The names of those involved in this story have been changed for their protection. While details identifying the family have been omitted, we can say that Sarah and her family were saved during the trial described below and their involvement with Mars Hill Church has helped them to learn and grow in their faith.
Sarah was brought up in a church-going family. She was actively involved until the age of 17, when the culmination of a tumultuous number of years, adolescence, and questions about the relevance of church led to her embracing atheism.
“At the time, I wanted to do my own thing,” she said.
She also questioned how God could possibly be real when, as she saw it, he did such awful things to her. Sarah lost the man she described as her “kind and wonderful father” when she was just nine years old. While Sarah’s mother was grieving his death, a pedophile swooped in, took advantage of her vulnerable state, and became Sarah’s stepfather. On top of this, Sarah’s mother was an alcoholic and difficult to deal with. Sarah decided that God was either mean or non-existent.
“For me, God—if he had ever existed—wasn’t a god I wanted anything to do with,” she said.
So she turned her back on the church and, at 21, left home to “start living” her life.
“It took another 16 years before I desperately sought God,” she said. The catalyst for this awakening was the tearing apart of her family when her husband was arrested. That, she said, plunged everyone into a three and a half year living hell.
Judgment
“We only got through this by finding God in the midst of the horror, experiencing his incredible grace and seeing God very much in action over those years,” said Sarah. “We still do.”
“We are, and were, a very ordinary, law-abiding family who got caught up in something way beyond our wildest imaginings.”
Sarah came home one Saturday morning from her little girl’s ballet class and was met at the door by her mother. The police had come to the house, searched it, and arrested her husband, Jim. He was charged with trafficking narcotics and soon after sentenced to 14 years in prison.
Humiliated, Sarah watched the entire structure of her ordinary life come crashing down.
“I was also desperately trying to hold on to my sense of the self I knew myself to be, when all of a sudden, I actually had no idea who I was anymore and, initially, not quite sure who I was married to!”
The charges against Jim were complicated. He did, in fact, help smuggle narcotics. He had been pressured repeatedly by a co-worker to help deliver a package of marijuana. After refusing multiple times, he finally caved to the pressure and agreed. When he tried to back out, he was threatened at gunpoint.
Jim was caught with the package in his possession. When police opened it, they discovered a large amount of drugs—not marijuana, as expected, but what the DEA defines as Schedule 1 substances, a classification reserved for the most dangerous hard drugs.
Overnight, Sarah’s family became infamous and the social backlash was immediate. Friends and family alike would have nothing to do with her. Harsh snap judgments, with no knowledge of the facts, were made against Sarah, her husband, and her children. They were suddenly “those people.”
“One day I was going about my life as I knew it, the following day I was plunged into being the pariah of the community,” said Sarah. “A few days after my husband was arrested, I was in a hotel room awaiting a court hearing the following day. In the drawer beside my bed was a Gideon Bible, which I picked up and opened. I prayed, ‘Lord if you’re real, show me what to read. I don’t know where to start.’”
God took her to John 8:7: “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone.”
With the sting of her friends’ and family’s judgments fresh in her mind, Sarah was stunned. Those words were precisely what she needed to hear at that exact moment. She wondered how it could be that in a book of thousands of words, the few words she needed could be revealed at the very moment she needed them.
“I couldn’t have been given better words, and from any better source, that would help me through those terrible times. This powerfully showed me that there had to be a God, that he was real.”
That was the beginning of Sarah’s search for God. She wanted to know who this was who seemed to know just what she needed. Several months later, she met Jesus through an Alpha course that a co-worker and his wife ran just for her.
“Halfway through that, I couldn’t deny any longer that Jesus was—is—my savior and was going to be the truest friend I could have had to help me cope,” she said. “‘Footprints in the Sand’ comes to mind. He carried me so many times through this ordeal, I doubt if there were ever two sets of footprints on my walk on the beach with him!”
God in the inferno
What God was carrying Sarah through was the turmoil of a world she had only seen represented, inaccurately, in television dramas.
“It was all very cloak and dagger,” said Sarah, “but it was all conducted to try and keep Jim safe in prison, and also with the safety of the children and I in mind.”
Jim was willing to testify in court to what he knew, making him and his family targets to some dangerous people. Attacks and threats followed Jim, as well as Sarah and their children, in an attempt to silence him.
“Jim was threatened in prison and had to be moved to isolation for his safety, where he stayed for a month,” said Sarah. “During that time he only had a Bible, and read it from beginning to end. God spoke very clearly to him at this time that he would bring him through safely.”
While Jim was cooperating with authorities, he was still under fire for his original conviction. Sarah fought hard to get her husband an appeal. Meanwhile, she was trying to provide a safe, loving home environment for her children in the hopes that they could somehow have a normal childhood. When they asked when their daddy was coming home, Sarah didn’t have an answer. It was impossible to plan anything. Her children wondered if he would be there for birthdays, Christmas, or other special events. Their friends asked questions they couldn’t answer.
Sarah didn’t even know if, in the end, her husband would get an appeal, let alone come home. If he did get an appeal, she had no idea when it might be or if it would be successful. And if it was successful, that could mean anything from merely reducing his original sentence to actual release. All she knew for certain was that, if he didn’t succeed somehow in an appeal, Jim would miss the next 14 years with his family. His children would be grown by then.
“I didn’t know from one day to the next if any lawyer was doing any work to get his case moving forward,” said Sarah. “They always needed to be pushed and pushed to do anything—that’s if it was possible to contact them. It was all hugely stressful and this is why I needed my Jesus so much.”
Sarah fought for days, which stretched to weeks, months, and years. It was a never-ending battle with lawyers and authorities. For three years she continued like this. In the third year, her husband undertook an extreme fast, surviving on nothing but coffee, tea, juice, and water for 40 days.
“He just became thinner and thinner before my eyes, on every visit,” said Sarah. “He didn’t tell me he was fasting so I was very concerned! Silly me—God had it all in his control. It was following this that there was some rumbling movement from the lawyers.”
Three and a half years into the fight, they received an answer: Jim would have his appeal. They had two days to prepare.
“Nothing was in place,” said Sarah. “My husband was scared and I was terrified, as we knew that if this wasn’t successful, there would be no further opportunity to have an appeal heard and we wouldn’t be reunited as a family until our children were about ready to leave home.
“Anyway, God was in action to calm the raging waters. The day before the appeal I was taking the children to friends to be cared for when I drove past a church. Loud and bold words were emblazoned on a poster outside which said, ’Do not be afraid of tomorrow, God is already there.’ Here again was the God I serve—true, steadfast, and the rock on which I stand. Immediately I was calmed. I dropped the children off, drove to [court] with steel in my veins, dealt with the lawyers, and got everything in place.”
God gave Sarah and her husband an incredible new attorney. They walked into court, the lawyer made his case, and Jim was released from prison.
The other side of suffering
The fruit from these bitter times has been sweet. Sarah’s family loves Jesus and is actively serving him. She sees in her children a marked compassion and understanding for those who are suffering.
“All this has resulted from the dark years we experienced,” said Sarah. “We all love Jesus and don’t ever want to be apart from him.”
Jim and Sarah were introduced to Mars Hill and Pastor Mark after reading an article in Christianity magazine.
“His uncompromising approach made us very curious to hear what he had to say. We’ve been listening to Mars Hill sermons just about every night since. They’ve challenged us, inspired us, fed us, and made us hungry for more.”
One of the lessons Sarah learned from those long, dark years is the absolute equality of all people, no matter their record.
“God reminded us in that time that we are all sinners,” said Sarah. “None of us are worth any more than anyone else, we are all equal to him—regardless of crimes committed, wrongs done. Many prisoners find Jesus while they are serving sentences, and remain committed Christians for the rest of their life. One day we will be sharing heaven with many souls who mortal man would cross the street to avoid. I know how that feels on the receiving end and can empathize with anyone who finds themselves in such a situation. People have literally crossed the street, turned their back, and walked across to the other side of the church to avoid speaking to us. Some have laughed about us and elevated themselves above us. But we are all equal to God; no one is sinless. Every one of us is here by the grace of God, and has a hope and a future because of his grace. John 8:7 gave me my first understanding of the strength I could draw on in the weeks, months, and years ahead, and were to be the words that set my feet on the path to discovering Jesus as my personal savior.”
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