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Saunya M. Williams, Ph.D.

After several months, I had done so much to become detached from the world and God that I did not even recognize myself in the mirror. One morning in my hotel, I clearly heard, “Saunya, you are going to die, if you do not pull yourself together.” The words were very simple, yet the delivery was so profound that I could ignore neither the message nor the messenger. Despite my blatant rejection and dismissal of God, I heard His voice loud and clear on that morning.

I responded back to God with a voice of triumph and declared that it was time for me to live again! At that moment, I began to think about what it meant for me to really live and realign myself with God. I went to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary for the definition of live, but I did not consider the various definitions to be sufficient fuel for my journey. As a result, I created the L.I.V.E. Commitment, which I defined as the following:

I will LOVE myself

I will INVEST in myself

I will find VICTORY in myself

I will ENCOURAGE myself

The L.I.V.E. Commitment quickly became the foundation for my healing and motivated me to remove the mask that I had worn for over two decades. Previously, I had believed that my testimony should be permanently hidden within the walls of my proverbial closet because I feared that exposing my truth would only lead to judgment by others. On the contrary, the exposure granted me with a liberty, and a reward that I could have never imagined. I was finally free from the shame of being molested as a child. I was able to feel guiltless and to be transparent for the first time in my life. Through the L.I.V.E. Commitment, God brought me out of the darkness that had been my place of solace for so many years. The real me was revealed, and a whole new world was before me.