Shawn Cardin: Transformed by forgiveness

Published 9:15 am Saturday, April 30, 2022

“I’ve known the depth of that forgiveness,” said Shawn Cardin.

Cardin lived a life of prostitution and addiction beginning at the age of 12 until she was transformed by forgiveness and turned her life around.

“I decided to “take all that ball of crap and make it into something that would help someone come out from that lifestyle. I couldn’t live through that hell and not make it mean something,” she said.

She and her mother, Maggie Duhon, known as Mamma Maggie, began the nonprofit 501(C)(3), “I Am Loved.” From 2012 to 2016, the mother-daughter team delivered meals and hygiene items to areas where prostitutes worked and/or lived. They operated a thrift store. They also referred women to Rusty Havens Southwest Louisiana Abolitionists, a group that is dedicated to fighting human trafficking.

“She was my backbone,” Cardin said.

When her mother was about to die, Cardin left. Her life spiraled out of control.

“After my mother died, I knew I needed help, she said, “and I looked for help everywhere, everywhere but from God.”

Finally, she cried out to Him.

“God forgave me,” she said. “He forgave me for everything including turning my back on my mamma when she needed me the most.”

Now she wants to elaborately pour out the love God has shown her.

The Bible verse that anchors her ministry is, 2 Corinthians 1:3-5. “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort who comforts us in our troubles, so that we can comfort those in trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ.”

These days Cardin says her deepest craving is for communion with God, which she enjoys around 5:30 each morning when she reads her Bible, reads a devotion and prays. During one of those prayer times, she felt led by the spirit to get back to the ministry of helping others with whom she can readily identify. After praying for guidance, she decided on hosting a couple of bake sales to begin raising funds to get the goals of the  “I Am Loved” ministry going again.

“Can you help by putting something in the paper,” she asked when she called the American Press. 

Bold. Uninvited.

Cardin will have baked goods April 30 at 1843 Gerstner Memorial Drive. On April 7, Cardin will be offering baked goods at the parking lot at 3147, Hwy. 14.  Proceeds and donations, will be used to buy the food to be cooked and delivered to areas where local prostitutes live and/or work. Checks can be made out to Pleasant Grove Church in Lake Charles.