“40 Years in the Wilderness”
Sheila grew up in a home marked by divorce and insecurity. “That really damaged my heart,” she says. Throughout her childhood, she longed for a stable family – one that gathered around the table, laughed together, shared stories, and encouraged one another. Instead, she wandered down a dark and lonely path.
Although separated by divorce, Sheila’s parents did their best to provide for their children. They worked multiple jobs – at all hours of the day – to make ends meet. Sheila’s older brother took her under his wing, making sure she was fed and combing her hair for school. He even taught her to iron.
But her brother’s care was no substitute for her parents’ guidance and attention. Without them, Sheila stumbled into habits that she didn’t intend or understand.
By age 12, she was sneaking alcohol and cigarettes from her mother’s dresser. What started as curiosity became a dangerous mechanism for coping with her loneliness and sense of abandonment.
While Sheila’s brother eventually became a pastor, her path took a very different turn. Sheila began living off the land as she struggled with substance abuse and homelessness.
“I was out in the wilderness for nearly 40 years,” she says. She encountered situations that could have ended her life, but she always felt God watching over her. “Somehow I left God, but He never left me.”
Her turning point came when she learned her mother had passed away. Sheila felt she’d lost the last fragile connection to the idea of home and family she’d longed for all her life.
Alone and lost – in a dark place physically, spiritually and emotionally – she felt God reaching out to her. “With my earthly parents gone,” she says, “I turned back to my Heavenly Father.”
With God’s guidance, she made the decision to come to the Mission. Like many who make their way to our door, she arrived anxious and uncertain about what lay ahead.
“I’m not going to be able to do this,” she thought at first. “This isn’t for me.” The structure and requirements seemed overwhelming. But through prayer and the loving guidance of staff, her heart slowly opened and her confidence grew in this stable, supportive environment.
As Sheila committed to our LifeBuilders Program, she felt the process – grounded in faith – was restoring what substance abuse and instability had taken from her. Through Bible study, Christian counseling, adult education and workforce development, she began rebuilding not just her future, but her sense of who she was meant to be.
“It taught me how to live as a woman again – to be diligent, wise and prepared. It taught me how to become the person God created me to be.”
Today, Sheila is clean, restored and filled with hope for the future. While she carries the ache of the family she never had, she no longer feels alone. Through her faith, she discovered a new kind of family in those who walked with her at the Mission.
Her prayer is that others still wandering in the wilderness will hear her story and realize there is a way out – a loving God who is ready to meet them there.
“City Rescue Mission helped give me back my life.
If it weren’t for them – and God – I don’t know where I’d be.”