04/04/2026
I had a pretty good start to life, I remember going to bed every night knowing that my mom and dad loved me. I had everything I needed and most of what I wanted, we ate dinner together every night and talked about how our days were. When I was 11 years old, my life changed completely. My Dad had a massive heart attack in the coal mines, he was only 37 years old. I lost my Dad that day, but in a sense I also lost my Mom because she was never the same after that. I found myself alone most of the time because she wouldn’t get out of the bed. I had to grow up quick and take on the role of a caretaker for her because she couldn’t seem to pull herself together. She eventually got in a relationship with my step-dad and that was when her life changed. At first I hated the change i saw in her , but eventually I fell into the same thing. I eventually started using drugs - smoking w**d and doing pain pills. Once I graduated high school I got married and ended up pregnant. I got clean each time I would get pregnant with my boys but then I would get a prescription of pain pills after each c-section and that would start my addiction right back up. I guess I was a functioning addict for years until I was introduced to m**hamphetamine and that was when everything fell apart. My husband and I ended up splitting up and that was when I spiraled out of control. I felt like I had lost my husband, my kids, my home and I didn’t care if I lived or I died. I got into a verbally and physically abusive relationship with a man and stayed in it for several years because I felt like I deserved it for what I had put my kids and ex husband through. I started using fentanyl and m**h on a daily basis, and distributed it to support my own habit. I ended up going to prison on a probation violation for a possession charge that was definitely the Lord saving my life because if I hadn’t went I would have probably overdosed, there had already been countless times I had to be dosed with Narcan because of overdose. I spent two years incarcerated and on my release date I was served six felony indictments for distribution, charges that were four years old and from one of my lowest points. I know now that was God because I would have ended up right back in the same mess I was in before I went to prison. When I went to court I was offered a program instead of going back to prison and that’s what led me to RSM and im so thankful that God led me to a place that I could grow in a relationship with him and actually change and be the woman that he intended for me to be. even after I came I still had some doubts in the back of my mind but he completely eliminated those when I went to the hospital to have a mass removed from my cervix and it was no longer there. He healed me because he knew I needed that extra motivation and that reassurance. It sealed the deal for me and I completely surrendered my life to Him after that. Since doing so, I have built back a relationship with my family, my 3 sons, and have been blessed with the opportunity to go to the new Wise campus as a staff member and be able to be a light for people in the community that God rescued me out of. Im excited to go back and be a testimony of what God can do if we surrender and allow him to. He is restoring the things that I lost due to my addiction and shaping me to be the mother that my children deserve and can be proud of.
