Shiloe "The Sky Is the Limit"
Story brought to you in partnership with our friends at Mercy’s MSU Care Clinic.
Photo by Randy Bacon
I started selling drugs when I was 15. I always had a real job, too. I made clean money and dirty money. During a traffic stop, I was caught with drugs and scales while driving down a road called Heaven’s Way—and it was, metaphorically, a way out of that life. I refer to prison as God’s stomping grounds.
In prison, you are forced to look in the mirror and see the person looking back at you. There are no substances or things that mask or hide who you are. I even stopped biting my nails in prison—what was there to worry about now? I was released from prison in 2006. I saw women come and go, in and out of prison, and did not ever want that to be a way of life for me. One time—got it, I’m good.
For the next ten years, I was a new person. I walked the fine line the entire time I was on parole, and spent 10 years improving myself. I went to a women’s shelter, got a job, earned my GED, worked hard and purchased a home. I did everything right—until my world blew up.
It was a downhill spiral that started with my husband cheating on me, then my goddaughter and stepdaughter left soon after. The life I had worked so hard for was gone. I was heartbroken. I started doing drugs and basically blew up my life. For months, I worked so hard on renovating the house I was living in, just so I could foreclose on it. That period lasted over two years. It took 11 months for the foreclosure to happen. I stopped going to school. I stopped working and started making and selling drugs for a living. 2016 and 2017 were devastating years.
In 2019, I moved to Springfield, got a new job and started back to work. It was hard because I was homeless…but I had a job. At work, I was acting like everything was okay. I would sleep in a parking garage or under bushes, use a restroom to change and take a bird bath, then go to work as if everything was fine. My job was commission-based, and for the first 2 months I worked there, I had 26 cents to my name. I had meals at shelters or would do chores at Grace Methodist for a bus pass to get to work. Being homeless is tough. It affects your self-confidence, your mental health, and your ability to function properly at work. It took two months to get my first sale because my self-confidence and self-worth were so down from living on the streets.
Eventually, I started making money, but I was still homeless. I was blowing through my money because I just didn’t care about it. I would buy pizza for the 40 people living in the shelter with me. After a while, my boss called me on it. He thought I was doing drugs and convinced me to go to New Beginnings. I was not happy. He got me there, but only through kicking and screaming. He paid for the first month and a half, then told me I needed to start paying my fee of $110 a week. The first week I paid my own way, I was irritated, but when I looked down at the receipt, a kind of peace came over me. It was so gratifying to pay that bill. I realized it was the first bill I had paid since 2017. I give a lot of credit to my boss. He didn’t coddle me, didn’t give me a hand-out. He helped me help myself.
New Beginnings is tough. They hold you accountable. There is a lot of structure. You must attend meetings, do chores, and there are fines if you don’t follow through. It has been a great place for me. I needed to relearn how to manage money. It’s a lot better than sleeping in an empty tractor trailer when it’s 27 degrees.
My dream for the future is to continue with my education until I obtain my PhD in psychology and own my own practice. I know I can use my experiences to help other people because I have been in both worlds. I have a way with words and a gift for discernment of spirits. I want to direct people to find their way. I want to give back to the broken, because that’s who Jesus kicked it with when he was here. He didn’t come here to be lavished in gold and all the materialism of the world. You’ll never see a hearse with a U-Haul attached.
Some of my dreams have changed. When I hear the word love, I think the opposite. I think of a broken heart. It makes me think of devastation. My ex-husband betrayed me and devastated my world. As a boyfriend, he was abusive. He hit me twice. I was constantly defending myself. I prayed to God to remove him from my heart and I finally walked away. Now, I am dating someone who is respectful, safe, and kind. I think there is hope. I think people get 2nd chances and I think God sent him to me.
Through it all, I would not change one thing. I truly believe that God has intertwined and entangled every step we take. There’s a ripple effect with everyone we encounter. I believe everything happens for a reason. God is orchestrating things, even if it’s for someone else. It could happen years later or to relay a message: I’ve been through this, let me save you some time and heartache and learn from my experience.
My health and mental health have always played a big part in my life. I have gone from overweight to way too thin when I was on drugs. Spiritual health played a huge part. MSU Care helped so much because for the first time ever I was able to see a doctor, have a checkup, and get medication. Before MSU Care I never went to a doctor, never had insurance, never had access to medicine. I’m taking medication for the pain and inflammation in my knees. It feels good not to be in constant pain. I was always a contractor and health benefits were not offered. It’s special to me to be able to go to the doctor when I’m sick and know I can call if I have an emergency. Our bodies and minds are resilient. We can bounce back. I believe as long as we have breath in our lungs, there is hope.
My advice on living life to the fullest is to live every moment of every day like it might be my last. Take care of things today. Americans especially live like: “Oh, tomorrow’s me will take care of it, so let’s charge it, let’s put it on credit. I’m not going to deal with this now, tomorrow’s me can deal with it.” I like to think: “Stay ready so you don’t have to get ready and you can never have fear and faith reside at the same point in time.”
My favorite scripture is Hebrew 11:1 “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” We humans tend to have faith for a hot second. We take back our faith and try to handle it ourselves and that’s how we leave faith and wind up with fear—fear, anxiety, doubt, and mistrust are all Satan infused. That’s how Satan tries to take our faith. I compare it to when Peter saw Jesus walking on water. Peter asked Jesus to call to him. When Jesus called to Peter, he hit the water running, but when he had doubt, he looked down, and in that moment he lost faith. Fear took over, and Peter sank. We need faith. The only limitations we have are the ones we place on ourselves. For me, “the sky is the limit” is the only way to live.
“For many in our community, routine doctor visits and prescription medications are far too expensive to access. Every day, people are forced to choose between food and medication or delay treatment for health issues until they are life threatening due to an inability to pay. MSU and Mercy partnered together to break the cycle of poor health and offer hope for the uninsured in our community. The only clinic of its kind in Missouri, the MSU Care Clinic offers uninsured patients top-quality primary care and prescription medications completely free of charge. We know every story—every person—has tremendous value. That is why at MSU Care, we are proud to give compassionate care and exceptional service at no charge to those in the greatest need.”
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