God Is Still Good

TROUBLING TRACK

I often got in trouble while growing up in Oklahoma. Despite that and the deaths in my family affecting my childhood, my mom was a steady anchor. She taught me that God was good despite the hardships of life. She had grown up poor in Tulsa and had childhood trauma of her own. Despite all that, she never blamed God because she felt He always had His hand on her.

She wanted us to have a personal relationship with Jesus, but I didn’t get to that point until much later.

I excelled at track and field in high school, but having a tooth pulled at 18 put me on a destructive path. I was prescribed opiates for the pain, and I became addicted. I quit the sport, and my addiction got worse; I started getting drugs illegally. When I was 21, while going through withdrawals, I robbed a convenience store. My downward spiral culminated in a prison sentence.

‘CRY OUT TO JESUS’

Prison only made my addiction worse. While I was there, I abused pain pills and eventually started using meth. But something inside me said I needed to get sober. That’s when my friend was found dead in her cell. It devastated me to think about the family she left behind.

I then remembered another thing my mom would say to me: “If you find yourself in trouble, cry out to Jesus.”

So I did.

I began to see what my mom affirmed years ago. I didn’t know who I was growing up, but she would remind me first and foremost that I was God’s child.

MY RED SEA MOMENT

While deep in my addiction, I went to a faith-based program at Mabel Bassett, mainly because I knew these godly, older Christians would give me food if I attended.

I listened to their testimonies, all the while knowing I would get high later and not show up the next day.

While I was speaking one day, I felt God say to me, “Sara, you forgot who I am. You forgot that I am the God who parted the Red Sea.”

The parting of the Red Sea is significant to me because my mom would make us watch The Ten Commandments.

God promised to deliver me from my addiction. He reminded me that I am precious to Him. That reminder helped as we went through that day’s activity of writing down the name of somebody we needed to forgive.

What came to mind was something that happened earlier in my time in prison. A woman cut my face with a razor, and it left a mark.

I wanted to forgive, and God put it on my heart to write her name down and give her my cookies.

There was just one problem: She was in the segregated housing unit. I asked someone to deliver the cookies to her, but when they arrived at her cell, she was hanging herself.

That’s when it hit me: I was ready to move forward, but she was trying to take her life.

TURNING POINTS

That event, along with a friend being found dead in her cell shortly after that, were turning points in my life. Thinking back to the story of God parting the Red Sea, I opened the Bible and read Exodus.

God again promised to deliver me—and did He ever.

My desire for drugs lessened, and I found freedom from addiction. I wanted to go to church and read my Bible. I had little interest in fighting.

At the time, I didn’t have the greatest reputation in prison, but God was moving in my life.

INTRODUCTION TO PRISON FELLOWSHIP

The Bible I read was the Inside Journal Life Recovery Bible. I didn’t know it at the time, but Prison Fellowship^® would become an integral part of my life thanks to a cellmate of mine who now works for the ministry.

She was my sister in Christ behind the walls. In a world where you don’t know who to trust, I trusted her.

She taught me how to pray, and we talked about the Bible. She was there for me when I needed her the most.