From Broken to Beautiful: A Story of God's Redemption and Grace

Hello, and welcome back to Purpose of Heart, the podcast. I'm your host, Priscilla Alman, and this podcast is a place where we have real conversations that remind us that even in life's most painful seasons, purpose is still being formed. And today's conversation is one that I truly believe will meet people right where they are. Because today, we're not just talking about hardship, we're talking about redemption. Our guest today is Rachel Richardson, who is a faith-driven speaker, author, advocate, and executive assistant whose life reflects how God brings every broken piece together for purpose. She is a wife of nearly 22 years, a mother, and a grandmother with a deep passion for faith, family, and restoration. Professionally, she helps lead higher in efforts that create opportunities for individuals who deserve a second chance, turning belief into action and purpose into impact. What makes her voice so powerful is that her message is not just something she speaks, it is something she has lived. Her journey through trauma, addiction, and incarceration has become a testimony of resilience, redemption, and restoration. Rachel, I'm truly honored to have you here. Thanks so much for coming.

Beautiful. Thank you for having me, Priscilla.

So for those of you who are meeting Rachel for the first time, right? Can you share with us, Rachel, a little bit about who you are today and the work God has called you into?

Well, again, my name is Rachel Richardson, and I am currently uh a speaker, an author, a mother, all those great things. And again, I just I I passionately go around and get with decision makers to make sure that they are able to understand that we are not what we have done. You know, our past does not disqualify us from a great future. And unfortunately, a lot of times with justice-impacted individuals or even wayward youth. They're young people who get in trouble when they're younger, and then they're they're adults now and they still can't get jobs because of the stupid stuff they did when they were younger. So I have the ability to go in and speak to young people at schools and in different settings to remind them that all the choices they make today will definitely determine where they are tomorrow.

I love that. And it's so beautiful to hear where you are today and the impact that you're having with changing um especially the youth's lives to sort of make sure that they're on the right track. Um, but your story didn't start here. So take us back for a moment to some of the earliest challenges that you faced growing up.

Well, again, like a lot of youth, right, who who end up in trouble. Uh, some of the earliest challenges were in my home. Um, one thing I do when I speak to youth is I talk to them about choices. Some of the choices are made for you. I was not, I did not choose to grow up in a mixed home with black and white parents uh whose father was absent and mother was an addict, you know, addict or addicted to everything. I did not choose to um go through sexual assault or molestation when I was younger or rape, or those were not choices that I made. But the choices that I make after the fact were really, you know, I got pregnant at 15 years old. I I ended up and he was somebody who was involved in gangs and drug dealing and different things. And again, just trying to get away from being the square or, you know, people thought so many things about me. And I was, you know, I had a reputation of being such a good girl and I was such a nerd, and I was such a so trying to run from these things that for whatever reason I thought I didn't want to fit into. Now I can look back and go, I should have just stayed a nerd. Um, but trying to run from those things, I ran into other situations and I became exactly what I said I would never be. And so um, again, when I'm able to speak with youth, I just remind them that our our choices today determine where we are tomorrow.

Now you've walked through trauma, teen pregnancy, addiction, and then you had a moment that changed everything. Um, can you talk a little bit about um you know when things changed for you and then also when you were sort of convicted and imprisoned after the death of your uncle? Just sort of walk us through that whole story.

Well, again, by then I was ready to get, you know, my life together. I had left a man that I had uh was with um for quite some years. We had a son together. He was incarcerated for pimping and pandering. Um, needless to say, I I, you know, I always tell young people, tell me who you hang around with, I'll tell you who you are. I worked at a strip club when I met this gentleman. So it wasn't like he was the ideal role model to have children with. He just made me feel present and seen and loved and whatever I thought that was at the time, things that I had never grew up with. And that's another thing I talk to young people about, um, and teachers and and administrators who are able to uh identify human trafficking signs because a lot of the young girls don't realize they're being trafficked in the moment. They genuinely believe this is a relationship. This is somebody who we're building this thing together. We are in this, you know, if I need something, he buys it for me. It's not, you know, they always want to say you're getting beat up and pushed in closets and all these things that I hear these human trafficking stories when that is not nearly the case, most of the time. Those are few and far between. And so, long story short, I had a son by a gentleman. I finally decided to leave this relationship, move back to Reno. I was living in Las Vegas at the time with this gentleman. I moved back to Reno, Nevada, and which is where I'm from. I was living with my auntie at the time. I was going to church, I was a teacher at the YMCA. I passionately love children. That is my heart. Um, I I would have gone on to have higher, you know, had had a master's degree in higher education if that would have, if if what happened if I had not been convicted. Um, that was my goal and I had dreams and aspirations at the time. Uh, there was a graduation party from a gentleman who graduated from a local college at UNR. You know, we don't have a lot of people graduate from our neighborhood from high school, much less college. And so I felt like this was a safe place to go to because a lot of riffraff happens at house parties, but not necessarily college parties. And um, so I, you know, thought that it would be okay for me to go to this party. And a lot of parties I just, like I said, I didn't attend even from coming back to Reno. You know, there was a lot of parties I said no to because riffraff happens. Um, I ended up at this party. My cousin got in a fight with a young lady who I call my baby's mother. So my daughter's father, who was in prison most of my daughter's life, uh, he has about 12 to 14 kids by like nine different women. So he he was just a friend of the family. I was a virgin at the time. He wasn't, it wasn't even, you know, I came on to him. I felt like it was a safe place for me to break this and whatever. Uh, so it wasn't, he was not my man per se, right? He wasn't a boyfriend. We had a child together. And long story short, he had several women who who were pregnant by him in this little Reno. It's it's a small community. Um, and so one of the women who I call my baby's mother was fighting my cousin. And her and her friends jumped on my cousin. Uh, blood is thicker than water, Priscilla. So, of course, I'm gonna defend my cousin in this situation. However, because she was being jumped in the crowd outside the party, we were in a bowling alley. The crowd outside the ball, the party was so thick around her, I couldn't get in there to help her anyway. And so I shot a gun in the air. And now the neighborhood I'm from, when you hear gunshots, you duck and run, right? You don't wait around to see who shot it, where is it coming from? You duck and run, and and that's what happened. Everybody ducked, everybody ran. We were able to get my cousin in the car, and we drove away. I did not know at that moment I was leaving my uncle, you know, lying fighting for his life with a bullet hole through his chest on the ground. Um, I we did the ambulance even passed us on the on the way. You know, we were leaving, we heard the ambulance coming. That bullet that I shot, that gun I shot in the air, that bullet ended up ricocheting off a metal sign. And according to the police report, about a hundred, anywhere between 180 and 200 people in that parking lot, that bullet ended up hitting my uncle. Now, my uncle is my grandmother's only living son. He has six children. He was a father of six children. His youngest was uh not but a month old at that time. Uh, he is my auntie's only brother. He has four sisters. This was a family that raised me. My mother was uh uh, you know, addicted to a bunch of things, including drugs, alcohol, and men. And so there were a lot of times that for my own safety, she would allow for me to go stay with family members. And in staying with those family members, this is the family I stayed with, whether it was my uncle, my aunties, whatever. At the time I was living in my aunt's house, who was his sister. And so uh I ended up in jail on May 17th, 1998, facing the rest of my life in prison. I was 21 years old. As I mentioned, I was a teacher at the YMCA. There was no ill will in me. I wasn't a murderer by far, but I was booked in on that night for murder with the use of a deadly weapon.

That must have been um hard on so many levels, because not only were you, you know, in an emotional state trying to defend your cousin, thinking that you're just giving off a warning shot, but then finding out that those actions then impacted the people that you know were even helping to take care of you, and then you just own grief of you know, a family member, um, and those things as well. That must have been so hard to process. Can you walk us through about that?

Yes, and and again, being somebody who was simply a teacher at the YMCA, um, going to jail. I never had a juvenile record. I've never been incarcerated. I had I had no run-in with the law. My uncle was the first officer killed in the line of duty in Las Vegas, Nevada. So I had no, you know, I had no beef with the law. I love law enforcement as far as that goes. You know, I didn't, I really genuinely was quote unquote a good girl. I had made bad, you know, decisions with the men I was involved with, but overall, I was a good girl. And so, long story short, uh, that was my first time running with the law. Uh, here I am in jail. You hear all the things, right? All the you're gonna be somebody's girlfriend and all the things that you hear growing up, like that's the scariest reason why you never go to jail. And here I am. And so I was scared to death just to be there. I was, I ended up on suicide watch. So I was in the medical unit by myself for about a week prior to being released into general population. Um, and by myself, not being able to kill myself was genuinely the hardest thing at that moment because I, you know, my family forgave me, my family loved me. Once they found out the circumstances and everything that happened, they absolutely fought for me to get out. Like my family was 100% on my side. All of them say they would have done it as well because my cousin to this day has a keloid across her neck from the young lady, had a razor blade and was slicing her with it. Um, so again, my family 100% forgave me. They, you know, I just couldn't forgive me, Priscilla. And that's really that that was the roughest part of this whole thing.

You know, that's something that people, you know, can't really fully comprehend. Um, and I'm sure there were times that you truly felt alone. Can you talk a little bit about the feelings that you had once you were released? And you know you mentioned a little bit about not being able to forgive yourself, but sort of that dissonance that you had coming home.

Well, again, upon release, I did, I I ended up going to court. Uh, and in the whole time I just knew I was innocent, right? I'm I'm getting out, I'm innocent. I only shot the gun in the air. You know, the evidence said there was paint on the tip of the bullet. Uh, the audience, you know, the the people who were there, right, said no, Rachel would never hurt anybody. Uh, she she's not that kind of person. Well, I go to jury trial. I go to a trial because I'm not going to take a deal. I'm innocent. And so I go to a jury trial. And during this jury trial, and this is another reason why I talked to young people about this decisions that they make, they were able to pull in a young lady who said she beat me up in eighth grade, or we got in a fight in eighth grade. Another young lady said she took my boyfriend in 10th grade. This is the gentleman I got pregnant by who has a ton of babies' mothers. Um, there were, you know, all these people that they call character witnesses were coming in and speaking against who I was or who I was, you know, who I had become. And uh a jury of my peers found me guilty. They found me guilty of second-degree murder with the use of a deadly weapon. And that carries two life sentences in the state of Nevada, because you get one for the murder and you get one for the weapon. And so, though I thought I was going home by around Thanksgiving, I was convicted of murder. And so that was one of the hardest. I uh first of all, I didn't know how the system could get it so wrong. And second of all, I didn't understand at 21 years old how my entire life was getting ready to change. Um, I was waiting for about a month. So you get convicted and then you wait to go in for the sentencing. So during sentencing, you meet with Pearl and probation, you meet with your attorneys, you do all these things. And so my attorneys were saying, don't expect anything. We are going to, you know, we're gonna ask for life because you can get a better appeal. Because it was 25 to life, was the, you know, what was what you'll be sentenced to. Uh, you'll only have to go to prison for a few years, so just don't expect anything. I happen to be a Christian. So I went in and I told God, I expect something from you, God. I I expect something, I don't expect something from these people because I see what they've given me, but I expect something from you. So when I went in to receive probation, or when I went in to receive the sentencing, the judge at the time said, I'm gonna overturn this verdict and I'm gonna send Miss McAllister, which was my name then, home with her children for Christmas. And I was able to get out. Well, as you mentioned, Priscilla, getting out was a lot worse than a physical prison because the mental prison, my family had got to mourn. I spent 222 days incarcerated and my family got to mourn. My family got to be there when the phone rang and it wasn't my uncle, when he wasn't at family functions, when he wasn't at the barber shop. You know, all of our children, he was the family barber, the town barber. So all of our kids got haircuts by him. Like they had already got to live without him for several months, and I did not yet. And so I lost my mind. I lost my mind. So everything I swore I would never do because I saw it in my home, like addiction, I became a complete drug addict. It was the only way to numb. I couldn't cry on ecstasy or what they call mollies. So I always, again, when I speak to young people, I always make sure that they know that these drugs may numb things for a moment. But the truth is you will have to face the consequences of your actions one day. And the more that you prolong that, the the harder it makes for you to get that reputation of being who you once were back. And so I could not not go to family functions, Priscilla. This was my family who had raised me. It's not okay to say you're not going to Sunday dinner at Big Mama's house. You're not going to the family reunions, you're not going to the family gatherings. You're not, it's not okay. You go and you take your kids and you show up with a smile and a plate, and you, you know, and so it was just very hard. It was hard to face his children. It was hard to face my grandmother. Um, I ended up pleading guilty to manslaughter after they let me out. I was waiting for a new trial. Well, I didn't want my family to have to go through another trial again. And, you know, especially my grandmother, who's the victim's mother. Well, she got to get on the stand and say, you know what, Your Honor, we already lost my son. We don't want to lose my granddaughter too. And I didn't want my grandma to have to go through this again. I didn't want her to have to relive this. I didn't want, you know, she was already older. It was like, no. So I ended up pleading guilty to manslaughter, um, not knowing even then that this was going to change my whole life. It affected everything, not just my mental state of mind. I'm maybe I could have gotten through it a little bit easier if I could have found housing for my children, if I could have found a job, if I could have found um a support group or anything that was able to help formerly incarcerated people. I mean, this was almost 30 years ago. Now, re-entry and and you know, all these things are a big deal and people are talking more about it, but back then we didn't. And I had nothing and nowhere and nowhere to go to get anything. And my whole life, from you know, from being somebody who could get a job instantly to being somebody who could never get a job. I mean, I still had children, I still had to take care of them, I still had to live, I still had to feed myself. I had to survive. Like there was no options, you know, which is why I'm so passionate now about making sure I can get into rooms with people who are making decisions about hiring so that they too need, they too know you need to hear somebody's story. Don't just pull a background check. Don't just look, you know, if you pull my background check now, you're gonna see that I have manslaughter with the use of a deadly weapon. Hear my story. Because in hearing my story, there's something in you that goes, Oh my God, I didn't even know something like this could ever happen. And it gives you the ability to, number one, hire somebody like myself. And number two, get rid of your racial bias or your your pre your preconceived notions, right? Are unbiased. We say we don't have any biases, but we absolutely do, especially when we pull these background checks and and we see some of these backgrounds on them.

In moments like these, especially the like the deep ones that you've gone through, people often sort of wrestle deeply with God. Did you ever find yourself asking why? And kind of what did some of your conversations with God look like?

Absolutely. And I think too, the one thing, when I was in jail, they called me the church lady. And so because they called me the church lady, I mean I had prayer every night at nine o'clock. I prayed for women who knew they weren't going home, they went home. I I saw miracles in jail. I saw them, but the fact that I was out, right? Because again, now I was a convicted murderer one after I got convicted by a jury, and I was still able to get bonded out of jail with a $2,000 bond. This was unheard of in Nevada 30 years ago. You're now a convicted murderer. You're at least got to do $100,000. Like uh, you know, there were there were laws, right? There were stipulations. I saw miracle after miracle that God did when I was incarcerated. So I knew that God was a miracle worker. But when I got out, I couldn't deal with me. And it was so hard for me to find God through the pain and the guilt and the shame. So one thing I always say now, too, is I knew God growing up. I grew up grew up in two homes. One was black, one was white. Each one of them went to church. My my white family went, they were Lutheran, they sprinkle water, ho-hum, read out of a hymnal, sit down, get out. It was no, you know, 45 minutes, you're out of there. Tops. We go get donuts, we're good. My black family went to church, they were apostolic Pentecostal. You're getting the Holy Ghost. We're there for hours. It's hot, I'm hungry. Two totally different families, like completely, you know, and the kids didn't know the other side of it like I did. So I'm questioning like, why do you guys do this on both sides? And they have no idea what another church does or another culture does. So they don't even know how to really compare it or answer my questions. It was just some of the weirdest stuff. But I say that to say I knew God, but I didn't understand how the blood redeemed us and brought us back from our past or from our sin and shield, uh, our sin and shame and guilt until I got out of jail. Because it was when I got out, I knew God, but it was when I got out that I knew I needed the blood, the redeeming, buying back power of what the blood did and what it does for us on a daily basis. I was able to recognize and realize after I left God, he performed all these miracles. I left, started getting high, drunk, things I had never done really before, not to this degree. And I start and I was going to pick up 400 ecstasy pills to kill myself. I had written a letter that said, if you find this letter, I'm dead. My children need to go with my mother because I didn't want them with their fathers who were just coming out of prison. My children need to go with my drug addict mother because that would be the better place for them. And I'm dead. And so I was going to pick up 400 ecstasy pills because there was just no way God could forgive me. I mean, you performed all these miracles, God, and here I am out here doing this. There's no way that God was ever going to bring me back into his good graces. And I was going to pick up 400 ecstasy pills. And during that time, uh, I made uh so my connect said, when you get off the freeway, you're going to make a right. Back then, payphones were big. We had pagers, but payphones were really how you took the pager, you called somebody on a payphone. So I pulled over to use the payphone because when I got off the freeway, I didn't see the street that my connect had said I was new in Las Vegas. Again, I lived in Reno for all this time. I moved to Las Vegas. Um, so, anyways, he said, when you get off the freeway, you're going to see the street. Well, I didn't see the street. So I pulled over to use the payphone. And at that payphone was Victory Outreach Car Wash. And Victory Outreach is a ministry that reaches gang members, drug addicts, prostitutes, people who wouldn't normally go into a church. They go out into the streets and they reach those people. And so there was a gentleman with a teardrop tattoo, Priscilla. And in my neighborhood, a teardrop usually means you took a life yourself. And that gentleman said to me, There is no pit that you are so deep down into that God's hand is too short or not long. Enough that it can pull you out. And I just looked at him. There, nobody else could have said that to me because they don't understand what I'm going through. But this gentleman with a teardrop tattoo, he absolutely understood what I was going through. And he absolutely spoke to my soul on that day. Needless to say, I did not pick up those ecstasy pills. I ended up at the church, and here I am today because of it.

That's so beautiful because it reminds me of how God is such a good father and he always meets us just right where we are. It reminds me of the story of Hagar when she's running away from you know Sarah and Abraham and ends up like, you know what, I'm just gonna put my son over here. This kid's gonna die. I can't watch this. And he meets her and she then declares, You are the god who sees without that, you wouldn't be here today, right? Without that man encountering you, you wouldn't be here today helping the people that you're helping, helping the children that you're helping to sort of redirect their lives. And so one thing I wanted you to share with our listeners is what is either the verse or the passage of scripture that sort of helped you and held you through your deepest moments?

Well, 2 Corinthians 5.17, the the the tragedy happened on May 17th. And so God gave me a promise scripture in 2 Corinthians 5.17, and it says, Therefore, if any man is in Christ, they are a new creation. The old things have passed away, and behold, all things are made brand new. And I knew when I saw 5.17 that that that scripture was for me, because again, we cannot behold the new things, you know, if we're still focused on the the past things, those old things have passed away. And so it this didn't happen overnight. I I'm only speaking to you now, almost 30 years later, but for for the first 25 years, I cried like a baby every May 17th. I cried like a baby every March 25th because that's his birthday. I cried like a baby when his kids had kids, when his kids graduated, when his kids had birthdays, when he because with social media, you see all that stuff. I cried like a baby. I fought mad depression, I was disabled for 12 years on full disability because I couldn't function. So I am where I am now, but that's because I had to allow for those old things to genuinely pass away, and I really had to look forward to beholding all these brand new things. And that that that was the scripture that got me through 2 Corinthians 5 17.

Amen. Because you know, now when I hear you speak, I don't just hear survival, I hear transformation. What does breaking generational cycles look like in a real practical way? And sort of how did you go about rebuilding your identity?

Well, you know, it starts with community. So when I came into Victory Outreach, I had other women there. You know, for a long time in my life, I had heard things like, you'll never be nothing but like your mama, you'll never be nothing like your daddy, you'll never, you know, so those were that's what exactly what I did. I became exactly what I had heard. But when I walked into a community of women who had, you know, tattoos on their necks, they all had past themselves, but they would look at me and they would say, You're gonna get your children back. You are going to be a wife one day. You are going to, you know, all these things. They wouldn't let me run. I didn't want to be in the nursery because I didn't really raise my own children. And so I didn't want to be in the nursery. They they made me go into the nursery. You learn compassion, you learn empathy. You don't you don't need to sympathize with anybody, but you learn empathy for these mothers who are single mothers who are doing you at least have your family. Like they allowed for me to really grow, but it came through a community. And so now I'm very passionate about making sure that other women coming out of from incarceration have. If they don't have anybody else, they have me. We have a community, they have they have a shoulder. I have resources. There's so many other people in the community that that are that are meeting needs, they're helping with parenting classes, they're paying rent, they're getting bus passes, they're helping get jobs, they're doing resume building, whatever that looks like. But by having me connected to the community, these women coming out of incarceration, now they have a community. They have the ability to say, I don't have to do this alone. And that was one, that was the thing that really changed my life. And that's really the only way, in my opinion, is to break generational curses, is to be able to have a community to speak life into you. Because if you've never heard life, you can't speak life. I could have never, ever, ever spoken life to my children because I never had life spoken to me. And then once life got spoken to me, all I could do was speak life to my children. And my children right now are missionaries in South Africa. My daughter just left Amsterdam, which is how I met you in Paris, because I went out to Paris because she was a three-hour train right away. So she just left Amsterdam to finish her finish her last semester in South Africa. Again, with the same ministry, reaching gang members, drug addicts, and prostitutes and down and outs, not people who are coming into the church. A lot of people are not going to come into the church when you're when you're that embarrassed, that shameful, that guilt-ridden. You're not trying to find a church because you don't feel like a church is trying to find you. And my our pastor, you know, there's a motto, there's no victory without an outreach. Somebody has to go out into the highways and byways. And so now I'm able to speak life into my own children. Their experience is not addiction. They don't know me to have been a drug addict or involved in all this other mess. They don't know, but what they do know is there are hurting people and that we have the answer. Jesus is the answer. And if he did it for me, and if he did it for their dad, who was a homeless meth addict when Victory Outreach found him in a park, then they know that God can do it for somebody else. That the blood doesn't just buy us back, but it buys others back. And though these are young people who never physically went through these things themselves because the curses have been broken, they still have a heart and a gratefulness to God because God brought us out of it. So they would never have to go through it. So I believe that the key is community and it's speaking life and it's giving us the ability to, that's the only way to break these generational curses. Because apart from that, we don't know better, right? To know better is to do better. And if you're not around people who know better, that are teaching you better, you can never do better because we become what we see, not what we want to be. I talk to young people all the time. They want to they want to join the NFL, they want to be NBA players, they want to, but you know what they end up doing? They end up selling dope, they end up joining gangs, they end up they end up becoming what they see, not what they necessarily want to be.

No, amen to all of that. When you were speaking, it reminded me of the song Um Jesus is the answer for you today. You know, above him there's no other Jesus is the way, right? Amen. So you wrote the book beautiful from pit to purpose. What was it like putting your story into words? And um, what do you hope someone who feels broken takes away from your story?

Well, I will tell you, I do have it here. Beautiful from Pit to Purpose. One of the things I love here is woman indicted with charge charged with murder and the death of her uncle. These are actual, that's my mugshot. And this is one of the actual articles from the local newspaper. This is me as a kid when I was pregnant with my first daughter. I looked all of 12. This is me right before I had her, and this is me with my son right when I was about 20, right before I got locked up. He was about that age. But what I hope people are able to take away from this is change. Because at the end, when you look at something like this and you think, because ultimately I'm down here in the bottom, just thanking God for all this stuff that happened up here. Because people can change. People can change. And not only that, it wasn't even that I needed to change as much as I needed an opportunity. A lot of people fell into their incarcerated state by things they were doing in the past. Some were homeless and had to break into a building. Now they got trespassing charges. They had to burglarize something. Now they have burglary. They end up going to prison for five years. Like some had drug addiction and they robbed this or they did that. So a lot of times things, things that people who get incarcerated were going through, they're not going through anymore. They're not battling those things anymore. So my prayer is that when people hear my story, they want to hear other people's stories. They want to hear other indicted murderers' stories. You know, by far I'm not a murderer, but you would never know it if you didn't speak to me or hear from me. Or uh, you know, such as yourself, allow me to be on your podcast to be able to reach even your audience because you you you would automatically pull the background check and not even call me back. And so that's what I hope people get from my story is hope that, hey, you know what? I need to get out here and meet other people that have been incarcerated. I need to hear their story too. And ultimately, I need to help them somehow because the world is not. The cards are stacked against them. And if I can rent to them, employ them, whatever that looks like, that one little thing I can do, or just be part of their community, that's what I need to do.

Beautiful. So speak to us a little bit about um your five pillars of faith that's in your book.

Yes. So I believe that faith is not something a lot of people, you know, faith is an action word, but a lot of people talk about faith as if it's just so easy to accomplish. Faith for me came in five, five, you know, five steps. I call them stairs, right? So five steps. And the first one that faith came through was it was expressed through my duty, like being a mother. I got my children back. I was, I was, like I mentioned, I was in the nursery, right, at the church. I was um uh teaching the kids, I was doing things. So it came through duty. And the more that I did that, the more that I realized these people trusted me, the more my faith and my trust in God was built. Because when you don't have anybody believing in you, it's very hard for you to believe in something you don't see. That's just the truth. So my faith was first activated by way of duty. People began to trust me again. They trusted me with my own children, they trusted me with their children, they trusted me with bringing a 12-pack of soda to the church. They began to trust me. The second level was intercession. It was easy for me to believe God for somebody else because at the end of the day, even when I was locked up, I prayed for them, right? I saw them get out of prison. I saw them not go to prison, get out of jail. I saw so intercession is the second level because sometimes it's easier to believe or have faith for somebody else's situation instead of your own, right? Because your situation may seem very overwhelming at times. And so that was the step two was being able to express my faith on behalf of somebody else. Maybe God will do it for them because maybe I'm just not up to par. Maybe I'm not. And again, this is just how I developed the faith. Now I know better, but this is just how I developed it. That third level was through vision. I started to see myself as a mother again. Okay, I would just had visitation with my kids. No, my kids are gonna come home. I need to get an apartment for my children to come to. I began to have vision for myself, for others around me. I began to see things before they showed up. I know the world calls it manifesting, but but we call it faith. I started having faith by seeing myself differently and acting differently so that thing could come to pass. Then level four is my trust in God with the outcomes of that thing. I didn't know how I was gonna get an apartment. I didn't know how I was actually gonna get my kids back. I didn't know where I would go or what I would do. Would I get a job? I wasn't sure. But all I had to do was trust God with the outcome because that's what faith is. You know, it's the evidence of things that we hope for. You know, it's the it's it's this the evidence of things we hope for, but the substance of things we don't see. We I haven't seen it yet. I have no substance of it. They keep telling me no because of my background, but I believe that God is gonna turn this thing around. And then level five is the identity. I now believe what God says about me. I am fearfully and wonderfully made. I am the apple of God's eye. Every tongue that rises up, and no weapon formed against me is gonna prosper. And every tongue that rises up against me, I'm gonna condemn it by way of my own actions. I don't have to just go off on people anymore and tell them that I'm not what I did. I'm not no, my actions are now gonna show you. And so level five became identity. I began to walk in exactly who God told me and said I was. I became a Proverbs 31 woman, a woman who was clothed in strength and dignity. My children will rise up and call me blessed. My husband, one day, I'm gonna be married, he too is gonna call me blessed. And so I really began to walk in the identity that God had had had orchestrated for me according to his word. Not what man has said. I'm a convicted murderer. And no, okay, but but what has God said about me? And by walking through those five pillars and walking up those steps of faith, now I am where I am, and I'm doing things that, you know, I didn't even pray for back then, Priscilla. I had no idea what the outcome would be because again, it's one step at a time, but ultimately it led to the supernatural faith that I have now, and I believe God for impossible things. I've seen cancer turn around. My mother, who was a drug addict my whole life, has now been saved and living with me for 20 years. I've been married to my husband for 22 years almost in September. My children are missionaries. All the things that the world said shouldn't have happened because generationally my mother was an addict, I was an addict, my kids should be, my grandmother. No, all those things have broken, and now I'm able to stand on this faith at the top of these stairs and look down and pull others up right along with me.

You know, as I listen to your story, I can't help but think a little bit about Joseph, someone who, you know, went through a whole lot betrayal, injustice, imprisonment, yet God saw um, you know, fit to redeem it all. And do you see that connection in your life? And how have you seen God take all of you know the things in your life and use it for good? Just summarize it for us.

Well, I always say, you know, that there's a spirit of Joseph upon me. And one thing God has shown me too is that anybody who does give me opportunity, God blesses them. God blesses that job, God blesses that apartment building I lived in, God blesses that homeowner who rented me that house. God blesses these people because they gave me a chance. And I do believe more than anything that no matter what pit we're in, because Joseph was in a pit too, no matter what pit we in, we are in, we are not so far into a pit that God's hand is too short to pull us out of. And so, yes, I see a lot of me in in the Joseph analogy, and I also see Joseph in that people forgot about Joseph. But you know what? God did not. And so people may forget about me. They may have forgotten me and forgot about me for many years, but God never has. He always had a plan. And when I was ready, because Joseph wasn't ready, it took a few more years after the fact. But when I was ready, and when I am ready, even now, now I'm going on, you know, to bigger space stages to speak. When I am ready, it's not about man remembering me, it's about God remembering his promises to me.

Amen. And you know, you even actually answered my next question to you because I was like, you know, someone listening right now may feel like they're in their own pit, right? And so um, maybe they felt like stuck or ashamed or felt like their past has already written their future, but just sitting in that knowledge, right? The knowledge that God always remembers every all of his creation, right? There's nobody that's too far away from him that he cannot reach, and also that all of his promises are yay and a man, and he's not a man that he can lie in. So we know that we can just rest in those things. So beautiful. So as you look ahead, right? What is God currently stirring in your heart and what's the legacy that you hope to leave?

Right now, God is stirring young people in my heart. We we live in a generation now of such confusion. You know, these kids are going to school, they're being told it's okay to be even animals at some point. And and so young people have God has just been putting young people in my heart. So I'm getting ready to start a tour where I'm gonna go to schools all over the country, and I'm gonna remind young people that the choices they make today determine where they go tomorrow. I'm gonna remind young people that some of the choices that were made for you maybe you didn't agree with. But from here on out, ever since you heard Miss Rachel speak now, you have to know that the choices you make yourself are really what determine where you'll be. Not the choices that were made before I showed up or before God showed up, is how I really look at it. And and with that, God is really showing me too, we need each other. There are so many people in the kingdom who are doing their own thing. They're doing great things, they're doing good things, but the God thing is unity. There is a commanded blessing on those of us who unify. And so my heart now is to really unify, bring unity to the community. I don't attend one specific church, but I am within the ministries and reaching out to different places and just really calling myself, you know, a pillar to be able to be somebody that people can depend on when resources are needed or whatever that looks like. But but God has really just been trying to, you know, unify the people and to really speak life into these young people.

Rachel, thank you so much for being here. Your life is such a reminder that God wastes absolutely nothing. Not the pain, not the setbacks, not even the chapters we wish we could erase. He redeems it all. Thank you for your courage, your honesty, and your obedience. And to the person listening right now, your story is not over. Even in the past. Purpose is still being formed. Until next time, my friends. We'll see you soon.