a feeding tube, she would go get high. After she went to his doctor's appointments, she would get high. When they moved the hospice bed in, she got high. When her dad died, she was high and at the funeral she was high. Soleil stayed with a male family member for a while after her dad died and he tried to force himself on her many times. She began to look back over her life and this time she'd had enough.

She'd lost her home, her job, everything. But she never stopped praying and she never lost her faith. Soleil would get high while listening to gospel music and people around her would say that she was going to hell for that but she knew that only God was keeping her alive and healthy despite everything that she had done along the way.

After 11 years on her self destructive journey, Soleil began to want more out of life. She had hit rock bottom and the only other way to go was up. Soleil soon met a man named Caleb who treated her differently, like she was somebody and she started to feel better about herself. It was time for change. Her plans hadn't worked out so it was time to surrender to God and let him guide her. After all, His plan is always better than ours. Soon Soleil was visiting her family again and getting better everyday. She had a good man and they were renting a house. Things were starting to look up. But one a month or two after the birth of her daughter, an old friend knocked on her door with a bag of crack cocaine. The temptation was too great and Soleil relapsed. This time she didn't have to steal to get drugs because people were bringing it to her. See the devil hates when he loses. Her boyfriend found out and told her family and he threatened to leave. She knew if she didn't get herself together she would lose everything. So she began to pray day and night for God to heal her from the inside out.

She prayed for God to take the desire to get high from her. Guess what? He did just that. It wasn't wasn't easy though and sometimes she dreamed she had drugs in her hand but she never got to use them. She always woke up. Her family wanted her to go to rehab but because she was raised in a close knit, loving family she couldn't bear the thought of being away from her family even though she was hardly ever around during her addiction.

Soleil was literally fighting for her life, a better life. She went back to church and started feeling and looking better. She and Caleb got married and he treated her like a queen. She got a job in her local town but there were some people who wouldn't let her past be forgotten, but Caleb kept encouraging her to remain positive and go back to school. A few years later she reenrolled in college and completed a 2 year degree. She was active in her church and raising her children . Her prayers were answered when she got the job of her dreams. Life is good and Soleil is finally happy. Sometimes detours are necessary in life to get back on the right path. Soleil had a plan, but God had a better one.