Known to me as Meg, Megan’s story is a culmination of both redemption and rebirth.
I met Megan almost 6 months before I had the opportunity to hear her testimony. I can tell you she is indeed a vessel/instrument of our Lord and Savior’s. She is compassionate, giving, soft spoken, kindhearted, humble, selfless, confident in God's righteousness in her, and so much more.
After several interactions with Megan, I listened to her testimony - and what a testimony it is. This amazing woman of God should have had a hard exterior; been guarded, bitter, angry, closed off, short-tempered- to name a few- and who would have blamed her? “But God” as we Christians say, saved this woman and that is why she was once Megan...but God...is now Meg.
If anyone has watched the series, “The Chosen” you will know why I say that Megan was one way, is now completely different, and the thing that happened to her in between was Him (Jesus)!” But although it appeared to happen “suddenly” it did not happen overnight.
Megan was conceived during a period of time where her mother was having an extramarital affair with her future stepfather. Before she was born, her mother left her biological father and married her stepfather. He was affiliated with gangs and the mafia, and from infancy Megan suffered extreme abuse at his hands. Her stepfather tried to kill her before she was a year old. Growing up, her mom would leave her with him to suffer “just about every type of abuse you could think of.” Her biological father legally tried to get custody of her (and
her sister), but each time he did, the stepfather would set him up using drugs, resulting in her dad constantly going back and forth to jail. Despite two girls in the home, Megan was the only one abused.
Sometime before the age of 3, her grandmother “kidnapped” both girls from their abusive home, and they moved in with both her grandmother and dad. DYFS (Division of Youth and Family Services) known today as DCPP (Division of Child Protection and Permanency) stepped in, but sadly they were of no help- if anything, Megan believes “they added to the problem.” They would take her out and “pass [her] around” resulting in continuous abuse.
Megan never felt love nor stability; she had no idea what it was supposed to feel like, let alone, what it was supposed to look like. During her early school years (ages 5-9) the abuse became worse to the point that DYFS started to get heavily involved because the school started to “notice” different things. Unfortunately, they did not get involved in time. At the age of 9 her stepfather beat her so badly she ended up in the hospital for days.
At this point, her dad was so distraught and felt so helpless that he self-medicated with heavy alcohol and marijuana. Although he tried, he couldn’t do anything to help Megan and sadly never recovered. As a result, Megan continued to get “passed around” her family. She lived with her grandmother from the ages of 9 to 12 and moved in with her aunt afterward. And no sooner after that....the teenage years began.
God had given Megan the gift of excelling in school. But she excelled for the wrong reasons: she thought it would be a way to “earn” the love she was clearly craving. Megan goes on to say, “Once I moved in with my aunt and started high school, she told me, ‘Oh, you're nothing but a pretty face. Nobody's ever really gonna like you...you should use ‘that’ while you can.’” Her aunt also encouraged her to bar-tend, and so she worked in Atlantic City, “just doing things that teenagers really shouldn't.” Megan states she wasn’t given any boundaries, nor did anyone in her family have any faith.
At the age of 16, Megan found out she was pregnant. Her family tried to encourage her to have an abortion. But Megan refused. “I was like no, I always had a dream of having my own family that would love me and wouldn't leave me.” And so, she moved out at the age of seventeen and her daughter Emily was born her senior year of high school, two weeks before graduation.
“I was doing okay, in the general idea. I lived on my own, was working; I was always a very hard worker. I was going to college part time (with my daughter) and just wanted to give her something different.” But like so many of us (especially before coming to Christ), Megan never dealt with her past; she just kept “stuffing it,” as she puts it. Which led to the worst self-esteem, and as Megan describes, “not knowing any value of mine.” She
soothed the deep depression and all that she never dealt with as a child with party drugs and alcohol. “I wasn't out of control; I just slipped into such severe depression that I really wasn't useful.” She saw herself that way, but she held down a job as the operations manager at Circuit City and did it very well. However, her life began to unravel when they went out of business. She couldn't afford her apartment nor her car. She asked Emily’s dad to take her for a couple of weeks, so she could “just...figure it all out.” But on that day, he filed for and won
emergency temporary custody, saying Megan was unfit because she was deemed homeless. “I didn't have an apartment and he told me I was just like my mother.” Megan fell apart.
Megan is 1 of 7 children, and her four older siblings were all heroin addicts. Megan shared “at this point (in her life), I wanted to die...I had nothing inside me...My family was like, ‘oh, try this (heroin) it'll take all your pain away for today.’ And I always thought, okay, sure, I've dabbled here and there. I was the type of person that, I smoked cigarettes young. But if I decided I didn't want to smoke, I’d just quit. I never had trouble just stopping stuff. So, I thought, okay, I could do this and not do it again. I was 24 years old at that time. and so that first day I sniffed heroin and the next day I was shooting it.... It was the only thing...I always had so much pain that I never knew how to deal with it. It was the only thing that eliminated that pain...I didn't know how not to do it; I had such pain. And I felt like I had completely failed.”
So, Megan went “pretty hard” on a journey of IV heroin addiction; she kept going to the point of saying, “Oh, ‘stealing,’ I'd never do that.” And once I started doing that, I started...worked in gentlemen's clubs, and well everything that I’d swore I’d never do, I started to do.” And then it got to the point where the next step was prostitution. Megan told herself, “If I ever did that, I’d never turn around.” And that was the first time she had a“come to Jesus moment...I was high...a total mess, I said, Lord, I've never talked to you before. But if I do this, I'm just gonna kill myself...so if you could find a way to make this not happen, I'm yours.” That was approximately 14 years ago (2008).” That very next day, was a state of emergency blizzard that we had no idea was coming. She couldn’t go anywhere.
At this point (mid to late 20’s), after a “hard-core year” of active drug abuse, she decided to get help. “Drug use brings you to places you never want to be, it’s a horrible life.” And she had nowhere to go. “New Jersey at that time, didn't have many resources,” at least that she knew of, so she reached out to one of her old bosses who lived in New York, and said, “Hey, can I come stay with you for a little bit and I’ll find work out there?” Although he said yes, Megan came to find out that his intentions were “not all well and good.” Megan was still hurting, was sick, was both trying to get drugs and trying to get into a methadone clinic...which she did, Praise God. And when she did, she also started working again, all this happened in a span of 2.5 weeks. But she was still very vulnerable (obviously), and her old boss took advantage of that. It infuriated him so much that she wouldn't date him that he raped her, which regurgitated all the trauma she suppressed from childhood.
Megan shot right back into drug addiction; became “street homeless” in New York City, and as she says, “had no will to live or do anything” ...But God...there in East Harlem was a methadone clinic. She started going there because she came to learn that “in NYC, the way the government works...they pay you to use it, you don't have to pay for it like you do in NJ.”
Once again, God’s hand was at work in her life...parked right across the street from that East Harlem methadone clinic was the NYC Relief Bus. Three women, Johana, Katie, & Caitlyn (her closest friends to this day), saw something special in Megan. They would try to talk to her, but because Megan felt she had nothing to offer, she couldn’t understand why they’d want to befriend her. Megan shared, “I was so used to love being transactional.” And let’s face it...trust wasn't in her vocabulary; “not at all.” “It was weird to me that they would remember my name, want to know about me...but I struggled with pride. I didn't want to be a charity case. I didn't want to feel like I was their project.” But the Lord was working in her life regardless.
Through these girls and the NYC Relief Bus, the Lord started breaking down some of her walls. They would reach out to her when they were at work. Even on their days off they’d want to meet with her, so they’d take the train from Elizabeth, NJ to bring her lunch and so much more- they brought with them the Word of God! They bought her a Bible and knowing that she had nowhere to keep it, they would bring it back and forth for her. And when together, they’d discuss different scriptures with her.
One day they invited her to church, and she said yes. During church, “I slept; I would go into church and sleep...I know now that was the peace of the Lord, feeling safe...it was a restful sleep. It was different. At this point, I was just on methadone, but I was on a very high dose of methadone. And it was interesting to me that I just kept kind of walking through it, and they were just still there. The way that they came alongside me and didn't judge me, didn't treat me like I was less than, it was something, I was like, wow, they actually care about me. And it was
the first time that I started to experience that. And so, I started to trust them.”
During this time Megan decided to get a boyfriend because, “Well...I’m tired of this. I was always in fights. I was like the opposite minority. At that time, I was a 100-pound white girl in East Harlem, and I was ‘targeted’ constantly. So, I decided to get a boyfriend.” Megan was under the impression that because the years of
opiates/opioids resulted in no menstrual cycle, she couldn’t get pregnant again. But she did, and right away no less. She was still on the streets when she found out she was pregnant. “I was going to church, I started to believe with (some) understanding of what the Lord meant. I always thought He was there for the people who did right in their life, not people like me who messed everything up...I started to see Jesus actually sat with sinners. And I was like, wow, I like this God. This is great. So, when I found out I was pregnant, that same day, I quit methadone, quit smoking cigarettes. I decided that if the Lord was giving me another chance at being a mom, I was going to honor that entirely. It was the hardest thing I've ever done in my entire life; methadone withdrawal is worse than any street drug withdrawal. And because I was pregnant, they told me that me and the baby would die (from the withdrawals). That's what the doctors told me. I was like, well, if He is who He says He is (meaning God), I'm not going to [die].” This took place at the end of September, and then during Hurricane Sandy (that Oct.) she went into a shelter and suffered horrible withdrawals. The baby’s father didn't want the pregnancy, so he tried to convince Megan to have an abortion. “At that point I was so vulnerable, I went to see, but the abortion clinic said that I had what's called placenta previa. So, I would need a blood transfusion if I wanted to abort her. (Which meant) I would have to go to a hospital. And I was like, no, this is clearly [the Lord’s doing] I didn't want to do it anyway. So, I was like, this is what the Lord's doing.”
Megan didn't go to any prenatal appointments at first. During the 1st trimester Megan lost 30 pounds. When on methadone one gains weight but now that she’d stopped, she was losing the weight she gained. She truly had no idea what was going to happen, but she was very protective over her baby; she wouldn’t even take Advil. So, when she reached the 6th month of her pregnancy, she thought to herself, “well, I’m still pregnant.” So, she went to a new doctor and told him nothing. “I was like, Oh, I just found out I'm pregnant, I completely lied.” They told her the baby was SO healthy! But she continued to say nothing- why? There's a stigma associated with drug addicted parents, and she didn't want to journey down that road. And who could blame her; God was transforming Megan into a new creation, and she wanted people to get to know Meg.
(Side note.... Meg’s friends, the girls from the relief bus, threw her a baby shower!)
On May 24, 2013, little Juliet was born! “She saved my life. She gave me a reason to try again. Her and I lived in the shelter for the first 2-3 years of her life. I went back to school. I was doing whatever I could to try to get out of that poverty bracket. I couldn't, I couldn't do it. I was doing literally everything.” And she was doing it the right, “legal” way.
Juliet had gone to church since the day she was born. “At that point, I was like, you're real. I know this. And so, I was baptized in the Atlantic Ocean by Juan Galloway, the founder’s son (of NYC Relief). And those girls [her friends from the Relief Bus] ...that was my family.” They would invite her for holidays, they would pick her and Juliet up for Thanksgiving, they would bring Christmas gifts to the shelter. Knowing she wasn’t allowed to have visitors in the shelter, they would still come and sit outside, “to do this for [them] us.”
But “the enemy” continued to “get in her head.” “My family told me, oh, you're just gonna mess this child up like you messed up your other...”
Meg persevered, kept moving forward, kept trying to talk to Emily (her 1st daughter). To Meg, “Emily’s my best friend, she would rather be with me than anyone else. She would fight with him (the dad) to try to see me and because of that he was so much more against me.”
And then another step towards redemption; The founders of NYC Relief (Richard and Dixie) had always heard about Megan. They shared with her that the Lord had put on Dixie’s heart to open their home (in NJ) to Megan and Juliet. It was made clear that this was definitely something that they had NEVER done before. However, Megan was afraid to go back to NJ as she had warrants against her. She shared with me, “I’d rather live in a shelter, go [back] into the projects, because I was so afraid.”
Time marched on; Meg and her 1st daughter began to reconcile. “I was clean. And I was not going to allow him [Emily’s father] to dictate that I couldn't talk to her. I kept trying but he knew I had warrants.” All the while, Richard and Dixie continued to help her. They even knew of someone who wanted to donate a car to her. She
filed for a court hearing to get her warrants lifted. “I was so concerned about not being able to provide for Juliet. But the Lord just provided everything I needed!” No sooner did she move in with them, did Emily's father call the police to get Megan arrested; 35 times in fact. The police kept coming and saying things like, “I don't want to arrest you. I see you have a court date.” She did everything (right) that she was supposed to do, but on that last visit they arrested her. She was so afraid to leave Juliet. They handcuffed her and took her to jail where she sat
for a few days. “Juliet was only two and a half and people I barely knew, only met a handful of times, stayed with her. They were there [for her].” Meg had to wait through the weekend before seeing the judge. She later found out that Richard and Dixie were even willing to pay her bail, yet all the while Megan sat in that jail cell thinking, “I'm doing this by myself. So, I made a deal with the judge to pay $100 to be released, because he saw I was trying to take care of everything. But to see that they [Richard and Dixie] would do that, for me, I was like, wow, this is real.” That’s because GOD IS REAL!
So, I asked Meg, “While sitting in that jail cell, what was your conversation with God like?"
“It was very different than it used to be...I said, Okay God, how are we going to do this now? Rather than feeling defeated, I had HOPE. I knew it wasn't the end. It added fuel to my fire to fight. There was a Bible in there. So that's all I did.” Because Meg was attending church before this, she was trusting the Lord with her life fully. “I knew this wasn't the Lord's plan.” So, once she was released from jail, she looked for work. She was offered a couple of jobs because she had finished school in NYC (a nonprofit business school for women). “I was trying to do whatever I could to financially support me and Juliet. But the Lord just kept telling me no. And I was like, What? No...I need this.” And then, the director of development for the NYC Relief asked if she would be willing to do an internship there. Of course, Meg eagerly said yes. She started at entry level, and every few months they would promote her. They truly saw something in her and of course, we know that to be the Holy Spirit! By the time her internship finished, she was given the opportunity to interview for a full-time position. They did not treat her like anything of her past. “They gave me this fresh, brand-new start to just be myself (to be Meg).” In her interview, Meg was asked, “What do you want to do?” And because Meg had interned in the development department of her school (& excelled at it), she replied, “I want your job one day.” And she was
told, “Then let’s get you this job.” This woman came alongside her, mentored her, lifted her up and taught her everything she knew, to the point that Meg eventually held that position.
A year & a half later, Meg moved out of Richard and Dixie’s home, and with the help of DYFS, got custody of her older daughter (due to the dad’s drug use). Together the 3 of them moved to Scotch Plains. Although she was scared of how she was going pay rent, utility bills, groceries, etc. she just knew... “Lord, you brought her (Emily) back to me. So, I know you're going to do this [too].” Megan’s faith was (& is) so strong; “I spoke at multiple churches...the Lord just kept pushing me forward; I was where He wanted me, my confidence...understanding of that was it (her story) could all be used for His Glory. I didn't have to have shame for my past. I didn’t have to be worried about how people would judge me. I could just be free of it.” At this point she had full custody of both girls; they began attending Bethany Church, and her family even started to talk to her again.
Eventually, the NYC Relief started to shift in management and Meg was simultaneously praying, “Lord, I want to help women who are like me; that once they come out of addiction, there's help, how do I help women navigate because life is [so] hard? And without support, it's really, really hard. Without that support, that's what causes the relapse...always does...It's one of the main relapse reasons...It was a true desire of my heart [to help] and I gave it to the Lord.” She not only gave it to Him, but she also left it with Him!
I must mention- through Bethany Church, the Lord brought her husband Dave into her life and Meg into his! (Sweet, God-at-work, fun-fact...Dave was Juliet’s Sunday school teacher). His testimony is just as profound and how these two beautiful souls worked together to overcome both their pasts and literally became one in
the Lord.... well... stayed tuned next time...
The gentleman who runs the Business Christian Group where her husband works was always asking for Meg’s resume. She put something together, sent it over and he replied, “I want to connect you with Beth at The Walter Hoving Home.” And so, Meg began the interview process late December 2020. She came to find out people from NYC Relief and board members with whom she had worked with sent letters of recommendation on her behalf without her even asking or knowing. They would say to Beth, “you need to hire her.” And so, Meg was not only offered the position, Beth did not even interview another person! She just knew that the Lord had ordained it.
Meg tells me “But the enemy started to come against me at that point; I was supposed to start work on Monday, but that Friday I had gotten COVID for the second time. It was the worst time for me to have COVID. (It didn’t go away for three weeks.) But Beth was calling, praying, checking in on her, “They waited for me. I was...you know...only the Lord...only Ministry would do that.” Meg began working at the Walter Hoving Home April 2021. “It's one of my greatest joys. I get to...really just pour into it, the women, and see how the Lord transforms lives.”
The Lord has now placed on Meg’s heart to go to ministry school. She has been going for the past three years and will soon be Ordained.
“I don't feel like I work a day in my life. I love what I do.”
Meg ends with a statement for others, which was once shared with her:
“The Lord gives you a testimony not for you to keep for yourself but to share with others because it gives Him the glory. I share that with the ladies (at the Hoving Home) because sometimes they're afraid to share...but it gives God the glory, and it breaks chains."
Meg, you are a pillar of strength, a true-living testament of what it means to be “Born-Again.” I’m blessed to know you & I look forward to witnessing God’s continuous work in your life and how He will continue to impact the lives of others through you! You are a beautiful sister & friend in Christ!
You ARE “a good and faithful servant!”
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