Hi, this is Erin Campbell, and welcome to Water through the Word; my guest today is Tiffany Peterson.

 

Tiffany’s story has challenged audiences young and old to take a good long look at their lives because her life has been forever changed. The horror she experienced one terrifying night in 2003 dramatically changed the course of two families’ lives. Tiffany Peterson recently joined me in the studio and this is her story: 

 

Erin: Hi Tiffany.

 

Tiffany: Hi Erin.

 

Erin: Welcome to the program.

 

Tiffany: Thank you so much.

 

Erin: Tiffany, tell me a little bit about your life.

 

Tiffany: Well, I grew up on a horse farm and I had the perfect little suburban family. My parents are still married, I have an older brother, and we lived across the street from my grandparents. Everything was just great growing up. I got my degrees and worked myself up in my career, and owned a beautiful home, a brand new car, I was a network engineer at a local bank. And, my life just looked perfect from the outside looking in. I should have been so happy, and I wasn’t – there was something missing in my life and I could never catch it. I felt like I was always striving for it and just never quite sure what that “thing” was that I was looking for… I kept searching for happiness through money, through success, through shopping and I would be happy for a minute and it would die down and I was striving for the next “thing” that would make me happy but it just never seemed to come. 

 

Erin: And that’s very typical of life in America because everything’s so readily accessible and we have the comforts of just about anything as a general rule. But we are so unhappy and depression is on the rise and unfulfillment and addictions and crime are on the rise and we have to wonder what it is. 

 

Tiffany: Well, that’s exactly where it took me... Searching for happiness, I began drinking… and it wasn’t an intentional “let me drink because I’m unhappy” it was never that intentional. It just kinda happened…. I’d go out after work and have a couple beers or wine and as it progressed and as I got older and grew up, it became wine. Wine was defiantly my drink of choice… I thought “here I am, a successful woman, I’m going to come home from work, relax, sit on my couch, have a glass of wine, have the fireplace going - it didn’t even feel like my life. It felt like I was watching somebody else’s life. And that progressed. I found happiness through drinking. Well, I wouldn’t call it happiness, I didn’t feel as miserable and I didn’t feel as sad and lost and empty when I was drinking. I didn’t think about that. I thought, “Hey I'm enjoying the moment and that’s all.” I would think about when I was drinking. It was never a set out purpose to “let me get drunk.” I never recall having that thought. And actually I didn’t even think I had a problem at all. UNTIL I went to an out of town wedding with a friend of mine. I woke up the next morning with absolutely no memory of what had happened the night before. Since it was an out of town wedding, we had to drive home… he didn’t speak a word to me all the way home and hasn’t spoken to me since. I have begged him what happened but he won’t tell me. That petrified me… I was so scared, what could I have done to this wonderful friend of mine that would cause him to refuse to speak to me?

 

Erin: It was a blackout then, wasn’t it?

 

Tiffany: A complete blackout, yes.

 

Erin: Which is when all memories are erased?

 

Tiffany: Yes. In looking back, Id had a LOT of blackouts… Id wake up the next morning after being out and look out the window to see if my car was there, because I didn’t remember driving home. I'd experienced several blackouts…

 

Erin: Have you ever said to yourself, “I’ll never do that again.” 

 

Tiffany: ABSOLUTELY!!!!! Uncountable times… After that wedding experience, I thought maybe I do have a problem… let me go to an AA meeting, let me check this out and see, because that’s not right, that’s not “Normal” … So, I went to this AA meeting and everybody there had lost their job, lost their family, their home lost something huge in their life and that experience only convinced me even more that I didn’t have a problem, I wasn’t like “those” people… I’m NOT an alcoholic, I don’t drink in the morning, I don’t hide my bottles or drink out of a paper bag, I don’t drink every single day, ya know all the excuses and rationales in the world. I CAN just drink a couple and stop.

 

Erin: You have a job, you keep your job...

 

Tiffany: YES, I keep my job, I pay my bills, I have a fantastic family, so I must not have a problem, and I just drank too much that night. And the problem was I would drink too much, I would cross that line, and then I would drive home. I can’t fathom when that became ok to me. Because I didn’t see it growing up, I never saw it. I never experienced it in my family. But I know that at the time, when I became drunk, I convinced myself that I really was ok, I really believed in all my mind that I was fine, I could drive. I remember friends trying to stop me different times and thinking “there’s no reason for me to leave my car here and ride with you because I am ok.”

 

Erin: We are working with a level of awareness or maybe we can say a level of denial but we know that something’s off don’t we, when were stuck in something like this, and well rationalize our way out of it until it gets the best of us and it did one day didn’t it? 

 

Tiffany: Yes, completely… I had come home from work, Id had a couple glasses of wine and then I went out on a blind date. We were at a nice restaurant - its not like I was out partying, having shots, I was at a nice restaurant with a nice man having a dinner. The last thing I remember was 8:30pm. I went to the restroom, called my friend told here the date was going great. It was the first good blind date Id had, and the next thing I knew I woke up in the hospital and the doctor was stapling my knee. My parents were looking over me, there was a sheriff at the end of the bed and I had absolutely no idea why I was there. How I had gotten there, I was clueless and I asked them, “What’s going on here.” I can remember ‘coming to’ and just being clueless as to what was going on… I said “why am I here, was I in an accident, did I hurt anybody.” I was petrified because the atmosphere in the room was so sad and sullen like something horrible had just happened. I had no clue what that was. I knew these people couldn’t be that sad for me banging myself up, there must be more and no one was telling me what that was. Eventually the Chaplin came in the room and she said Id been in an accident and the driver of the other vehicle was ok. I said ok, I felt a little bit better, but I knew there was still more… what aren’t you telling me…. Eventually she said “Well, the passenger of the vehicle was killed” and I can’t even describe the emotions I went through and the feelings in me… I immediately threw up and was going into convulsions and I was screaming, I couldn’t imagine that someone was dead and I had caused it. It was the most unbelievable, indescribable feeling in the entire world, it was horrible…

 

Erin: Were your parents still in the room, and the sheriff?

 

Tiffany: Yes, I know that they were there, but I don’t picture there faces, all I can picture was this girl being dead, and me causing it….

 

Erin: What happened, do you know? Did they tell you the details of the accident?

 

Tiffany: To this day I have no memory of the accident at all. I can’t see anything of what I did. But they told me what happened. I was on 275 going East, I came up behind a pick-up truck from out of nowhere, they estimated I was going about 75mph and I ran into the back-end of this truck and that caused the driver to loose control, which caused his pickup truck to flip and the girl that I killed was thrown from the vehicle. I’m told that she was killed instantly. And she was exactly 1 month from being married. Her fiancé was driving the truck and they had just come from meeting with their pastor on their final wedding plans. I think of all the people that were coming in from out of town to go to this wonderful wedding that she had prepared for, now instead they had to come to her funeral. I didn’t find out that night, but later I found out that she was pregnant, so not only did I kill her, I killed her unborn baby. They had everything, they were preparing for this new life to come into the world and to this day, I think the worst part of all this is that she was an only child. These parents lost their only child, their only chance at being grandparents… I can’t even fathom what I have done to these people. 

 

Erin: What do you do with that?

 

Tiffany: At the time I wanted to be dead. I couldn’t do anything with that. I just wanted to be dead. Let me die, there’s no reason for me to be alive, why should I live when 2 people are dead because of me? I thought, “Why am I alive, why couldn’t I die in that crash” and I just kept going through that feeling over and over and over… I wanted to be dead and if some mistake happened that night where it was suppose to have been me, ok, fine there was a mistake, then I’ll kill myself because something went wrong and I need to be dead… there’s no good that could possibly come out of this horrible thing…

 

Erin: Did you know Christ at this time?

 

Tiffany: I THOUGHT I did, looking back, I consider myself a “weekend Christian” I would go to church, I knew God, I knew who He was, I would live my life how I wanted to all week long and then go to church on Sunday and apologize for how I had lived and promised to never ever ever do it again. To never drink and drive again, to never get drunk again, to never do the things I knew I shouldn’t do. And then I would continue all over again. I thought I knew God. But He was the farthest thing from my mind at that moment. He couldn’t know me anymore. Hecouldn’t forgive me, He couldn’t speak to me, I had just killed 2 of His children. God wasn’teven much of a consideration at that time. 

 

And my brother convinced me I needed to talk to somebody. I said there’s no reason to go to church, they can’t bring them back. Why would I go to church? My family was afraid I wouldkill myself; my brother knew that I couldn’t live with this and he knew I needed to go and talk tosomebody so I did. My sister-in-law went with me and we walked in to the Vineyard and I metDana Cochran, and my life has never been the same. That day when I walked in, I was a mess, Ihad bruises and scrapes all over the place, I was in hysterics, I was crying, I just couldn’t livewith myself, I hated myself SO much. Someone directed me to Dana and I did not know thiswoman, one of the reasons I didn’t want to go to a church was I didn’t want anyone to be nice tome - I didn’t deserve it. My family was nice to me and I was so angry at that, I was like STOPbeing nice to me and I knew I would receive kindness at a church and I didn’t want it. So thatwas one of my hesitations of going. So I go in and sit down and meet with Dana Cochran andanother gentleman she was with and I explain to her my feelings and my anger of people beingso nice to me and she understood that. She got it. She said to me “ya know what, you should beupset, you just killed two people, two people are dead because of the choice you made.” And sheprayed for their family, for their comfort, for their peace and she prayed for everyone that lovedher and that was suffering and for my family and everyone that was trying to deal with me goingthrough this. And that formed such a bond with her, that made me trust her, that made me loveher, it was just amazing, I’m so glad she did that. 

 

Erin: God showed up in her and through her, He reached out to you through her heart. 

 

Tiffany: Yes, He did. She prayed for me, she prayed the prayers that I wasn’t able to speak. I didn’t want to talk to God. I wasn’t able to talk to God; she did it for me…

 

Erin: Were you cited?

 

Tiffany: That night at the hospital, the sheriff started to arrest me, he started to read me my rights, he said “You have the right to remain silent, you have the right” and he stopped… he said“ya know what, you need to go home with your family, go home and try to get it together”(because I was such a mess) And since he did that – I know now, that was God. Because Ineeded to go back to church, I needed to find God in my life. That was another thing Danaexplained to me that day. That God did have a purpose for me. He had a purpose for my life.That if I killed myself, I would never be able to fulfill that vision He had for me, that plan andthat day she told me of His plans for my life. He had a plan for my future. I don’t know if I reallybelieved it, but I kinda opened my heart to it that day. If this was for some reason in His planthen I needed to do whatever I can to make something good come out of this horrible, horriblething that I’ve done. So from that day that I met Dana on, it became “Ok God, what do YOUwant me to do, what did YOU want to come out of this, because I’ll do it, anything” and itbecame very, very important for me to be baptized. I was as a child, but I didn’t know God thenand Id always heard that you shouldn’t be baptized twice but I was a new person, I was a newcreation and I knew that God forgave me and I needed to express that to the world. 

 

Erin: You got that through really and truly receiving Jesus as Lord and the moment you accept Him, you are a new creation – That is in the bible!

 

Tiffany: YES

 

Erin: the OLD has gone, and the NEW has come…

 

Tiffany: YES

 

Erin: And you knew that you could feel that for the first time in your life 

 

Tiffany: YES, I FELT IT, for the very first time. I THOUGHT Id had it before, but ya know what, I FELT it, I LIVED it, Oohh, it was just all through me. I knew that God was IN me. SoDana did baptize me before I went to prison. Because I didn’t fight it, there was nothing to fight.Of course this was MY fault, so I KNEW I would be going to prison and it was just so importantto be baptized before I went and God worked it all out. So I was able to be baptized before I wentto prison and when I went down into that water – Ohhh, WOW, I FELT all that JUNK, all thatSELF-HATRED, all that unforgiveness and drinking and murder and everything horrible in mypast from the time I was born being washed away.

 

Erin: WOW

 

Tiffany: When I came out of that water I knew that I was NEW, I had a FRESH START!!! And God was with me for the rest of my life. From this point on, I was walking with God.

 

Erin: You knew that you knew that you knew - there’s no other word to describe it is there?

 

Tiffany: No, it was a fresh start and I KNEW it and I realized what having a RELATIONSHIP with God meant. I knew Jesus. He was with me. He died for me and I knew it.

 

Erin: You felt forgiven.

 

Tiffany: I felt forgiven by God, yes. At that point, I knew I didn’t forgive myself but I knew that I knew that I knew that God forgave me. 

 

Erin: Because of what Jesus did for you.

 

Tiffany: YES, ONLY through Jesus.

 

Erin: How long since your baptism did you wait before you had to go to court? 

 

Tiffany: I was baptized on August 28th and I went to court on September 4th and I didn’t know any of these dates they just happened in Gods timing. I believe that he held everything up until Iwas baptized. I walked into that court room, then I was arrested, I hadn’t been arrested until thatmoment. And then I saw her family for the first time. 

 

Erin: What happened to you when you saw their faces?

 

Tiffany: I can’t even describe, I was devastated for them, for what I took away from them, I can’t describe it any other way except that I was devastated. I was so sad and heartbroken forwhat I had done to them. Dana was there with me and I looked at her and said I can’t do this, ICAN’T do this. I just want to be dead again. She was able to remind me of what I had just beenthrough 1 week earlier, she said you know what – YOU can’t, you can’t do this on your own, butJesus is with you and He will help you through this. She was able to remind me that I died to thatold life, that it was all washed away, that I was a new creation and this new me COULD do this.That I could go on because I was NOT alone anymore. 

 

Erin: Your circumstances didn’t change because the fact of the matter is that you still had a punishment that you had to face. 

 

Tiffany: Yes.

 

Erin: And you still had that family, your circumstances didn’t change but YOU were changed.

 

Tiffany: YES

 

Erin: What charges were you facing?

 

Tiffany: Aggravated vehicular homicide on 2 counts.

 

Erin: So the unborn child was considered a life...

 

Tiffany: Yes, she was 11 weeks old, so I was charged with that and pleaded guilty. I didn’t want to fight it, there was NOTHING to fight. I couldn’t imagine putting that family through anythingmore than I already had. I read them a letter that I had written to them in court that day. I tried togive them a glimpse of how horrible I felt, about how much I hated myself for what I had done,about how much I wish I could take it back or trade places with her if I could… but those werejust words. That day I said to them, “I know you hate me and I hate myself for what I have done”and after that I went to jail and I did my time awaiting my sentencing. I saw them again at mysentencing right before I went to prison and then they were able to speak and say what theywanted to say. Her father stood up and said to me “I don’t hate you, I hate what you did, but Idon’t hate you” … I will never forget those words, that was God speaking through him, becauseI don’t think any human being could have that kind of compassion… I was facing 16 years inprison, it was 2-8 years on each count and he told me, I don’t want you to do 16 years in prison, Iwant you to go, do your time, do the minimum, come back to your family and be grateful for therest of your life that you have a family to come home to.

 

Erin: OH MY GOSH

 

Tiffany: There are no words to explain what that meant to me.

 

Erin: WOW

 

Tiffany: My prayer the entire time in jail was that God would give me the amount of time he needed to transform me into the person he wanted me to become and I didn’t care how much time that was. Whether it was 16 years or not, for some reason I had it in my heart and mind it would be 12 years. I really believed I would get 12 years. 

 

Erin: How old were you at the time Tiffany?

 

Tiffany: I was 28.

 

Erin: ok

 

Tiffany: The judge said he was just flooded with mail from both sides. From my side saying “Don’t send her to prison for 16 years, you’ll ruin the person she is and she doesn’t deserve that.” And he was flooded with letters from her side saying what an amazing woman she was,what an amazing girl, what an amazing life that I took away and to give me every day of 16years. 

 

I didn’t even hear him when the judge sentenced me to 3 years. When I left the court room, my lawyer said did you hear that, 3 years… that was unheard of 3 years for killing 2 people… I wasupset, I was very, very upset that it was ONLY 3 years. I wanted more!!! I deserved more and allI could think about was, what is her family thinking right now? Are they upset that I only got 3years? It took me a long time to come to terms with that because I wanted more punishment, andthen I was reminded of my prayer. That I asked God to give me as much time as HE needed totransform my life and become the person He wanted me to be.

 

Erin: WOW

 

Tiffany: I read in a book one day that a fruit tree isn’t allowed to produce fruit for the first 3 years of its life. That the branches are cut back and it can not produce fruit for the first 3 years,so after that 3 years, it can produce BETTER fruit. So I asked God, is that what you are tellingme, is that why you gave me 3 years – and that is what I believe!!!

 

Erin: We’ve been talking to Tiffany Peterson who’s been sharing her life story of a tragic day when she made a decision to get behind the wheel of a car after drinking too much and as a resulta tragedy struck that night and two lives were taken. But she would have to learn to walk throughthe grief and the guilt and she would come to know Jesus as an intimate God, as one who lovedher and forgave her, and through that experience she has become a new creation. And there isnobody on the face of the earth that has ever walked in the past the present or the future who hasdone more than what God can forgive and He will forgive everything.

 

Tiffany: We just have to ASK!!!

 

Erin: Thank you Tiffany.