MAMI on a Mission Podcast - Mujeres Alcanzando Metas Imposibles
Introducing the MAMI on a Mission Podcast, hosted by Mariana Monterrubio, Best Selling Author and Biblical Life Coach. If you've put your dreams and aspirations on hold due to life's challenges, this podcast is for you. Tune in every Saturday at 8am for inspiring and motivational content that will give you the confidence to pursue your goals.
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MAMI on a Mission Podcast - Mujeres Alcanzando Metas Imposibles
What happens when a life of crime meets divine intervention?
Roxanne Lara's story will leave you breathless. From smuggling people across borders at age 13 to becoming addicted to "daybreak pills" that made her violent and unpredictable, Roxanne lived a life straight out of a crime thriller. Her candid testimony reveals how deeply entrenched she became in a world of drugs, violence, and criminal enterprises.
The raw details of her journey are staggering – pistol-whipping a boyfriend, burning houses, multiple incarcerations, and even being kidnapped by a Mexican cartel (a situation few survive). After losing both parents and spiraling further into addiction and crime, Roxanne hit absolute rock bottom. Yet it was precisely at this darkest moment that light broke through.
Through an unexpected spiritual encounter while following a guided meditation video, Roxanne experienced what she describes as a warm, yellow light enveloping her. This led to a prayer of complete surrender – "Jesus take the wheel" – that transformed her life instantaneously. The burden she had carried for decades lifted, and she emerged as "a new woman."
Today, Roxanne ministers to incarcerated women, sharing her testimony as living proof that no one is beyond redemption. Her powerful message to those still trapped in cycles of addiction, shame, or criminality is simple yet profound: "Don't give up. Forgive yourself." She emphasizes that often our inability to forgive ourselves becomes our biggest prison.
Roxanne's story demonstrates that no matter how dark your past, complete transformation is possible. Her journey from cartel-kidnapped criminal to faith-filled minister showcases the redemptive power of surrender and second chances. Have you been holding onto shame from your past? What might happen if you finally let it go?
Resources Mentioned:
EmpowerHer Purpose Program
Interested on coaching but still not sure? Grab your free copy of:
EmpowerHer Purpose Guide
MAMI on a Mission LLC: info@mamionamission.com
Grab your Copy of my book MAMI on a Mission - A Guide Towards Healing, Self-Discovery and Walking in Confidence
Amiga, Ready to Read Your Bible? Join the Group Today!
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Welcome to the Mommy on a Mission podcast. I'm Mariana, your host and the number one bestselling author of Mommy on a Mission a guide towards healing self-discovery and walking in confidence. As a dedicated life coach, wife, mom yaya and, most importantly, daughter of the king, I am passionate about empowering multifaceted women just like you. In each episode, we dive deep into transformative topics that help you reignite your passion and purpose. My unique approach is designed to help you overcome the fear of external expectations and create the space and time you need for both increased job satisfaction and personal growth. Join me on this journey of self-discovery and empowerment as we explore practical strategies, inspiring stories and actionable insights. Together, we'll navigate the complexities of life and emerge stronger, more confident and truly aligned with our deepest desires. Welcome to the Mom on a Mission podcast, your go-to resource for living a more purposeful and fulfilling life. So grab your taza of coffee and let's talk.
Speaker 1:Hello, girlfriends, and thank you so much for coming on to the Mommy on a Mission podcast. As you know, we are continuing and ending the series of she's Bold Women's Conference and today I have a wonderful guest who is going to come and talk to you a little bit about her journey and where God has taken her and where she's going today. So I want you to go ahead, get a notebook, whatever it is that you want to take some notes and grab your cup of cafecito and let's have this talk with my special guest, roxanne Lara. Roxanne, thank you so much for being here. Can you start a little bit about telling us a little bit about yourself, your life growing up and how things began to shift in your life? Just you know, and something you want to share with us?
Speaker 2:All right, awesome. Yes, well, my name is Roxanne Lara. I am originally from the Valley, mcallen far area, but I ended up back here in Houston, or here in Houston 2018, after one of my incarcerations. So I'm married and now I'm married. Right now I have a nephew that's like my son. Like I said, I was born and partly raised in the Valley, but my upbringing we were five women and one boy, and my parents my dad was from Mexico and my mom was from Eagle Pass, texas, so I'm a Mexican American.
Speaker 2:So, our stories are.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry. Our stories are the same but a little different, because in my family it was four girls and one boy and one boy, wow and my mom's the one that's from Mexico and my dad was from Brownsville, texas. So our stories are oh, I'm from the valley, go ahead. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt, it's okay.
Speaker 2:That's, that's awesome. But yeah, and we were migrant workers and then at some point my dad was also started trafficking drugs. So that's, it was something that that's where I grew up as a little girl and seeing this and we were, we were always traveling. Like I do remember going, going working out in fields. We traveled to Colorado, Idaho actually I have family over there. My mom came from a kind of like a I'm not, I'm not even sure, but it sounded as what I've heard stories. It was like a wealthy family because her dad was like a ranchero. He was in charge of the fields but he was working for other bigger people or the owners. So my dad and my mom met in Idaho. So we were always traveling.
Speaker 2:But then I also remember that in my house there was always big old blocks of weed and there were. To me they looked like big old suitcases and there were always. It was something normal for me at times because my mom would tell my dad we're going to do it this way. There was a lot of drugs all the time, but I didn't. I mean I didn't know. I was a child and I knew my dad would smoke or like we would. Like I said we were migrants. So I remember moving a lot from the Valley Idaho. I remember my dad putting us in the room and at that time I didn't know what it was, because he would like throw us all in a room. So that was a lot of the stuff that I would see, like drugs, like what's going on. I would just question it. And as I grew older, my sister's like, yeah, dad used to shoot up. So that was also another thing. You know, that was my family's dysfunction. Besides being dysfunctional because I would see my parents fight and all that arguing, but it was my dad shooting up. And I remember when we lived in Idaho my sister was also smoking marijuana and I would go tell on her. So all this I'm growing up, seeing all these things as I get a little bit older I was maybe like 13, 14, because at this time I'm already driving as well my parents would migrate and leave us alone with my oldest sister.
Speaker 2:So the first time I got yes, the first time I got drunk, I was, I believe, in second or third grade. My sisters ended up yes, ended up giving me and my little sister wine coolers. At that time those things were very popular and my parents had left, Like they would leave us for weeks because my mom would work. She did work, she had a job as a dietician, she did have her education, but my dad was always gone, so she would take off with like to go meet up with him or see him because he would. He wouldn't come for months. Sisters were drinking with friends that were at a lake, but for us to stay quiet and for us not to tell our parents, they gave us wine coolers. And we were little I was second, third grade, and my little sister was younger because she was the youngest, and so that was the first time I got drunk. So there was a lot of things that we were always doing.
Speaker 1:We were free and so how old was your sister?
Speaker 2:How old was the oldest?
Speaker 1:My little sister, or the one that would watch you while your mom and dad work on.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, it was the oldest my sister right now is. She's only 70. How old was she? She must have been in her 20s, probably. Oh, wow, yeah, they were young. Everybody were, everybody in her 20s probably. Oh, wow, yeah, they were young, everybody in her. Maybe late 20s because, like I said, there's four before me because I'm the fifth one and then the little one's the sixth one, but yeah, they were all young, yeah, and so that was like we were.
Speaker 2:I would call her mommy because my oldest sister, because my mom was always gone, my dad was always gone or my mom was at work, she was the one putting us in school or in the bus and all that. So my parents were always gone, like back and forth traveling or went with. They were not traveling with us, they were traveling on their own. So as I grew older, like I said, I was like 13 years old, I was already able to drive. We started helping. It started by helping, you know, from the border, the valleys of border town. So my mom started helping the family bring people like, oh, the prima n a ride from Reynosa, this way, but she doesn't have papers. So my mom started doing it, yeah, started doing it for free, helping, but then it became a business. It was oh, the prima's friend needs help. So she started charging money Like the coyote yes, it's smuggling Illegals, yeah and at that time it was sitting down. It was before the Twin Towers, it was before that. So it was something that it continued to grow, to grow, to grow. We would even cross the borders, like the Mexican border, from this way, with people sitting down at times it was four people or like a couple and a son and a daughter or stuff like that, like that and so it just started becoming a business.
Speaker 2:And then I ended up in one of those in between my mom and us traveling back and forth and taking people, and we lived in Minnesota for a while and that's where that time my mom and my dad had left to Minnesota and I had found a boyfriend at this age I'm already like 15 and they left us by ourselves in the valley and they took off. Well, my dad always had a bag of marijuana in the freezer. He would always put it there, supposedly so it could be cool or fresh or whatever, and I ended up taking the marijuana from the refrigerator. So my little sister told on me, called my mom and told her. And so my mom calls me and tells me you better put it back, and if you don't put it back, you better get the heck out of my house. And so that was my way out.
Speaker 2:I was 15 years old and I was dating a man that was seven years older than me. Yeah, because I was 15 and he was no five or six. I was 15 and he was 21. And so that was my way out. So I told him, like my mom said, if we don't put the marijuana back, for me to leave. So I ended up leaving with that man and later on I ended up doing a lot of things. I was always and that was my way out I wanted to get out of my house, have freedom, nobody to tell me what to do.
Speaker 2:I started doing more drugs with him, drinking popping pills. That's where I got to know the rehypnol they call them the daybreak pills and I became addicted to those. Yeah, people use them to like men to rape women. You put it in the drink and then they don't know what happened the next day. But those pills would make me more aggressive, violent or I wouldn't even think or know Like. I felt like a superwoman. I'm going to put it at that. I just didn't care and I became addicted to those pills, yeah, and I also introduced him to the smuggling people and at times he wouldn't want to do it, but I would tell him well, you like it or not and I started learning bad habits from my mom, because that's the same pattern or things. I was picking up those patterns from my mom and now it's like I've been identified a lot. It's like a Jezebel spirit, because it was very control. I was controlling, manipulative, and if you wouldn't do it, then I would want I was leaving him. I would do whatever I wanted.
Speaker 2:And at that time, with that man and I think I'm going to I don't know why I just this came to my mind right now to share this because I was with that man. I was 15 years old and I was with him for eight years. I believe it was till my dad passed away in 2019. Yeah, I was 20, something already, but with that man at that time I was 15 years old and I did everything a man does to a woman, so you could imagine that I was cheating on him not coming home. It was very, very ugly. I was the one making money, so I would literally step all over him or tell him things, I would belittle him.
Speaker 2:I had that kind of mentality afterwards like belittling men, because at that age I had I think it was at 18, I ended up having my own house, like a brand new construction home. My mom helped me get the the loan for it. It was a four-bedroom home, brand new, and it was just me, him and the dog that I had and I started having that mentality of having and going out and carrying money in my purse two thousand, three thousand dollars a day and it and it was something that the greed started coming up. Yeah, through the smuggling people, yeah, yes, and even my mom got addicted to that. She stopped working and that was something that we ended up.
Speaker 2:We would go, come back to Houston in the Valley like maybe two times a day, or sometimes we would meet halfway and come, bring and take people. It was so bad that my mom, like I said, she got addicted to the money when she would fight with me and my other sisters, started getting involved in helping and she would want to pay us less and it was just becoming a greed thing and didn't want to pay us and it it was bad, we would stop talking to her. She would cuss at us and like I'll never forget one time because I told her mom like you're not paying me what we had agreed on, you know what, get off. And she got me and the guy I was with off at a store and she took off and she left us store and how long did this go?
Speaker 2:and it was. It was for a long time. I'm gonna say 2000 it was. It started before to the twin towers, so it was way before then.
Speaker 2:99 90s 2000, late 90s, yeah, and then all the way to 2006 or 7, because the last time they caught us it was just because we would always coach people and tell them well, if they stop us, you got to say this, you got to say that. Well, at that time it was a underage boy and he lied about his age being over 18. So I remember my mom got so sick, she was diabetic, and that day he had said he was 18, but he was a minor. So they were already escorting us to Corpus. And when we're driving to Corpus and we get to Corpus, the border patrol man opens the door and I tell him hey, do you not know what you're doing? This boy is underage. So they had to take us back. They couldn't process us or take us in custody because he was an underage boy. So it was like we got away with it. They ended up letting us go.
Speaker 2:So that was when I was like you know what? I got to do something different with my life. So I started going to school, vocational school for a dental assistant. I got my certification, everything I was trying. I've always had that Like I wanted to prosper, I wanted to do something better and even without a GED I was able to get my registered dental assistant license. I ended up working a few months but it was just I would get sucked back into the drugs At that time. The guy that I was with that I said I did everything to him, what a man does to a woman. I would take off when he would go to work. I would take off with his wallet because we lived in Dallas. He ended up getting a job at like the oil rigs and he would go to work and I would take off with his wallet, card, bank card and the truck and I would go back to the valley to go cross people and it was back yeah, yeah, it's like the scripture says the love of money is the root of all evil.
Speaker 1:You know, when you're loving the money and you're idolizing the money, it becomes overwhelmingly powerful, because you start to feel powerful, right, and it's like you're, you don't, you can't even think anymore, because it's like that it's, it's and a lot of people don't see that that that that it can be a form of addiction, having always needing to have money or wanting to have money because you're spending, and a lot of times that stems from, again, what you witnessed and how you grew up, but it's also, in a way, that sense of scarcity, because you're needing something or you're missing something in your life, right, and so you have that tendency to go in that direction, right, and so you have that tendency to go in that direction. So, while and so this continued on until so when so you mentioned that.
Speaker 2:When did you get your first arrest? Was it because of that? Well, I had that, yes, and the rest started getting worse after my dad passed away. So my dad was also, like I said, a drug dealer. My dad was locked up in the 90s taking up other people. I remember that was the was in 1992. I'll never forget that.
Speaker 2:And later on, in 2008, my dad gets locked up again. He would go to Minnesota but he would also smuggle drugs through the checkpoint. He would always smuggle either one or two pounds, wrap them up and put it in his body and that time he got pulled over. He passed the checkpoint, all that, but he got pulled over in Oklahoma. So after him fighting the case, all that, he got bonded out, but he fought the case. He thought it was going to be like like federal. Federal prison was different because they let you go out, they have visitations where your family can go pick you up. It was very different. And my dad was like at a camp when he did time in Oklahoma. It was something different. He was inside a cell and inside the building, locked up all the time. He did a year when he got out. After that my dad lost his residence card yeah, I believe it was resident or citizenship so he couldn't go back to Mexico or even cross the checkpoint to come up north this way from the valley, because in the valley you gotta cross the checkpoint after you leave a certain certain part of the valley. So my dad ended up. It was like I guess God was fixing things. And to this I say this, even when I share my testimony, is because now that God gives you revelation and your life has changed as how it's happened to me, I've see it as the Lord removed my mom and my dad from our paths because we were being led to destruction, like my mom after my dad passing away, that's where the drinking started. That's why I started getting arrested. I had a DWI each year.
Speaker 2:After my dad passed away, I became an alcoholic. I became a crackhead. I tried going to medical school after my dad passed away, but I couldn't even function to go to school, study, learn, concentrate, draw blood, nothing, because I was doing cocaine. I was even the instructor was drinking with me after school. All that, yeah, and that's the thing about the valley that when you are in those type of lifestyles it's everywhere and it was something that that was all I knew the drugs and it's like bad people attract bad people and it was just bad. It was bad after I lost my dad. That's when I even tried. I tried committing suicide. That was 2009,. 2010, when I lost my dad and, like I said, that was where it just started. It's like I give up on everybody and everything, and even myself. I just started drinking.
Speaker 1:So what did the season of your life feel like from the inside? Like how did you feel during that season of your life?
Speaker 2:I didn't feel. I don't believe I was even able to feel or think like I said, because I gave up on everybody. I didn't have no feelings. It was like I was on destruction and a mindset of just whatever happens, whatever I don't care, because I had, I wouldn't even think about things that I was doing, to the point that as we were trafficking people because that's what it was smuggling people back and forth I ended up coming across other people that were connected to cartel. So I think it was before my dad passed away. I even ended up going to Chicago and picking up a red Suburban and then I took it all the way down to Michoacan, all the way to Mexico, where it was something like my dad tried to convince me what are you doing? And that guy I was with is like you're going to come with me, you're going to help me drive, and I was always telling him what to do and we were trying to smuggle back that vehicle from Mexico this way. And this is the cartel from Michoacan, from over there, and this is something that I don't think I've shared ever in it and I've shared about the other cartel when they kidnapped me, but I've never shared where I've gone down to Mexico to the things where there's all that killing, all that stuff. Also down in Michoacan, where the hold on you were kidnapped as well. Yes, I'm going there after this. Yes, I was kidnapped by the Mexican cartel. Yeah, wow, yeah, I was involved in all this.
Speaker 2:Like I said, this is where my mind was. It was about money, the adrenaline, the I don't know, and even sleeping around and having sex, because it was. It was all nothing but bad things drinking drugs, so all these things that I was doing. I was never in my right mind. I was either on those pills and I'm telling you those pills, those daybreak pills, I would take them, but to me, it was something that it would get me pumped up and I felt no fear. I had no fear.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, after that, when my dad passed away, that's when I ended up getting also connected with another man that I met. I remember I was working at a strip club, so I ended up meeting this man and he started asking me for a favor to use. My mom had a van all the time and I started using my mom's van to go pick up marijuana and when I would pick up about maybe a thousand pounds from the border, from the river, and bring it out to the houses, to the neighborhoods. It was that like I would go all the way to the edge of the border, the river, and pull out all those and something constant, constant. But the person that was working in Mexico, the leader or whoever was, the comandante, that's what they called him he ended up knowing that he found out it was a woman doing that man's job, so he asked for me to go over there to meet him.
Speaker 2:Oh, wow, so yeah, and to the point, look at how crazy I was. It was my dad's first year of being passed away or that he had passed away. My mom was doing a church service and instead of thinking about that, or I ended up going, taking off to Mexico, walking. My friend dropped me off and I had a warrant, so I ended up coming back from over there. I crossed the river, like they crossed me through the river back this way through the United States, something that, yes, I crossed like if I, as if I was an illegal person and was that because you have a warrant?
Speaker 2:yeah, oh, wow, okay, yeah, yeah, oh my god, and it was something that I, when I was over there, the things that I witnessed, the things that I did, like I said it was, it was. It was something that you watch in a movie. Yeah, Like literally.
Speaker 1:Like on the true crime stories. Yes, yes.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, and it just kept getting worse. Because after that, yeah, my mom was still alive and me and her started fighting, arguing, but it was this last trip. I took her to Colorado. It was something that I believe it was her last trip because after that she passed away. We were coming back. We found some people illegal people, walking, asking for help, so we ended up picking them up and taking them back to the valley because they were lost through.
Speaker 2:It was Falfurrias and Edinburgh that's in between where all that stuff happens the trafficking and we ended up finding and picking them up, but in my mind and I was on pills I was robbing people one way or another. I was always out to get somebody and what I did to them people is I called the family or I even told my mom that I was going to have somebody take them, but I ended up taking the money and I left them at a hotel. So me and my mom get mad and we stopped talking. I take off with the guy I was with and I stopped talking to my mom for some while. And before I left to Michigan, I ended up like going to see my niece and my nephew. My nephew is the nephew I have now, because my sister was locked up in prison and I was helping my mom with them too, with the daughter and the son, and I ended up going back and that was the last time I saw my mom. I ended up mending things with her, but it was like I went back to say bye to her. And that was before me leaving to Michigan. And this is where it gets worse, because I leave to Michigan and I am only calling my mom here and there. But the last time they called me and they're like Roxanne, you got to come back because mom's not responding.
Speaker 2:She ended up giving up on her diabetes, her health, after my dad passed away. After my dad passed away, it was like she gave up on her health, she stopped taking care of herself, and so I come back of herself and so I come back and I end up finding my mom on life support. And that was me going and just telling her mom I'm here and before I had left I told her if anything happens to you or my brother because I have a brother that he has like a like autism down it's not down syndrome, because he's just like an autistic, but he's already an adult. But I would always help my mom with my brother. So I ended up telling her, if anything happens to you or Joe, I'm going to come back. And when I came back and I saw her and she was on life support, I tell her mom, I'm back. I told you I was going to be taking dialysis and she just gave up. Yeah, oh, wow, but it was something that at that time it was it.
Speaker 2:It's been hard dealing with my mom's past traumas that we were with my sisters and what she did. That's why I say the Lord removed her and my dad from our path, because what my mom would do between us sisters, putting us against each other, or when my dad passed away, she would put us against my dad and talk bad about my dad. And more as her disease started progressing and her mind wasn't there anymore because her kidneys, her liver, was shutting down. So they explained to us the blood wasn't pumping anymore. So that's why her mind, her brain, wasn't normal anymore.
Speaker 2:But it was a lot of trauma because she would tell me you know also when I would take off. She knew I would go do things. She knew I was dealing drugs. She knew I was working at a strip club. She knew all these things and she would tell me, if you're going to go, you better be charging or at least get something out of it, like she would enable me to do things, even from the yeah, even from the smuggling people, even from the smuggling people, the charging for money for sex, all these things. She knew what we were doing, like what I was doing, and she would tell me, like it was OK, even to the point from shoplifting. She would go shoplifting with us.
Speaker 1:This was when we lived in Minnesota, yeah, and was there a moment, like maybe like in prison or even in moments of isolation, that you realized I can't be doing this anymore, like my life needs to change. I need to do something with my life because I can't be living like this anymore.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it ended up happening. And once I started because every time I would get locked up, I knew that God was trying to do something. Well, okay, I'm going to continue a little bit, so I'm going to get to that. So in 2014, 13, that's when my mom passed away, november 2013. 2014,. Since my mom passed away.
Speaker 2:When I left that hospital, I just continued. I started smoking crack that night. So I was up for a long time and I was with that man and I ended up twist the whip in him and hitting him with a crowbar in between November and January, because I end up getting locked up because I pistol whipped him. Like, if that man that I was with yeah, that man that me and my sister were with if I wouldn't, if he wouldn't have gotten those bullets out, I would have killed him. I would have shot him because we were up for days, we were on crack, and so I ended up getting arrested 2014. And I it was the time that I hit him with a crowbar. I opened his head. I was very aggressive those pills would make me aggressive, so, and then the the crack. So that time I end up, they take me in and they say, oh, we're taking you in. The judge will let you out tomorrow. But he went and pressed charges so I ended up getting two aggravated assaults with a deadly weapon. So when I see the judge and everything and they're like, well, you're going to have to sit here till you see somebody or the you go to court.
Speaker 2:So I was there about three, four months and in those three or four months I started thinking like because somebody told me you're facing some big time guy out of those like these charges are not just any charge like with that gun, and. And then you opened his head like you going in for a time, and so at first I was reading cards and I think I've shared this on my other testimonies those playing cards, the Jack Queen, king, all those the play you play spades, and all that. I started reading those cards and it just, you know something ended up changing. I'm like cards and it just you know something ended up changing. I'm like you know what I got to. Really I got something serious in front of me Like I have this consequence If I don't do something. Like I got to change, like I got to try to do things right.
Speaker 2:So I ended up asking to get sent to the law library and the law library to let you look at the laws and all this, and I didn't have a clue of what I was doing or what. But I end up going there and I get a little bit of privilege because I'm there, it's the law library, but that's also where they get the books for the inmates. So I started getting bible, bible, inspirational books, devotionals and stuff like that. So I started reading stuff and I'm like you know, I ended up finding that it was a Kenneth Copeland Bible and in the very back it had a prayer how to receive the Holy Spirit and it had a salvation prayer.
Speaker 2:But I didn't know who Jesus was. I didn't know who was God, I just knew it was God because I was, I was raised Catholic and all I knew was that Dios, dios y Dios and la Virgen. But I wasn't devoted to the Virgen. Yeah, yeah, I didn't know the proper word in English, but yeah, when I started reading the Bible for myself that time, that's when I knew about not having that we weren't supposed to have idols or pray to other things, right, right. And all this started happening by myself. Like, nobody told me nothing. Like, oh, you have to follow Jesus or you got to find God. It was just something in me Like I don't know I think to. To be honest, it was already where God had something prepared for me.
Speaker 2:Because when I was a little girl and I don't think I mentioned this at the corner of the street where I would catch the bus, there was a friend I had there and her, tia, was Christian, and I didn't know what I was doing. But she asked me do you want to accept Jesus? And I remember this after now and I remember getting on my knees with that lady and praying the Lord's prayer. And in my house my grandma was very Catholic. My mom was. My grandma would tell her like about the Bible and all that. We had a Bible at home and I remember that after that, in my mom's room she would always have a Bible open and I remember reading Genesis and all that. And I was a little girl, I was little, but I remember that.
Speaker 1:What they call foreshadowing. Like Jesus was depositing little seeds in your life, right, Because he was letting you know.
Speaker 2:I'm here.
Speaker 1:I'm here and you don't know when you're a child, you don't know these things, but it's like God was saying I'm here in this, in this phase of your life, you were a child and then, as you get older, it's like he shows up again to let you know I'm here, I'm here, and then it's like now you're in prison. Were you in jail or?
Speaker 2:prison.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was in county, I was in county first, and then you go to the library and you're getting these books and it's like I'm meeting you right where you are, like I'm going to meet you here, this is where we're going to meet, and it's almost like God saying I'm right here, I'm just waiting on you to reach out to me. Right, wow. And so is that when your relationship started with God Like, or was it something gradual?
Speaker 2:Yeah, Well, it was where I believe I had had my first encounter. I just didn't know, I didn't understand, because I remember him. He gave me four years probation where I could have been in prison right that time. But I was only out two weeks. Two weeks and I ended up going back to the same thing again. And then the whole month that I was out I got worse.
Speaker 2:From burning houses, burning cars. I burned every picture inside in my mom's, my mom's house, Cause I ended up staying there, the house that my parents, we, that our family had. I burned all my sister's qu because I ended up staying there, the house that my parents, our family, had. I brought all my sister's quinceanera pictures. I just went on like a rampage. I ended up having a car chase from one county to the other, from far all the way almost to Bronzeville. I was going to Bronzeville. I ended up getting in La Feria before Harlingen. That's why I had a car crash. I flipped, I was going 80 miles an hour. I ended up in ICU with a punctured liver.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so after that, that's when I go to county and I end up getting prison time, Because in that so many crimes I picked up an aggravated robbery, those two aggravated assaults with a deadly weapon. We had robbed some people that were coming out of a dollar store and I didn't get the charge but I was still involved because I was the driver, but the guys took the blame and then I already had the. That was the first time I did TDC time and I ended up doing two and a half almost three years out of five years the TDC. They gave me two years for revoking the probation and then three years for that other charge, Right, yeah. And so I get out from there and that's where I tried doing things different and I didn't want to go back to my neighborhood where I was raised where.
Speaker 2:I would always do things.
Speaker 2:But that's when my sister she passed away already. It's been a year and two or three months In February it was a year and she had her son and her daughter that my mom was. I was helping my mom take care of and embrace, and she ends up getting locked up and her daughter and her son stay at the house my parents' house with nobody there, so I end up having to go there to go take them. This was in 2016, but I had gotten out of TDC and TDC it's hobby unit. I go back to hobby unit now and that's where I'm going. I went this month, in June, and now I'm going back in July, but for hobby unit is, yes, now I do prison ministry, yeah, but that prison is a maximum security prison.
Speaker 2:I saw girls get cut. I saw a lot of things that I mean it was crazy Girls getting cut, lesbians, and I even started relationships with women, and God started humbling me. There too, though, because it's also a lot of things that we go through there because there was no water at times, we were on lockdowns with no water, pooping in peanut butter jar cans and in potato chip bags, throwing them out the window. The cell, the whole dorm, was smelling ugly because we people were peeing in the toilets with no running water. The food was very ugly. So that's where I'm like.
Speaker 2:You know what, when I got out and I started getting a job trying to get getting a job Well, I take my niece and my nephew and I go live there with them. But in my mind I was so messed up because of the incarceration and I just couldn't get it together. I started drinking, I ended up calling CPS on myself to go get my nephew and my niece, and then later a friend of mine starts taking me to work with her and I get a job there with her. So I ended up trying to get on my feet. I did get an apartment, I got a car and then my sister gets out and I ended up getting connected with her again because I had tried getting away from her. So I ended up robbing a man and I pulled out a knife on him and he reported us and they're looking for us everywhere. So I end up running, I take off to Mexico because I'm like you know what, I'm not going back to TDC, because I didn't want to go back to the same living conditions and this, and that I end up going to Mexico. But I go and do the same thing Robbing people or sending people to rob people and I was the driver, like I was always the mastermind, I was telling people what to do and so that one time there was a one time that the guy that I told to go rob somebody they end up seeing us, the cartel, the people from the cartel saw us, and they end up reporting us to the main people and that's when I got kidnapped.
Speaker 2:We got kidnapped and that was like I believe it was like May 7th and I ended up getting let go of May the 10th, of Mexican's Mother's Day, and it was something that I experienced and it's you see that in the movies the cuernos de chivos, the guns, the guys with the vests and masks and all that stuff. It was just something that it was my choices, my way of thinking, that I wasn't like maybe not even thinking. It was just putting myself in a lot of situations that I could have really been killed. How did I make it? It was the grace of God over my life, because a lot of people would tell me, like, how did they let you go? A lot of people don't come back, they don't.
Speaker 1:God's hand on you. For sure, that was truly God's hand on you because he knew that there was something more for you, right? And a lot of times people ask why am I going through all of this? Like, why do we go through thing after thing after thing, kill, steal and destroy? Right, he's trying to kill us, he's trying to destroy us, he's trying to do whatever, because I see this, as you know all of the things that you were doing, he already knew that. God already had something prepared for you, and that's when the enemy is really, really out there. Now not giving the enemy the full credit or all credit, right?
Speaker 1:Because he's limited in his actions because we also have the. God gives us the freedom of choice, you know so at some point that was also. Maybe the setup was the enemy. You know, through your parents you know setting that up. But later now it becomes a choice you make because you know that what you're doing isn't what should be happening. Right, so that's why I? Said, we can't give the enemy the full credit the full credit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Because we have to take responsibility and we have to own up to all of this. And so now you've been kidnapped, You're going through all of these things. So when I mean, like where is it? Where you're, like what is going on, Like enough is enough and what is out there for me?
Speaker 2:And I'm like no, and still, that was 2017. And I still went back. I got out, I got a parole violation for I don't know, I don't remember. It's like maybe two months a month, I don't remember. I go back. Same thing back and forth. I got locked up.
Speaker 2:Anyways, I ended up getting locked up in state jail because I went into Walmart, got all these things. They saw me on the camera and I get picked up from a house. So I get state time. This time I did TDC. Now I'm doing state time, and when I get out from state time, they gave me like six months and it's here in Dayton, in Plain State. So when I get out, I end up staying here in Houston.
Speaker 2:And I got connected with somebody that I knew from Mexico, that I had a person that was in Mexico, a man, and I stayed with him and I started living with him. And then I end up getting connected to my mom's side of family in Humboldt. So I start working with them in the roofing and that guy that I was with and somehow I left the guy that I was with and somehow I left the guy that I was with, but I continued to work with my cousins and I had already gotten off all paper like probation and all that stuff. I was clear with everything. I end up wanting more money for my birthday and I end up going back to the Valley and I get locked up again on my way back trying to smuggle one illegal person, and so I had already accumulated so many criminal points federal. Now I'm facing federal charges and when I go to, when I go to court, they go based on your criminal history, like your criminal points. They call, call it so for having one person. They end up giving me 30 months. A lot of people get only 18 months or 10, 12 months. I end up getting 30 months.
Speaker 2:That was 2019, on my birthday, a little bit before my birthday, and I get out and I get halfway house January 27th of 2020. Well, I end up getting sent here to the FTC downtown Houston and I mean to the halfway house where I end up drinking. I had already started going to. It was the Seventh-day Adventist Church in federal prison, so seeking the Lord, and I still have my Bible to this day. I have that Bible that has stayed with me and I really was looking for something bigger. That's where I really wanted. Like I don't have nobody. I ain't got a mom, I ain't got a dad, I got to do something Like I can't got a mom, I ain't got a dad, I got to do something Like I, I can't continue this. But I ended up getting sucked back in in the halfway house and it was when COVID was about to start and I, yeah, and I ended up getting locked up like around April, march, april, and then I get out, november 2020, november 2020.
Speaker 2:And a week after I got out, I ended up going back to the Valley to visit my sisters and something happened where my sister tells me like something my other sister told her that I had done, and I'm like Corina, janie has a lying problem Like don't you think she had said and I'm going to speak about this because it's something that she was accusing me of sleeping with her husband, and I'm like, but back when my mom was alive, I'm like Corina, how would, if that would have happened, I would have something big would have happened in the family Like this would have been known. You would have known too. So I was very hurt and that time I drank wine and I would always say, okay, well, I'm not, I'm not drinking beer, now I'm just going to drink wine and I was smoking cigarettes and I'm like that, that was it, but something that bothered me so much that day and I was like Corina, like that's not true, and I started feeling all this type of way and I ended up leaving her house and I started walking. Some man picked me up and he tried having sex with me and I leave his house and I started walking. Some man picked me up and he tried having sex with me and I leave his house and I end up at the convenience store and I end up calling my cousin who had taken me over there. They were going to visit his girlfriend's family and I end up staying at the convenience store till they picked me up the next day and my sister called me and I'm like, just leave me alone. Like you know, this is it. And then my nieces and all they started doing a group chat. They're texting each other, they're cussing at each other and all these things.
Speaker 2:And my sister at that time she would send me like videos about prayers and stuff like that, but she's Catholic, but she would share all these videos with me and so I'll never forget it was a Spanish video and it was like how to have an encounter or how to talk to God. And when I got back to Humble, I remember putting that video on and I was all hung over the next day. But I put the video and I'm listening to the video and it's saying like giving you instructions put your headphones on, close your eyes. You're walking up the stairs and you, you find yourself as a little girl and tell yourself you're sorry, hug that little girl and and then from there it takes me to another stairs. I'm going up to heaven to talk to God. And then, when I'm doing this, I'm laying down in my bed and all I can feel was a yellow light over me and it was a warm light and I'm just tearing up, tearing, tearing, crying. And I'm just tearing up, tearing, tearing, I'm crying.
Speaker 2:And when I finished that video, I got up and I got on my knees. I got up from the bed, got on my knees and I prayed my heart out and I told God this is it, like I've done it my way. I don't have a mom, I don't have a dad. My family's a dysfunction. I'm tired of this life. This is it. It was like me telling I was telling him Jesus take the wheel. Yeah, like that was it. And that day I became a new woman. Like when I finished praying I got up from my knees and it was like a big burden had left Like a week. That week that I had been out and even my cousin was telling me, like like you got to calm down, like you're going to get a job. But I was always like I need to get a job, I need money, I don't have this, I don't have that. But after I got up from my knees that day, it was like I wasn't even worried. And it was like I wasn't even worried and it was like something took the veil off of us and I started realizing I was sitting at my blessing and I didn't even understand. I had a blessing and I was in that blessing.
Speaker 2:My cousin. At that time he was doing prison ministry, he had Bible studies, he was going to church. Across the street there was the women's home. I ended up getting into that women's home. My cousin, when I told him, he's like are you sure, prima, you're going to do that? I was like, yeah, I'm going to go in there and I'm going to start looking for the Lord. And he's like oh okay, all right, and then I ended up bringing my sister that passed away, but she tried, and then the Lord had me remove myself from there because I was trying to be God, and it was where I started learning how to listen to the Lord, and it was just something that I just continued, and I've been here since then.
Speaker 1:So what role has faith played in your healing and in rebuilding your life from the ground up? Because now you're basically that's what you're doing because you've had this whole other life and now you're rebuilding back because your foot is being set now on a strong foundation. Like, you have to lay out that foundation right and make it strong in order for you to continue up. And I always see I say that because I think of construction workers where they have to carve out the dirt, they roll it out, make it plain, whatever, and then they put down the foundation before they even start building the house. And then if the foundation isn't strong like if you see a lot of these homes and the foundation is kind of because you know the dirt moves and stuff with weather and then you see all these big cracks in the houses and that's because your house isn't firm. So, in saying all that, what role has faith played in your healing and how is that rebuilding looking like? Can I share?
Speaker 2:something, and the podcast is going to be the first place I share this and I'm going to share this because, yes, this is awesome. I don't know, I think I need to share this and I haven't shared this, but I don't know, maybe because at the times before my marriage wasn't what it is now. So I get out in November, I meet my husband in January, we get married in November, I meet my husband in January, we get married in June and come to find out I married a man that I met in church. My husband was still struggling with something that I didn't and it was too soon, it was too fast, where I wasn't even healed myself, right, and I'm already looking for a relationship or jumping into a relationship, and then it just led to marriage fast. So a week after we said yes, after we married, everything the Lord reveals to me he's still watching pornography, feels to me, he's still watching pornography, and so it was something that I had to really really face it and it was. I believe it was the encounter I had with the Lord that didn't allow me to go back to the old Roxanne, because there was times that I really wanted to, but it was God leading me to people, putting people in my path, teaching me things that I didn't even know.
Speaker 2:I feel like I was a baby Christian for a small time and I grew up really fast as a Christian Because I started learning about warfare. I started fighting for my marriage because I started learning about warfare. I started fighting for my marriage because I started learning about generational curses and when you divorce, all these things and I'm like I'm not giving the devil my marriage and Lord, whatever it is, I'm here. I've always been a fighter and now I'm facing the things that I got to face. I'm not running from this, so God has used that to even change me and my faith grew more the love for God that I received, that I got from him and the love that I have for him. There was no way that I was going to turn away or even to let go of God, because there was times that me going through things, when my husband was doing things that he wasn't supposed to. In my mind, the devil would bring, get drunk and beat him up, but I fought all those things and I would surrender it to God and I would continue to Fighting on your knees. Yes, going to God and giving it to God. So that's where I started growing in faith and into who he's called me to be and who I am to right now.
Speaker 2:Where I'm now, I learned what real love is. You know, it was something that I and people have told me. It's like you're you're baking a cake from scratch, and that's what it was. Yes, and, and thank God, god had answered my prayer and I believe all the scriptures where it says that he will hear the righteous, and every prayer that we pray in faith, that the woman, a woman, wins the husband by her character, and all those scriptures, because I've been living that and as God has changed me, it's where my husband, my marriage, everything, and God puts people in my path to share with me words in a laundromat, all these places. It's like it.
Speaker 2:It's just amazing and it was something where I believe, as I started struggling, but I would also see God moving, like even to a point where one time, this lady came to the park where I would go take my lunch break and she said God sent me here and that lady was the lady that taught me how to anoint my house and pray over my house, and that's where, and that was gone, all these things. So I started seeing that, like god, you're doing this, like he was putting everything after and I feel like it was it was me messing up, but it was him also saying now I'm gonna help you. And what is that? Scripture says in genesis 50 20, I believe it's 50 22, what you meant for evil, what the enemy meant for.
Speaker 1:God will make for good. Yeah, yes, wow. So you've gone from fighting, from surviving, to now thriving. So what are you doing now that you never thought would be possible back then, that you never thought would be possible back?
Speaker 2:then being the godly woman that I am and even to now, even being a mom to my stepson and my nephew, my sister's son that is autistic, 20 years old, and being a godly role model. And not just them, and even just the women I go minister to in prison, the people around here at home, my, my husband's family, my own family. They call me, pray for us or pray for me, or when we have like a video calls, they asked me to pray things that when I would have never imagined, when would I think that that would be possible, like, and it's just amazing how God starts using us and it's just he leaves you with your mouth open, like all the time, and so what would you say like, for instance, the women that you see in prison when you go to your prison, when you go to the prison and do prison ministry what would you say to the woman who, like you, were with them, who's listening right now.
Speaker 1:So you know cause we? We have all kinds of women who listen to this story and listen to you know what we have to say. But for the woman that's listening right now and feels like she's hopeless or stuck in shame or going through some things, what would be something you could say to her today?
Speaker 2:I would really say don't give up, even because when you can't forgive yourself, I live that and it makes me want to cry because it reminds me of even just seeing the women in prison where I see that and I tell you don't give up, forgive yourself, because at times, that's the biggest thing that we struggle with Because I did, I struggled, biggest thing that we struggle with because I did. I struggled, you know, because back in 2014, when I I knew it was something good, I knew it was God, but I didn't know it was Jesus. I couldn't forgive myself because I had lost that and that's why I believe that now is like I'm never losing this, what God has made me who I am, because I had felt this before, but I didn't know what it was. I felt it for a short time and that's why I could not forgive myself. And then the enemy comes and tells you oh, he's not going to forgive you. Oh, there you go, you want to change after all this time, or he starts planting things in your mind and that's lies, yes, yeah, and or people, people will start like back then, even my own family oh, look at Roxanne. Now she's got that bible under her armpit and I let all those things pull me back to the old person and that's why, this time, it's where I'm bold. I'm going to be straight with everybody.
Speaker 2:If I'm going to say the truth, I'm going to tell you what it is, not to hurt your feelings, but if it's biblical, if it's something I've learned that I know it's real, it's true. I'm going to speak about it Because, even when I share my testimony, that's why I share this, so whoever's listening, you can know that you're not alone. You're not the only one going through things to be ashamed of smoking, crack, sleeping around, whatever it is, because at times we feel that, oh, what are they going to think? Or I can't let nobody know, or I don't want nobody to know that about me. You can't think that way because you're giving the devil a hold for him to keep you in that mindset. Yes, and that's why I believe that it's something that Proverbs 28, when the righteous are bold as a lion, you going when you.
Speaker 2:Now. This is where I know that I'm righteous. I'm doing that and if I live those things, it's because I want others to know about that. And if I speak about it is not to glorify or give credit to the enemy, it's because that's what God has used in him. The Lord has told me that I'd allowed you to go through those things to make you the woman of God. You, you, you are that you're going to be, to use you, because he can use me with anybody, from a prostitute to a drug addict to a person that's a suicidal Anybody. I was a shoplift. They're robbing people, hurting people. So there's your mindset.
Speaker 2:At times you find stuck. You find yourself stuck because of what people tell you who you are. Or the shame the devil it could be anything, anybody or the shame the devil, it could be anything, anybody. But I just encourage you, woman, to forgive yourself, to open up and find help, reach out to somebody, because you're not the only one going through things. Even now, I mean, I go through things, but at least I'm not going through what I used to go through you know, because we're living.
Speaker 1:we're still living in this world, so we're still going to go through things.
Speaker 2:Go through things, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so, roxanne, the theme of this series is she's Bold, and what does being bold in faith and purpose mean to you today?
Speaker 2:What it means to me today is being bold in your faith.
Speaker 2:What does that mean? I believe it's what I'm doing Speaking up and having no shame of who I was, because my testimony is for somebody and me. Being bold is going to help so many women, so many lives to know that they're not alone and that my, my life is a testimony and hope for somebody that feels that he can't, he or she can't change, because that I used to think like that right, that I wasn't going to change or I wasn't going to be able to break from that cycle. So being bold and my faith in the Lord is what's helping me, knowing also that I've been forgiven, that my past sin is gone. I talk about it, but it's not to be glorified, it's not to glorify my past life, it's being yeah, yes, and it's to be used, yeah, yeah, because I always say this is not my story, this is his story for me to share.
Speaker 1:Right, because we, we go through the things that we've gone through in life for a reason and for a purpose, like there's always a reason and a purpose in it. And some people will say, well, why do I have to keep suffering? Why do I have to keep suffering? And I think of Job. Right that he suffered, he. You know the enemy was out to destroy him, right, but the one thing that God said was you can't kill my faithful servant.
Speaker 1:You can't kill him, but you can do whatever it is that you want to him and you'll see that he is, you know, he is faithful to me, faithful to me and the enemy was like you know, and so he does all of these things, and I think for us too, because what I realized is that we're all sinners, we're all going to fall short of God's glory, we're all going to make mistakes right, and there's things that we're going to do that are going to be harsh, and it comes with consequences.
Speaker 1:And it reminds me of something that the pastor said today, and he says that condemnation will have us feel ashamed, will have us feel stuck in that mindset of I'm not worthy, feel stuck in that mindset of I'm not worthy, whereas a conviction right, that's of God. Conviction is of God. Because, why? Because God is allowing us to feel what was wrong in order for us to recognize it, you know, and work through it. And God's like I'm right here, I'm not here to judge you. I'm not here, I'm here to love you and I'm here to walk alongside you. I'm not here to you know, to tell you that, point the finger at you and say that you're doing wrong. No, because I'm allowing for this door to be opened in order for you to walk through and come meet me. I'm right here, right.
Speaker 1:Whereas the condemnation is like it says, you know, it's there to accuse us, it's there to judge us, it's there to lock the door and lock us up. Like you said, it traps you. It traps you like in the prison cell. You can't go anywhere. You're stuck right there, right, and so there's like no way out, but with conviction, that's that's out of love, it's like saying you know what? I made this mistake, I did wrong. But Lord, here I am, help me, help me, see, help, see me through this situation. I don't want to be that person, so help me through it. And then, what is it? What happens? We learn the lessons from it, and then, from those lessons that we learn, causes growth.
Speaker 1:And when we grow, we get to share that growth with other people who are going through something similar Right.
Speaker 1:So, it's, it's, it's your story is is just amazing. So the next thing is, I'm just going to throw this out there, but now you're going to have to write a book, because your book is going to be inspiring. Your book is going to be something that, quite frankly, I see a movie could be written about your life life about the first. You know, if I'm not the first person that just goes to show you that God is depositing that seed, you know because I remember people telling me oh, you should write a book, you should write a book. And I was telling somebody that it was my high school English teacher that told me Marina, you're one day you're going to write a book. And I was like, oh, you know, like, I love to write all the a book.
Speaker 1:And I was like, oh, you know, like I love to write all the time, and then I was like but God allowed me to go through something right to where, years later, here I did. You know, I wrote a book, and now I'm writing my second one. You know that's going to be coming out in April of next year, and so I'm just going to encourage you, roxanne, for you to really think about that, and if you need help with that, just let me know and I'll help you.
Speaker 2:I will, because that's something that, like I said, you're not the first, not the second, and I don't even think it's the third. It's been. A lot of people have told me that and that's something that I believe it's the Lord tugging me. I need to do that and I want to go back a little bit and say something really quick. Also, being honest with yourself, with the woman, whoever you're struggling with, is something that it's very important. To be honest, even if you start and if you fail, it's okay. You're going to make mistakes and it's just being honest with others or find finding somebody that to keep you accountable.
Speaker 2:But I believe it's mostly with ourselves, because even like when, after I got out, they had me on medications and all these things that I would put myself in, like when I was locked up asking for all these pills and all these things, and before, when I would get out, I would over-medicate myself or even take medication that I didn't even eat. But I started learning. If I continue in that mindset, if I am not honest with myself, do I really need this? So it starts with little things like that and I believe it's in the word of God. They call it the little foxes, things that we compromise with, and if you're not honest about those little things, what you struggle with, what really you don't need, like things like that. It's very important to be honest with ourselves, to be able to change and let go of the old patterns, the old habits, and yeah yeah, well, roxanne, I just want to say thank you so much.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for taking the time to um come on the show with me and to share your, your story. Like, like I said, I really truly believe that your story would be a great book to have to share, and I also I don't know, god just put this in my heart, but I think it's a I just feel like when you do write this book, it is a book that you're going to be able to share and it will be there for the women that are in prison, like you're going to go and deliver these books for those women.
Speaker 2:So that they can see your story.
Speaker 1:I don't know why, but that that just came into me. So I just really feel like this book is going to you.
Speaker 1:know, when you do write, look, I'm already calling it, it's this book, that's going to come out, you know, so I already see this book being written and it's going to go into the prisons, you know, not just here in Texas, but it's going to go into the prisons because you're going to, you're going to share this story and you're going to bring women to God, especially those you can't reach because they're in isolation or they're on lockdown or whatever, or maybe they're just separated from others.
Speaker 1:But this is a book that they're going to be able to read while they're on lockdown or whatever, or maybe they're just separated from others, but this is a book that they're going to be able to read while they're alone and they're going to receive the Lord through your words, through those pages, you're going to bring them a comfort to them, and you're going to bring them life again. You're going to bring them these things. So I really do, I feel it, I believe it, I think that this is going to be something tremendous, huge. You know, and and I, I can, just I'm, I'm receiving it for you and I believe in it. So I want to say you're making me cry.
Speaker 1:That's okay, cause I'll cry too, but I just want you to know that because I do believe. You know God redeems us all right.
Speaker 1:He redeems each and every one of us and we we need to receive that and acknowledge it and not be afraid.
Speaker 1:So, whatever it is right now that's stopping you or that's holding you back, you know God's going to provide you open spaces in order to carve out some time in your life, and he's going to just sit you down and he's going to say I need you to write. It doesn't need to be perfect, I just need you to start writing and I will do the rest. You sit there, just like he did with those who wrote the Bible. Right, it was inspired by God and this is the story that's going to be inspired by God, that he's going to give you the words that you need in order to share your story on a different level. So I'm just saying you are an awesome, wonderful woman of God and it has been my pleasure to have you here on the Mommy, on a Mission podcast, and so, with that being said, because we're running out of time now, but I just want to say thank you again. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1:Thank you for having me. For those of you that are listening, if you are inspired by the story, I don't know. And for those of you that are listening, if you are inspired by the story, I don't know, depending on how much time was that we recorded it may be a two part series, but we'll see.
Speaker 1:But I just want to encourage you that if you're listening and you feel like someone can benefit from this episode, that it inspired you and you know of someone who could really that it inspired you and you know of someone who could really really hear this story, I encourage you to share this episode with them. Subscribe to the Mommy on a Mission podcast. Like us on social media platforms we're on Instagram and Facebook but please share this story. And, roxanne, if somebody wanted to reach out to you and get ahold of you, how could they do that?
Speaker 2:They can reach out on Facebook, search me up like Roxanne Calara, and then, on a parenthesis, I have Calaro, which is my maiden name and I'll put that in the show notes.
Speaker 1:It'll be in the show notes so they can click the link and it'll take them directly to your page and you also have a business yes, I do.
Speaker 2:God has blessed me with blessed hands creations and it's t-shirts, tumblers, keychains. I started putting in candles and it's. It's a blessing and it's not my business, it's his. That's right. Because I do it, yes, yes, because I do it, yes, yes, because I do it, and I lowered my prices a lot. I help a lot of the youth ministries for their youth camp or t-shirts or for their events. But, yes, and that's also. I have a Facebook page and it's called Bless Hands. Creation by Roxanne Lara.
Speaker 1:Okay, and I'll go ahead and put that in the show notes too. So y'all, I've seen some of her work. She was a vendor at one of the conferences I went to and she's got some amazing, amazing, amazing things. So y'all, look out for Roxanne's book when it comes out, because I believe it is.
Speaker 1:And I just want to say once again, thank you, and until next week we'll see you on the Mommy on a Mission podcast. Thank you for tuning in to the Mommy on a Mission podcast. If you found today's episode inspiring, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review and share it with your amigas. And, before you go, if you're looking to dive deeper into healing, self-discovery and walking in confidence, be sure to grab a copy of my book Mommy on a Mission A guide towards healing, self-discovery and walking in confidence, available now on Amazon. Stay connected with me on social media. Follow us on Instagram at Mommy on a Mission Podcast, and on Facebook at Mommy on a Mission Podcast, and on Facebook at Mommy on a Mission. If you're considering working with a coach, but aren't sure if you're ready, send me a DM and I will send you a free gift to help you get started on your journey. Until next Saturday, keep shining and remember the tower is within you. Adios, amigas.
