On Friday, Jan. 31, the Lighthouse Mission held its weekly Chapel service where a staff member shared their experience finding God’s light to help them overcome addiction and homelessness.
Case manager Heather Kirkey delivered her testimony, which can be read below.
Testimony script:
My name is Heather, and I am a believer in Jesus Christ. I am also a recovering heroin and meth addict. I was born in 1981, the middle child in my family with one older sister and a younger brother.
My brother was adopted by my uncle and his wife when he was born because my mom was struggling to make ends meet, and my uncle and his wife were unable to have children. My sister was my best friend and protector.
I grew up with an alcoholic and abusive father. He left when I was just two years old, and I would only see him on holidays. Even then, he was always drunk.
Despite everything, I remember the love I felt when I was with him. I could still hear him say, “I love you, Heather Lee,” even though that wasn’t my real name. It always made me feel special, even though he did little to actually show love. That love from him, though imperfect, felt deep and meaningful to me.
As I reflect on it now, I see a parallel to the way Jesus loves us—how His love covers our imperfections and gives us a sense of worth, even when everything else may fall short. My journey of faith and recovery has taught me how love—whether from God or others—can heal and redeem even the most broken parts of us.

My aunt Judy, my father’s sister, was my favorite aunt. We resembled each other, and I felt a unique connection with her that I didn’t have with anyone else. My aunt struggled with heroin addiction, and I vividly remember when she was found overdosed in a stolen van when I was just a young child. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the last time I would witness addiction take hold in my family—there were many others who followed the painful path.
My mom was trying to find love and work to be off welfare. She ended up with men who abused her. I had walked in on the abuse and remembered being terrified frozen. I had developed the spirit of fear from a very young age.
In the darkness, when things would fall or make noise, it would take my breath away. I’d be frozen, unable to breathe, move, or scream—just paralyzed with terror. Everyone in my family, on both sides, was either struggling with alcohol or some other drug. During those times, I spent a lot of time staying with my grandma or my uncles while my mom worked.
When I was 15, we moved from Ferndale to Bellingham. I started school at Whatcom Middle School, and it didn’t take long before I picked up smoking cigarettes. I gravitated toward the “bad kids” because they seemed to accept me in a way I hadn’t felt anywhere else. I always felt like an outcast, never truly accepted, so I just embraced it and took on the role.
I went to Bellingham High School, and soon I was smoking weed every day. It was there that I met my ex-husband. When I was 17, I found out I was pregnant. I made the decision to drop out. I quit smoking cigarettes and weed. Together, we found an apartment and started building a life. Ten days before my due date, I woke up having back-to-back seizures. I had preeclampsia. I remember coming out of one seizure, seeing blood, and crying, only to go right back into another seizure. I ended up having six grand mal seizures. I had bitten off both sides of my tongue and lost all memory of the people around me or that I was pregnant. I remember the doctor coming in and telling my family they needed to be prepared to make a decision—whether to save me or the baby, because one of us wasn’t going to make it. But on Jan. 15, 1999, my first son, Preston, was born, and he was perfect. However, when my son was 2, my ex’s drinking had gotten worse, and it started to make me jealous. So, I began partying too.
I started going to raves, doing ecstasy, trying cocaine and experimenting with mushrooms. During that time, I found out I was pregnant again. The doctor told me there was a very high risk I would develop preeclampsia again, and I had a 50/50 chance of dying. I made the difficult decision to have an abortion, something I’m not proud of to this day.
Six months later, I found out I was pregnant again. This time, I made the decision to quit partying and quit smoking. On Sept. 28, 2002, I gave birth to my second son, Payton.
When I left the hospital, something felt very wrong. It felt like I was in labor again. I called the doctor. He sent a prescription for Percocet to the pharmacy, and before long, I was addicted.
Once the prescription ran out, I called the doctor and told him I was still in a lot of pain. He sent in more Percocet. I wasn’t prepared for what came when those pills ran out. I didn’t understand addiction or withdrawal at the time. I had grown up around addicts, but I didn’t know what it really meant to be addicted. When the pills ran out, I became terribly sick.
I felt clammy, sweaty, cold, nauseous and overwhelmed by fear. My cousin, who I was close to, told me about OxyContin. So, we got some, and I started snorting them. That became my next addiction. I ended up pawning everything we had just to buy pills.
One day, my oldest son was crying as he watched me take apart his bunk bed to take it to the pawn shop. We had reached a point where we couldn’t afford the pills anymore. Heroin had always been a forbidden drug for me. It was the one drug I swore I would never touch. But I was sick, desperate, and I tried it. It was much cheaper, and I could snort it.
I only snorted heroin three times before I started using the needle. I contracted Hepatitis C from my first use. I vividly remember my oldest son crying at the bathroom door, asking why I was giving his daddy a shot. At that moment, I felt like a failure, a horrible mom. I felt like addiction had become my identity.
I never saw a way out. From 2003 to 2006, I did anything I could to get money to feed my addiction. I panhandled, stole checks, robbed people, and even sold fake dope. I took a book of checks from my ex-husband’s grandmother and used them to buy expensive items until she ran out of money.
By this time, I was homeless. I lived in the car, and the window was broken out.
I knew the nights were getting cold, and my babies couldn’t stay with me. I also knew the police were looking for me. So, I took my boys, who were 6 and 3 years old, to my grandma. I wrote a letter asking her to keep them until I could get clean. Leaving them behind absolutely broke my heart.
During this time, I kept trying to detox. I went to detox in Bellingham at least 30 times, trying to get clean, but it felt like I couldn’t escape the grip of addiction.
I went to multiple treatment centers and none of them lasted more than five days. I started mixing drugs. I was given a hot shot by a close friend who attempted to rape me, and he held me in a motel room for four days. The only reason he was unsuccessful is he had given me too much drugs. I started robbing people who left storage boxes at job sites. I would steal wallets from gym lockers, take tools from my stepdad—anything I could steal to get my dope and avoid being sick. Eventually, I got arrested for the checks, and I was facing 60 months of prison time. They considered me a low-level offender and gave me a DOSA sentence—half time in, half time out on parole. I ended up serving 22 months in prison, from 2004 to 2006.
During my time in prison, my grandma passed away. The pain of that loss was hard to bear, and to make matters worse, my uncle—who I had spent so much time with as a child—took my boys in and cut off all contact with me.
My mom had moved to Arizona. I asked my parole officer if I could go live with her. He agreed. Once I got to Arizona, I started stealing my mom’s pills. My addiction was boiling inside of me, and even though I was on parole and in a new state, I managed to find heroin.
Once I was off parole, I left Arizona and went back to Bellingham. I went to the bank, opened a checking account in my own name, and started writing bad checks … again.
I already had felony warrants for my arrest, and they added two bail jumping charges to the list. I was homeless, hopeless and completely lost.
I would go to the Lighthouse Mission to get meals. I had nothing left in me—I was a broken, hopeless addict. I got to the point where I couldn’t even drink water without throwing up.
Eventually, I went back to prison for another 24 months, from 2007 to 2009. When I got out, I went to a sober living house, but I just felt so alone—isolated, out of place. Once again, I got high.
I called my mom and asked her to please come get me. She didn’t know I had relapsed; she thought I was clean—until I was on the plane.
My mom still has PTSD from that plane ride. I had taken a Suboxone pill too soon, and it threw me into precipitated withdrawal.
When we finally got to my mom’s, the desire to use and run was overwhelming. My stepdad, seeing how bad I was, told me, “If you don’t leave, I’ll take you to get whatever medicine you need.”
I chose the methadone program, and for a while, things were looking up. I was able to get a job, my own apartment, and even started attending AA meetings. I did well for about a year. But then, I started nodding off at work from the methadone. My addiction kicked in, telling me to find something to wake me up. That’s when I started using bath salts. I began losing my mind.
I was hallucinating. I had voices in my head. I lost my job, my car, my apartment and was once again homeless. I started using meth again. I really had gone insane. I would punch myself in the head walking down the street screaming at the voices in my head to shut up. I had paranoia over everything. I would shower with fabric softener sheets because I thought I smelled bad. But eventually, I started going to AA and got a sponsor who helped me quit using meth and bath salts. I was still on methadone, but I was active in AA, and for the first time in a long time, I felt a sense of purpose and drive to get clean. Page 417 of the Big Book became my favorite page—it spoke to me deeply and gave me hope.
At this time, I met my next ex- in AA. I was doing well. As soon as he got off probation, all the meetings stopped, and he started drinking heavily. I was pregnant with my third son, Maysin, and things quickly spiraled out of control. He began physically and mentally abusing me and started using meth. My third son, Maysin was born Nov. 3, 2012. After the cops were called multiple times, CPS opened a case due to domestic violence.
When I gave birth to my son, he had to detox from methadone in the NICU for nine days.
I chose to leave when my son was 9 months old. I went to Everett, Washington to the Interfaith Family Shelter, but since I had relapsed and started using meth again, they called CPS on me. CPS told me that because I was homeless and using meth, I would need to complete treatment with my son, or they would remove him from my care.
So, I chose treatment. I did leave early, but I had a plan.
First it was a sober house- then 2016
I ended up moving into a residential ministry and stayed there for five years.
After the first year in ministry, I decided I no longer wanted to rely on methadone at this point I had been on methadone eight years total. I wanted to see what this “God stuff” was really about and if He truly cared about me. Kicking off methadone was horrible. I had a week’s supply, and I dumped it all down the toilet, thinking that would be it. But after 10 days of sickness, I couldn’t take it anymore and got on Suboxone. This time, though, I actually used it the way I was supposed to. It took me 11 months to taper off.
I didn’t want to be on anything I couldn’t live without or that would make me sick without. I also quit smoking cigarettes and began fasting, hoping that God would completely restore me. I was broken inside and out. But I had faith of a mustard seed because I was seeing others around me being healed and delivered. I had lost all my teeth in active addiction and had zero self-worth. Getting my teeth replaced was one of the biggest blessings in my recovery. Our teeth affect how we view ourselves, and that restoration was a turning point for me.
I started praying daily and soaking myself in worship with other believers. I went to church every week, sometimes twice a week. I immersed myself in the Lord’s mercy, falling broken at His feet, and He began to restore me. February 2017 is my clean date for all hard drugs. During that time, I went from being an addicted, homeless resident who fought the rules and struggled with every step to becoming a recovered overseer, the intake coordinator, and even being ordained as a prophetess of the Lord. At church, we would do something called “soaking” where we rest in soft worship music in the dark—kind of like meditation on God’s spoken words. It was during these times that God gave me the gift to prophesy into people’s lives. The more I focused on God and helped others, the more He healed the brokenness inside of me. I began to notice little miracles happening all around me. At the time, I didn’t always recognize them, but looking back, I see how He was moving.
I met Ronny on Facebook—he was a friend of a friend.
I started messaging him, and not long after, he contacted my pastor and said, “I am coming to marry her.” And that’s exactly what he did. We got married June 2018.
I went to college for a year to learn about deliverance, spirits/demons and addiction. During that time, I was delivered from many things. I gave birth to my fourth son, Ryder, on Halloween 2019.
Remember I mentioned having Hep C? I had tried to do treatment for it in prison, but didn’t.
I still had Hep C when I found out I was pregnant with my fourth son, Ryder, in 2019. I was scheduled to start treatment after giving birth. But when my son was born, they did the test, and I was completely negative. They did one more test just to make sure, and they confirmed that I had no Hep C in my body or liver! That was Jesus. Today, I am amazed that my mind is fully here and present.
He was in all the details, like a surgeon carefully stitching me back together. Everything bad I experienced has become my testimony, a testimony I can share to show others that He is real, this journey is real, and that you can overcome addiction too! It hasn’t always been easy. We’ve been tested by fire. I left with some church hurts I’m still healing from. We tried socially drinking, and using weed medicinally, but the addiction is always there.
It’s like that saying the tale of two wolves. Inside each of us, there’s a battle between two forces—one evil and one good. You just have to choose which wolf you’re going to feed.
Today, I know those wolves’ names: the flesh and the Holy Spirit.
And I choose to feed the Holy Spirit. The Lord Himself has brought me full circle. Today, I have 11 felonies on my record, but I’ve had my concealed carry rights restored. I’m able to go into the jail and minister to women, offering them the opportunity to get clean and find recovery. Today, I talk to my two grown sons, and I make every effort to be supportive of them even with the hurt I have caused them. My brother, Kenny, has recently come to recover from alcohol, and now he gets to be a part of my life and my sons’ lives. My sister is on the suboxone program. I have two sons living with me who don’t know me because of my addiction. They only know the believer I am today.
This is only a small sliver of the things I’ve been through, but these were the most traumatic. I used to eat at the Lighthouse Mission, in fact my name was the first one I looked up in mission tracker when I was hired.
And now the Lord has called and blessed my hands and feet to serve as the women’s case manager here. It’s something I’m so grateful and humbled to do: to do my best to help each of you with my experience strength and hope.
My family, slowly but surely—knowingly or unknowingly—has come to sobriety. I believe it’s all for God’s glory. I believe our choices have an impact on our families, and that our prayers don’t go unheard. THERE IS NOTHING GOD CAN’T USE FOR HIS GLORY.
My life scripture is:
Micah 6:8
He has shown you, O man, what is good.
To act justly,
To love mercy,
And to walk humbly with your God.
That is how I choose to live my life today—with Jesus.
I pray for every addict out there who lost their life tonight or is still out there suffering. I ask the Lord to send warring angels to protect them and you and give new hope. And I pray that all of you get the opportunity to know Jesus and receive the miracles that are waiting for you.
In the mighty name of Jesus, I PRAY.
Thank you for listening.