Yesterday we went to a strawberry farm and had such a wonderful day, I highly recommend this over an amusement park. Anyway I woke up this morning thinking about all the wonderful people in my life; my family & friends and I started realizing and focusing on how very blessed I am. It has not always been this way.
The reason for this post is to offer hope to anyway stuck in addiction or with a family member or loved one stuck there. I am sharing my bullet point testimony here. Don't lose hope, keep praying & keep loving. God is able and your life and family can be restored. A friend says it this way; 'addiction or any destructive behavior is like a roller coaster ride. When your loved one is on it, don't leave the amusement park but don't get on the ride. You can stand at the bottom and wave as they go by'.
I was a sixties baby Born on January 6th to Helen & Bob. He was a handy, very intelligent, very resourceful, very angry Raging alcoholic & She was a small town girl that fell in love with a handsome stranger and she had no clue what she got her self into.
I had a brother 11 years older than me and my sister is eight years older. My mom was always trying to convince me that I was not an accident.…
By the time I was about five or six the small town girl with big city dreams had finally had enough and divorced my dad. I can remember in elementary school I only had one other friend who lived in a single mom home, it was definitely unusual back then. My mom had by then become an executive in our town which lead her to be one of the ladies who started fighting for equal pay for equal work, she was a real mover & shaker but that left me home alone a lot…
I became a very independent person but that is also when I developed a whole plethora of bad habits. I went to church, every Sunday & most Wednesdays…
We lived in Ohio and my grandparents were from Kentucky. My family had a little trailer in Kentucky that we used for weekend vacations and a place to keep our boat and all our toys. I was there a lot with my older brother and sister which meant I started drinking and smoking weed really young.
Just before I turned 16 I got my first job at Arby’s. There I met this super cute young man who I thought hung the moon and when I turned 18 we got married. Guess what he did not hang the moon as a matter fact he probably is the reason there’s spots on it…
He was not the greatest husband he was unfaithful and unkind and left me at home a lot and by the way I was not the greatest wife either, I didn’t have a clue as to how to be one.
But I got this beautiful curly headed little baby girl named Sairah Elizabeth!!! By the time She was 10 months old he left me and asked for a divorce. That was the most crushing, heartbreaking experience ever. Within months we got back together and moved to Florida. I guess I’m a glutton for punishment.
I made lots of mistakes here I partied still, wasn’t a good wife, was unfaithful and then along came Marc Robert, the sweetest little boy I had ever seen! We managed to survive another year and it was over again so I moved to Dunedin in this little duplex with my sweet little babies had a good job, life was good for a minute.
I was definitely still partying way too much & one night I was in this place called JR sports pub and I met this guy his name was Ray. He was this big handsome construction worker and I fell head over heels. Doesn’t that sound like a happy ending...trust me, that was just a fast track to a whole bunch of new crazy.
1. he moved in in about a week
2. we got married shortly after that
3. we went on a honeymoon to his family’s house and I got shot at
4. we came home & a neighbor was watching the kids so we could clean the car & do laundry & he molested my daughter
5. she went to live with her dad
6. Ray’s ex-wife moved within two blocks of our house
7. He got drunk one night and went home with her
8. He came back and we moved to Daytona (she even came to visit us here)
9. partying, drunkenness, abusiveness (both sides)
10. Found out I was pregnant
11. Had the baby Heather ray and she died five weeks later
12. During this time Sairah was living with her dad coming back-and-forth
13. I went to pick her up one day and they were gone house empty no trace
After the baby died we started going to church. we didn’t change our behaviors much but we were going to church. One year later we were given the cutest baby girl and we named her Katlin Rose!
We even bought a house seven houses down from our church and the church had Sunday school classes in our house. We had amazing people around, us we had great relationships with all the people at church but still we haven’t changed our behaviors. We had no relationship with Jesus.
We owned a beautiful home, had a fabulous business, motorcycles trucks everything your heart desires and still one day I decided let’s do crystal meth
Boy that’s some bullet points But I think I’ll just sum it up saying that that led to homelessness yes, homelessness from beautiful home, plenty of money everything your hearts desires to homelessness
That was my bottom. I was done but couldn’t stop. Every day for a year I would wake up & say I’m done & within 30 minutes I had a meth pipe in my mouth.
I hated myself, I hated drugs, I hated everyone & everything, I hated my life…I started going to see my church friends & started to remember some ‘church stuff’. But I was desperate I needed more than church, I needed a Savior for the first time in my life I realized I couldn’t fix this…
I cried out to Jesus to save me and He did but y’all then I started doing my part. I got rid of my dope, I started changing my people places & things and I started reading my Bible
You know as addicts we are looking for that light switch thing, that pill to fix me
That is only in Alice in Wonderland
in the real world you have to work to change your mind, work to change your habits, work to get better
Friends let us move into a house they had bought to flip so we wouldn’t be homeless
Our church hired us to keep us close
A man came up to me and asked me about doing a Bible study at the Coalition
(he told me years later that he though I was someone else when he asked)
That Bible study turned into an Outreach Center (we had no money but God provided)
First service we took everyone home with us which turned into the 28:20 project and a thrift store and all the other cool things God lets us do for His Kingdom
Don’t believe the words spoken over you - read your Bible and find out what God says about you
If He wants you, to you can
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