SPRINGFIELD – Sandy Harrell had been imprisoned at the Chillicothe Correctional Center for a few months when a guard told her that her daughter would be there soon.
And not just to pay her mother a visit.
Harrell’s youngest child, Casey, was about to join her in prison.
The chaotic life of using and selling methamphetamine had caught up with them—again.
“I’d been in jail before, but never with my daughter. That’s when reality slapped me in the face,” Harrell said. “She and I were in our cell one morning and I was drinking coffee and watching her sleep. Soon she woke up and we were sitting there together and she said, ‘Look Mom, isn’t this great? It’s the first time we haven’t fought over a meth pipe even once!’”
Harrell’s heart instantly broke. After her daughter left the cell to take a shower, Harrell remembers crying out to God for help. In that moment she realized that the life of drug abuse is the only life her daughter, now 30, had ever known.
“I was raised in a good home; I just wish I could say the same for my own children,” Harrell said.
A single mom of three kids, Harrell started doing meth after having her second son, Chad. She started using it as a means to lose some weight after having a baby, but it turned into years of drug abuse. Harrell said she even used meth while she was pregnant with Casey.
“Because of my drug use with Casey, I didn’t even discover I was pregnant until I was seven months along,” she said. “I didn’t stop using even then. My baby … my youngest child had never seen me clean.”
Though Harrell always believed in God, she never believed she was worthy of His love. But she knows God saved her at the Chillicothe Correctional Center. However, Harrell had no idea how to live a different life than the one she had been living for the last 34 years.
Then she had to do one of the most difficult things she’s ever done.
“I had to leave my daughter in the prison when I was released on July 2, 2014,” Harrell said.
Then she was on her own. Harrell only had one friend who was “clean” and living a godly life, but that friend lived in another town.
At first she stayed with her son, Chad, who miraculously escaped the life of drugs and crime that was normal to the rest of the family. But it wasn’t long before she moved to her own apartment. For the first time in her life, Harrell was alone.
“I was worried,” she said. “I didn’t have a church or any clean friends yet, so I read my Bible and prayed—a lot. I checked out a couple of churches, but I couldn’t find a place where I fit in.”
Then she received a phone call from her cousin, Barry Agee, and he asked her if she had being doing any meth since she got out of prison.
“I told him I didn’t want to get high any more,” Harrell said.
Agee then invited her to a Saturday night at Freeway Ministries, a ministry funded in part by Crossway Baptist Church (CBC) here and founded by a CBC member. Freeway Ministries focuses on assisting the local church with hard-to-reach men and women by explaining the gospel in a way they can relate by people who have been in the same circumstances.
“It was exactly what I was looking for. I loved it,” Harrell said.
Harrell started a 20-week discipleship class at Freeway that she said answered many of the questions she had about God. She also met women who showed her how to live a life without drug abuse.
“I always went to church with my mom, but I never had a relationship with Jesus Christ,” Harrell said. “With Jesus even the worst days I have now are better than the best days of my old life.”
Since first walking through the doors at Freeway more than a year ago, Harrell has been baptized, she has become a member of CBC, and she volunteers at both Freeway and Clarity Recovery and Wellness, a drug addiction treatment center.
“I have been able to get involved and see lives changed every week at Freeway,” Harrell said. “God always shows up on Saturday nights.”
“Sandy is a bright light,” said John Stroup, ministry planter and evangelist for Freeway Ministries. “God has done a great work in her heart and life.”
But there is still pain and consequence to sin. Right now, Harrell’s daughter, her oldest son and her husband are all in prison. She prays for them daily and writes letters to them, sharing with them her newfound faith and knowledge.
And God is working. Recently her husband, Gary, who has never read a Bible since Harrell’s known him, was saved in prison and has been reading his Bible every day.
“God restores families and I am waiting on that day that we are all together again,” she said. “In the meantime, God has filled the void in my life with an awesome church family.”
And when Harrell thinks back to her past and some of the dark and dangerous situations her choices led her to, she is always reminded of Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV) “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
“My former chaotic lifestyle led me to houses where there were gun fights and where people were stabbed … when I should have been home with my kids,” Harrell said. “God protected me through it all. He always provided a way for me to get out; I see that now. I am so excited to see what His plans are for me. I just have to be obedient.”