Albuquerque has been my home since I was born at Lovelace Downtown Hospital in 1993. My parents divorced when I was about five, and our family experienced several years of very tumultuous, tough stuff. I don't prefer to disclose much of it publicly as to guard to hearts of those involved. Mixed into that story is a lot of heartbreak and difficulty, but also two great parents that always made sure I knew that I was loved, and always wanted the best for me. As a child, faith was not familiar to me. I didn't grow up in a family where faith was central. It meant something different to each of my parents and I wasn't raised or taught to believe specifically. I mostly recognized Jesus as a catholic prayer figure that I saw on candles and pictures in the home of a woman named Lupe, who watched me after school sometimes while my dad finished work. As a family we participated in a standard, worldly life.

When I was 12, my mom's mother, Betty, became very ill in her old age and she could no longer live on her own. My mom, brother and I moved in with her in a house big enough for the four of us, so that my mom could care for my grandma 24/7. She was suffering from Dementia and COPD. We have a lot of memories of the time we spent living with my grandma. We have a lot of fun, good memories, and also many we remember as difficult and tiring. One of my favorite memories of my grandma in her old age is when my mom said to her, "Mom, you can't live off of french toast and pie", and my grandma replied "The hell I can't".

My mom had so many hats to wear at that point, I'm not sure she knew what kind of trouble my brother, cousins, and I were getting into. To give you a brief synopsis, backyard hopping, jumping off roofs, lighting weird things on fire, and high stakes truth or dare were on the list. I think we drank bubbles at one point? Some friends of my brother from class invited him and my older cousin to a youth group at a church down the street from school. He started attending weekly and enjoying it a lot. He finally let me join him after I begged. My brother used to wear big floppy skater shoes, skinny jeans, and he definitely had an emo flip. I had dyed black hair and wore similar clothing to him. We were collectively in a bad teenage phase. Youth group at church was more of a social gathering for us at the time then it was a place of worship.

Early on in our introduction to church and youth group, our grandmother's health deteriorated quickly. My aunt came into down because my grandma reached a point where she was unable to eat or didn't speak. My brother and I were forbid from having the ever popular Myspace profile, but we both had one anyone and we would sneak out to the living room computer and log on when my mom went to sleep. I was up late one evening chatting with friends, and I heard something in my grandma's room and decided to go in her room to check on her. She was having some sort of episode, so I woke my aunt to let her know what was going on. My aunt tried to make my grandma comfortable because she knew this was her time to pass away. I was at my grandma's bedside when she passed away, and my aunt and I woke my mom and brother to tell them, and made some phone calls.

I was only thirteen, and experiencing the death of a loved one so closely, switched something in me. As my grandma, who I had recently grown close to, passed away, her eyes grew distant yet more at peace. The youth pastor from the church my brother and I had been attending came over and did prayer and counsel for our family. At the passing of my grandmother, I had many questions about faith, life, and death that those around me couldn't seem to answer fully. I started paying closer attention to lessons at youth group instead of texting and flirting with boys. What I can now understand as an adult who is more mature in faith, was the Holy Spirit drawing me in and capturing my heart. God worked on my heart for the next year, as I started to attend church on Sundays and become more closely knit with people in the faith community. I was baptized in the name of Jesus when I was 14, with my cousins and my brother who had also experienced life without Christ before then.

When Justin was speaking of the third letter to the church of Pergamum on Sunday, the first thing I thought of was the life I had before Christ dwelled within my heart. Much like the city of Pergamum, I followed the only way I had known, and in doing so I had no compass for my life, I handled things poorly in most aspects and I confused and floundering through trying to find my own way, by worldly standards, because that is all I knew. I struggled with my family relationships, I said mean things to people who didn't deserve it, I leaned to heavily on what boys thought of my appearance, I struggled with my weight and self-image, and I was generally very selfish which lead to poor choices that left me hurting in the long run.

As my relationship with Jesus developed, His Spirit ran through my life and washed away all of the burden of societal expectation and disorderliness. I could see through fresh eyes, and the purpose for my life became abundantly more clear. Jesus changed my heart and life drastically. It is hard to describe all of the intricate ways that God knows my heart, and brought worldly, deathly chaos to into live giving fruitfulness. One of the ways that God has blessed me is with my husband, Zach. We began dating in 2010 in high school while starting a lunchtime bible club. Although I was baptized and choosing Christ, many repercussions of my past and history with family crept into my life in challenging ways at that time. Zach has a very different story from me, and his faith came about in a different way having been raised in the church, although he has faced his own challenges as well. He has always been someone who has been a very solid rock, who has loved me with Christ's love while I have waivered, and pointed me back toward Christ in challenging times. I wouldn't have pictured myself having been married at 19, but God knew that I needed stability, and Zach, our marriage, and our child Isla are such examples of the way God knows me, loves me, and desires for my soul to be His.

Pergamum was a city devoted to patriotism, cultural acceptance, and self-love, and so many in that city were lost and lead astray because of that, much like I was as a young lady. When it is said to the church of Pergamum, "Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who is victorious, I will give some of the hidden manna. I will also give that person a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to the one who receives it.", I see in my life that in resisting cultural normalcy, and letting God's love in and directing it outward, the Lord has given me a white stone with a new name. I will never have to be known by the name I was previously called before He was in my heart, I will only be called His, and because of that I am victorious, as are my children after me.

~ Carly Haynes