Brianna's Story

Brianna Triplett was only 15 years’ old when her mother committed suicide. She had left Brianna a note that read, “I’m sorry, life is difficult”. Soon after that, Brianna’s uncle invited her to go to church with him at The Chapel, but even then, she perceived faith was a bunch of rules. “I went through the motions of attending church not looking to really serve God, but looking for a quick fix to take the pain away, I had not received salvation.”

At age 17 Brianna received a full academic scholarship to college. “Things were going very well for me,” she said. “But I stopped going to church and went down the wrong path. I lost my scholarship."

“I went through the motions of attending church not looking to really serve God, but looking for a quick fix to take the pain away, I had not received salvation.”

By age 19 she was dating a young man who she says she idolized. “I put him before everything in life and continued on a downward spiral not reaching my goals, and going from one dead end job to the next.” When he was diagnosed with a tumor in the brain and spine, she cried out to God.“They told me that the surgery itself was very risky, and he could possibly end up in a coma, eating out of a peg tube, or lose his hearing completely because of where the tumor was located.”

He had surgery on January 5, 2011, and God had done what no one else though was possible. He was completely healthy and released from the hospital two weeks later.

“God is so good,” says Brianna. Since those up-and-down days, she has recommitted her life to the Lord, been baptized at The Chapel, and gone back to college.

She and her boyfriend got engaged, but broke it off. They remain friends; he volunteers in the prison ministry at the University at Buffalo. She earned an associate’s degree through ECC and completed a bachelor’s degree in community and health services at Empire State College.

These days she is the resident coordinator at Buffalo City Mission’s Cornerstone Manor, an emergency shelter for women and their children seeking temporary shelter.

Brianna is thankful for the church in her life, and now realizes it’s not a set of rules, but it’s about relationship: relationship with Christ and others. In fact, through The Chapel, she renewed her relationship with her teenage sister, who gave her life to Christ, and her biological father, who she met for the first time at a New Year’s service last year. “I may not be exactly where I need to be, but thank God I am not where I used to be, life is so much better with God than without him.”