Janet Taylor: One Last Chance

CBN.com "Jail was a welcomed place for me. It was a place that I would have a bed, have food to eat, and access to hot water so that I could bathe. When I lived on the streets, I lived like an animal."

Even though Janet Taylor’s childhood in North Carolina was far from ideal, she never dreamed that her life would get so bad that a jail cell would feel like home to her.

"My mother died when I was five," she tells The 700 Club. "I lived with my grandmother during that time. She was this big woman, and we called her 'Big Mama'. She was the best cook this side of the Mississippi. She was the hardworking type woman and the providing type."

Big Mama did her best to take care of Janet, but when she died, Janet got passed around from relative to relative. In her late teens, Janet tried to make a better life for herself by joining the Navy. By then she’d started smoking marijuana and using something much harder – cocaine.

"I actually got strung-out on cocaine while I was in the Navy," she confesses. "It was just accepted. As a matter of fact, you were cool if you were using some form of drugs. So I got in with that crowd." 

Meanwhile, a brief relationship with a sailor led to the birth of a baby boy. Janet got out of the Navy and took her son to Daytona Beach, Florida, where they lived with the sailor’s parents.

"That didn’t work out. We didn’t get along, and I was on drugs. They knew it, so they put me out. I had no one. I was just on the streets."

Janet’s son stayed with his grandparents while she turned to prostitution to support herself and her growing drug habit.

She says, "I had my second child while I was there. I hooked up with this guy, and we had a baby. This guy was very abusive, and he also forced me to prostitute for him."

Janet was arrested for prostitution more times than she could count. Desperate to get off the streets, she escaped a prison sentence by promising the judge she’d leave Florida and go back to North Carolina.

"I stayed with my sister and she got me in a drug treatment program. I started going to Narcotics Anonymous. I was attending meetings, but I found the people were getting high. So, it wasn’t long before I was back on the drugs."

As Janet struggled with her addiction, she tried to get her life back on track.

She says, "I enrolled in college, I got a job, and so things were looking good. I met this guy. He was very nice to me, and I slept with him one time and got pregnant. I actually went into labor while I was smoking crack. So I had the baby, and she was what you would call a 'preemie'. She was underweight, so they didn’t let me take her home."

Janet made things worse by leaving her one-year-old son with a friend while she went to buy drugs. She returned the next day to get her son but he wasn’t there. The man she’d left him with had gotten drunk and forgotten he was watching her boy.

"He couldn’t remember my name," Janet recalls. "He didn’t know my baby’s name. So his daughter called the police. The Department of Social Services came and got my baby. I knew I was really in trouble now. So I just went home, just tried to block it out and I just got high. I stayed high for a total of nine days, and they were looking for me."

Deeply depressed and tired of hiding, Janet turned herself in. She was convicted of child neglect and was sentenced to 12 to 18 months in prison.

"I got sent to prison. Then my kids were put in foster care and they were separated. I didn’t know who had my kids,' she explains. "It was very rough because I tried to explain to them that I really did love my kids. I just didn’t know how to get off those drugs."

After serving four months of her sentence, Janet was released from prison. Now she could go home and start over. But just like before, Janet didn’t have a place to go home to.

"I just lived from pillar to post. If I could spend a night here, I spent a night here. One time I took up residence in a crack house, and in-between times of having nowhere to stay, it seemed like every six months I went to jail."

It was in jail, while working in the laundry room, that a song on the radio led to an encounter that transformed Janet’s life. 

"The very first song that came on the radio was a song by the Dallas/Ft. Worth Mass Choir. It was called "Another Chance". When I heard that song, [it] brought Godly sorrow over me. It convicted me. I remember how I was standing there folding the sheets and towels. I just began to weep. I just began to confess my sins to God, and I began to tell Him how sorry I was, that I had lived so wickedly, how I had been a prostitute, how I almost destroyed this gift of life that He had given me. I asked Him for one more chance."

She continues, "I promised God in front of that radio. I said, 'God, if You save me, I will serve You until I die.' So that was all that I knew. I knew that for God I would live and for God I would die. I knew I was never gonna use drugs and alcohol again. I knew I was never gonna be a street prostitute again. I knew I was never gonna live that old wicked and sinful life again. The Word of God and the Spirit of the Lord is what has kept me these years."

In 2003, Janet graduated from Winston-Salem State University with an English degree – with honors!  But that was just the beginning…

"Two weeks later I was called by the school system and offered a teaching position. So I have been teaching now for two and half years. It was the fulfillment of a childhood dream."

Janet is still working on her relationships with her children.

She says, "I hurt my kids very deeply. They probably have some questions, and when the day comes that they’re ready to ask me why, I’m prepared to sit down and try to answer their questions to the best of my ability. 

"God has restored my oldest son. He was bitter and he was unforgiving. Then, God just did a work in his life. So now, we have a very, very good relationship."

Another blessing from God – one Janet never expected – is her call to preach.  
 
"I started out just teaching a Bible study in the local jail. I knew that was God, because one time I was crying, begging these people to let me out of jail and then I begged them to let me back in," Janet says. "I keep the Lord before me because I’m ever mindful that I am nothing without the Lord. I can do nothing apart from Him."