Brandy wants to go to college and pursue a career helping people after graduation.

She’s committed to healing through God

Brandy is focusing on the positive. Despite having a lot of hard work ahead of her, she is happy to have found a safe place to live, a supportive sisterhood, and a blossoming relationship with God.

“I’m just starting the Genesis Process, but I already know that I have to work through a lot of trauma from my life,” Brandy said. “I know it’s going to be OK, but I also know it’s going to be really hard.”

Brandy has been a victim of molestation, abuse and rape. She spent years on the street and has been an addict for much of her life. “My whole childhood I was living with bikers and cooking and selling drugs,” she said. “I was living with 40-year-old men. They took advantage of me in any way, shape or form.”

Brandy had left home after her dad had handcuffed her to a bed for four days while he was high on acid. She was 12. “My friends came and found me. They were wondering why I hadn’t been at school. At that point, I just left.”

Growing up in the biker lifestyle, and despite being taken advantage of, Brandy felt valued and even appreciated. She acquired chemicals so the gang could make methamphetamines to sell. “I felt like I belonged,” she said. “There, people wanted me around. It was a sense of family.”

During her 20s, Brandy was also raped at gunpoint and has been to prison several times. After a more recent prison sentence, she experienced more than four years of sobriety. “I worked two jobs and was clean. I stayed with my grandparents (for a time). They love me and miss me, but I don’t let them see me when I’m strung out. They love it when I’m clean—I’m always around. So when I’m not, it hurts them.”

Brandy also hasn’t spoken to her mom in 12 years. “She also wants to have a relationship with me.” The guilt and shame keep Brandy away. But her growing relationship with God is breaking down some of those feelings.

“I never really knew who God was,” she said. “I learned about Him in prison, and my third time there I got baptized. But that was more about me pleasing everyone around me.

“The time I actually came to Christ was this last time in jail. I knew God was real. My boyfriend had beat me up so bad. I had lumps on my head … and eye damage. But I was so calm going to jail. I didn’t want anything to do with my abusive boyfriend. I had no desire to call him. A calmness came over me. It had to be God.”

When Brandy got out of jail, she was not mandated to enter a program. “I chose this,” she said. “I chose to be here for me. I want to get better. I got here on my own, with God’s help. He’s the one who put me here and I’m so grateful for that.”

Brandy got re-baptized in prison before coming to the Mission. “God has answered so many of my prayers,” she said. “I’ve never had women friends. Now I have a whole group of sisters (at the program house). I’ve forgiven everyone who has done me wrong. God allowed me to do that. I know he can do so many great things in my life.

“I know I want to go out and help people,” she said. “I want to bring them in and help them get well.”