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Written by Sara Hinds
Photos by Logan Fetzer ’21

Megan Johnson Cook ’15L was 18 months into her self-imposed, year-long moratorium on men. Then she met Chris at a street dance. 

She told him it was actually a two-year deal — God was the only man she was allowing in her life then. The white lie had good intentions. Cook desired a life that was her own. A life that she could feel proud of, and one day, could involve her two sons — Cameron and Kiran — again. She desired the opposite of what she’d lived up to that point. 

“I think I was just tired,” she remembered. “I think my soul, my being was just tired.” 

After years of abusive relationships fueled by drug addiction, Cook hit rock bottom. 

“I had felt empty before,” she said. “I had lived life very, very broken and empty. But once they came in and those boys were gone [...] I just couldn't do it anymore.”

Cook deserved a life that was her own. She got clean and regained custody of her sons, who are now 19 and 24 years old. She earned an associate’s degree from Southeast Community College and a bachelor’s degree from ����ɫ��. Chris reached out after six months. The couple will celebrate their fourth wedding anniversary in November 2023. 

Now, Cook is street outreach director for I’ve Got A Name, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization in Lincoln. She works with trafficked or exploited women, assesses their needs and empowers them to control their future. 

Life is good. Cook is grateful. And her goals are simple: continue to make her marriage wonderful; serve others through her job; and don’t let the two intertwine. Because she’s lived without a stable career or home life, Cook is protective of both. 

“I really feel like everything that I went through in the past, that God's placed me in this position to be able to use that and use it for His glory, and use it for good,” Cook said.