Life, In Spite of Me by Kristen Jane Anderson with Tricia Goyer was a great read. I picked it up in the afternoon and finished the entire book in one sitting.
Kristen was your average teenager. Grew up in a normal family with normal teenage problems. But in her high school years she was faced with the death of her grandmother, her good friend to suicide, and a rape. It spent her into a downward spiral of depression. She saw no hope, no point in going on. After drinking and smoking to try to drown out her sorrows she becomes grounded. During her grounding she leaves the house for a "walk" and ends up at dark in the park, by the train tracks. She sees no end in sight to her pain but through death, as she hears the train approach, she lays on the track....and as the train stops, she is still alive, in immense pain, and her legs are gone. She lived...but the journey was only beginning.
Through rehab, through depression, through pain she comes to know a relationship with Christ- her ALL, her everything. She grows more and more in her walk with Him and hope is born at last. She struggles, gets knocked down, but gets back up and keeps going.
She has started traveling and speaking to youth, to adults of the hope she has found. Lasting hope, fulfilling hope- He is enough.
Kristen is a survivor and she's now showing others there is SO much to live for. I would suggest anyone and everyone read this book. No matter where you are in your life- it will inspire you and remind you of our ONLY hope- In Christ alone.
