Before “the trouble” started, Chris was living a life many people aspire to. She was successful in her career, grateful to be a wife and mother, and surrounded by the comfort and security of a close-knit family.

“I came from a big Italian family… everybody lived nearby,” Chris recalls. “If there was a birthday, a holiday, everybody was there.”

Life made sense. It felt stable, familiar, and secure.

But by the time Chris arrived at the Julia Greeley Home, her world looked very different.

Ravaged by hardship and poor health, Chris weighed only 80 pounds. Her childhood friend Meg was deeply concerned and knew something had to change. Meg had heard of the Julia Greeley Home and wondered if we could help.

The answer was yes.

Chris was exactly the kind of woman we hoped to walk alongside: someone who wanted to rebuild her life and was willing to take the first step.

A graduate of DePaul University with a degree in Human Resources Management, Chris had built an impressive career. She began in hospital management, eventually moving into corporate leadership and rising through the ranks to become Vice President of Human Resources for a large company in Colorado.

Then life took an unexpected turn.

“Unfortunately, that’s where the trouble started,” Chris says. “Out of the blue, drugs started taking over my husband’s life.”

The impact was devastating. Chris lost her husband to a drug overdose. Bankruptcy followed. She started over and remarried, hoping for a fresh beginning, but that marriage eventually ended as well. Then came more instability and even eviction.

“I went through a period of anxiety and depression, and poor health,” Chris says. “That led to me staying in bed in my pajamas all day long, watching TV. I was shut off from the world.”

Her son Cody – whom Chris lovingly calls “my pride and joy” – saw what was happening and encouraged her to seek help.

“You’ve got to help yourself,” he told her.

And so she did.

“That’s how I ended up on your doorstep,” Chris says. “It was important for me to be here.”

Slowly, things began to change.

The leadership skills, compassion, and strength that had always lived inside her started to reappear. So did her health. Chris gradually returned to a healthy weight and, more importantly, began reconnecting with herself and others.

She credits much of that transformation to Julia Greeley Home staff, who helped her trust people again; “I started to feel a sense of family. I have such a sense of gratitude for this program and the people.”

Chris also rediscovered something else she thought she had lost: her faith.

Through Bible studies and the community around her, she found herself longing for the relationship with God she once knew.

“I want to be a better person; I want to get my old life back.”

Today, Chris sees hope where there was once despair. Not only has she graduated from the Julia Greeley Home program, but she is now giving back by walking alongside women who are just beginning their own journeys. She uses her experiences to encourage incoming guests, helping them see what can be possible on the other side of hardship.

Looking back, Chris sees something clearly now:

“Strength was there all the time, but sometimes you lose sight of it.”

At the Julia Greeley Home, we believe every woman carries that strength within her. Sometimes, she simply needs a place, a community, and people willing to help her find it again.