AMAZING STORY
Making a Life or Death Deal with God
By Rod Thomas
The 700 Club
CBN.com- “We get a knock at the door and it's the cops, so I get the 9mm out and I’m ready to pull the trigger.”
Heidi Hamblin and her boyfriend knew that the house they had broken into was surrounded. For her, surrender was not an option.
“I was just like, "let's just out in a bang. Let's just kill them and they'll kill us and we'll all die."
Heidi had been carrying a death wish much of her life, one that from the start was filled with violence, abuse, and drugs.
“There was a lot of drug activity. My mom wasn't involved in my life a lot. She kind of came in and left,” Heidi remembers. “Sexual abuse and things like that occurred and it just got to the place to where I just wanted to die.”
The only place she felt loved was at her grandparents’. Her grandfather told her about Jesus at a young age.
“He would have those old gospel bluegrass music playing, "I saw the light" and "I'll fly away," and I would just listen to that over and over. I remember feeling at peace. He'd always say, ‘Well, honey, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. If I could take your pain away from what you've gone through, I would.’”
Drugs became Heidi’s only relief. “I just wanted to be numb because I felt like if I could just take enough drugs not to feel the pain inside, of all the hurts and all the things that had gone on in life.”
In time, she had several abusive relationships and by the time she was 22, she had three children. She tried to care for them, but the drug addiction was too great and she had nowhere to turn for help.
“I ran to my mom's and that wasn't a better situation. There were roaches all over the house, no electricity,” she said. “I couldn't go to my dad's and I couldn’t live with her. It was like no matter which way I would go, it was just hell.”
She asked her grandparents to care for them, which they did. Heidi says it was then that she gave up on life. She turned to prostitution and anything that would take the pain away.
“I got to the place where I just wanted to die. I tried anything where I could overdose and die. I mean, I searched for death and could not find it.”
She was also reckless, and gave little thought to breaking into a drug dealer’s house with her boyfriend. When police showed up Heidi drew her weapon, knowing she would never make it out alive.
“I’m ready to pull the trigger and shoot them. And just as I pulled the hammer back, he said ‘No,’ and knocked the gun out of my hand.” They surrendered without a fight, and Heidi was sentenced to 10 years for aggravated armed robbery.
“I had made a mess of my life, I mean, completely,” Heidi said. “There was no hope; there was nothing but shame and pain and unforgiveness and bitterness. When I would get in a fight with somebody, I would make that person try to pay for everything that anybody ever did to me.”
By now she saw no reason to change, and no reason to live, until she received a letter from her grandmother; her grandfather was dying.
“’His heart’s failing him.’ At that time I was in segregation and I didn’t want my papa to die because I wanted my papa to see that he believed in me and that it wasn’t in vain, that I could do something with my life.”
“I didn't know how to approach God so I thought ‘we can make a deal if I give you my whole life and I don't play around and stuff, and I give you 100% of me, then if you can heal my papa, I’ll give you every part of me you want.’”
Heidi started studying the Bible and attending prison chapel services. Her heart began to soften as she realized there was another way to live.
“I experienced God’s love for me. The first thing the Lord kept telling me is, ‘You shall have no other God before Me.’" I was like, ‘Well, God, I don't know how to love you right. But if you teach me, I will.’"
She served seven years. During that time, she started seeing herself as God does.
“I started loving me. Second Corinthians 5:17; I was a new creation. ‘The old things have passed away and behold, all things had become new.’”
When released, she was able to spend time with her grandfather before he died in 2013. She also reunited with her children.
“I got to see my children when I got out, all three of them. He's restored every broken area.”
Since then, Heidi has married Mark. In God, she has finally known the love of a Father who will always be there.
“No matter what comes in life, and things come, that when you walk through the fire you won't be burned. When you walk through the water it'll not overtake you because He's with us.”
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