From Skeptic to Believer: Social Media Star Trisha Fenimore’s Unbelievable Transformation

“Once you drink that first one, it takes you on a ride you never agreed to go on. Every day in every way I swore, I vowed, you know, I'm never gonna do it again. I'd pour it down the drain only to be going out at 4:00 PM later that day to get more.” At 22, Trisha Fenimore realized alcohol was destroying her life. What started as an elixir to build confidence and self-esteem, was now in control and exposing the hate she had for others. She says, “It lowered my inhibition so that I was willing to vocalize that hate and to act out that hate.” Hatred Trisha says started when she rejected God as young girl. She had always shown a lot of potential and was placed in her school’s accelerated programs. For her, being smart equated to being a good person, so she decided in fifth grade she had no need for God. She recalls, “Everyone tells me I am smart, you know, so I could probably do this life thing on my own. I could maintain a good enough heart on my own. We'd say the Pledge of Allegiance. And from then on, I just stopped saying the words ‘under God’, and that was the expression of my atheism. Until I went to college and was able to really dive in the deep end of that angry, militant, atheism, argumentative spirit.”

It was in college she discovered alcohol gave her the confidence to voice her anger and hatred towards anyone who disagreed with her, especially Christians. She recalls, “I became very combative, highly aggressive and hostile to anyone who even dared mention, God, if I saw a cross necklace on somebody, I was just filled with rage about it. It really grew very quickly in my life, and I was, I was filled with such hate toward people of faith, but all people.”

Trisha dropped out of college after three years and took a minimum wage job. Feeling the guilt of wasted potential only deepened her need for alcohol. She says, “I wanted somebody to blame, I wanted a scapegoat, and I sure didn't want it to be me. I began to look at other people like they were at fault. And I hated and envy them for being able to navigate life without, you know, what I was going through.” At 22, she realized she had to stop drinking, but over the next year, every attempt brought another failure. Then, one morning just before her 24th birthday, after another night of black-out drinking, Trisha finally took an honest look her life. She says, “I thought about the trajectory of things. I thought about alcohol's role in it all. I thought about my decision way back when to eliminate God from my life. And I just said, ‘God, I don't know what you are. And I don't know if you are, but if you are, I am willing to have been wrong about you my entire life. If you please help me’.”

Trisha didn’t drink that day… or the next. In fact, for the next two weeks, every time she felt tempted, she asked God for help, and she was able to resist. After two weeks, she got a better job as a restaurant hostess. One night while filling in behind the bar for the bartender, Trisha spilled vodka all over herself. The smell of alcohol brought back a familiar urge. She recalls, “I just thought in my inner most being, ‘I cannot do this. I cannot stay sober’. I felt a voice like it almost like vibrated within every cell of my body. And I just felt the words, ‘even when evil surrounds you, I am with you’. I was literally surrounded by alcohol. And in that moment, it was like God saying, ‘you are surrounded by the very thing that has harmed you the most, that you are defenseless against. And I am with you and you're gonna be okay. I will get you through this’. When I felt those words and felt it in my being, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that there was a God. And that was the day that my atheism died.”

Although Trisha conquering her drinking, she was still captive to the anger and hatred she felt towards others, and herself. For two years she searched through the Bible and other religious texts looking for guidance but found none. Then one night, after a devastating breakup with her boyfriend, Trisha went for a walk. She recalls, “And I said, ‘God, I thought this guy was your plan for me.  I'm out of ideas. Show me what you want for me’. And then I sat there, and I looked at the sky and I got increasingly angry because I felt entitled to a response from God in the way that I expected it.” It was then Trisha passed a church where some people were coming out and she felt drawn to go talk with them.  “And I said, my name's Tricia. I'm a recovering alcoholic and I'm either gonna drink or kill myself. They showed kindness and love to me. They never forced it, but they just showed the love of Jesus.” It turned out to be a Bible study group and they invited Trisha to join them. Over the next few months, they continued showing her the love of Jesus as they helped her learn to trust God. It was in that bible study that Trisha fully surrendered her life to Jesus. She says, “I felt a hope that I had been created with purpose, on purpose. I learned that I was born in the image of God and that I have profound value, irreplaceable value and purpose in that.”

Still, one stronghold remained in Trisha’s heart – racism. A year after giving her life to Christ, Trisha felt God wanted her to take a class in a predominately black seminary in Harlem. She recalls, “It was very uncomfortable, but it was also one of the most transformative and beautiful experiences of my life.” In that class, Trisha finally learned to see everyone as made in God’s image with a purpose and value. Again, she felt God’s prompting to humbly ask others for forgiveness. She says,  “He did convict me to reach out to several people in my past. And I did write them letters. I did call, and I did repent directly to my black brothers and sisters who I had harmed in the past.” Trisha has stayed sober since she first cried out to God in 2011. She is married with two small boys and has a large online presence where she shares God’s love and the power of forgiveness. She believes, “Whatever struggle you have, whether it's racism, whether it's addiction, whether it's jealousy, whether it's envy, lust, whatever on the run, the gamut. If we seek God daily and in every hard moment, He will deliver us from that; we need to continually seek Him. And that for me has been the only way out from literally the gates of Hell.”
 

To purchase Trisha Fenimore's book Pray For Them: The True Story of a Racist White Christian Called to Black Seminary click the LINK! 

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