Everyone has a story, this is mine...

Hi, my name is Aniela, pronounced ON-YELL-UH!!!

And I think I would've done well living in the 60s.

Hippies are my kind of people...

I too once was looking for something to fill me. I spent years in the dark unaware just how far I'd gone. In my family we have a biblical saying that we will overcome by the words of our testimonies (or our stories). Back when I started singing my mom coined my second name as "shine". That was when I was seven. Since then every where I go I've heard the word "shine" given to me. Telling my story has helped me overcome and maybe someday you will share your story too. I still have scars, I always will, but I have allowed God to use the pain to write my story.

If you've heard the words in my song "I Will Bring You Home," then you've already heard my story.

It all started when I was born..... haha, perhaps that's too early! Okay, so me and my family moved to Arizona about six years ago, completely uprooting me from the place I had lived all my life (at least the first nine years of it). I found out about two years later (when COVID hit) that my best friend was going through some really bad depression and I just wanted to help her. We talked almost everyday, and I would pray for her and share encouragement. But her heart was hurting beyond anything I could help her with. She had a hole in heart that I could not fill.

We stopped chatting for a while because I started feeling shame at the fact that I could not "fix" her. I became very depressed. My family was also going through a lot of hardship and all I wanted to do was "fix" us, too. When I discovered I could not, I fell deeper and became very alone. I was struggling with purpose. I just wanted to fix it all. But I could not. I no longer had a desire to survive the wounds I felt. Too much time went by before I told my parents how broken I was. Then a message came from my friend apologizing (out of the blue, mind you). That was the very last I heard from her, it was as if the message came from God at just the right time. But the sands were still shifting and I was still struggling to keep my head above water. I joined a singing group in that time that really nearly crushed my spirit completely. It was only because I didn't have eyes to see what God was really doing. The singing group pushed me further than I thought I could go, I lost sight of the good left in people, including myself. But now I see how He used the trials to grow me. Now I look in on those days and see how He never left me.

Shame came and went in those days. Some days heavier than others. And other's issues weighed heavy on me. Was I a mistake? Is this my problem? I really let the lies keep me down for a long time. You see the thing about life is it is a journey, I didn't have healing over night. Writing songs helped. Surrounding myself with people who helped me shine, helped. And then one summer day in an auditorium surrounded with thousands of kids my age I saw some chains; they were attached to a podium. They reminded me of the chains I saw on myself. Everyone got to go up, including me. So I picked up those chains, and I felt how heavy they were. And then I dropped them. FREE. That is how I felt. Later that night my friends and I were reflecting and one friend looked me dead in the eyes and said, "Aniela, you are not God". Those five words changed my life. I no longer felt burdened that I had to have the perfect friend, and the perfect family and the perfect me! I am only human!!! We all are.

Now, I truly feel that I have stepped into the blessing that God had planned all along. I finally See the Light. I look back and I see how he was there for me through it all. He gave me music that spoke to me in way words didn't, and now I am free indeed (John 8:36). No matter what your going through your brokenness is never to much for Him. No matter what you've done, or what's been done to you, YOU ARE SO LOVED! We all have a story to tell, and we all have a purpose. Step into the power of Christ!

For the Spirit of the Lord is upon you, because the Lord has anointed you to bring good news to the poor; He has sent you to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound." Isaiah 61:1

We are a beautifully broken people and we have a story to tell and a song of triumph in our hearts.

G O D I S G O O D.