There I was in this cold room with a couple of hard benches and a hard, cold floor. Several women were curled up on the floor, so that's what I did. I was starting to kick from the heroin habit, and getting hot and cold sweats. By the time they came and got me and took me to the holding cells, I was in full withdrawals. Every part of my being hurt and I couldn't lay still for more that a few seconds. I was sweating like a pig and having chills at the same time. I wondered what would happen to me. Lots of other women who were also kicking heroin were having seizures all around me. I was scared. I began to wonder how my life got so messed up.

I don't remember many good memories from my childhood. Mostly there was a lot of drama. My mom left my dad when I was about 7 yrs old. From that time on, my mom worked in bars at night to support me and my sister. After the first couple of years, my sis went to live with my dad, but I wasn't allowed to choose just then. I spent a lot of time alone while my mom worked all night long from the time I was about 9 on. Some of my first memories are of me being in bed at night and hearing my mom come in with some man, and having to hear them having sex.

I tried to drown it out with the covers and pillows, but to no avail. Then about a year and a half after she left my dad, my mom met my stepfather on the street as he was begging for a dollar because he had just escaped from Chicago Reed Mental Health Center. He moved in with us right away and would always talk bad about my dad. I hated him from the beginning. It was like living with a terrorist.

He was 6 ft 1 and would tower over us poking his finger in my chest as he was screaming at me for spilling something or something petty like that. He and my mom went out to bars a lot, and when they would come home, if I had left some crumbs on the counter, he would drag me out of my sleep and make me clean all the counters. It could be all quiet in the house and he would come up behind me and start screaming about something. The doctors say I got Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome from all the drama.
 
All I dreamed about during those years was the day I would be out of there. Well, when I was 13, my mom said I was too much trouble and her marriage would be better off without me there. So, she sent me to my father, who lived in Chicago. I was so happy!

Life with my dad wasn't all that peaceful. My older sister and her husband and their 2 yr. old daughter lived with him. My sister's husband wasn't much different than my stepfather was. He wasn't very nice to my niece, whom I loved very much. He was very harsh with her even when she was very young. He also gave me some of my first drugs and alcohol. One night when he and my sister and I were drunk and smoking some weed, after my sister went to bed, he told me that my sister said it would be ok if he had sex with me. The drugs and alcohol had taken over and I didn't have much fight in me. I kept telling him no, no, but, he didn't care. So, I lost my virginity at 13 against my will. Thirteen was an eventful year for me. I drank my first drink, smoked my first joint, cut on myself for the first time and, of course lost my virginity. It was the year I was transformed from a glass with stains to a glass broken it a thousand pieces.

When I was 14 I learned something that would change my life forever. One of my friends and I were walking around at night, (which was the norm for us) when a car pulled up and the driver started talking to my friend. She told me to wait for her and she would be back in about 20 minutes. I waited for awhile all the time thinking she had ditched me for another friend. Low and behold, she came back with $25! When I asked her how she got it, she told me it was a piece of cake. She would send me with one of her "friends", and if I would just do what he said, he would pay me and I'd be back with my money in 20 minutes, just like her. She made a phone call, and not too long later the car pulled up and I got in. He parked in an abandoned parking lot and began to seduce me. I let him, knowing the money was on the way. And, how nice it was to have an older man's arms around me and actually willing to pay me to spend time with ME. So what if I had to do some gross things too. The one thing I was starving for, was suddenly at my fingertips.

The rest of my teenage years were spent going to school when I felt like it, hanging out and getting high, and turning tricks at night. My dad and I lived alone at this time and I had virtually no supervision. One night when I was 17 and out turning tricks, I got into a big white car and we parked in the abandoned parking lot that I always took my dates to. When I told him money first, he pulled a knife on me and held it to my neck while while he held my hair by his hands and laughed while he repeatedly slammed my head down on him. I remember thinking this was it. I thought he would kill me, but he only beat me and shoved my out of his car like used trash. You would think this incident would curtail my dangerous activities, but the risk didn't compare with the feeling of being loved and needed, so on I went.

For the next couple years I lived with my dad sometimes and with a friend named Andy at other times. Andy lived in a great big basement apt. in North Chicago along with several others.

When I was 19 and living there, I became severely depressed and started cutting on my wrists. Andy took me to the hospital to have me sown up and from there they sent me to Reed Mental Health Center which was the state mental facility. I spent 30 days there in that hell hole. They drugged me up and then let me sit out in the hallways with the other patients, so we would just sleep all day on the floor there.

When I was released, I went back to Andy's for awhile, and again started moving back and forth to my dad's house.

When I was 21 and out turning tricks one night, I met Mohammad, and he took me home and paid me. He was from Pakistan and needed to marry a US citizen in order to get a green card to stay here permanently. He offered me $500.00 to marry him and stay married for 3 yrs.

Then we could get divorced and go our separate ways. I married him in a courtroom in downtown Chicago and lived with him for 3 yrs, when he got his green card. He wanted to stay married to me and he gave me a very stable life. When he got his green card, he made a trip to Pakistan for 2 months and while he was gone, I began going barhopping with my friends and doing cocaine. Every night we partied till 4 AM, and went to work at an answering service from 7-3, went home slept a couple of hours and went back to the bar and did cocaine and drank.

When my husband go home from Pakistan, I was very addicted to cocaine, and refused to stop going to the bar and doing it. I told him I wanted the divorce, and broke his heart, for he really loved me and would have done anything for me. But the drugs took over and all I wanted was free from anyone trying to hold me back from them. So, a quickie divorce and back to the streets I went. I was 24 by now, and got my chauffeurs' license and began driving a taxi.

It was good money, lot's of freedom, and had great opportunities for getting drugs anytime because I made all cash and had cash on me at all times. I would go to work in the mornings for 7 or 8 hours, and then start buying cocaine which I would pull over every hour or so and snort, then drive some more and make some more money. The cabbie business also lead into many prostitution opportunities. I did this for about the next 4 yrs, living on the beach during the warm months and many times sleeping in my cab during the cold months. Sometimes I would live in a dirty hotel for a month or so, and then, back on the streets.

One day I simply decided that I had had enough of trying to fit into this world. Enough of being a complete failure, enough of pretending that I even cared anymore. So, I packed a backpack and got on a bus headed for California. I had never been there before and went there with the full intention of just kind of dropping out of life and living on the beach.

Actually , the first few months there, I stayed out of trouble. I stayed in the park during the day, and slept there or on the beach at night. I ate for free out of dumpsters, or the people who came to the park to give us food and tell us about Jesus.

Then one day I met Wayne, who was to be my future husband. Wayne was a heroin addict, something I had not yet come in contact with. In fact, I remember a few years before watching a movie about a heroin addict and thinking how could someone do that, I would be so scared to do that.

Anyway, we quickly began a relationship. I tried to get him to quit the heroin, with no success, so I figured, if ya cant beat em, join em. So, Wayne shot my first heroin into my vein and I was immediately hooked. It was like utopia, being in my own little bubble, no one could hurt me, and I didn't care about anything.

I began doing it everyday, with Wayne always sharing with me, and in about a month I was physically addicted to it. I started needing more and more of it to get that euphoric feeling, and and so did Wayne, so we decided together that we would go to the Blvd. where most of the prostitution went on and he would watch my back while I turned tricks. This went on for about a year, with our habits up at about $80.00 to $90.00 a day. Sometimes I made enough for us to have a motel room and sometimes barely enough to keep us both from getting sick from withdrawals.

One day we were walking through the park and saw a few Mexican guys beating up one of our "buddies". Wayne jumped in and beat up two of them and then pulled a knife on the third. I was sitting on a bench, when I heard the sirens. I waved at Wayne to run, but he wouldn't. We had drugs in the backpack we were carrying and he didn't want me to get caught with them. So as the police car was pulling up on the grass, Wayne was putting the pack on. Of course they found the dope and arrested Wayne, who had already spent half his life in prison.

Well, there I was alone on the streets with a $90.00 habit, and no phone number to the connection since Wayne always took care of that for us. Also, he had enemies in the park, and they were now eyeing me as their revenge, since I had no protection.

I went back to the blvd. by myself and made enough money for a quarter and offered to share it half and half with one of the other hookers if she would set me up with a connection. And she did.

For the next year or so, I turned tricks, got my dope, shot it, and went back out for more money and so on. This would go on from 8 in the morning to 11 or 12 midnight. Day in and day out. My habit got up to $150.00 a day and that was only keeping me well.

One night I got into a car with a nice looking man and he offered me $20.00 for sex and I accepted and told him where to park. As we were driving, suddenly a car pulled in front of us and one behind us, and then I realized I was involved in a police sting. Fear ripped through my body as I thought about not having my dope, and going through the kicking process cold turkey with a hundred and fifty dollar a day habit. They caught 2 other girls the same way they did me, and hauled us off to jail. And that's how I got to LA County Jail, the place where my life would take a drastic turn.

After they got me processed, which took almost 24 hours, they escorted my to the infirmary because I was in kind of bad shape. My diabetes was out of control, with a glucose reading of about 40, and I had several abscesses on my arms from shooting up and missing the vein. And of course, I was experiencing lots of pain from the absence of the drugs.

For the first 5 or 6 days, I didn't sleep but a 3-4 minutes at a time, then would move around to try and stop the pain in my joints and muscles. I would sweat terribly while also shivering from the chills I had around the clock. It was horrible. Just imagine the worst flu you have ever had magnified by 10 literally. Trust me friend, you don't ever want to go there.

Many of the other women there who were also addicts and were kicking, were falling out with seizures. I am blessed never to have had that happen. Finally on the 6th or 7th day, I began to rest more. I believe it took about 9 days to complete the withdrawals and begin to feel good again. I stayed in the infirmary (sp) for a total of 11 days until my sugar was under control and my abscesses had began to heal. Then they sent me to a dorm with 100 other women charged with a wide variety of crimes including, lots of prostitution, theft, rape, murder, and the like. See, they just throw ya all together until you either get our or go to court and get sent to prison.

One day after I had been there about a month, I was in line to eat lunch, and at the top of the line before entering the doorway to the cafeteria, there was a lady there handing out something. As I got closer, I was that they were books, and as she handed me one, I realized it was a Bible. "Oh, great", I thought, a Bible. I finally got something to read and it's gotta be a Bible?

After lunch, I got back to my bunk in the dorm and opened the Bible and began to read it. Some of it was kind of interesting, I guess, but I didn't really understand a lot of it. But, as there was nothing else to do there but sleep, I kept reading to pass the time.

As I got to Romans 10:9, which says: "If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, then you shall be saved", something stopped me there. I read it again and again. I thought, how can I believe that God raised Jesus from the dead? I don't even know if He is real. But, I was feeling so drawn to that verse over and over again, and finally said to God, "God if You are real then I want You to save me. I want You to come and change my life and I'll try to believe.

Well, from that point on, things began happening for me. I called my mother on Thanksgiving Day to assure her that I was at a friend's house enjoying the holiday, when a recording came over the phone saying "this call is from a correctional facility." I couldn't believe it! I tried to convince my mom that I was actually visiting someone in jail and didn't want her to know, but, she didn't but it. I ended up telling her the truth and she sent money for me to come to Missouri where she lived at the time. Then, one day I heard my name called, " Amy ******* roll up your bed and come to the door." Oh boy! I was getting out, and 20 days early, too! It took a couple of weeks for the money to get processed at the jail, so I had a little more time on the streets.

You would think the first thing I would think about would be how good God had been even in just a few days of knowing Him. No. The first thing I thought about was dope. I got into the first car that stopped for me and we went to a "by the hour" motel room. I remember this man very well, I guess because he was the first person I came into contact with when I got out of jail. He was Mexican and very tall, and very nice. I tell you this because I am 99% sure he is my daughter's father, although I have never seen him again. Don't be deceived; when we make bad choices, even when we know God, sometimes we still have to suffer some consequences. And this consequence my daughter will suffer the rest of her life because I don't know who her father is. BUT GOD, in His great mercy has made this into something good. My daughter who is now 13, has given her life over to missionary work since she was 8 yrs old. Wow, what an awesome God!

Back to the story, I waited about 3 weeks for the money to leave, and that was more than enough time for me to get a habit again, but, by some miracle of God, I didn't! I did dope a few times within that few weeks, but never 2-3 days in a row, so I didn't get a habit. And for anyone who has dealt with heroin addiction, that is almost unheard of.

Finally the day came for me to get on that Greyhound bus and leave all this behind me.

I remember sitting in the bus station thinking of how my life had been up to this day. I was very scared to get on the bus and try to live a life that I didn't know how to live. Nothing about my life had ever been normal. It had been filled with drugs and depression and prostitution and abuse and deep hurt for a very long time. My life was a vessel broken into a thousand pieces and I had to choose this day to walk down the path of destruction or walk down the path salvation and healing. So, I got on the bus and arrived in Missouri on Christmas Eve, 1993.

When I got off the bus, my mother almost gasped! She had never seen me like this before. She said my skin was actually grey in color, not the beautiful olive she remembered. And I was actually thin (imagine that) because of the drugs making me throw up every day. She immediately went into McDonalds and came out with a bag of food for me! Poor mom, I didn't realize it then, but it must have been one of the saddest days of her life to see her own daughter eaten up from drugs the way I was.

A couple of months later, I was living in a low income housing community and collecting welfare. My mom talked me into applying for SSI, due to the Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome and also due to my being a drug addict for so many years.

Around this time, I found out I was pregnant. I was 31 yrs old and had always had abortions when I became pregnant. It wasn't until I had my daughter that I realized what I had done to my own babies all those years. Although I know I am forgiven, the knowledge of these little ones will always be before me, and every time I hear someone mention the word abortion, I will always wonder what they looked like, whether they were boys or girls, etc... I tell you this because I hope you will never abuse yourself or your unborn child in this way. And if you have already done this, then know that you are forgiven by Christ, if you know Him.

My daughter was born with no effects from the drugs I did the first few weeks of my pregnancy while I was still in LA, and she also didn't carry any hepatitis, which I had had a couple of years before. She was perfect!

As I sat in the hospital bed just staring at her for hours, I figured out that her father must be the man I "dated" when I got out of jail that night.

When she was 3 months old, I began going to church. This is where I learned all about what salvation meant, and all the promises of God that were in the Bible, and so many other things about my faith.

When my daughter was 10 months old, Wayne got out of prison and came down to Missouri, and we got married. We went through pastoral marriage counseling and were married in the church. It seemed to me that we would be married the rest of our lives as the Bible says is right, and I was so happy. Only a year ago I was living on the street and doing heroin supported by prostitution. And now I was married with a beautiful daughter and a husband that I loved very much. Wow, God sure did change my life!

It wasn't long after we were married that I became pregnant with my second child. It was around this time that Wayne and I had begun to do a little bit of meth on the weekends. He brought it home from work one night, and I said that it had to go, but then I got weak and wanted it when I saw it in the needle. Even after I knew I was pregnant I did it for a few more times. Inevitably, my son was born with ADHD was detached as far as bonding went. He would just stiffen up whenever held. There are those consequences again. Both of my children are suffering consequences of things that I did. I am so thankful for God's amazing grace that He so freely gives those who ask!

When my daughter was 2 yrs old, I found out that the husband that I loved so much had molested her. I can't even explain how bad this felt. Two days later as I was having a yard sale and getting ready to leave my husband to protect my daughter, my mom came over to inform me that my father had died of a heart attack. So, I left the kids with my mom, went to Chicago for my father's funeral, and came back to stay at my mom's house until I could get my own. A few weeks later Wayne was living with a young woman. I saw her a few months later and she told me that Wayne never loved me, he only married me to get off the streets. I didn't believe it at the time, but, it was probably true.

Amazingly, I stayed close to God through this time, and stayed close to church also. I continually talked to my Father about everything and He continually listened and put His arms around me and sustained me. Even though I was so scared that I wouldn't be able to provide for my kids, God did provide for us many times. I moved in a house with my kids and got really close to God. I couldn't wait for my kids to take a nap so I could sit and read His Word and pray. It was falling into the arms of someone who I knew loved me every time I got a chance!

Wayne was sentenced to 5 yrs in prison. The kids and I stayed in church and my daughter came to know Jesus when she was 5. My son was also 5 when he got saved.

About 5 yrs ago my mother and brother, who were the only family we had here died suddenly. This was another time of great grieving and you know what? My God was there with me through it all. For about 2 yrs I was very depressed and feeling so lonely! But, my God is an awesome God! He has never left me, even when I was out there in deep, deep sin all those yrs before I met Him. The Bible says "In yet while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Rom. 5:8. And again, it says "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which He prepared beforehand that we should walk in them." Eph. 2:10. That means that while I was still out in the world of sin, God was preparing the works that He knew I would do for Him someday!

And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins. Eph. 2:1
Yes, God brought me from death to life! My spirit was dead, due to the life I was living. I was separated from my Savior. But, when I accepted Jesus into my life and heart there on that jail bunk, God gave my spirit life and sent the Holy Spirit to live in me and guide me throughout this life.

Friend, He will do it for you too! He does not play favorites. Before you read this, you may have thought that you had done too much wrong for God to accept you. Now you know that is not true. Or maybe you are a good person, living a good life. Friend, unless you accept Jesus, your spirit will remain dead and you will spend eternity without God.

I have shared all of these things with you in hopes that you will take a look at your own salvation. Have you ever accepted Christ? If not, He is knocking at your door and waiting for you to ask Him into your life.

Please open the door and let Him in!