I was eight years old when I got to a point in my life where I didn't want to live anymore.
Eight years old.
When I think about that today, it's hard to imagine a child that young carrying that much pain.
I was living in a two-story farmhouse with foster parents who were abusive. There were times when I would be locked in a dark room. I remember being scared and wondering why these things were happening to me.
There were nights when we would be asleep and one of the foster parents would come upstairs and beat us with a belt.
I didn't understand it.
I was just a little boy trying to survive something I didn't know how to explain.
Every night before I went to bed, I would get down on my knees and pray to God.
I kept asking Him:
Why is this happening to me?
I didn't understand why God would allow me to go through something like this.
I didn't understand why nobody was coming to help me.
After a while, when you're a child living in something like that, you can start believing that maybe this is all your life is ever going to be.
That's where I was.
I thought that dark room was going to be my life.
Then one night, I reached a point where I couldn't take it anymore.
I walked over to the window of that two-story farmhouse intending to end my life.
I remember looking outside.
There was a barn outside my window, and there was a bright light near that barn.
That light was shining toward me.
For some reason, I stopped.
Something inside of me told me to go back to my bed.
Go back and pray one more time.
So I did.
I went back to my bed, got down on my knees, and prayed to God one more time.
What happened next is something I have carried with me for the rest of my life.
As I was praying, I experienced what I believe was an angel wrapping its wings around me.
I can't explain to somebody exactly what that felt like.
I just know what I experienced.
I felt love.
I felt comfort.
I felt joy.
And for that moment, I didn't feel the pain that had been living inside my heart, mind and soul.
For the first time, I felt like I wasn't alone.
That angel didn't change the farmhouse.
It didn't change the foster parents.
It didn't erase what had happened to me.
But I believe that night helped save my life.
Because I had gone to that window believing there was no reason to keep going.
And somehow, I ended up back on my knees praying.
The farmhouse was still there.
The dark room was still there.
But something inside of me had changed.
When I woke up the next morning, I knew something was different.
I knew that curse was over.
I got my identity back.
And I told myself something:
If nobody is going to be there for me, I know the angel will be there for me.
God will be there for me.
And I will be there for myself.
That night changed the direction of my life.
It also changed the way I looked at who I was.
Because growing up the way I did, people and circumstances had been telling me who I was.
But I learned something.
Your identity isn't on the outside.
Your true identity is on the inside.
It's your heart.
It's your mind.
It's your soul.
Your identity isn't your anatomy on the outside.
It isn't the house you grew up in.
It isn't what somebody did to you.
It isn't what somebody called you.
And it isn't the pain somebody put inside of you.
That's something I didn't completely understand when I was eight years old.
I understand it today.
If I could go back to that farmhouse and stand in front of that eight-year-old little boy, I know exactly what I would tell him.
When you find your identity, you find who you are in life.
The past doesn't have to define you.
The past becomes part of your journey.
And sometimes what you went through can help make you a better person as you continue that journey through life.
That little boy standing near that farmhouse window couldn't see any of that yet.
He couldn't see the years ahead of him.
He couldn't see the people he would eventually meet.
He couldn't see the lives he might someday touch.
All he could see that night was darkness and a bright light coming from a barn.
But sometimes one light is enough.
Because that night, I didn't just walk away from that window.
I walked back toward myself.
And if you've read my story, A Lost Foster Child Trying to Navigate Through Darkness to Find the Light and Love in God, now I want you to know something.
That lost foster child was me.
I was that eight-year-old boy in the farmhouse.
I was that child trying to navigate through the darkness and understand why these things were happening to me.
And on one of the darkest nights of my life, when I believed I didn't have anything left, I found something I desperately needed.
I found comfort.
I found my identity.
And most importantly, I found the light and love in God.
Today I can look back at that eight-year-old boy and finally tell him something he couldn't have possibly known while he was standing in that farmhouse:
You made it.
— Jeffrey Badders
