As we continue our Healing-Centered Community Development Series, we turn to our primary ministry and operations: our affordable rental apartments. In place of my musings about the healing property of home, I asked Estelle, one of our latest residents, and new AmeriCorps VISTA Volunteer, to share how coming to Cornerstone has been a part of her healing process.
The following is from Estelle.
Actual image of a Cornerstone CDC rental, 2021
“When I was asked to write about how my healing began like most things It sent a chill through me. I am usually the one looking to hide or be out of sight. I never wanted to be seen. However, because God has been working on my mental and spiritual healing. I started writing immediately. I never thought God had any use for me from my many mess-ups and insecurities. I had allowed peoples limited image and opinions on my outer appearance to become the prison I was keeping myself in. But shortly after I was saved and was filled with the Holy Ghost the prison was being torn down brick by brick. If God loved and accepted me as I am, that was all I needed to move forward. Then I heard about Cornerstone and it sounded like it was meant to be. God is my cornerstone.
He repaired my broken past and gave me a new life and it all began with my apartment. I had been broken but now I have the freedom to live just as I wanted just as God intended with freedom and joy and peace that I had never experienced before.
I have had many apartments and even owned a house, but when life has beaten you almost to death but God stepped in and showed that he had blessings in store for me too. I was eager and hungry to be independent and live on my own again. To be able to wash my dishes and clean my apartment and decorate with things that I love. It was the birth of a new hope like giving a new life to a dying man you just appreciate what you have and never want to take for granted your peace and happiness or what God has allowed in your life even what he has blocked from entering your life. As I look back over all that I have lost my son both parents and both siblings.
I can appreciate the quiet and simple life that I have now and the people that God has blessed me with. Getting here wasn't easy but being healed and made whole is incomparable to what I had before. My apartment is like me. Some old things and some even older things, some new things, some things from the thrift store and from family and discount/department stores. But its all mine and I love it. I am HOME!
Having a home and not having to live with others makes a world of difference. Whether I am happy or having a bad day there is comfort in knowing I have a home to come to at the end of my day here I am free to be me. No make-up if I choose crazy hair and my pajamas. It's the life.”