Help Write the Next Story of a Leader God Is Calling

My name is Heather, and I am a grateful believer in Jesus Christ, recovering from alcohol, drug, sugar, and sexual addiction, and from the destructive patterns that shaped most of my life. I grew up in a family with dysfunction and was sexually abused at a young age by a neighbor, who also introduced me to alcohol. As a teenager, I became suicidal after telling my parents about the abuse. My mother put me into a mental hospital, where I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Shortly after I returned home, I witnessed my father holding my mother at gunpoint, and a SWAT team arriving to stop him. After this, my parents divorced, and I felt responsible, carrying guilt for something that was not my fault.

At fifteen, heavy drug use led to my expulsion from school. I became pregnant soon after. We got married, had two children, but because of the addictions and abuse, we separated. Years later, this man, who groomed me, was convicted of child molestation. After that marriage ended, I spiraled into another short, destructive relationship and had a third daughter. By nineteen, I was a single mother of three, working in a strip club to survive, and falling deep into cocaine addiction.

It was during this time that I first met Dan. Our relationship began in addiction and chaos. When I became pregnant, he asked me to have an abortion, and I did. He left, returning to his ex-wife, and I married and then divorced another man I hardly knew. Months later, Dan and I reconnected on and off, but our addictions were worse than ever. During those chaotic years, I became pregnant multiple times and we went through three additional abortions.

Dan and I eventually had a son together. At that time, I had three daughters, Dan had two daughters, and now we shared our son, but our home was dominated by addiction and volatility. Eventually, Child Protective Services removed my children. Losing them shattered me. My life collapsed. I became homeless, addicted to crack, prostituting, panhandling, stealing, and attempting suicide. I overdosed, and my heart stopped until a stranger revived me.

I eventually fled to Mexico to avoid going to prison. Even there, addiction followed me. I was jailed and eventually deported back to the United States. But after being deported, I went right back to Mexico, still running, still broken, and still searching for something I did not yet realize was God. And yet, even in Mexico, the Lord kept sending people—Jehovah’s Witnesses—who planted seeds of God’s word every time they knocked on my door.

Through all of this, God never stopped pursuing me.