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Elaine’s Story

When Elaine Howard arrived at My Father’s House, she was broken and looking for repair.

“I had an addiction to methamphetamines and had been incarcerated for seven months,” she said. “I went to a halfway house for 60 days and I needed a place to live.”

She heard about My Father’s House Lubbock and didn’t think she could apply, since she had a disability and knew working was part of the program. But after looking it up on the Web site and speaking to a staff member on the phone, she decided to go for it.

“In the beginning,” she explained, “it was just a place to live for me. After coming from prison, the rules were not a problem. But I needed to learn how to have a life – a real life.”

Through the encouragement of new friends and the education provided through Christian Women’s Job Corps, Howard found a new relationship with God was the repair she was looking for.

“Someone asked me, ‘Do you know God?’ It was a very profound question. I was like, ‘Yeah, I know God.’ Then they said, ‘Do you know the president? If you called the White House right now and asked for him, would he answer your call?’

“Just because I knew who God was, it didn’t mean I had a relationship with him,” she explained.

Howard said her main goal coming into My Father’s House was to get back with her children. “But I had to have relationships restored first. And I had to learn what that really meant, starting with my relationship with God.”

Today Howard, 46, lives in an apartment with her teenage daughter and works in the deli at a local grocery store. She finds joy in sharing her testimony with someone new each day and recently spoke at the My Father’s House graduation.

It’s one of many opportunities she’s been given to share her story and encourage others.

“I think, if I had heard someone share their story, I might have thought I could change,” she said. “The enemy will make you feel like you’re alone, but you’re not. God accepts me just how I am, and I don’t have to be embarrassed about my life.

“My past is so far behind me I hardly recognize it.”

You can help women like Elaine through your support of My Father’s House Lubbock.

Click here to make a donation today.

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