Hi! My name is Raema Mauriello. I was born and rasied in Minnesota and after I graduated from high school I joined the Navy. I served four years as a Journalist and a Search and Rescue Swimmer but my biggest accomplishment while in the Navy was marrying my husband, Jordan. We were married in 2003, 8 months after we started dating and one day before he deployed. Why did we get married so quickly? Because I was pregnant with our first child. We were only 20 years old when we got married, so we were just kids trying to raise a kid.
We both learned very quickly that we had some serious baggage that we never had a chance to deal with and it blead into our marriage in a very unhealhty way. One year into our marriage I discovered that my husband had a porn addiction and he had been unfaithful. It was devestating and heart breaking but I chose to stay because we had a child, but I made the decision that I would make him pay for how he hurt me. He is the one who did everything he could to break free from his addictions and got the help he needed through counseling but I went a different direction, I became verbally and emotionally abusive, I began to drink excessively to try and numb the pain and rage and anger rose to the surface in very toxic ways.
Three years into our marriage I spiraled out of control and I was unfailthful. I had drifted so far from God that it seemed like there was no way I would be able to find my way back but it was through Jordan's forgiveness and grace that showed me how much God loved me, in that season Jordan was the hands and feet of Christ to me. I wish I could say Jesus appeared to me in a dream or a vision and slapped me with a harp and I got on track because of a heavenly encounter but that's not my story. I have been on a journey since then to know God and to have a personal relationship with Him.
We have since had 3 more kids! We have 3 boys (Dominic, Asher and Brayden) and a daughter (Gabby). Out of so much pain and destruction came hope, love, joy, peace, grace, forgiveness and the gift of life. I get to live a life I am so underserving of so I have made it my goal to share my journey (the good and the ugly) with those around me. I want to live as a walking billboard displaying God's extravagent love and mercy through my story.
Being a wife and a mother is the greatest gift I have been given but when God gives, He gives more than we could ever ask, think or imagine so I also get to be on the staff of a life giving church, Shoreline Dallas. I have authored 2 books ('Because Crack is Illegal' and 'The Struggle is Real') and I will write more in the future. I graduated with my bachelors degree in Religious Studies from Liberty University, I get to lead the Moms in Prayer group for my kid's school and in my "spare time" I like to hang out with my friends and just laugh.
I LOVE to encourage and inspire the people in my life, so I hope the words I share with you push you towards Christ and towards becoming who YOU have been created to be and to do what YOU have been created to do.
**You can learn more about Shoreline City here and more about my books here.
