Before I came to Mary’s Song, I was heavily addicted to multiple types of drugs. I started by popping a pain pill here and there and ended up a full-blown meth addict, (among other things). When I found out I was pregnant in February of 2016, I had every intention of giving up my destructive lifestyle in order to have a healthy baby, but instead, my drug use increased. I maintained a diet of Suboxone, Xanax, and Meth during my entire pregnancy. I justified my actions by telling myself if I quit doing drugs, my baby would go into withdraws and I would miscarry. After Marielle was born, I began stealing baby formula to feed her so I could use any cash I was able to find for drugs. I stole from my family, and became a stranger to my oldest daughter after breaking promise after promise to her. Within 6 months of giving birth, I lost custody of my oldest daughter and the state came in and pulled my 6-month-old out of my arms.

At that point, simply smoking meth didn’t do it for me anymore, so I started experimenting with needles. It wasn’t long before I was evicted from the drug house I was living in that I became homeless yet again. After what was almost guaranteed a losing court battle with the Department of Children and Family Services, I decided to check myself into a 28-day rehab in hopes that this would “fix me”. This rehab explained to me that not only would I always be an addict, but I would have to fight my addiction every day for the rest of my life. The thought of waking up every single morning to be tormented by my past and by my addiction seemed unbearable. Why even live if you spend each day wanting to die? Growing up in a Christian home, I knew deep down that only God could help me. For the first time, I was finally ready to surrender everything to God.

On August 4, 2016, I entered Mary’s Song. Little did I realize, my life was about to change forever. At a Sunday morning church service, I walked down that center isle completely broken and surrendered my life to the Lord. Growing up in church, I said the sinner’s prayer many times. But this time was different. This time I realized I was a sinner in need of a savior. As I asked God to forgive me, I broke. I told him “I don’t know how to do this, please help me”. That’s all it took. Surrendering my life to the Lord allowed him to work supernaturally in my life. He has broken the chains of addiction, broken the chains of depression, broken every chain that held me in bondage for so long. By spending every day in prayer and by reading my bible, I know what it means to have a relationship with the Lord. I am overwhelmed by His love. Not only am I redeemed; God has restored my relationship with my family better than I could have ever imagined. The court granted me back custody of my sweet Marielle, and my bond with my oldest daughter is so precious and beautiful it could have only come from God. Psalm 118:17 says “and so my life is safe and I will live to tell what the Lord has done”. I will spend the rest of my life telling the world what God has done in my life and ministering to women who are in the same situation I was in. I want them to know that God gave me a new beginning and he wants to do the same for them too! God has taken everything thing the enemy meant to destroy me and turned it around to be used to glorify him! I am so grateful… so so grateful.

You have shown me the path of life; In your presence I have found fullness of joy; In your right hand there are pleasures forevermore. Psalm 16:11. Thank you Jesus. Beautiful Redeemer I am yours…