Maria\u2019s family moved to Portugal when she was 5 years old. She has a normal childhood and was close to her sister and her parents until she was 12 and her parents began to fight. When her father moved out, Maria took it hard. \u201cI felt very sad, very alone. I felt like our father no longer loved us,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Two years later, at 14, Maria and her friends started dabbling with hashish. She began smoking regularly to take away her sadness\u2014and within a year she had gone from smoking hash to shooting heroin into her veins. Addiction had taken hold and began to consume her young life.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of my life revolved around drugs. I started robbing my own family to get money to get drugs. It\u2019s all I thought about,\u201d Maria says about the dark years of her life. \u201cWhen you first use drugs, you feel like you are king of the world. But addiction soon becomes a prison.\u201d<\/p>\n
For four years Maria was trapped in her prison. At 18 she met a boyfriend who was in the Teen Challenge program. Maria didn\u2019t want to get clean herself, but she entered the program just to stay closer to her boyfriend.<\/p>\n
It was a selfish move at the time\u2014but one that turned out to be the first steps in finding true freedom from her prison.<\/p>\n
But after being in Teen Challenge for four months, Maria finally opened her heart to God. That\u2019s when the program began to take hold and Maria let her life change.<\/p>\n
Once she graduated from her Teen Challenge program, Maria got her first job making pottery. It was the first time in her life that she could support herself and it was the first time she could see a straight path for her future. But God had other plans for Maria.<\/p>\n
\u201cMonths after I had started working, I went to a Teen Challenge conference and while I was there, God spoke to me,\u201d Maria says. \u201cHe wanted me to be part of Teen Challenge but I didn\u2019t want to listen at first because I was finally making money and I was afraid to stop.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Maria did quit her job and join the Teen Challenge. That was 28 years ago and Maria\u2019s life has transformed completely as she uses her past experience to help others. She met her husband at Teen Challenge and today they have four children.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a revolution for me,\u201d Maria says. \u201cIt\u2019s amazing to be able to serve others who were in the same place I was in. Addiction is like a prison. But Jesus can set you free.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Maria\u2019s family moved to Portugal when she was 5 years old. She has a normal childhood and was close to her sister and her parents until she was 12 and her parents began to fight. When her father moved out, Maria took it hard. \u201cI felt very sad, very alone. I felt like our father…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":743,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n