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Worth the Pain: My Journey from teen to Queen and all the Ugly in between
If you're going to have a life worth living, you're going to have to walk through some pain... I wrote this book for YOU, the hopeless one in a hotel room who wants to end your life. I wrote this for YOU, the drug addict that wants to give up because you can't overcome the addictions. I wrote this for YOU, the one who thinks the world is out to get you because of the life you were handed.Rejection, addiction, emptiness, brokenness, and hopelessness can destroy our lives. I know this because I was broken beyond hope, but today I am victorious! This is my journey from meth to ministry. If God can transform a life like mine, He can do it for you no matter what your story is. You just have to surrender. You have to choose to trust in the midst of the pain. I am crazy enough to believe that by you reading this book, God can grab ahold of your heart and remind you that you are loved, valued and believed in. I believe that you will start to see that God has a plan and your story isn't over. It is just about to start. If He did it for me, He can do it for you. It is my prayer that one day you too will be able to say. "It is worth the pain." And I promise, the life God has for you, it is Worth the Pain
141 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 31, 2018
91 people are currently reading
47 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
April 25, 2022
So real! I’m still thinking about this book a month after I read it. Everyone should it! What an awesome testimony!
February 22, 2018
Jessica Youngblood's memoir of her descent into a life of partying, sex, and eventually addiction to meth is not the greatest writing, poorly formatted for kindle, and she writes as if she is talking to a person sitting next to her...and I loved every word of every chapter in the book. What a story of God's grace.
She begins: "In this book, I hope you take it all in. I pray you don’t take this as another religious, weak book, but as a declaration that God still transforms people’s lives and raises them from the dead. You can call me a modern day Lazarus."
She is indeed a modern day Lazarus. She is abandoned by her own mother early in her life, abandoned by two different step mothers and things go down hill for her from that point. She struggles throughout her early life and basically makes it her goal to seek acceptance from anyone and everyone which leads her to boys, which leads her to early sexual experience, which leads to more sexual experience, etc.
She writes: "This one word defined my life. It is the reason my life was one train wreck after another. It was the root of all of my issues. I was abandoned. I was my mother’s personal responsibility, but it was too much on her so she walked out."
Ouch! I can't even imagine.
Because Jessica isn't a great writer and because she is writing as if she's talking to someone sitting next to her, the book has a raw, heavy, poignant weight about it, that I don't think a polished writer could manage to pull off. It's her inexperience in writing and her willingness to tell her story as it was that makes this such a powerful book.
Example: "Y’all, meth isn’t kind. It doesn’t say, “Okay Bobby, since you are just bonding with your sister, I won’t grip you like a python. I won’t play in your ears over and over until you come find more of me. I won’t shake your body until you get your fix. I will spare you from all of the havoc I cause.” No, meth is no respecter of persons. As you will come to find out, or may already know, it kills, steals, and destroys. It’s literally the devil, with no pitch fork or red horns; it is just a simple, white powder."
Jessica ends up addicted to meth and a sort of quasi-prisoner of her drug dealer/boyfriend who basically uses her for sex while she uses him for meth. As you might imagine this doesn't go well.
I love her forthright, brutal honesty. She escapes her dirt-bag drug dealer/boyfriend only to return when he comes to get her in Denver. She is merciless on herself here:
"So, you won’t believe what I did… Well, you actually probably will. In my hopeless state, I went back to my boyfriend, the drug dealer. This is the part of the movie that everyone hates. This is the part where we all stop pitying the person, and basically think, “Well, if they are stupid enough to do that, then they deserve what’s coming.” Hear me out, though. He told me that he had really changed (insert eye-rolling emoji here). He gave me that crappy lie, and I chose to believe it."
Do you see what I mean? Powerful.
Eventually God gets ahold of her life and wow, what a change it makes (over time with many stops and starts). Her comment:
"You see, grace is something you don’t deserve or earn, it is what He freely gives to us. So, the picture in my head is of me, laying there in a million broken pieces, and I watch His grace put the pieces back together. It makes something so beautiful out of the things that I had broken or the world had broken."
Ultimately, this is what the book is about, and Jessica reminds us over and over. It's about God reaching down and pulling her out of slavery to drugs and sex and washing her off through the blood of Jesus and turning her (ever so slowly) into his own child who breaks the chains of abandonment that had cursed her family for three generations and more.
I love stories of grace and Jessica's is an amazing story, riveting, honest, painful, at times difficult to read, but a testimony of as Big Daddy Weave puts it, "The kindness of Jesus that drew me in, to tell you my story is to tell of Him."
And so Jessica tells us about Jesus and his grace and it is a great story and you absolutely must read her story.
She begins: "In this book, I hope you take it all in. I pray you don’t take this as another religious, weak book, but as a declaration that God still transforms people’s lives and raises them from the dead. You can call me a modern day Lazarus."
She is indeed a modern day Lazarus. She is abandoned by her own mother early in her life, abandoned by two different step mothers and things go down hill for her from that point. She struggles throughout her early life and basically makes it her goal to seek acceptance from anyone and everyone which leads her to boys, which leads her to early sexual experience, which leads to more sexual experience, etc.
She writes: "This one word defined my life. It is the reason my life was one train wreck after another. It was the root of all of my issues. I was abandoned. I was my mother’s personal responsibility, but it was too much on her so she walked out."
Ouch! I can't even imagine.
Because Jessica isn't a great writer and because she is writing as if she's talking to someone sitting next to her, the book has a raw, heavy, poignant weight about it, that I don't think a polished writer could manage to pull off. It's her inexperience in writing and her willingness to tell her story as it was that makes this such a powerful book.
Example: "Y’all, meth isn’t kind. It doesn’t say, “Okay Bobby, since you are just bonding with your sister, I won’t grip you like a python. I won’t play in your ears over and over until you come find more of me. I won’t shake your body until you get your fix. I will spare you from all of the havoc I cause.” No, meth is no respecter of persons. As you will come to find out, or may already know, it kills, steals, and destroys. It’s literally the devil, with no pitch fork or red horns; it is just a simple, white powder."
Jessica ends up addicted to meth and a sort of quasi-prisoner of her drug dealer/boyfriend who basically uses her for sex while she uses him for meth. As you might imagine this doesn't go well.
I love her forthright, brutal honesty. She escapes her dirt-bag drug dealer/boyfriend only to return when he comes to get her in Denver. She is merciless on herself here:
"So, you won’t believe what I did… Well, you actually probably will. In my hopeless state, I went back to my boyfriend, the drug dealer. This is the part of the movie that everyone hates. This is the part where we all stop pitying the person, and basically think, “Well, if they are stupid enough to do that, then they deserve what’s coming.” Hear me out, though. He told me that he had really changed (insert eye-rolling emoji here). He gave me that crappy lie, and I chose to believe it."
Do you see what I mean? Powerful.
Eventually God gets ahold of her life and wow, what a change it makes (over time with many stops and starts). Her comment:
"You see, grace is something you don’t deserve or earn, it is what He freely gives to us. So, the picture in my head is of me, laying there in a million broken pieces, and I watch His grace put the pieces back together. It makes something so beautiful out of the things that I had broken or the world had broken."
Ultimately, this is what the book is about, and Jessica reminds us over and over. It's about God reaching down and pulling her out of slavery to drugs and sex and washing her off through the blood of Jesus and turning her (ever so slowly) into his own child who breaks the chains of abandonment that had cursed her family for three generations and more.
I love stories of grace and Jessica's is an amazing story, riveting, honest, painful, at times difficult to read, but a testimony of as Big Daddy Weave puts it, "The kindness of Jesus that drew me in, to tell you my story is to tell of Him."
And so Jessica tells us about Jesus and his grace and it is a great story and you absolutely must read her story.
January 28, 2021
I was recently asked to write a magazine article on the author. I didn’t want to read her book before I wrote because I didn’t want it to affect the questions I asked her or what I wrote about. I’m glad I made that choice. And then the author gave me a copy of her book and I finally sat down to read it. It’s not a long read but there are many times I had to pause to take a breath, or to ponder her words, or to take a break. Some of it is heavy and gritty and difficult to believe that one person could experience so much hardship in her life so far.
The author is an incredible woman who was handed a raw deal from birth, lived a pretty wild life, became addicted to meth, and spiraled downward from there. But somewhere deep inside she knew there was something better. Several tender mercies along the way and meeting her future husband brought her to a place of redemption and desire to make her life better.
My take away? 1. Do not judge those who can’t seem to make good choices. Sometimes they truly haven’t been taught otherwise. 2. Don’t abandon your children. Get the help you need. Abandonment comes in many forms. Fight for your kids. 3. Kindness goes a long way. Don’t dismiss those feelings of doing a kind thing. 4. Satan is real and he picks at our weaknesses and whispers enticing things to us. 5. Through Christ there is ALWAYS a way out, a way to fix our wrongdoings, a way to forgive those who have hurt and wronged us, and the way to be our better selves no matter what we have done.
The author is an incredible woman who was handed a raw deal from birth, lived a pretty wild life, became addicted to meth, and spiraled downward from there. But somewhere deep inside she knew there was something better. Several tender mercies along the way and meeting her future husband brought her to a place of redemption and desire to make her life better.
My take away? 1. Do not judge those who can’t seem to make good choices. Sometimes they truly haven’t been taught otherwise. 2. Don’t abandon your children. Get the help you need. Abandonment comes in many forms. Fight for your kids. 3. Kindness goes a long way. Don’t dismiss those feelings of doing a kind thing. 4. Satan is real and he picks at our weaknesses and whispers enticing things to us. 5. Through Christ there is ALWAYS a way out, a way to fix our wrongdoings, a way to forgive those who have hurt and wronged us, and the way to be our better selves no matter what we have done.
March 23, 2018
Honest and uplifting
You feel like you're sitting next to a good friend recounting their trials and tribulations, a life saving testimony! With sprinkles of relevant scripture, Jessica works to reach us all where we are and let God rescue us.
You feel like you're sitting next to a good friend recounting their trials and tribulations, a life saving testimony! With sprinkles of relevant scripture, Jessica works to reach us all where we are and let God rescue us.
May 12, 2018
Jessica, does an amazing job of using her story a testimony to reach out to so many! This book is life changing to anyone in recovery from abuse, depression, drugs, alcohol, or just needing hope! I have purchased several copies to pass to friends & family & will recommend to anyone needing answers in life!
April 2, 2020
Good read
She is very open and honest about her journey. She could have left out details but wanted people to known the truth of her journey. God and his redemption and how He can turn a person around.
She is very open and honest about her journey. She could have left out details but wanted people to known the truth of her journey. God and his redemption and how He can turn a person around.
February 13, 2018
AMAZING STORY OF REDEMPTION!!!
Jessica Youngblood tells it like it is... the good, the bad, and the ugly; with a raw honesty that people need. God is good.
Jessica Youngblood tells it like it is... the good, the bad, and the ugly; with a raw honesty that people need. God is good.
May 22, 2019
Penny Marshall is a trip...she is a very real and true person..loved her story...
July 31, 2021
Best book ever written!!!
May 8, 2024
A must read for anyone who is struggling in life. There is an answer ! Jesus can transform you and bring you peace. He is the way the truth and the life. 🙏🏼
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews