From Addiction to Redemption
What began as teenage experimentation quickly turned into dependence. Savanna recalls, “I realized pretty quickly I liked drugs.” After graduation, addiction took hold and she escalated from meth to heroin to fentanyl. She spent nearly a decade in and out of rehab, trying to outrun something that always caught back up with her.
I thought I could beat it. But it was always there waiting.
Then she found out she was pregnant. “I knew that I was going to lose my baby. And I knew that no one could help me.” Every day, she woke up determined to quit. Every day, she failed. Until one day, she lost all hope and cried out to God.
“I told Him—I don’t know if you can hear me. I don’t know if you’re real. All I know is that I want my baby, and I can’t stop doing drugs.”
Though she overdosed three more times, something in her changed. When she was six months pregnant, she went into another rehab. She gave birth at exactly 90 days sober. At the hospital, she told the full truth of her addiction—knowing it could cost her the baby boy she’d just delivered.
They told her she would lose her son for 6-months, and spend 2 years in the system. But instead of fear, all she could feel was peace.
“Here I was standing at the face of my consequences, but I was being honest.”
Then, just four months later—right before Christmas—she received a call: her case was closed. She could keep her baby.
“That’s just how good God is.”
But the story didn’t end there. Even after leaving drugs behind, and getting her life back together, Savanna realized she needed healing. When God told her to come to Gospel Rescue Mission, she felt like he was asking her to go backwards.
“I had a car, a home, and a job… but I didn’t have Jesus.”
Today, everything in her life is different. She’s surrounded by people who understand her journey. She’s learning how to walk out of selfishness so she can love her son, while also learning how to love herself. She’s becoming the mom she’s always wanted to be, and the woman God is calling her to be.
