Restoring Freedom and Family

“I felt something was wrong before we drove to McDonalds,” Jessica said, “just a weird feeling I couldn’t explain. I didn’t know what it was. My mom reassured me and said I could get a Happy Meal. But we didn’t even make it inside.”

As nine-year-old Jessica and her mother, Suzy, walked toward the entrance, two undercover detectives grabbed Suzy, pinned her to the ground, and handcuffed her. Looking toward her screaming daughter, Suzy kept saying, “It’s OK, it’s OK,” over and over.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be home for dinner,” was the last thing Suzy said to her daughter before being taken away in the back of the police car.

“That was the worst day of my life … the worst nightmare I could imagine,” Suzy recalled. “I was in total shock. That state of shock returned the day the judge delivered the verdict — guilty. I didn’t know how to process. I tuned everything out from there. I didn’t even hear my sentencing.”

Suzy knew she had done nothing wrong and couldn’t understand why she was being punished for a crime she didn’t commit.

Julie, Suzy’s eldest daughter, was 22 years old at the time. She had been present during the entire trial and had to carry the weight of the verdict and sentencing home to her eight- and nine-year-old siblings.

“I left the courtroom in shock,” Julie said. “I tried to go to work, but I was in a daze. I explained what happened to my supervisor, and he told me to take the day off to be with my family. When Jessica and Donnie got home from school, I broke the news — they would never be able to see Mom outside of prison ever again. She had been sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.”

“I knew my mom was innocent,” Jessica said. “The justice system is supposed to have integrity — everyone said that the conviction meant my mom was guilty. I was with my mom that day. I knew better.”

“The reality of my sentencing finally hit me six months later,” Suzy said. “My mom had passed away, and I went to the prison counselor to see if I could attend the funeral. I thought it wouldn’t be a problem — I could go in handcuffs and an officer could take me. My counselor looked at me and told me that I was in prison for life and the only way I would ever leave is in a pine box.”

“Depression became my reality — the denial, missing my kids’ birthdays and Christmas,” she said. “In those first five years, depression was all I felt. I didn’t understand why this was happening and knew I’d never get answers. Those years were the worst of the worst.”

One afternoon, a couple from Saddleback Church visited the prison to offer a new program for the inmates. John and Cheryl Baker spoke to a group of women and shared about their experience beginning Celebrate Recovery®. John explained that the materials would be given to the chaplain so that the women could begin their own groups. Their message offered Suzy a glimmer of hope, and she began going through the recovery process.

“The Celebrate Recovery studies became the key to unlock experiencing God and his love in my life,” Suzy said. “I had so much pain, but I saw how God could use all that hurt for good. I felt like my life could have purpose — even while in prison. I knew I could even experience freedom and forgiveness toward the people that had hurt and lied about me.”

Suzy had recently received a new pair of shoes, and she felt God telling her to write “freedom” on the soles. She walked around prison every day with that message of hope on her feet.

“I believed that I could believe in God for freedom, or I could believe in the pine box my counselor said I was destined for,” Suzy said. “God was carrying me through my uncertainty. I was in prison, but prison wasn’t in me any longer.”

“So many women in prison didn’t feel like they deserved to be loved,” Suzy said. “But I watched so many go through the recovery process and told them that God loved them. I knew that even if I didn’t go home, I would still serve God while I was in prison.”

“Holidays and family events were hard with mom gone,” Jessica said. “Different lawyers and organizations had gotten our hopes up so many times, telling us our mom was going to be freed, but that just wasn’t happening.”

“I was told countless times that I needed to come to terms with my mom’s guilt,” Julie said. “Friends told me that only guilty people go to prison. I really began to question my mom’s innocence.”

Nearly a decade later, a new lawyer with a nonprofit organization that is dedicated to getting wrongfully convicted people out of prison approached Suzy and her family, offering to help.

“My lawyer was a pitbull, and she was also my angel,” Suzy said. “God used her to get me out of the sentence that I didn’t deserve. He used my attorney to turn my situation around. It was all for his glory, and I’m so grateful.”

“When the lawyer called and said Mom was going to be free, I didn’t believe her,” Julie said. “I had been disappointed so many times, I found it all hard to believe anymore.”

Seventeen years after being sent to prison for a crime she did not commit, Suzy was free to go home with her family. As she walked out of the courthouse, she stepped into an elevator next to an officer. She immediately turned to face the wall, one of the requirements for inmates in prison. The officer saw her and told her that she didn’t need to do that anymore — that she really was free.

“My husband and I always wanted to find a church,” Julie said, “but we didn’t know where to go. Now that Mom’s home, I see this belief that she has. She talks to God and hears his voice. I know she has a connection with him, and it’s helped me with my own spirituality and belief. Having her around, seeing her, helps me to believe when I felt so unsure about God for so long in my life.”

“God has a purpose for all this,” Suzy said. “I’m part of a Celebrate Recovery Bible study every week at Saddleback South Bay now. In the fall, Celebrate Recovery is officially going to launch here, and I’m going through leadership training. I am excited to learn more and stay involved.”

Suzy still has her prison shoes with freedom etched into the sole. She purchased a small pine coffin to store those shoes in — a reminder of her journey of hope and recovery.

“I needed rescuing, and God rescued me,” Suzy said. “He works supernatural miracles, and there’s nothing like seeing all those years of belief come to life.”

Learn more about Celebrate Recovery at saddleback.com/celebraterecovery

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