Faith, Redemption,
and a Love Story
“Suddenly, the back door was thrown off its hinges as the SWAT team swarmed our house in a chaotic frenzy, rifles drawn. I sat in the front room with my baby, as I looked down the hallway at Billy already on the floor, and knew they were coming for me.”
What do you expect from life? A warm bed and food to eat? A safe space free from harm? For Jodie Ballenger, those expectations were never a given. Raised in abuse and neglect by her mother, who had been a prostitute, and a father who chose his new wife over her, Jodie learned quickly that her body was a vessel for others to use. Suffering mental, physical, and sexual abuse; abandonment; and neglect; she knew at a young age that she would need to learn to survive on her own.
Jodie grew tough as nails, learning to fight with her fists and mouth. She started taking pills, smoking pot, and partying hard at the tender age of nine. She spent her young life running the streets – she moved along like a feather in the wind, with no anchor, while her mom looked the other way. When she met Billy in reform school, he was another boy in a string of boys she’d turned to for sex and comfort. But what she didn’t know was how he would change her life. SWAT raid, pregnancies, running from the law, drive- by shootings, the death of her first true love, and a prison sentence...Could she find her way out and find happiness and most of all freedom?
Join Jodie through her thrilling and heartbreaking story of agony and redemption and where a road that seems hopeless can lead to all you ever need.
