Finding God in the Savage Lands

I was a thirteen-year-old alcoholic who drank myself into oblivion. After multiple rounds of alcohol poisoning, sexual assault, and close calls with being beaten to death with a crowbar and trafficked at the Mexico border, my reckless, rebellious lifestyle came to an excruciating end at the age of nineteen.

God went easy on me in the beginning: He let me go to juvenile after a high-speed police chase instead of letting me die in the crash—I didn’t learn anything. He saved me from the poisoning, the crowbar, and the truck driver who’d intended to sell me in Mexico—I didn’t learn anything, then, either. He even gave me a baby boy, which straightened me out a lot, but I still drank. When all of that didn’t work, He allowed me to go through the worst pain I’d ever felt in my life. I ended up in a hospital for four days with pancreatitis, where the doctor warned me that if I ever drank again, it’d probably kill me.

I did stop drinking, cold turkey, but it took so much more than it should have to wake me up from that madness.

But I still lived for the world and not for God, the One Who saved me from myself.

I smoked my first cigarette at age eleven and didn’t stop until my lung collapsed at thirty. Five days in a hospital bed with a tube hanging from my chest that made an awful sucking noise finally woke me from the self-abuse, and I never smoked again.

But I still lived for the world and not for God, the One Who saved me from myself.

After half a lifetime of rebellion and poverty, God blessed me with a bestselling book and more money than I knew what to do with in 2012. This may not seem in the same category as alcoholism, lung collapses, and brushes with death, but I assure you, in its own twisted way, it is.

For the next eleven years, I slowly lost the close bond I once had with my young children, letting the world raise, guide, and comfort them in my place. I forgot how to be frugal and grew wasteful. I forgot the woman I had been raised to be, one who had little yet thrived in poverty, because she knew no other way. Money changed me. It manipulated me, drained me, and opened yet another door for others to use and take advantage of me.

As the money dwindled, I still lived for the world, and not for God, the One Who provided for me in ways I never could have imagined. My life may have changed financially, and I no longer lived the rebellious life, but I wasn’t living a life worthy of Christ; that was for sure.

He had given me so much, blessed me abundantly, answered prayer after prayer, and saved me from death so many times that I get a knot in my stomach every time I think about it.

But I was ungrateful.

I was a miserable, discontented woman who had more than I ever needed, but could not be satisfied.

I had my own home, but I was unhappy.

I lived within walking distance of my favorite park, but it wasn’t enough.

I had my dream car, but I needed something better.

I was financially secure and didn’t need to work, but I was bored and unappreciative of my freedom.

I had my mom, my children, family gatherings, good conversation, and love, but still, something was missing.

I had dependable electricity, potable drinking water, and gas lines in my house, but I took them for granted.

I could experience four seasons a year, but even that, I somehow overlooked.

And so, I left everyone and everything behind and moved to Mexico in 2021.

It was the worst experience of my life, but the best terrible decision I’ve ever made.

I found God in Mexico, much in the same way many people find God in prison. When they didn’t appreciate the life they had, took it for granted, and even hated it at times. When they were given so many chances, but rejected every single one. When they were forced into a place they cannot leave, even long after they’ve realized the error of their ways, long after they’ve repented and are forced to watch the rest of their lives pass them by while they remain behind bars.

I found God in Mexico, much in the same way it took a lung collapse to quit smoking, pancreatitis to quit drinking, and money to make me understand what it could never buy. God gave me so many opportunities to love my life and to find Him in it—He even made my dream come true—but I couldn’t let go of the world and its darkness.

So, since I wouldn’t learn my lesson the easy way, God forced me to learn it the hard way, again, this time in Mexico, far away from home, where I was safe, comfortable, and lived in luxury even when I was in poverty.

I missed everyone and everything I’ve ever loved and who loved me, every scenic route laid out before me like poetry; every blade of grass and flower petal, every winding country road, river rock, and pebble.

I missed my family and those who aren’t but might as well be, and every stranger who had ever been kind to me.

I missed home.

It took two years deep in a jungle in Mexico, where the electricity was out more than it was on, and where a brutal summer heat burns three hundred sixty-five days a year, for me to find Jesus.

It took two years of pain, misery, and dangerous situations that I cannot talk about here, for me to find Jesus.

It took living five hours from the nearest suitable hospital and multiple medical emergencies, including head trauma and an appendectomy, for me to find Jesus.

It took being imprisoned between the four walls of a one-room studio, unable to go anywhere alone or speak to anyone in a language I understood, for me to find Jesus.

And even after I did finally give my life fully to Christ in 2023, He would make me live there two more years before He let me come home to the United States.

Two more years of misery.

Two more years of danger.

Two more years of isolation, solitude, and loneliness.

Two more years of losing loved ones.

Two more years of missing my family.

Two more years of suffering.

Two more years of letting the lessons sink in!

Praying!

Crying out to God!

And then finally, in June of 2025, God opened the door for me, and I ran through it—I didn’t even stop for my shoes.

More often than not, I believe, it takes us walking through 1The Savage Lands for us to ever find God.

We go our whole lives ignoring Him, standing right there in front of us, pointing in the direction He wants us to go, but we never see Him.

We go our whole lives rejecting Him, when all He wants to do is love us.

We suffer needlessly because we refuse to listen to Him.

We are tormented by pain and injustice that never had to be, because we choose to go our own way rather than follow His Way.

We abuse and destroy ourselves because we reject His Word and make up our own rules.

We are rebellious, oblivious, and defiant teenagers who think our lives are our own and that we know everything.

2We know absolutely nothing.

So, I would just like to say that finally, after 50 years, I’m grateful to God for all He has done for me; for all He has provided. I’m grateful that He protected me my whole life, even rejecting my plea when once I pulled an Elijah (1 Kings 19:1-5) and asked Him for the unthinkable.

Back in 2021, when I was preparing to go to Mexico, it became an unmistakable sign from God that He wanted me to go there. The extraordinary circumstances surrounding it left me wordless and breathless. I thought I had some ideas about why, but as the years went by, nothing came to fruition, and life became unbearably worse. I knew then I had been wrong. Not about going to Mexico, but about the reason why God sent me there.

He sent me there to teach me another lesson the hard way.

He sent me there to find Him, once and for all.

And only then would He, once again, create an unbelievable scenario that still has my jaw on the floor, so that I would take the door He opened for me and go home.

Now, I live only for my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Now, for the first time in my life, I have clarity; I know who I am. I am a strong woman instead of a desperate one searching for love in people who will never provide what only He can. I am an obedient woman who refuses to make decisions without His approval and guidance; whose decisions are 100% in His hands—no matter how badly I might want something for myself.

I feel confident and loved. And I am forever grateful for all of the suffering I’ve endured in my life so far, because were it not for suffering, I’d still be that confused, broken, defiant, desperate woman living only for the world.

Share

One-Time Donation

The text in this article is copyright © 2025 Jessica Redmerski.