Faith in the Midst of Adversity

By Charmaine Thompson

Do not let what you've been through dictate where you are today. YOU have the strength and power to conquer! Join Charmaine Thompson as she shares her journey of faith in the midst of adversity so that you can learn how to identify your fears, power through your obstacles, and find the strength to navigate life on your terms.

• Language: English
• Publisher: charmcare
• Release date: May 26, 2021
• ISBN: 9781737235910

Book preview

1Choosing Faith Over Fear

I was born in Kingston, Jamaica. I was a happy girl who loved life and loved to be around my friends and family—my cousin, especially. As the youngest of five, I was bashful and quiet. We lived in a happy home with my mother and father. My parents were incredibly hardworking people, each working two to three jobs at a time. However, my father served in the military, and was away for most of the time.

When I was eight-years-old, my father migrated to New York City in the United States to build a better life for my mother, my siblings, and me. When he left, things became difficult for us; it took my father months to find a job. My mother toiled tirelessly to feed her five young children and to keep a roof over our heads. She did it, and I don’t know how, but we did have to move often.

She worked in a factory that made men’s clothing, and kept multiple odd jobs like working as a nursing assistant in Jamaica Hospital and selling candy. When she finished one job, she would come home, sleep for a bit, then go back to work at another. My older sisters Sharon and Marcia became my primary caretakers. We walked miles to school, and each morning they assured I was dressed and well prepared.

When I was nine-years-old, my father had worked enough for my mother to migrate to America; she did so. I was left in the care of her best-friend and her best-friend’s husband. My mother leaving Jamaica was, to say the least, bittersweet, but her best-friend was like a second mother to me, and I loved her as such.

I was now over a thousand miles away from my parents. I was terrified. Although my mother’s best friend and her family treated me as their own (they spoiled me, really), she and her husband were not my actual parents. I was grateful, of course, but I did not know when I would see my parents again, and to a nine-year-old, that is the scariest