Meet Marian

Everyone at The Lamb Center knows her as Marian. Her history here goes back years, to when the Center was still near the old 7-Eleven on Old Lee Highway. Back then there was just one computer, and she used it. 

One of five siblings, she lost her mother at 12, leaving Marian to figure out how to keep going without her. When she talks about getting through hard things, she shares the same thing every time: “God’s first.” 

She’s a mother of three kids and has been sober since July 12, 1993, over thirty years now. She’s a mother first in a lot of the ways she talks about her life, and to her, sobriety was never something that just happened to her. It was a decision she kept making. “Sobriety is a choice,” she says. “You got to want to help yourself. You change the people around you, the places, and the things.” She’s honest that some of her previous addictions caught up with her later and affected her life in ways she’s still working through. “I had a choice,” she says. “We fall down, but we get up. Don’t stay down too long.” 

Over the last few years, she spent some time without a stable place to live, and health problems crept in. Rather than go to a hypothermia shelter, she chose to sleep in her car, a decision she made with her own safety in mind, given the risks many women face in shelter settings. On cold nights she’d wrap towels around the car for warmth, pray, and try to sleep. 

She kept coming to The Lamb Center through all of it. She got to know the staff and case managers, Jack and Laura Doris, Katie, Mark, Yaya, Dave, people she talks about like family, not services. “TLC does God’s work,” she says.  

She went through both the City Jobs and Operation Stream Shield Workforce programs, working both in the parks and picking up trash. “It helped a lot,” she says. “The money you get, you have enough to get a hotel and get good sleep.”  

She found her way to many of the services that The Lamb Center offers free of charge. “TLC has what it takes to get you where you want to be,” she says. “TLC has so many resources. You can go to the doctors, you can go to the dentist, get food and a haircut.” Her advice on getting help is direct. “Ask to go to treatment,” she says. “The Lamb Center will help you.” 

She’s specific about who she’s grateful to, the kitchen volunteers, especially. “I’m grateful for you,” she tells them. 

Three weeks ago, she was matched with permanent housing with the support of her Lamb Center case manager. She’s already thinking about what’s next. “I am going to succeed,” she says. “They have helped me so much, it’s not funny. I will give back to TLC.” 

And she hopes her story will encourage others, too: “I hope and pray this encourages others to get their priorities straight and get it together. Make the right choices. Life is what you make it. Let God in and watch Him work in your life. He gives grace and mercy to everyone. He loves us.” 

Her advice to those still experiencing homelessness: “What are you willing to put into yourself? Apply it.”