2016-09clemmons-dI grew up in a Christian home.  God blessed me with a husband that loves the Lord and a beautiful son.  Like many Christians, we allowed compromise and sin to creep in and it tore my life apart.  I left our church, and my husband and I separated.  As our son got closer to kindergarten, we filed for divorce.  Because I was raised in church and he was not, I pridefully believed I knew more than him and I failed to yield to him.  I was the wife Proverbs warned of.  I had no respect for life.  I remember signing the divorce papers and turning to him and shaking his hand with a smile on my face, saying, “nice doing business with you.”  My heart was breaking but society teaches us that this is normal.

After the divorce, my life fell apart.  I did not handle being in a “social world” very well, so I started using hard drugs.  Just two years after our divorce, I was using crystal meth around the clock.  I was arrested on four charges, and released on a cash bond after serving 23 days.  I went directly back to the needle.  Three months later, I skipped my final sentencing so that I could go cook several “batches” of meth.  I was arrested again two months later and caught six more charges, for both meth and heroin, and was sentenced to eight years in prison.

I had served one year in prison, when God opened a door for me to come to Teen Challenge of the Upper Cumberland, and for months I refused to go.  God soon softened my heart and I contacted the campus here is Livingston.  When I walked onto this Holy Ground—every part of me was rattled to my core!  God has delivered me from anxiety, depression, addiction, grief, pride, arrogance, and religion.  John 8:36 says, “Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.”  Every day, I wake up and my focus is on faith and love.  I am learning how to let God have the control in my life.  I am learning how to talk to people.  I am finding so much freedom in letting go.  1 John 4:7-8 says, “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.  He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.”