Megans Testimony
This is the testimony of my wife and how God saved her.....
Jeremiah 33:3 says," Call to me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know." Almost five years ago this scripture became real in my life. My name is Megan Hanges, I am 25 years old. I grew up in a really good home, I had great parents. They treated me right, they obeyed the laws. We were a regular middle class family in Lubbock, Texas. I was an only child until my cousins moved in with us. They became like my brother and sister. My uncle moved in with us as well and for a long time he was an alcoholic, he would bar hop, gamble and come home drunk. I don’t remember this but I was told by family that I learned to sneak in my uncle’s room at night after he was passed out drunk and steal money from his dresser for my mom. Praise God he eventually went to rehab. We were always busy playing sports on the weekends and weeknights. It was rare that we had a night off during softball and baseball season. I remember I had to grow up fast; the adults at home had to work, so that left me as the oldest at home to take care of the other two, cook, clean, do laundry etc. All in all I had a good childhood. My uncle and my cousins eventually moved out and then I was an only child again. I was mostly a straight A student through school. High school came around and I began to drink occasionally (it was okay to me because my parents drank and let me drink) and started smoking cigarettes. All of this while still on the softball team. I got a brand new car before I turned 16. Two weeks after my birthday I totaled that car and my grandfather bought me an even newer car. My mom got sick shortly after I started high school and was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. I don’t know all the details about her illness but I know it was bad and began to attach her internal organs. My mom began to receive a large check every month from the government or insurance or something. She designated part of this money every month to me for whatever I needed or wanted. (It was like an allowance.) At first I did well, then I began to use the money for beer or alcohol and I would go out and party with my friends. I would get phone calls from my dad that my mom had been rushed to the ER. This happened many times. After these ER visits started I began to drink heavy. I wouldn’t go out just to have a good time anymore, I would drink to get drunk and pass out. I was trying to cover up the hurt inside. One of my friends would never go party with us, she was on the softball team and so I started hanging with her thinking I would try to stop drinking so much. Little did I know that even though she didn’t “party” my way, this was a bad idea. Her boyfriend, Branden slowly began to introduce me to pain medications that he had gotten on the street somewhere, I liked it. So when we ran out of that I began to steal my mom’s medication, making sure to never steal enough to get caught. After I was in love with the idea of taking pain medications and other prescription medications Brandon introduced me to Cocaine. I remember learning how to use it and hiding in the parking lot outside of summer school smoking it. I would go to class, softball, home; I went everywhere high or under the influence of something. I even began to introduce other people to it. The summer before my senior year of high school, I had stopped playing sports and was still partying all the time, using drugs with one friend and getting drunk with another somehow still managing to keep my grades up. My mom went into the hospital again, this time she was hooked up to all kinds of machines. I went to see her a few times while she was there ( I didn’t want to see her like that). One evening my friend and I got ready to go out to a bar and I went by the hospital before we went. I stayed with my mom for a little while, talked to her even though she couldn’t talk to me, kissed her, told her I love her and I would be there the next morning and I left to go party. I don’t remember what I did that night, I just remember waking up to my dad knocking on my bedroom door to tell me that she was gone, his best friend was gone. Her heart gave out and she had passed away that morning. All I can remember is calling my best friend over and feeling numb. People started flooding into our house and all I wanted to do is hide. I wanted to escape. I stayed clean for about two weeks, through the funeral and preparations. It was just me and my dad. He wasn’t the same, I had always been daddy’s little girl but he wasn’t the same daddy he was before. I didn’t want to hurt so I used up the rest of my mom’s medications and began buying the drugs myself. I made it through high school with great grades and graduated. I met a guy a few weeks before graduation and I thought he was the one, he was successful, had a successful family, made me feel good about myself. I thought he was going to sweep me off my feet and we were going to ride off into the sunset together. Graduation night came and we had a huge party at my house. Everyone was drinking and most of them were underage. I walked into my room to find this boyfriend and found him in my closet smoking meth. At first when I asked to try it he told me no, but then he taught me how and I began smoking meth. I tried to go to school, I started my first year of college to be a pharmacist but the drug kept calling my name and I began to skip class to do the drug. First it was just with him until we broke up, and then he challenged me. He told me I couldn’t handle it. Well I liked it and so I decided “ I will show him who can handle it!” That started a terrifying spiral downhill and completely out of control. I was right in the middle of a world of criminals, convicts and drug addicts and had no idea what I was getting myself into. I moved from place to place, lived with person to person, found one boyfriend who abused me and destroyed two apartments I had in my name. I watched drug dealers put guns to his head and ask for their money, I was so desensitized to it all that I looked at them, ready to kill him in front of me and I turned and went back to bed. I didn’t care. I started manipulating people including distant family members for money, I stole from my dad. I had become a terrible person. This boyfriend went to jail and immediately found another who was part of the Mexican Mafia. I was soon deep into a crime ring, stealing cars and people’s identities. I found myself in a hotel room, a huge book full of identities for sale, a bag of legal documents from a local real estate company, a huge gun and drugs on the nightstand. The police showed up at the door and me and my boyfriend went to jail. My dad had a friend who owned a bail bond and got me out that time. But I didn’t go home, I went right back out and started doing the same thing again. I wrote checks on other people’s accounts and stole identities. I was doing whatever I could to stay high and gather up money to bail my Mexican Mafia boyfriend out of jail. I was in a stolen car with another girl and we were surrounded by the police. I lied and told every story I could think of to get out of going to jail, but I went and ended up with 26 charges. From Unauthorized use of a motor vehicle to tampering with government records, I was going to be in jail for a long time. Six months went by and I finally got a call through to my dad. I begged him to get me out of jail and he did, he paid $5,000 to get me out of jail. I did well for a while, got a job and stayed at home. Then I wanted to get high again and I slowly moved back out and started the same thing all over again. After a few months out I started hearing rumors that the police were looking for me again. So I ran to another town. At another friends house in the adjacent town I met a man. He was much older than me and he was involved with some people running a meth lab. He drew me in with the science and the idea of being a big shot, he promised things like paying off my debts and helping me to start over. With him I began using only by IV. I never wanted to stick myself with a needle so I always had him do it. We went out to a house in the middle of the country and that’s where I learned to manufacture meth. He even made me create an alias so nobody would know who I was. We left the little house only to go get more ingredients. Some time went by and that was our way of life. Make the drugs, do the drugs, sell the drugs, buy groceries and more ingredients and it started all over. I started waking up, not remembering how I got there, with my pants down. Sometimes I would wake up and he would be touching me. To afraid to make a big deal about it I acted like I was asleep and pulled away. I started hearing things about this man. How crazy he is and how he had killed his wife and no one ever found the body. I was scared then. We were pulling out of the driveway to make another trip to town and I decided I needed to get away from him. I told him that I was going to go into a house and he couldn’t come with me. He got mad and hit me; he then jumped over on top of me and began choking me, pulling my hair and hitting me. Then he grabbed a huge knife off of the dash and tried to cut me. Praise God for the dog because he was barking at him and trying to get him off of me. He then jumped back into the driver’s seat and drove out to another part of the country. While I struggled to catch my breath he drove and we reached our destination. He got out of the truck and made me get out; he threw a shovel at me and told me to start digging. He wanted me to dig my own grave. The dog barked as he was yelling and distracted him, I tried to run but he caught me and pulled me back. As he was coming at me with the shovel again, it was as if he ran into an invisible brick wall and his countenance changed. He turned toward the truck. I stood there in shock. He motioned for me to get in the truck and told me I better do it before he changed his mind. We got back to the house and he still talked to me as if he was going to kill me. The girl who lived in the house gave me a pain pill and sent me to bed. He came into my room while I was recovering from my brutal beating and asked me as if nothing had ever happened to make love to him and that’s when I knew for sure that he felt towards me completely different than I did toward him. I started looking for an escape and we found one! He fell asleep. There was an old car out back, we rigged it up so we could drive to town and we did. We got pulled over on the way and the officer told us he wanted to put that man in jail for something else. He took pictures of my bruises and told me I could give a statement. Some time passed and the man called and called and sent text messages. Finally I answered a call. He in a roundabout way, threatened my dad. So I went back and the whole cycle started all over again. At another house I was sleeping and woke up to him on top of me, I tried to push him off and he yelled at me to give it to him or he was going to take it. I pulled away and ran into another room. When I came out he was gone and 20 min later the police showed up to pick me up on a warrant that wasn’t mine. That was God’s intervention. Nobody knew where I was to pick me up on a warrant. I stayed in jail for about 3 months or more. The same man put money in my account, came to visit and wrote letters to me. I finally told the police about him and he was picked up on a list of charges. I didn’t change my ways in jail I was transferred a couple of times and got a jailhouse tattoo. I got in trouble for that and was transferred back to Lubbock County. There I started giving tattoos. When I got caught again they put me in solitary confinement for 30 days. This solitary confinement was God ordained I believe. In my box I had nothing other than books, sleep and my letters. There was a woman on the other side of the wall who would slip scriptures and encouraging words to me through the walls. This raised my curiosity and so I got a bible and started doing bible studies. I soon after got on my knees and told God….if you get me out of here I will serve you for the rest of my life. A few days later I got out of solitary confinement and to my surprise my dad answered a collect call from me. He told me he found me a bed in a Christian rehab called Teen Challenge and wanted to know if I would be willing to go. I said I was. A week later I went to court to face a DA who wanted to send me to prison for 25 years. I went and my paperwork was wrong the first time, my lawyer wanted me to take a few more months instead of Teen Challenge. The second time they lost my paperwork and finally the third time I went to court the DA had changed. This DA had a brother who went through Teen Challenge and the bailiff had a cousin who went through the program. That time I was sentenced to Teen Challenge. I entered the program on December 6, 2006 and graduated in February of 2008. God is so amazing; I am completely restored and set free. I had to deal with a lot of things in the program and had to learn how to be a new person. I did it; I graduated and met my husband Nick. I now have a wonderful family and I have and will continue to keep to my promise with God. I will serve Him as long as I live!
Jeremiah 33:3 says," Call to me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know." Almost five years ago this scripture became real in my life. My name is Megan Hanges, I am 25 years old. I grew up in a really good home, I had great parents. They treated me right, they obeyed the laws. We were a regular middle class family in Lubbock, Texas. I was an only child until my cousins moved in with us. They became like my brother and sister. My uncle moved in with us as well and for a long time he was an alcoholic, he would bar hop, gamble and come home drunk. I don’t remember this but I was told by family that I learned to sneak in my uncle’s room at night after he was passed out drunk and steal money from his dresser for my mom. Praise God he eventually went to rehab. We were always busy playing sports on the weekends and weeknights. It was rare that we had a night off during softball and baseball season. I remember I had to grow up fast; the adults at home had to work, so that left me as the oldest at home to take care of the other two, cook, clean, do laundry etc. All in all I had a good childhood. My uncle and my cousins eventually moved out and then I was an only child again. I was mostly a straight A student through school. High school came around and I began to drink occasionally (it was okay to me because my parents drank and let me drink) and started smoking cigarettes. All of this while still on the softball team. I got a brand new car before I turned 16. Two weeks after my birthday I totaled that car and my grandfather bought me an even newer car. My mom got sick shortly after I started high school and was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. I don’t know all the details about her illness but I know it was bad and began to attach her internal organs. My mom began to receive a large check every month from the government or insurance or something. She designated part of this money every month to me for whatever I needed or wanted. (It was like an allowance.) At first I did well, then I began to use the money for beer or alcohol and I would go out and party with my friends. I would get phone calls from my dad that my mom had been rushed to the ER. This happened many times. After these ER visits started I began to drink heavy. I wouldn’t go out just to have a good time anymore, I would drink to get drunk and pass out. I was trying to cover up the hurt inside. One of my friends would never go party with us, she was on the softball team and so I started hanging with her thinking I would try to stop drinking so much. Little did I know that even though she didn’t “party” my way, this was a bad idea. Her boyfriend, Branden slowly began to introduce me to pain medications that he had gotten on the street somewhere, I liked it. So when we ran out of that I began to steal my mom’s medication, making sure to never steal enough to get caught. After I was in love with the idea of taking pain medications and other prescription medications Brandon introduced me to Cocaine. I remember learning how to use it and hiding in the parking lot outside of summer school smoking it. I would go to class, softball, home; I went everywhere high or under the influence of something. I even began to introduce other people to it. The summer before my senior year of high school, I had stopped playing sports and was still partying all the time, using drugs with one friend and getting drunk with another somehow still managing to keep my grades up. My mom went into the hospital again, this time she was hooked up to all kinds of machines. I went to see her a few times while she was there ( I didn’t want to see her like that). One evening my friend and I got ready to go out to a bar and I went by the hospital before we went. I stayed with my mom for a little while, talked to her even though she couldn’t talk to me, kissed her, told her I love her and I would be there the next morning and I left to go party. I don’t remember what I did that night, I just remember waking up to my dad knocking on my bedroom door to tell me that she was gone, his best friend was gone. Her heart gave out and she had passed away that morning. All I can remember is calling my best friend over and feeling numb. People started flooding into our house and all I wanted to do is hide. I wanted to escape. I stayed clean for about two weeks, through the funeral and preparations. It was just me and my dad. He wasn’t the same, I had always been daddy’s little girl but he wasn’t the same daddy he was before. I didn’t want to hurt so I used up the rest of my mom’s medications and began buying the drugs myself. I made it through high school with great grades and graduated. I met a guy a few weeks before graduation and I thought he was the one, he was successful, had a successful family, made me feel good about myself. I thought he was going to sweep me off my feet and we were going to ride off into the sunset together. Graduation night came and we had a huge party at my house. Everyone was drinking and most of them were underage. I walked into my room to find this boyfriend and found him in my closet smoking meth. At first when I asked to try it he told me no, but then he taught me how and I began smoking meth. I tried to go to school, I started my first year of college to be a pharmacist but the drug kept calling my name and I began to skip class to do the drug. First it was just with him until we broke up, and then he challenged me. He told me I couldn’t handle it. Well I liked it and so I decided “ I will show him who can handle it!” That started a terrifying spiral downhill and completely out of control. I was right in the middle of a world of criminals, convicts and drug addicts and had no idea what I was getting myself into. I moved from place to place, lived with person to person, found one boyfriend who abused me and destroyed two apartments I had in my name. I watched drug dealers put guns to his head and ask for their money, I was so desensitized to it all that I looked at them, ready to kill him in front of me and I turned and went back to bed. I didn’t care. I started manipulating people including distant family members for money, I stole from my dad. I had become a terrible person. This boyfriend went to jail and immediately found another who was part of the Mexican Mafia. I was soon deep into a crime ring, stealing cars and people’s identities. I found myself in a hotel room, a huge book full of identities for sale, a bag of legal documents from a local real estate company, a huge gun and drugs on the nightstand. The police showed up at the door and me and my boyfriend went to jail. My dad had a friend who owned a bail bond and got me out that time. But I didn’t go home, I went right back out and started doing the same thing again. I wrote checks on other people’s accounts and stole identities. I was doing whatever I could to stay high and gather up money to bail my Mexican Mafia boyfriend out of jail. I was in a stolen car with another girl and we were surrounded by the police. I lied and told every story I could think of to get out of going to jail, but I went and ended up with 26 charges. From Unauthorized use of a motor vehicle to tampering with government records, I was going to be in jail for a long time. Six months went by and I finally got a call through to my dad. I begged him to get me out of jail and he did, he paid $5,000 to get me out of jail. I did well for a while, got a job and stayed at home. Then I wanted to get high again and I slowly moved back out and started the same thing all over again. After a few months out I started hearing rumors that the police were looking for me again. So I ran to another town. At another friends house in the adjacent town I met a man. He was much older than me and he was involved with some people running a meth lab. He drew me in with the science and the idea of being a big shot, he promised things like paying off my debts and helping me to start over. With him I began using only by IV. I never wanted to stick myself with a needle so I always had him do it. We went out to a house in the middle of the country and that’s where I learned to manufacture meth. He even made me create an alias so nobody would know who I was. We left the little house only to go get more ingredients. Some time went by and that was our way of life. Make the drugs, do the drugs, sell the drugs, buy groceries and more ingredients and it started all over. I started waking up, not remembering how I got there, with my pants down. Sometimes I would wake up and he would be touching me. To afraid to make a big deal about it I acted like I was asleep and pulled away. I started hearing things about this man. How crazy he is and how he had killed his wife and no one ever found the body. I was scared then. We were pulling out of the driveway to make another trip to town and I decided I needed to get away from him. I told him that I was going to go into a house and he couldn’t come with me. He got mad and hit me; he then jumped over on top of me and began choking me, pulling my hair and hitting me. Then he grabbed a huge knife off of the dash and tried to cut me. Praise God for the dog because he was barking at him and trying to get him off of me. He then jumped back into the driver’s seat and drove out to another part of the country. While I struggled to catch my breath he drove and we reached our destination. He got out of the truck and made me get out; he threw a shovel at me and told me to start digging. He wanted me to dig my own grave. The dog barked as he was yelling and distracted him, I tried to run but he caught me and pulled me back. As he was coming at me with the shovel again, it was as if he ran into an invisible brick wall and his countenance changed. He turned toward the truck. I stood there in shock. He motioned for me to get in the truck and told me I better do it before he changed his mind. We got back to the house and he still talked to me as if he was going to kill me. The girl who lived in the house gave me a pain pill and sent me to bed. He came into my room while I was recovering from my brutal beating and asked me as if nothing had ever happened to make love to him and that’s when I knew for sure that he felt towards me completely different than I did toward him. I started looking for an escape and we found one! He fell asleep. There was an old car out back, we rigged it up so we could drive to town and we did. We got pulled over on the way and the officer told us he wanted to put that man in jail for something else. He took pictures of my bruises and told me I could give a statement. Some time passed and the man called and called and sent text messages. Finally I answered a call. He in a roundabout way, threatened my dad. So I went back and the whole cycle started all over again. At another house I was sleeping and woke up to him on top of me, I tried to push him off and he yelled at me to give it to him or he was going to take it. I pulled away and ran into another room. When I came out he was gone and 20 min later the police showed up to pick me up on a warrant that wasn’t mine. That was God’s intervention. Nobody knew where I was to pick me up on a warrant. I stayed in jail for about 3 months or more. The same man put money in my account, came to visit and wrote letters to me. I finally told the police about him and he was picked up on a list of charges. I didn’t change my ways in jail I was transferred a couple of times and got a jailhouse tattoo. I got in trouble for that and was transferred back to Lubbock County. There I started giving tattoos. When I got caught again they put me in solitary confinement for 30 days. This solitary confinement was God ordained I believe. In my box I had nothing other than books, sleep and my letters. There was a woman on the other side of the wall who would slip scriptures and encouraging words to me through the walls. This raised my curiosity and so I got a bible and started doing bible studies. I soon after got on my knees and told God….if you get me out of here I will serve you for the rest of my life. A few days later I got out of solitary confinement and to my surprise my dad answered a collect call from me. He told me he found me a bed in a Christian rehab called Teen Challenge and wanted to know if I would be willing to go. I said I was. A week later I went to court to face a DA who wanted to send me to prison for 25 years. I went and my paperwork was wrong the first time, my lawyer wanted me to take a few more months instead of Teen Challenge. The second time they lost my paperwork and finally the third time I went to court the DA had changed. This DA had a brother who went through Teen Challenge and the bailiff had a cousin who went through the program. That time I was sentenced to Teen Challenge. I entered the program on December 6, 2006 and graduated in February of 2008. God is so amazing; I am completely restored and set free. I had to deal with a lot of things in the program and had to learn how to be a new person. I did it; I graduated and met my husband Nick. I now have a wonderful family and I have and will continue to keep to my promise with God. I will serve Him as long as I live!
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