Some stories begin with a decision to hand the pen to God, allowing Him to be the Author. 

Sarah Suggs knows that kind of surrender. 

She first joined Betenbough Homes in 2014, working in sales in Midland. Back then, she was full of excitement, engaged to be married, and building what she thought would be her future. Cory Cisco was a construction manager in Midland at that time, and Sarah was trying to learn more about the construction side of our home building process. As the two spoke about the role of a builder and experience specialist, they developed a friendship. He remembers the conversations they had before her wedding. “She was excited but also started mentioning little things — frustrations, tension, disrespect,” he says. “I just asked her the kind of questions a friend would ask: Are you sure you’re ready? Because you don’t have to go through with it.” 

Determined to have the marriage she’d always dreamed of, she went through with the wedding. 

In January 2016, she married her high school sweetheart, despite the quiet warnings stirring in her spirit. “I prayed about it, and I felt like God was saying no,” she shares. “But I thought, once we’re married, He’ll make it right.” Instead, her marriage became emotionally, financially, and physically abusive. Sarah endured for more than four years, raising twin babies while surviving day to day. 

“I never felt like God punished me,” she says softly. “But I thought, ‘I made this choice myself. I can’t go to Him now.’” 

One night, however, she cried out to God in total desperation. Opening her Bible, she landed on a passage that spoke straight to her heart. “I felt Him saying, You have a light inside you. If you stay here, it will be snuffed out. You’ll never be who I made you to be if you stay. I knew then — I hadn’t listened the first time, but I better listen now.” 

A week later, her dad and a family friend drove to Midland. They packed her things while her husband was at work, and she left with her mom and the twins. “It felt like the hardest thing I’ve ever done, like there was no going back,” she says. “But it was obedience. I finally listened.” 

Everything she’d clung to — her plans, her dreams, even her sense of identity — was gone. But in the emptiness, God began a new chapter in Sarah’s life. 

For a time, she moved in with her parents. God started restoring her piece by piece. “I’d always joked about wanting to work for a dermatologist,” she laughs. “Out of nowhere, I got a call about a job with Dr. Richard Hope, a prominent dermatologist in Lubbock. I didn’t even apply! God handed me that job.” She loved the work and could see the twins’ daycare from the breakroom.  

Six months later, a message popped up on her LinkedIn from Cory Cisco, now an area director, reaching out about a position at Betenbough Homes in Lubbock. “I thought, My life is too crazy. There’s no way,” Sarah remembers. “But my dad encouraged me to talk to him.’” 

When she and Cory spoke, she immediately started crying. “You were right about my marriage,” she told him. He invited her to interview for an experience specialist position in Lubbock. The day of the interview, Sarah had just learned her ex-husband was taking her to a jury trial to gain full custody of their twins. “It was the worst interview of my life,” she says. “But somehow, God still opened the door.” 

Cory saw through her grief, stress, and lack of confidence to something more. “She’d come off one of the worst seasons of her life,” he says. “I believed to my toes it would be good for her. She needed to be loved on. She needed a safe place.” 

Sarah started at Betenbough Homes Lubbock South in April 2021. “When you’re weak, He is strong,” she says. “I still can’t believe they chose me in the middle of my mess. But I had a truck with my name on it as proof.” 

From day one, her team rallied around her. “Even people who barely knew me prayed for me,” Sarah recalls. “My construction manager would check in every day and ask, ‘How can I pray for you? What’s going on?’ I’d never experienced that kind of support at work.” 

Her general manager, Justin Betancur, remembers her courage vividly. “She had every reason not to come to that interview,” he says. “But she showed up. From that day to now, she’s faced years of hearings and challenges. We’ve seen such growth. She came here for healing, and now she’s healing others with her story.” 

Through custody battles, long court days, and countless late nights, her Betenbough family stood with her. “Our culture is about helping people through the chapter of life they’re in,” Justin says. “For Sarah, it was a long one, but we knew it would end. We wanted her to know: You’re not alone.” 

God’s provision didn’t stop with a job at Betenbough. Sarah longed for a better home for her twins. She’d left her parents’ house for a tiny, roach-infested duplex with only one small window. When a new Betenbough floor plan launched, she hoped to buy, but the timing and budget didn’t line up. 

Then God surprised her with another plot twist. After helping a couple close on an investment property, the husband and wife asked Sarah what she could afford to pay in rent while saving for her own home. She gave them a number, and a few days later, they handed her the keys to the home they’d just purchased. “They’d put out a welcome mat and flowers,” she says, tears welling. “I still believe they’re earth angels.” 

Now, when she walks outside in the evening and watches her children play, she breathes gratitude. Even when she wasn’t in a place to buy the home she wanted, God found a way to write her dream home into her story. “There were nights I sat in that old duplex saying, ‘God, You better have a plan.’ He did. He always did.”  

Last year Sarah had lunch with Holly Betenbough and heard first-hand about her unexpected love story with Richard Hope, a name from Holly’s past. Sarah loves both Holly and Dr. Hope, so hearing about their process of reconnection was very special. As she rejoiced for her friends, Sarah had no idea that God was writing an unexpected love story for her, as well.  

Over time, joy returned to fill the pages of Sarah’s life. A familiar name from her own past reappeared. Ben Barton, a coworker she’d met years earlier during a cross-training in Odessa, had moved to Lubbock for the area development manager role. “There was always something special about Sarah,” Ben says.  

Their friendship grew into something deeper, built on faith, honesty, and shared stories of redemption. “We’ve both walked through hard things,” Ben says. “But God met us there. There’s a peace that only He could write into our story.” 

For Sarah, that peace feels like the culmination of years of prayers finally answered. “God does have perfect timing,” she says. “Ben is so intentional and makes things special for me. I don’t feel like I deserve him, and I think my kids like him more than they like me,” she laughs. 

Cory smiles when he thinks about where she is today. “She’s the Sarah I knew years ago — full of life and laughter again. Watching her thrive has reminded me that people don’t have to bring their best every day to be worth believing in. Sometimes they just need someone to see their potential when they can’t. Betenbough did that. I think Ben loves her that way, too.” 

On a mountaintop in Tennessee, Ben asked Sarah to marry him in November 2025. Her yes begins a new chapter for the couple. 

Looking back, Sarah sees God’s fingerprints on every page — the job, the home, the community, the love story still being written. “I’m thankful for everything I went through because He refined me through it.” 

“When I remember where I was,” she reflects, “I can only thank Him for where I am. He’s always been faithful.” And with that realization, Sarah is no longer trying to write her own narrative; she’s trusting the Author and Finisher of her faith.