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By Shavonne Potts

spotts@salisburypost.com

or much of her life, Angel Shepherd couldn’t find anyone in whom to put her faith.

As a child, Shepherd says, she was molested. As a teenager, she was brutally raped. And as a young woman, she was physically and emotionally abused.

The molestation ended when she was 13. By that time, she had come to see it as how love was shown.

“I thought it was normal,” she said.

The man who raped Shepherd at 16, she says, lured her into his house under the guise of needing help finding his car keys. She thought he was going to murder her. But she escaped, and he served five years in prison.

After the ordeal, Shepherd turned to the local rape and crisis center. She turned to prayer for consolation.

“At first I didn’t mean it,” she said. “I prayed until I meant it.”

But that didn’t make her life perfect. Shepherd says she got into a relationship with a man who beat and emotionally abused her. During one fight, she says, he cracked her ribs. She ended the relationship for the sake of her two children, Zack and Sky.

“I was teaching my son it was OK to beat a woman and I was teaching my daughter it’s OK to be beaten,” she said.

Her troubled past led her to get into trouble.

In 2005, Shepherd was charged with assault with a deadly weapon with the intent to kill inflicting serious injury after she stabbed a man she says was trying to harm her.

The two had been doing drugs. He struck her. She left for home. The man kept calling her, she said.

He arrived at her home. When he came at her, she stabbed him.

“I thought he was going to rape me,” she said.

The man told authorities she opened the door and began stabbing him.

She admits she was under the influence of alcohol and drugs.

“I wish I would have sought other outlets,” she said.

She self-medicated with drugs and alcohol. She even sold drugs. Shepherd was high for the first time at age 4 and drunk by 7.

After the 2005 stabbing, she was taken to the county jail. It was there that she felt she’d hit rock bottom. Shepherd was waiting for her jail jumpsuit to be laundered and while sitting there thinking about her situation, she says, she felt she’d lost everything.

“I heard a still, small voice say, ‘Angel, you still

have me,’ ” Shepherd recalls.

She believes that was God.

While waiting for her trial, Shepherd began talking with women from Bible Missionary Baptist Church, who began counseling her.

She spent 15 months in the county jail. When she couldn’t wait any longer for her trial to begin, she took a plea agreement. She was sent to prison for six months, with five years of probation. Her probation will end July 2011. In 2012, she will be allowed to return to the jail to counsel others.

Sarah Diane Vanhoy was one of the women from the church who regularly talked with Shepherd.

“I’ve seen this young lady after she accepted God and she has walked and talked with a whole different attitude,” Vanhoy said.

Vanhoy believes God used her as the instrument to reach Shepherd.

“I did not save Angel. She reached out and accepted Him,” Vanhoy said.

Vanhoy believes if Shepherd hadn’t accepted the Lord the young woman would be dead.

“She was headed that way,” she said.

Vanhoy sees a woman who is secure and is loved.

Shepherd is now married to Allen Shepherd, whom she met at a rodeo. In addition to teenagers Sky and Zack, they are raising Levi and Jacob, both 12.

“He loves her and gives her strength to go on,” Vanhoy said. “She’s more settled, peaceful and at ease with herself.”

“She’s in a good Christian marriage. She’s changed. The Lord changed her,” Vanhoy said.

Shepherd acknowledges the positive changes in her life.

“If it wasn’t for Him, I wouldn’t be here,” she said.

She is also thankful for the support of her husband.

“I’ve got a great husband. He encourages me,” she said.

Shepherd attributes the changes in her life to God. She’s sober and drug free. She volunteers at a homeless shelter. She feeds the homeless once a month with her church. S

he and her husband go on their own to serve breakfast.

“I just want to give back to my community,” she said.

She and Allen go to church together. Today, he is attending Bible college and she shares her story with those who will listen.

She tells others of what she’s overcome. She received help from the Family Crisis Council of Rowan County.

It can be tough, but life does get better, Shepherd said.

“How great is God that He will see you through it,” she said.

Contact Shavonne Potts at 704-797-4253.