Seven. The number of times Sheaveal Beasley turned in her street clothes for a prison uniform. It wasn’t the path she would have chosen. But when she looks back now, she knows that her life’s journey has only just begun.
Thirteen. Sheaveal’s age when she began taking responsibility for her five younger siblings. Growing up in Punta Gorda, Florida, “we cherished each other because we didn’t have much,” she says. Her parents worked hard when Sheaveal was younger, but they eventually started doing marijuana and the family was largely left in Sheaveal’s hands. Resourceful and hopeful, Sheaveal remained in school, graduating with a softball scholarship to attend Miami Dade College.
| Sheaveal and her daughter Amber. |
Three. The number of months Sheaveal completed at college before dropping out. It all happened because of a guy… a guy who did drugs. “I wanted to fit in,” Sheaveal admits. “I fell in love with him.” She began smoking marijuana and doing cocaine. Then she lost her scholarship and had to quit school.
Ninety. The year Sheaveal got caught the first time. She shoplifted to feed her drug habit and landed behind bars. First, jail. Then, prison. After getting out, she began writing bad checks to pay for drugs. She violated probation and found herself back behind bars. The cycle had begun, and it would be years before it came to a stop. “I couldn’t deal with the guilt and the shame after having [lost] all of the scholarship,” she laments. “I kept on [using drugs] to numb the feelings that I felt inside.”
Six. The number of children Sheaveal gave birth to while shuttling back and forth between cocaine and prison. Not long after getting clean and giving birth to her daughter Amber, Sheaveal fell back into a rut and went to prison for the fourth time. She had five sons over the next 11 years. A few of them were born cocaine positive.
Three. The number of family members who died in 1997: her mother, her father and her grandmother. While in jail in Charlotte , North Carolina, to be closer to her children’s father Leroy, she received word that her mother had passed away. Five weeks later, her father and grandmother died. “They were my backbone. They were always there for me no matter what I did.” Not long after, Leroy fell sick with cancer. He died in 2004, and Sheaveal was left alone with five of her kids and many financial burdens. “I felt myself slipping back into the old me,” she remembers. So she packed up the kids and moved back to Florida. Desperate for companionship, she began to date an old acquaintance. Not long after they started dating, he began to beat her. Sheaveal landed in the hospital with a brain injury. That’s when she decided to take matters into her own hands. She stole a gun and set out to execute justice. But she got caught before she could enact her plan.
Twenty-five. The number of years Sheaveal was facing when she went to prison the last time. That’s when she finally gave up and cried out, “God, I can’t do this again. If you don’t help, I will die out here!” God answered her by bringing Jeremiah 29:11 to mind: “For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” That promise gave Sheaveal hope that she could find life beyond self-destruction.
Four and a half. The number of years the judge actually gave her. “That was one of the times in my life that God showed me that He is true to His Word,” she said. During those four and a half years at Broward Correctional Institution in Fort Lauderdale, Sheaveal did everything she could to change the trajectory of her life. She began hanging around positive people, went to church, read the Bible and joined the choir. She was certified as a help desk analyst and became a peer facilitator for a drug rehab program. Still, she admitted, there was an emptiness. “No one in my family was talking to me. Everyone was disappointed because I went to prison again.” She needed someone to fight for her.
Two. Mentors. After attending a Prison Fellowship event in prison, Sheaveal learned that she could request a volunteer mentor to help her transition back to life on the outside. A year before her release, Prison Fellowship matched her with two women: Pat Kelly and June Nielsen. “I remember the first day when Pat and June walked in there. I smiled because I just knew that God had sent them to me.” Every other week, Pat and June showed up to encourage her and study the Bible with her. For Pat, mentoring Sheaveal was easy. “By the time we became her mentors,” says Pat, “she had already come to a point in her life that she wanted to follow God, and she was going to do everything she could to make that happen … We just came along in the process that God had already started.”
Twenty-nine. October, 2010 – the day Sheaveal was released from prison the last time.Pat and June met her at the gate and took her out to eat at Cracker Barrel. “After eating prison food for four and a half years, Cracker Barrel was like heaven,” Sheaveal admits. They helped her get settled into a halfway house, where she stayed for three months. During that time, Prison Fellowship also connected her with Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church – her “bridge church” –which had committed to helping Sheaveal with her basic needs. They helped her find a more permanent place to live with a woman from the church, and helped her get a job with a local ministry. “I realize that I’m not alone, that I don’t have to do it alone,” Sheaveal says. “I have all of these people I can call.”
One. The number of years Sheaveal stopped dating. Not long after getting out of prison, Sheaveal met a guy. “I thought it was real good,” she says. That’s when Pat and June stepped in. “They reminded me that my downfall was that I would get with a guy and forget everything else,” she remembers. So Sheaveal decided to make a commitment to herself to steer clear of romantic entanglements for a year, in order to focus on her relationship with Christ and make positive life decisions. She stayed true to her decision, thanks to support from Pat and June. “They’re like sisters to me,” rejoices Sheaveal. “They’re like glue. They make me feel like I’m normal. They have shown me how to laugh. They’re showing me how to live.”
Six. Her children. As soon as she got out, Sheaveal began working to regain custody of her children. Last November, she got a job at a beauty supply shop and is anticipating a promotion to assistant manager. She also began renting her own apartment – with assistance from Coral Ridge – and is in the process of paying back child support. She hasn’t regained custody of her children yet, but she talks to them on the phone frequently. Her daughter Amber is in college studying to become a dentist. And all five of her sons are doing well, most of them living with Sheaveal’s aunt.
http://www.prisonfellowship.org/new-this-week/stories/16175-transformation-by-the-numbers
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