Life is never too far gone

Jessica Youngblood shares her story of addiction, recovery, and new beginnings

by JILEEN PLATT

photo by DR. ROBIN ROGERS

Jessica and Jon enjoyed taking pics with their kiddos: Ozzie, Ezra, Zeeland, and Jazzie. 

(Photo by Rachel Allison)

Jessica self-published her autobiography, “Worth the Pain: My Journey from Meth to Ministry” in January 2018.

Jessica and Jon were married August 16, 2003, at Texarkana Country Club.  She calls this her “Cinderella story.”

A 21-year old girl.  Long, dark hair, matted in clumps.  Dirty black fingernails.  A sunken face and emaciated body slumped in the front seat of her dad’s car.  

Jessica’s father answered the phone, and then rescued her from her boyfriend/drug dealer’s house.  It was an answer to a frantic and desperate prayer offered in a locked bathroom after she had been grabbed by her throat and threatened with a knife.   Jessica had pleaded, “God, if You’re real … save me from this situation and myself!”

That day was the start of a new beginning for Jessica, who was abandoned by her mother at eight months old and raised by her father in Kirby, Arkansas.  She struggled with the need for acceptance and started drinking alcohol at age 12 and partied regularly through high school.  At the age of 19, she became pregnant and had a son.  “I really wanted to be the mom that I never had,” says Jessica.  “But I could only ‘play house’ for so long.”  When her son was four months old, she started drinking again.   

Four months later, Jessica was introduced to meth.  “It gripped me like a python,” states Jessica.  “Before I even knew what happened … it was crushing me.”  She felt invincible, energized, and euphoric like never before on her first hit … but “you’re chasing that feeling and never get it again,” remembers Jessica.  “And everything that goes up must come down.  It’s like jumping out of a 10-story building and hitting the pavement face first.”  

For a few years, Jessica was caught in the continual snare of on-and-off meth use, even giving up the rights to her son.  At one point, she would eat every third day and sleep every fifth day.  “I was the walking dead,” says Jessica.  “The python … was around my neck, and I couldn’t get it off!”  

After being rescued by her father that day in the bathroom, Janna, an older friend from her youth, visited Jessica while she was attempting to detox.  She brought a barbecue sandwich, a Dr. Pepper, some lotion, and a journal that said on the front, “Don’t Quit.”  That morning Jessica had almost given up.  “The lotion smelled clean, like a new beginning … and I always love me some Dr. Pepper!” states Jessica.  Janna had been her “first healthy motherly figure,” says Jessica.  “She is an angel on earth!  She accepted me where I was but always loved me to higher places.”

After this simple, but pivotal intervention, Jessica enrolled at Hot Springs Beauty College.  “I was trying to change my life but would still binge out on meth.  I thought relapsing would be my life forever.”  And it might have been, had another “new beginning” not walked through the door at Fisherman’s Wharf where Jessica waited tables.

Jon Youngblood, a graduate of Arkansas High School, who’d grown up attending the country club and played University of Arkansas baseball on scholarship, was in Hot Springs for work.  He went to dinner with a friend, who asked Jessica out while she waited on them.  Jessica remembers, “I said no to him, but his friend (Jon) was cute!”  So Jessica said she’d go out with him instead.  

“She was everything I wasn’t,” states Jon.  “I had honestly cut people off in my life that were anything like her, and I was in this place in my own life where I realized how wrong that was.”  Jon was unable to play baseball anymore due to a recent injury.  “It put me in a pretty dark place … I started making decisions that were completely outside of my character … primarily heavy drinking.”

Jessica with her family this past October in front of Vessel Church’s new location at 722 Pine Street.  With her are her son, Ozzie; son, Zeeland; daughter, Jazzie; husband, Jon; and son, Ezra. (Photo by Rachel Allison)

After a few weeks of dating, Jessica asked Jon for help “to be a better version of herself.”  “She was living such a reckless lifestyle,” says Jon, “and would use the excuse that it’s because of what happened to her in the past.”  Jon was truthful and direct. “He was the first person to tell me ‘Stop pitying the life you’ve been given,’” states Jessica.  He told her, “True worth and value are found, not in what was done to [you], but how God [sees you].”

Jessica trusted Jon’s words and worked toward turning her life to God.  “I surrendered everything.  Nothing was off limits for Him to transform,” exclaims Jessica.  “I was so hungry for a different life, I just kept feeding my soul with God.” 

Pastor Earl McClellan of Shoreline City Church in East Dallas blesses Jon and Jessica to plant a church in Texarkana.

Sobriety, change, and self-acceptance came.  “The more I changed, the more I loved myself and was at peace,” says Jessica.  “My identity was in Christ, not being a meth addict or someone with a dark past.”  “What was crazy,” states Jon, “was that in the process of her [relying on God], she showed me what an intimate relationship with Jesus looked like … she talked about God, not as this far-off being, but as this person she did life with everyday.”  

Jon and Jessica were married in August of 2003 and later blessed with two sons and a daughter.  Jessica has also reconciled with her oldest son, and she has forgiven her mother.   In a sense, Jon and Jessica rescued each other, but that’s not the end of their “new beginnings.”

For seven years, while the family lived in Dallas, Jessica felt the need to share her story.  With volunteer editors and self-publishing, Jessica wrote a book “Worth the Pain: My Journey from Meth to Ministry” which eventually became a bestseller on Amazon in 2018.  She wrote the gritty details of her life before and after meth and the help she received from God.  But “I wrote for the addict … not the Christian,” states Jessica. “I wanted to share that life is never too far gone.” 

After reading the book and having a serendipitous moment at Jessica’s high school reunion, Jon felt strongly that they needed to help others like Jessica.  “I [felt] like it was the beginning point of God showing me that while I cannot [fix] the past, He is wanting to use us to protect and be a hope for [others].”  So Jon, Jessica, and their family left their home in Dallas, sold their belongings, and returned to Texarkana to start a church and begin their newest “new beginning.” 

Vessel Church, located on Pine Street, follows the mission statement that there is “hope for every story.”  The church name comes from the song “New Wine” by Hillsong Worship that says, “So make me your vessel.  Make me an offering.  Make me whatever you want me to be.”  “We wanted to start a church that showed every single person that Jesus is bigger than what their past or their circumstances are,” explains Jessica.  “And we emphasize EVERY story.  Not just the drug addict or homeless, but the story of doctors, teachers, business owners … everyone has a story.  Everyone needs help.”  

Some may say that Jon and Jessica’s story is just a fairy tale, and they got lucky.  While they are blessed with a good life now, they believe that a restart can come to anyone if they turn to God and don’t give up.  “Life is a set of new beginnings,” states Jessica.  “We will trip but we need to keep getting up.  You’ll never get to the new beginnings if you just stop in the pain.”