The days after that youth group meeting felt different.
Felicia walked with a new kind of boldness—not loud or arrogant, but sure. Sure of who she was in Christ. Sure of the healing she had received. Sure of the *purpose* her pain now carried.
Her friend Ann noticed it too.
"You don't walk like you're hiding anymore," Ann said one night as they sat on the church steps after service.
Felicia smiled softly. "I don't have to. Shame had a grip on me for too long. But when I spoke, I realized that freedom isn't just for me. It's for others too."
Ann leaned in. "I've been scared to tell people what I've battled. Afraid they'd judge me. That maybe… I'm not as 'Christian' as they think."
Felicia nodded gently. "That fear? It's a prison. But the truth? It's the key."
She reached into her bag and pulled out a small notebook.
"I started writing," she said. "Not just journaling my struggles, but how God met me in them. I want to help girls like us—who feel stuck between guilt and grace."
Ann flipped through the pages. Honest. Raw. Real. Scriptures woven between paragraphs of personal struggle and moments of healing.
"You're turning your story into light," Ann whispered.
Felicia nodded. "That's the thing about grace—it doesn't erase the past. It redeems it."
From that moment, the two girls began something beautiful. A community. A safe space for other young women to share, heal, and grow. They didn't need titles. They didn't need perfection. They only needed their testimony.
Felicia's healing had become her ministry.
Her shame had become someone else's freedom.
And her past?
God had turned it into purpose.