The Girl

February 3rd, 2009- fifth period. Ten years. Ten years ago on this day a girl was found drunk and incoherent in the front seat her car. Series of life events, mistakes, insecurities left her here. Alone. Unconscious. The sobering image of what her life decisions had brought her to. A life without goals, a life apart from God. This broken girl, seeking, striving, grasping for attention, for acceptance, for answers. Don’t worry- the story gets better.

This same girl that was found dirty and broken on that day, was the same girl that graduated high school with just a 2.5 GPA. ‘Conditionally Accepted’. Able to go to college, but not qualified enough to get scholarships or not be under a microscope for academic probation.

The same girl found acceptance, found God, and found her purpose.

The same girl found her husband, one who supported her, loved, her, and knew her in her rarest forms. Loved her through her strife, anger, depression, spontaneity and creative mind.

The same girl graduated with her undergraduate degree in 2014. The same girl graduated with her master’s degree just two years later, all the while having two children.

This girl had a second chance. On February 3rd, her medical record did not list, Presli Dawn Bellottie, time of death 2:16pm. No. But she did die that day. Her new life began.

I love going back home but, let me tell you that there still people in my life who see me for the first time since and when I tell them I have two children, I watch their eyes slide to my left hand to see if I have a ring. Wondering if I ever became an honest woman.

Learning to be okay with what they think they know of me has taken some time... This story is bigger than that day. God’s story is bigger than that day. What a gorgeous image of where God will go to save us from ourselves. On that day, He didn’t see a broken, disgusting, compromised, sinner. He held my face in his hands. He said, my beautiful and perfect daughter. Come and eat with me. Let me love you. Let me give you a new life, a new hope. You are seen, you are safe.

In ten years’ time, I have grown, I have failed, I have disappointed, I have accomplished. Ten more years than I would have had if God did not give me a revival story on that day. Ten years that I have strived to live to the fullest. I got my second chance- I refuse to fail

Have you been given a second chance? What will you do with it? Who can you be if you are given another ten years? Or how would you feel if you died today? Are you satisfied with who you are, how you have loved others? Who is God in your life? Are you letting Him work? Because let me tell you- I am the poster child of failure friends. My own family doubted my ability to ever function as a member of society at times. I don’t even know how I got here most days. How I ever earned two healthy boys and a husband who loves me deeply. But what I can say- is if I, Presli, am able to fight through life and defy the beliefs of nearly everyone around me, you have no excuse.

So if you are stuck in your life, stuck in your circumstance- you making an excuse will never dig you out of a hole. You need to dig your way out. Dig until your nails bleed. Refuse to settle on life. You get only one. Fight for a second chance, to keep your head above water. Let God meet you where you are. Dirty, messy, broken. Choose to not let your circumstances call the shots. What will you do in ten years’ time? What if you could re-write, ‘the girl’? Who would you be in ten years. Dig yourself out, make a bridge, find redemption and fight like Hell to follow the truth.

Grab your shovel Sis

-The girl