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Mondrea Jacobs: Never Say Never
By Mary Ruth Goochee
The 700 Club
CBN.com
– In the words of Mondrea Jacobs:
“This is the house where my mother raised seven children. I can remember this is where I was living when I first started using drugs, when I was introduced to crack cocaine. I met this older man who was probably about 20 years older than me, who shot some heron in my arm and my life went downhill from that moment on.”
“Heron,” the street name for Heroine, became Mondrea Jacob’s obsession. At 12, she faced the harsh realities of living from one drug fix to the next.
“I began to hang out with people whose lifestyle was to drink, drug, party, smoke reefer, commit crimes and hang out in all night bars. I just lived for drugs. I woke up using drugs. I went to bed using drugs. Drugs was my life.”
“I would go in the bathroom in seventh grade, in the bathrooms in my lunch period; I would go and shoot up. I would be smoking marijuana around the back of the school building while everybody else was in the lunchroom having lunch.”
Mondrea’s mother feared her daughter’s addiction would kill her. Out of desperation, she had her own daughter arrested and placed in a children’s center. For two years, Mondrea remained in the center and was drug free. When she went back to her old hangouts and old friends, her addiction resurfaced with a vengeance.
“I would prostitute, sell my body, to get the drugs; steal from people, rob people, selling drugs for drug dealers.”
Drugs were slowly destroying Mondrea’s life. But, at certain moments Mondrea remembered her grandmother’s faith and wondered if there was still hope.
“My grandmother instilled the word of God so deep in us; there was a voice that would constantly speak to me and remind me that there was still a little speck of hope for me. I would smoke crack and while I was smoking it, I would be praying at the same time.”
Soon the drive to obtain drugs exacted a deadlier toll. Mondrea never intended to hurt anyone with the gun she carried.
“I went into a nightclub with the intention of finding someone to rob to satisfy my drug habit. And I tried to lure a guy out, with no intentions of harming him. When I told him to give me his money, he refused and I wind up shooting him.”
Mondrea didn’t stay to find out if the man was alive.
“My lawyer came back and told me, ‘you’re facing 20 years to life.’ And, I got on my knees and I cried out to God like a baby.”
When the sentence was delivered, Mondrea and her lawyer were stunned; the judge sentenced Mondrea to serve one year in prison and then two years probation. While on parole she was drug free, but the day her probation ended she decided to celebrate.
“I just knew that there was no way that I could go back and use drugs again. But I did. I used again.”
Immediately the drugs began took their toll on Mondrea’s body..
“I was down to 60 pounds and I thought I had AIDS. I really just felt like I was forsaken by God.”
One night she sold her body for $20. She left to get high, promising the man she would come back. When she didn’t return, the man who bought her for $20 came after her with a gun.
“I could actually feel when the bullets were coming across my face, and as close as that person was to me, there’s no way that those bullets should have missed me.”
After that near death experience, Mondrea knew that her life had to change.
“I began to go to church and I wanted to change. There was something inside of me that kept reminding me that I was better than this, that I was better than a drug addict. And that Jesus really loved me. I gradually stopped using drugs.”
“I got convicted. And my conviction led to a conversion. And it caused me to cry out to God. See, at first I was just calling on God. But I really, really cried out to God after I got shot at. I went from smoking ounces of crack cocaine and got down to $100 worth, $50 worth, $20 worth, $10 worth, $5 worth. I kept going to church. Sunday after Sunday after Sunday, God just totally took the desire from me.”
Today Mondrea is drug free.
“I do not have temptation for drugs. Twenty-one years clean now, and I just do not have temptation. I have gone into places where they were smoking drugs and drinking, to pray for people. I just tell them, ‘hey you have to set this down while I pray for you,’ and they will let me pray for them. It never bothered me. I just see it as a piece of poison now.
Mondrea now helps the homeless in her city with a non-profit ministry called “Never Say Never.”
“I love Jesus so much because He first loved me. I love Him Because I can depend on Him when I can’t depend on nobody else. My priority now is to win souls for Jesus Christ, to let my light shine so men can see my good works and glorify my Father. Never say never because God never gives up on us. He never gave up on me.”
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