- Drugs
- Faith
submitted by: Susanne Johnson
I was born and raised in Chicago, IL. My stepdad was mean and drank a lot with my mom. I have three siblings who are all younger. The first time I got in trouble with the law I was about seven years old. I was with my brothers and sisters at a neighborhood store getting doughnuts and milk. We were hungry and hadn’t eaten for a couple days. I had a checkbook although I didn’t really know what it was, and I wrote a check. The owner of the store invited us to sit in the back room. We just thought he was nice, but the next thing we saw was the juvenile police officer arriving to take us back to our parents’ home. My stepdad beat me up, and violence became part of my life.
When I was eleven years old, I was shooting heroin. I got in lots of trouble and went to institutions and foster homes. My mom was a drug addict as well, and my parents were fighting a lot. At an early age, I learned not to be close to other people because they fight and you can’t trust them. The people who accepted me for who I was and what I was were members of the gang I was with for many years. I did not know what “normal” was for all those years. I was hopeless for a long time. At about age thirteen, I was ready to give up on myself. No relatives would take me anymore, and I was tired of being pushed around foster homes. At the age of sixteen, I was shooting heroin with others and woke up smelling smoke. The others left me for dead and set the house on fire. As I went to one of those others home that night, he pulled a gun on me. I took his gun, and he lost his life. I still hadn’t learned from that.
My journey took me from Chicago to Texas and California. I lived from coast to coast and lived out of dumpsters and didn’t even have shoes. I’ve been to prison in several states. I was always searching for something, that quick fix. When I was in prison in Indiana, I went to a 12-step meeting and for the first time in my life had the desire to stop. I’ve been clean every day since that day in 2003.
My life still has ups and downs, but I will take any day today over one where I used to be. I took my GED in prison, graduated with a bachelor’s degree in psychology during my prison time and started believing in me again. I wrote on Facebook, “I used to live under a bridge, now I work on bridges.”
A friend asked me to accompany him to church all the time. At first I didn’t like to go. I had no relationship with God. My friend then told me to join because there are so many nice girls there, and I went. Something hit me while I kept going, and I only have missed about three Sundays in the last two and half years. I started to volunteer at church as well, greeting people and helping out. I became a part of it. For me the church is not just the building. It’s the people that make the church.
I had the precious gift of desperation. I hated everybody but myself and came to believe that was not the way to live. Today I hope I can be a flicker of light for somebody. It’s not hopeless, and there is help for anybody. I can’t tell when it will get better for anybody, but I can promise that it will. We have to learn to be comfortable in our own skin and live in today instead of living in the past. I want to learn how to encourage people and to not discourage people. I’ve been from park bench to Park Avenue. I know that God loves me and that there is a way out. I like to live my life for Him. I don’t have to be alone. I have a church family and God on my side.
I like to live by these quotes from the Bible:
“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Philippians 4:13
“Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” 1 Thessalonians 5:18
Thanks to God, I’m not where I used to be.