Faith Healed the Wounded Child Within Her

“She said that if she would have kept us,” started off Christy Puli talking about her mom, “she probably would have sold me for drugs. She was very honest. And she said if she wouldn’t haven’t gave us up, we probably would have been awarded to the state because she didn’t care for us.”

Due to her mother’s drug addiction, Christy Puli was put up for adoption the week after she was born. Yet Christy didn’t learn until she was 12 years old, that “mom” and “dad” were actually her adoptive parents. The news left her feeling confused, unwanted and betrayed.

“I felt like that I didn't belong,” recounted Christy, “I had no self-worth. I didn't know how to accept it. So it just made me, it just made my life spin out of control.”

Christy felt aimless and began to rebel as she entered her teen years. She experimented with alcohol and drugs, then at 17, starting dating an older man.

“I knew he would be bad for me,” she said of her boyfriend, “And that's why I was like, ‘Okay, I'll be with him.’ He could help me self-destruct my life.”

The two moved to Detroit where her “loving” boyfriend became her regular abuser. For Christy, the fear of abandonment was worse than any pain her abuser could cause.

“I never wanted to leave because he was always there. He stayed,” she said solemnly. “No matter how much he abused me and how many times he put me in the hospital, he was physically there. I just allowed him to just abuse me in every way as long as he didn't leave me, then it was fine. I had no idea what it was to love myself then.”

For five years she endured his abuse as he controlled her life, all the while hating herself more and more. It was only after an attack put her in the hospital with two broken vertebrae, that Christy finally left him. Returning to her adoptive-family’s home in Georgia, the hurts she carried came rushing to the surface.

“It was overwhelming, like the pain inside,” said Christy. “Like I didn't know how to deal with...of what I just endured, the stuff I had been through so I couldn’t handle the emotions. I needed to numb myself.”

She began drinking and using drugs heavily, quickly becoming addicted to meth. When she needed money, she would sell her body to get high or pay for a motel. “Nothing filled the void, through a man or a relationship, through drugs. I tried everything to fill the void and nothing filled the void,” she admitted. “I just hated who I was when I looked in the mirror.”

Five years of addiction and numerous arrests, her life now resembling that of her birth mother’s. Then in 2016, she found herself in a cell on a drug charge starting a 7 1/2 month sentence. “I knew there had to be something more than the life I was living, but I just didn't know how to get it,” said Christy.

Searching for hope, Christy began attending church services held in the jail library. “The ladies doing Bible study, I’d been hearing them kind of talk about the Lord, about how the Lord had changed their life,” remembered Christy. “And I didn't know what else to do except to just cry out to God, like, ‘Lord, please, God, if you're there, please just help save me.’”

A desperate cry – then, when the chaplain led in a prayer for salvation, Christy claimed that prayer for herself.

“It was like a sense of peace that came over me,” said Christy. “Just felt it overtake me, just feeling like a piece of something that came that could protect me and hold me tight. The Lord breathed His life into my lungs and made me whole again piece by piece."

She spent the remainder of her sentence pursuing her new faith.

“Everything changed,” exhaled Christy, “No matter all the hurt and the pain that the Lord just was cleaning everything out. I had nothing but time to get better, to heal, to stay close to God, to just get His word, all in my heart, in my soul. And it was just it was life changing.”

Upon her release in 2017, Christy was 25 with a new outlook and gratitude in her heart. 

“I'm so thankful for what God has did for me,” said Christy. “He set me free from everything. He gets all the glory and I get all the joy.”

Today, she’s still in and out of jail, but for a very different reason. She’s active in jail ministry and serves as a leader for a Transitional Women’s Center helping ladies exiting the prison system, all the while sharing her story with those in need.

“My life today with Jesus is great,” smiled Christy. “The Lord has restored everything for me, my family, my daughter. The Lord has just been so good to me. God has made me feel like I belong.”