The Journey of Leah Howard: From Desperation to Purpose

From Farm Life to Prison Walls

When I talked with Leah Howard, I got off the phone thinking about how one moment can change everything. Leah was raised on a working farm in Bowling Green, Missouri, with brothers and cousins, learning early that life meant protecting yourself. “I just knew when I was a little girl, when I left the house that I had to grab a club, a stick or something, because something on that farm was going to come at me, usually a rooster,” she told me.

At 17, Leah got pregnant her senior year and married a soldier she’d known for nine months. They moved to Ohio, where she found herself working full time as a nursing assistant while finishing high school and having two babies by age 19. The marriage was troubled from week one. “We were married one week when I caught him in his first lie,” Leah said. For the next 21 years, it was a cycle of lies, fights, and broken trust.

Leah threw herself into nursing, eventually becoming a pediatric nurse. She loved caring for children, and the work came naturally to her. But at home, the lies continued. Small ones, big ones, constant ones. He’d say he was going to work but really went golfing. He’d claim he took $20 from the ATM when it was $40. “Why did you even bother lying?” she wondered.

When the Marriage Counselor Said Give Up

After 21 years and three children, Leah and her husband went through four and a half years of Christian marriage counseling. The breaking point came when the counselor met with Leah privately. “He said, Leah, God hates divorce and I hate divorce and it doesn’t matter how beautiful you are. It doesn’t matter how successful you are. It doesn’t matter how good of a wife you are. He is who he is and he’s probably never going to change,” she recalled.

That’s when Leah made a decision that would change everything. She told God that if she had to stay with this man, “me and God could not be friends.” She left the marriage and moved into an apartment, but her ex-husband wasn’t done with her.

The stalking started immediately. Slashed tires, chemicals poured into her car engine, breaking into her apartment to watch her sleep. Leah got a restraining order, but it didn’t stop him. The worst part was what he did with their six-year-old daughter. “He would take her and from me and tell her your mother doesn’t love you because if she did she would come home,” Leah said.

The Morning Everything Changed

Leah had been working night shifts at the hospital and was exhausted from the constant chaos. She made what she calls the “top of the dumb list” decision to invite her ex-husband over to talk rationally about their situation. An ex-police officer she was dating had given her a loaded gun months earlier, telling her to use it if she needed to protect herself.

The conversation that morning lasted about three hours and kept getting more heated. Her ex-husband put his arm on the back of the couch and made a threat that would push Leah over the edge. He told her that even though she was likely to get primary custody of their daughter, “all I got to have her is one time and I will be gone and you will never see her again.” He had backed his truck up to her apartment door with the tailgate down.

Leah got the gun, intending only to scare him. But when a text message came through on his phone, proving he had lied again about texting people, something snapped. “In that moment my brain said you’re never gonna stop and I just started pulling the trigger,” she told me. “No rationale whatsoever not thinking about a thing just started pulling the trigger.”

She had never shot a pistol in her life and had always hated guns. After firing, she didn’t even know if she’d hit him or how many times she’d pulled the trigger. She threw the gun, grabbed her phone, and ran through the apartment complex in pajama pants and wool socks, calling police.

Finding Purpose Behind Bars

Leah was sentenced to four years in Ohio’s highest security women’s prison after taking a plea deal. She went in with prejudices about incarcerated people, thinking they were “all evil.” Instead, she discovered “some of the most beautiful people I’d ever met in my life.” Most weren’t evil, she realized, just people led there by “bad mistakes bad decisions bad racing bad relationships addiction.”

The culture shock was severe for someone whose only criminal history was a few speeding tickets. But Leah threw herself into Bible studies and classes about forgiveness. The hardest person to forgive was herself, especially for leaving her six-year-old daughter. She had to accept that this traumatic experience was part of both their stories, even if it wasn’t planned.

Six months before release, Leah was terrified about reentering society. Healthcare had been her only career since age 16, and her felony conviction banned her from nursing. But she held onto faith that things would work out.

From Shame to Ministry Leadership

When Leah was released, a nursing friend asked her to help care for elderly parents. Her first car cost $200. “I can’t imagine what kind of car that would be for two hundred dollars,” she laughed, remembering the embarrassment of driving it after years of luxury vehicles.

She began working at a faith-based recovery home and speaking at conferences. Through a supernatural connection, she was asked to start a prison ministry in the very prison where she’d served time. Usually, former inmates must be off parole for at least a year before returning to prison, but the warden made an exception for Leah.

Today, Leah manages prison ministry across four states and travels as a public speaker. She’s found her purpose in giving hope to broken people, using her own nightmare to help others find their way through theirs. The woman who once planned her suicide in jail now dedicates her life to showing others that redemption is possible, even after the worst moments of our lives.