Our Story of Grief, Grace, and Hope

Our daughter, Sara, was a beautiful, fun-loving, caring, and tenderhearted young woman who would give the shirt off her back if you needed it. She was raised in a Christian home, and she knew Jesus. She was active in high school with anything related to music. She graduated in 2009 and was starting to attend the local community college for nursing that fall. She started on the right foot, but it went downhill fast and we did not know why. We saw depression setting in and she had to drop out. She found a job and life went on. She tried to go back to school but it was useless. Little did we know that she was self-medicating with painkillers.​​​

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When Everything Started to Change

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Around 2012 she was introduced to heroin by a co-worker. We had no idea anything was going on until 2013.  Her best friend said she needed help because she was using heroin. We were all devastated.

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A Season of Tough Love and Hard Choices

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She decided on Teen Challenge and went into the program in January of 2014. She was doing superbly!  There were some issues, but it was like seeing the daughter we hadn’t seen in a long while. Near the end of August, she wanted to leave the program for various reasons, and we made the mistake of bringing her home.

 

Relapse, Despair, and Loss

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She stayed sober till December of 2014 and then relapsed again. This continued for 9 more months. Sober, relapse sober then relapse….

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She made the decision to return to Teen Challenge.

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We had waited 12 weeks for a bed to open and then she got into trouble with the law again. By the grace of God, those charges were dropped but she had fines to pay. This started her into a downward spiral into depression. She hated herself and could not forgive herself for all the trouble she had caused us. She could not understand how we could love her after everything she did. She felt there was never a way out. 

 

The Night We Lost Her

 

On October 29th, she told us that she was going to take a bath. She had just spent the evening with her niece and nephew and was tired. An hour later I came up to get ready for bed and noticed she was still in the bathroom. I went in and found her face down in the tub. In my heart, I knew she was gone. The coroner said that it was pure fentanyl. She died instantly.

 

This is where her story ended and ours will begin.

 

Sara’s House of Hope was born from the ashes of this unimaginable grief. God moved our hearts to see that Sara’s life, and especially her death, would not be in vain. Our daughter suffered from a disease that she struggled to overcome, but in the end, its grip was unrelenting. Despite her struggles, she constantly put others first. Her heart was so much bigger than her tender years revealed. Sara’s House of Hope carries forth her gift of reaching out and helping others.

 

People need to understand this is a disease and they need help. This disease just rips a family apart but there is always hope!

 

Sara impacted many lives and will continue to do so. 

 

We were not and are not ashamed of our sweet daughter. Our journey has started, and we are helping families to navigate all kinds of issues.

 

God is the source of our strength!

 

Everyone deserves to be loved!​​​