Growing up in an Air Force family, Anissa moved a lot which brought challenges of leaving old friends and having to make new ones. After graduating high school, she attended business/trade school and received her Associate’s Degree in Medical Technology and went on to a career in medical transcription for almost 25 years.
She received Christ at 12 years old, and having grown up in church, she served in church ministry most of her life in different areas including music, teaching, children’s ministry, bus ministry and Bible studies.
She was married at 20 years old and had a beautiful daughter about 3 years later. She was divorced by the time her daughter was about a year old. Having moved from her parents’ home to her marriage home, she was living on her own for the first time. She did have support from her family, but single parenting was very difficult. Looking back, she saw that God used this time to build relationship with her daughter. It was during this time that she was diagnosed with depression and anxiety and began medication which she assumed she would need for the rest of her life. She also struggled for many years with being overweight and having a negative self-image. She had gained enough weight that she decided to have bariatric surgery to get her health back under control. The results were great, but she discovered that there was more to the problem than her number on the scale.
When her daughter was 8 years old, she married a wonderful Godly man, and they were excited to join their families together which proved to be more of a challenge than she had ever expected. Parenting each other’s kids brought about marital strife at times, and she struggled to be the mom she wanted to be to her “new” son. About 3 years into marriage, they welcomed a beautiful baby boy into their family. He was the “joiner” for them, gluing them all together as a family. But her postpartum depression was even worse than her first pregnancy, and she felt she was struggling to “keep it together” for her family. The family challenges became more frequent, and she was not able to manage her life with the strategies she was using any longer, and she considered taking her own life. She was truly and completely broken. Thank God!
At her doctor’s recommendation, and just because she felt like she had nothing to lose, she started the Exchanged Life process at New Life Design. It was life changing for her! She found freedom in Christ for the first time! She had been “in Christ” since she was 12 and didn’t even know what that meant. As God confirmed His Truth to her through her studies, she began to receive each and every one and became more confident of who she is in Him. For her, it became more than just living the Christian life, it was about experiencing it through an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ!
Because of this, she has a passion for sharing these truths with others in order for them to find their own freedom in Christ, and she is excited to join the New Life Design coaching team.
Anissa and her husband Fletcher have 4 children – Tyler (29), Elizabeth (27), Ashley (26), and William (15). They live in Dallas, Georgia with their rescue chihuahua-mix Taquito.