CHARIS GROUP MINISTRY DIRECTOR
A Word From Carla Perry
I was once the people I now try to reach and help. I was broken, overlooked, criticized, ashamed and condemned for my condition.
I felt like I had passed the point of forgiveness, a broken individual that had lost everything, including my family.
I didn’t feel like God could love someone as bad as me. I was hopeless…
I had tried to get help several times but often felt worse afterwards because of the condemnation and loathing from the folks there to help. I was received with judgement, rather than compassion. I had to “perform” most of my life for anything that I had. I was a survivor of domestic violence, sex trafficking and incarceration, which conditioned me to believe I had to give out to receive anything.
After looking back over eight years ago when I went to a church for a free breakfast due to my hunger, I found to my surprise they didn’t ask anything in return and seemed to care. In fact, they were kind and loving and invited me to come back. I felt the Love of God in such a way that it sparked hope in my heart when I had believed I was forever lost. That hope imparted courage to seek a different way of life and I surrendered all to Jesus.
Through the help of many wonderful folks and the Love of Jesus, I did what some said was impossible. God changed me forever and set me on this course.
Throughout the journey I felt God’s call, to go back into those dark ugly places I once lived to reach the unreachable who may feel the same way I once did. I want to share the love of Jesus to the ones who are the least, the last, the lonely and the lost, the brokenhearted and overlooked, the invisible, the addicted, the prostitute, the one with mental illness… anyone the world would say is unworthy … that’s who God has sent me to Love. ❤️
You can have all the gifts in the world, but if you don’t have Love… you have nothing. These people believe they have nothing.
Chip Ingram said, ““Love is not a feeling; it’s giving someone what he or she needs most when it is least deserved at great personal cost.” That’s how God loves me, and I choose to honor Him, not counting the cost.
Jesus did this for us all. We are vessels for His purpose to heal the broken hearted and be used to set the captives free. Isaiah 61:1-3