Choosing His Kids Over His Drugs: James Sanders Story (Part 1)

James started down a dark path at a young age, but when Christmas of 1987 came around God gave him a serious wake up call.  James woke to find his kids running into the living room where the Christmas tree was only to realize that there were no presents for them under the tree because their dad had spent all his money on drugs instead.  This shocked James into the realization that drugs had overtaken his life, and he got clean for good.  But as James cleaned up his life from drugs there was another, deeper darkness that began to take up residence in his heart and life instead of drugs, and that darkness led James down a path that ended up with a longer than life sentence in prison, a hopeless end for the rest of his life...unless God stepped in.

Transcript

Phil Shuler: 0:00

HellO, and welcome to Renew, Restore, Rejoice, the Safe House Ministries podcast, where we share stories of the power of God to change lives through Safe House Ministries. Safe House Ministries is based out of Columbus, Georgia, and we are a ministry that exists to love and serve people who have been affected by addiction, homelessness, and incarceration. I'm your host, Phil Shuler, the Director of Development for Safe House Ministries here in Columbus, Georgia. Safe House serves over 1, 100 people each month as they transition back into our community. Safe House provides an abundance of services including 213 beds for homeless individuals and families, case management for obtaining job skills and long term employment. Over 300 hot meals every day, free clothing, and so much more. One of the most incredible services that Safe House provides is our free 9 12 month intensive outpatient substance abuse program, which is state licensed, CARF accredited, and has no wait list. Almost 100 percent of individuals staying in our shelters who follow our three phase program become fully employed within a few months. And 68 percent of individuals who stay at least one night with us End up finding work and moving into their own home. Thank you for being with us today and listening to our podcast. We hope you enjoy this week's episode.

1:12

welcome to today's podcast episode. I have got someone very special with me today. James Sanders and one of my friends who I work with, Mike Krug was hesitant at first to give me James's number because he said, James. Knows too many stories about me that he could tell. And I said, that is absolutely the best reason that we need to get him on the podcast. So I'm glad you're here, James. Um, It's a great day. The day that the Lord has made. And I just I, it brings me joy to see you sitting here and the smile on your face. And I know God's got great things for today.

James: 1:50

Absolutely.

1:50

James. Quick question to kick off. If you had to pick one word that might best describe you, what would that word be? Amen. That is a good word. And what do you mean when you say that?

James: 2:05

Due to the fact of what I've been through, where I've been there's no other answer

Phil: 2:11

yeah.

James: 2:11

I wake up every day. There's no answer.

2:13

Amen. God is good. Yeah,

James: 2:16

absolutely.

2:17

That's awesome. Blessed that

James: 2:19

people ask me, they say how are you? I said, bless me on all measure.

2:22

It's true. It's true. Sometimes we don't receive that in our hearts, but that is the reality. Know

James: 2:29

it.

2:29

Yeah.

James: 2:30

Know it. Know that you are.

2:31

Amen. Awesome. We'll wait for the Mike stories till later, but for now why don't you just share where you grew up and how you grew up and what your early home life was like?

James: 2:43

I'm actually from Northwest Georgia. I was born and raised in the Appalachian Mountains. Wow. In Bartow County, yeah. That's awesome. We actually had outhouses when I was growing up. Wow. Grew up, really poor. Yeah. Really poor. Strict household, very strict. Everybody had chores. You had things you had to do. Certain things had to be done before this time. And then this had to be done before that time. That's just

3:08

Yeah. Was it a farm or yeah? Pretty much. Wow. Pretty much. Okay. How'd you like that? Or did you not like that?

James: 3:16

I look back on it now and I miss it, to be honest with you, the simplicity of life back then. Yeah. There was not like it is today. It's just, there's really no comparison today. Everybody's so self centered, self, so worried about their self,

3:29

yeah.

James: 3:30

Back then, everybody cared about everybody and everybody looked out for everybody.

3:34

That's fascinating. And it's interesting that you say that because. The other difference that I see that maybe is related is just the busyness of our life. Like we're filling our lives with so much stuff and it doesn't give us the bandwidth to really still care about people like we should. Because we're too busy. I don't need to think about that. I'm too busy with all this stuff that, most of the time really doesn't matter.

James: 3:59

You could actually pass your cousin on the street and never even know it. Wow. You ain't been to a family reunion, you ain't been to a family gathering in so many years. We've

Phil: 4:08

lost a

4:08

lot. We really have lost a lot.

James: 4:10

We've lost it all.

4:11

I wonder sometimes, in the name of progress and all the busyness and economic growth and all the push for better things, are we really, do we really have a better life than people used to have hundreds of years ago or thousands of years ago, when life was simpler?

James: 4:27

My opinion though. Yeah,

4:29

I think you're, I think you're right in the end. We live and die and we either go to heaven or hell. Eternity is what really matters.

James: 4:35

Back then we had unity, we had family, we had everything. It's like they say now, most people don't even know who they're second cousins are. Most people don't even know who their great uncles are. It's, and that's sad. Yeah, that's really sad. We've lost

4:50

a lot of our heritage. Exactly. Yeah. Wow. So growing up on the farm with the outhouse and the mountains tell us, talk to us as you grew up, came into teenage years. Were you a good kid? Were you, did you always buck against your parents or?

James: 5:03

I actually 15 because the, One thing was, we were poor, and they require you to dress out for P. E. when I was going to school.

mixed: 5:14

Yeah.

James: 5:14

My daddy would tell them, if you supply me with the shorts and the tops and all you want him to wear, I'll see that he wears them. But, I'm not gonna allow him to cut off a pair of his pants to make a pair of shorts to wear to P. E., as you call dress out. Oh, no, we can't do that. You've got to provide all that, it was all we could do to provide food to eat. And I I guess I, you would say started bucking against the system

Phil: 5:46

at school

James: 5:47

at a really young age and was catching so much flack and I was picked on a lot because we were poor, I was bullied. Is that because

5:55

of maybe the way you looked and dressed or? Exactly. Yeah.

James: 5:58

Exactly why. Because you wear hand me down clothes, you wear hand me down shoes, and they was wore out by the time you got them, but I wound up getting in a lot of trouble, and I turned 15 years old, and they was like, don't even worry about coming back to school. Wow.

6:15

Wow. So what grade were you in at that point?

James: 6:18

I had failed the 7th grade three times and 8th grade twice.

6:22

Wow. Wow. So you were still at the 8th grade level there. Wow. Okay. What would you do from there?

James: 6:29

Pretty much Mom and Dad got a divorce on their 20th wedding anniversary.

6:32

Is that right around the same time? Or was that a couple years later?

James: 6:35

It was before then. I had just turned 11, I think, when Mom and Dad got a divorce. It was Me, my daddy, and my little brother. Daddy had got custody of me and my little brother. After him, my mama got a divorce, and he was a single parent. That's another reason I fell by the wayside, as you would say. But they just finally told daddy, he ain't got to come back. Wow.

6:59

Okay. What was next? That's a big hit.

James: 7:03

Honestly, shortly after that, I left home. And got with my two oldest kids, his mother. My oldest daughter was born one month after I turned 17 years old. Wow. And I had got in with her dad doing HVAC work.

7:18

So you were living with them?

James: 7:19

Pretty much. We had moved to Tennessee with her dad and her mom and all of them. They moved to Tennessee and me and her went up there and was living with them. And that didn't last very long. I was back in Georgia and I started smoking marijuana at a very young age and that just led to other stuff. The harder stuff. I wind up.

7:39

Around 17, just starting, yeah.

James: 7:42

I fell off really hard.

7:45

Oh man, like you just, all kinds of stuff?

James: 7:48

I've actually done every drug known to man except heroin. Wow. Every one of them. Abused it. So those were your later teenage years, 17, And, I wouldn't work for nothing but drug money. That's basically all I did.

8:06

So selling or just doing whatever kind of things that they needed to be done?

James: 8:10

Whatever I could do. It's basically the life of a drug addict. Wow. Wow.

8:16

How many years did that go on?

James: 8:18

All the way up until 1987. Christmas morning and night. Wait,

8:21

wow, so you so from 17 till how old were you? When you that

James: 8:25

I'll do the math. I was born in 65. 1987, how old would that be? 22 maybe? I was around 22

8:30

or 23. So if you were born in 65, yeah, okay. So from Starting in 16, 17, just going up through there. So where were you were just living wherever with your drug buddies or?

James: 8:42

Basically,

8:42

yeah. A lot of criminal activity during those days? A

James: 8:46

lot, lots of criminal activity. Wow. But my tool less kid's mother, she come back to Georgia after she found out she was pregnant with Harold's daughter.

8:54

And this is the girl, not the girl that was in Tennessee or yes, this is the girl that was in Tennessee.

James: 8:59

Okay. Tennessee. She moved back to Georgia. She was up there with her parents. She moved back to Georgia and she would work and she was supporting us and I was spending what money, our bill money, everything on drugs. I was, it was really bad. It was really sad. I look back on it now and wow, it's.

9:17

So you had little kids, she was trying to keep things afloat.

James: 9:21

Exactly. Exactly. Trying her best. Working herself to the bone to try to provide for her daughter coming up, which like I said, was born one month after I turned 17.

9:32

Wow. What were some of the darkest, craziest things that happened during that time?

James: 9:38

I When I would be without drugs, at one point in time, I destroyed everything we owned. Wow. If it was breakable, I destroyed it.

9:47

Just just in a rage? Cause you were mad and upset? Exactly.

James: 9:51

Exactly.

9:52

Like a withdrawal kind of time? Just trying to find

James: 9:55

Exactly. I'm just lashing out. Wow. Lashing out due to the fact that I had failed at everything.

10:02

Was she in the midst of drugs on her own as well, or was she? No,

James: 10:05

This girl was a saint. Wow. A saint. Wow. I almost destroyed a saint. Oh. I was mean to her physically, mentally, emotionally. Abuse it physically, mentally, emotionally.

10:18

She stayed with you And she

James: 10:19

tried. She really tried. She really tried.

10:22

What, when did she have enough? Was there a point when she just had enough? And what happened with that?

James: 10:28

After a while, she had an affair with my brother because I would leave Friday afternoon, when I did go to work, in that little span of time, I would leave on Friday and wouldn't come back till Sunday evening sometimes. I would spend all the money I had that I had made for nothing. And in that process, I blame it on myself, the simple fact of what happened between her and my brother because if I'd have been there, none of that would have ever happened. Never happened. But um, the the good and the bright side of it is, I had her, me and her split up, and I would get my kids through the summertime and she would get them through the wintertime, but Christmas morning in 1987, I woke up and I had to look at my kids because I had spent their Christmas money on that one. On drugs. Wow and Christmas morning 1987, I never touched him again.

11:19

Wow. That was the, That was the time that like, I like to, I like to think of it as like the prodigal son moment, like where the Bible talks about he's sitting there in a pig trough eating out of the slop. Exactly. And all of a sudden, I think the way it says it is, he finally came to himself. Exactly. He's what am I doing? You had that,

James: 11:36

wait a minute, what's up mama? What am I doing? Wow. How old were your kids that morning? Oh, that's hard to say. I can't exactly remember to be honest with you. They're young though, and you were maybe around

11:48

22, 23. 22,

James: 11:49

23, somewhere

11:50

in there. And so that was your wake up call.

James: 11:52

Exactly. And I told my kids, I said I didn't have nothing to give nobody for Christmas. So I told my kids, I give you your daddy back for Christmas. Wow.

12:02

Were they old enough? Did that mean much to them or were they so young they didn't?

James: 12:06

Now it does because they think back on it. And I told my daddy, I said, I give you your son back. Wow. And sisters, I said, I give you your brother back.

12:16

Wow. That's powerful, man. So was it all great and uphill from there or I'm imagining maybe it wasn't or was it?

James: 12:24

Pretty much. I mean everything for a while was good. Me and her wound up, we never got back together. I apologized to her. Acknowledged the damage that I had done. To, not only to her, but to my family, to my kids. Yeah. That's something you gotta do. You've got to admit.

Phil: 12:43

You've

James: 12:43

got to confess that you know, because you can't repent, you've got to repent on everything. Not just to God, but to people here on earth, you've got to be remorseful for it. You've got to repent even to the flesh and blood man. You've got to be sorry for it

mixed: 12:59

and

James: 12:59

you can't go back and do it again. If you truly repent, you're not going to repeat yourself. So

13:04

Were you a Christian at that point, or like when did you come to know Christ? Was that later in your life? I knew there was

James: 13:10

God in heaven and fire in hell.

13:12

Okay. But you hadn't had a personal relationship with Jesus at that point, okay.

James: 13:16

No. He ain't showed me His power and His might. He had, but I hadn't had it. You didn't

13:21

see it. Exactly. Okay. He

James: 13:23

had showed me because He said, I take you back. Yeah.

13:27

Okay. Okay. Okay. Things are going pretty well. So what did you start, what did you do as you started to try to put your life back together?

James: 13:33

Like I said, I tried to make amends for the wrong that I had done, the people I had hurt then. And we always backslide, we always do it. But believe it or not, never was with drugs. Never was with drugs, but with the old me coming back, I People used to call me Jim. I don't let nobody call me Jim no more.

13:51

Because that reminds you of the old

James: 13:52

That's the old, that's the old person. That person don't exist no more. Not no more. I can't let that Jim back out. Amen. But everything got good. I started working full time, trying to get my life together, trying to get my act together. And, I was a womanizer. Ah,

14:10

so you were the, it wasn't the drugs, but it was. The behavior with women, the darkness of immorality in that way.

James: 14:18

Exactly. You may think you're doing good and you give up one thing, but you've got to be real careful not to replace it with something else.

14:24

Yeah. That reminds me of when Jesus taught the lesson of the one who had demons, one demon inside him, and they cast out the demon by what Jesus talks about, sweeping it out, keeping it clean. And then. Because there was nothing else good that came in seven more demons came in and just

James: 14:42

it will

14:43

that's a truth That's a truth man. That's that you That emptiness something will fill it.

James: 14:48

You ain't careful. Yeah, you don't keep your eye on the prize So what

14:53

started happening? What was that? Like what?

James: 14:55

Like I said, I started womanizing was I Got with my what I'm gonna call my second significant other and She was on drugs and what I feel like was the good point in that is I got her off the drugs. I told her, you got to quit that. You got to stop that. You can't, I can't be that. I can't go back to that. I'm, I done beat that battle. Now I'm trying to beat this other battle. But me and her wind up splitting up. It didn't last long between me and her. Then I started seeing my second daughter's mother. And, uh, the old Jim started coming back out. I started verbally abusing, emotionally abuse. Me and her had a daughter together, which is my youngest daughter. She turns uh, 32, May the 10th, I think 32, I'm not sure. Wow. She was born in 93, but the same cycle started to try to repeat itself.

mixed: 15:53

Yeah.

15:54

Yeah. Yeah. The root problem, not the drugs, but the root problems that were in your heart were still there.

James: 15:59

Exactly. I didn't cleanse my soul. I should have cleansed everything out, but I didn't, you got to be real careful with the devil. You got to be real careful because he will trick you. He talked angels out of heaven. So don't think he ain't got power.

16:15

Yeah. He's an angel of light. He's a deceiver and a crafty. Yeah.

James: 16:21

That

16:21

he is,

James: 16:22

but I had got with my youngest daughter's mother and I was making very good money because me and my brother had went into business together and we was building houses and I was making good money. I had went in from work and she drank and she smoked marijuana, but I didn't, to me that wasn't that bad. At least it's not a chemical drug, at least they're not. Puttin it in the needle and puttin it in your arm.

mixed: 16:45

Yeah.

James: 16:45

But that's what I was doin back when I was doin drugs. But I went in from work one day, and our youngest daughter, which was Jamie, three years old at the time, was gone. I went through the house. She's nowhere to be found. About 45 minutes or an hour later, I found her at the neighbor's house. And I asked the neighbor, How long has she been there? And they said she's been there about an hour. Her mother never had a clue she had ever left the house. Me and her had a situation about that. And that kind of blew over. And not, two weeks later, I went in to work. Went, got home from work again. Same thing. My daughter is nowhere in the house neighbor called me over, he said She's been here about 45 minutes. Said ain't nobody look for her, ain't nothing. I went to the house and I told My youngest daughter's mother, I said she had two kids, I said, I may not can do nothing about those two.

17:34

She was little at the time?

James: 17:35

She was three. Okay.

17:36

My youngest daughter was three. Wow.

James: 17:39

Excuse me. I said, I may not can do nothing about them two, but, it's over between me and you. And I'm gonna fight you tooth and nail for that one right there because you know what you've done, you ain't paying no attention to her, you're letting that weed and that beer and all that. Take precedence over you watching out for your kids. She wouldn't clean the house. She wouldn't cook. She wouldn't do nothing. But um Wednesday after that, my life ended as I knew it. Oh, wow long story short, April 2nd, they arrested me for a sex offense.

18:09

Something that was from back

James: 18:11

No, something that she alleged happened. Between me and her. Okay. And, when I went to trial, I wound up getting a hundred and forty years. Wow. That's what the judge sentenced me to serve. A hundred and forty years. Wow. To serve.

18:28

And that is the end of part one of James's story. And in this story, there are so many lessons to learn it's amazing the wake up call that God gave him that morning. He said, I think it was 1987 when he got up to be with his kids on Christmas morning and. They didn't have any presence because he had spent all the money on drugs. How great that that shook him to the core so that he dumped the habit of drugs and he got clean from his addiction. unfortunately that didn't solve all his problems because there was still A root of darkness and sin in his heart that led to so many other issues, which is how he ended up in prison. And next week, on the second part of this story, you'll hear just how life changing that, 22 years of prison was for James. And you'll hear the miracle of what God did to somehow. Allow James to not have to serve the 140 years that he was sentenced. It's an amazing story and you're gonna love the next part, but I encourage you to take some time to, to think back on and reflect on some of the things that James said, the ideas and the lessons, and just the truths that are so evident in his story. Thanks for listening with us, and we look forward to being back with you again next week. God bless you.

Phil Shuler: 20:01

We look forward to being with you again next week as we share another testimony about the power and the goodness of God to change lives through Safe House Ministries. if you are someone listening to this podcast that loves to hear these stories of the great things that God is doing in changing people's lives for the better, and if you would like to be a part of that work, please reach out to us You can reach us at 2101 Hamilton Road, Columbus, Georgia, 31,904. You can call us at seven oh six three two two. 3 7, 7 3, or you can email us at info@safehouse-ministries.com.

Microphone (Samson Q2U Microphone)-2: 20:39

Thank you so much for being with us this week for the renew restore and rejoice podcast of safe house ministries, we pray that God will bless you this week. And we look forward to having you back with us again next week for a new episode.