She Cried Out When the World Around Her Was Falling Apart...

“I'm so lost in this world. I got so much hurt, so much anger. I don't have real love. I've never had real love. I don't even know what that means.”

Joan Pendleton lived a loveless, hard life. 

“My mom and dad fought so much. My dad used women and my mom loved him so much so, so much and he just, as they say, he did her dirty all the time,” said Joan. “Some of the things that he would say just broke my heart.”

Her parents turbulent marriage and her father’s attempts at sexual abuse left Joan confused and insecure. Drugs became her escape. 

Joan said, “It just made life better. You didn't have to face things. You don't have to, you don't have to deal with it.” 

She left home at 16. Hoping to find love, she married and started a family. It didn’t last, now a drug addict, Joan lost custody of her three kids. A quick second marriage was also a bust. By now, Joan didn’t think she deserved to be loved. Her guilt and pain were overwhelming. 

“I wanted to be loved,” said Joan.  “I just wanted to be loved. You know, I wanted it. But I just, I don't know, I was so broken that that's all I picked was broken. I was a magnet for broken people.”

After years of fighting to regain custody of her kids, she finally got them back. Only to learn they were doing drugs and on their way to addiction too. Joan’s daughter Rachel recalls that time. 

“We would fight constantly,” said Rachel. “We would yell at each other. We got into physical altercations a lot. I became a very angry kid because of it.”

At 18, Rachel realized she was on the wrong path and gave her life to Jesus. She got clean and started praying for her mom. 

Joan said, “She was trying to get her life together and getting her life together was facing me, facing what I had done to her and I, I couldn't face it. Couldn't face her and I would get angry at her. And she would still try. She would come over and, and she would talk about God. And she said, "Ma, just God loves you. He loves you.and he wants to take this hurt from you.”

Still, Joan didn’t believe she deserved to be loved. 

A smoker for 45 years, Joan went to the doctor in February of 2022 feeling under the weather. She learned she had stage four lung cancer. 

Joan said, “You think, not me. I did. I’m good. I got this. I’m all right. I quit doing the heavy drugs. I’m going to be okay." 

She had no idea the pain she was about to face.  In surgery, part of her right lung was removed. She was discharged and started chemo. Some days the pain was so intense her medication didn’t help. 

Joan said, “I don’t like myself; I don’t like the pain. I’m just bent. I’m done. I’m just physically done, mentally done.”

Joan became so despondent, she decided to end her life.

“I don't know who I am. I only know this, Joan. I know this Joan, the hurt Joan, the, the drug addict, Joan. That, that, that's all I know.”  

“I can’t do this anymore. So, I get the gun. So, I go in, I get the gun. I just, I can't do this anymore. "God, don't love me. I don't love me. I'm done." And my phone rings and it's Rachel,” said Joan. 

“She was just bawling her eyes out and I didn't know why she was crying,” said Rachel.

Joan said, “It changed me. I knew then God had to love me. He had to love me, or He wouldn't let me go. He would have just let me do it.”

Rachel said, “I was like, "You know what Lord, like she just needed somebody to be there in this moment that somebody cared that somebody was listening." 

Joan started going to church with Rachel. The two grew closer as Joan’s health improved. It took some time but one Sunday in 2023 she gave her life to Christ. 

Joan said, “God put his touch on it. And, and that's the way I feel now is I have His love. I don't need anybody else's.”

“I have a purpose now. and it's to show just how good God is.”

Today Joan is drug and cancer free. Every week she and Rachel spend time together, talking for hours about God, and the love He’s poured into their lives.”  

Joan said, “We have such a friendship. I love her so much.” 

“To see the way that she is joyful, different things come out of her mouth, “said Rachel.  

Joan said, “I tell her all the time, thank you for not giving up on me. Thank you for loving me.” 

“Old behaviors are constantly dying to new ones and the faster she goes to pray about something is the best thing I've seen,” said Rachel. 

Joan said, “I'm not that broken person. I may have some broken pieces still working on them, but I'm not that dependent broken person anymore. I like me. I love me. I'm a child of God.”