brother james
06-12-2005, 07:28 PM
Hi. I'm new here, but I participate in a couple of other general Christian message boards. I thought I'd share a personal testimony that I've shared in other places. It might be helpful to someone, though I understand everyone's walk with God and everyone's path in recovery is different. I know this is long, and I apologize in advance. If you aren't in the mood to read a long testimony perhaps you'd like to come back to it another time...
I was born in Appalachia where my mother and grandmother lived in a two-room shack with no running water. Fortunately, we moved to Michigan when I was about 4, and things got better when the Johnson administration put together the social safety net that allowed my ailing mother to receive public assistance. As I grew up, I was very aware of being 1) poor and on public assistance, and 2) not growing up with a father at home. He left my mom, his wife, while she was still pregnant with me. At the age of 14 I thought I tried to accept Christ and I was baptized, but I found it so very hard to live a life without sin. I felt I was overcome with lustful thoughts and actions - perhaps normal teen feelings, but for me and the church I was raised in, the guilt was overwhelming. I was also a very angry young man, feeling deprived of having a father and always focusing on what I had been cheated out of rather than what God had blessed me with.
After age 19 or so, I chose to live my life as I wanted. I was tired of the guilt of never being able to be good enough to earn God’s love. I would sin and I just knew he would not want me after that. I rejected God and decided I would never subject myself to guilt or shame again because guilt and shame were destroying my life. That’s really what I thought.
I tried to be an atheist for a number of years but couldn't, so I settled for being agnostic. If God really wanted me to know him, I figured, He knew where to find me - that was my arrogant thinking. I figured if He wanted me to know Him he’d have left me a better roadmap to go by than the cryptic “religious” writings of the Bible. When I was 27, God took my mother home to be with Him when she was only 48 and I was quite alone in the world after that.
Over time, I worked hard and became very successful financially. I had a high income, beautiful luxury home, a lofty job title, and the respect and admiration of my peers. I did not have God in my life. I also remained consumed by lust, and I would act out in terribly destructive ways. It was a part of the utter self-centeredness of my life. Everyone and everything existed for how they could serve what I wanted. I thought I was a “nice” person, but I was anything but a nice person.
At the depths of the sin that was in my life, I was introduced to crack cocaine and I became instantly addicted to it. Now, there I was, a highly respected senior executive in the company where I worked, but I quickly fell under the complete control of drug addiction. It became all I lived for and nearly destroyed my wife, my child, and me. Eventually, in desperation, I tried going to 12 step programs like narcotics anonymous and AA. They told me that I could have "a god of my own understanding". I thought that was great. I could create a god the way I wanted him to be. That god would stop me from using drugs and get my life back to the way it was. You see, I did not want to change; I just wanted to be free of addiction. I was living a double and even triple life. Home was one life. Work was another life. And my secrets were the third life. And I worked hard to make sure that they never came into contact with each other. What I did not know, and could not yet realize, was that the God of my understanding was Jesus Christ (and no, His middle initial wasn't "h").
I was clean from drug use for over 3 years and my wife was again beginning to trust that I might be over the addiction but I was miserable. Every single day of my life I thought about using drugs. I played at praying according to what they taught in NA, but I did not have a personal relationship with God and I started to plot a way I could once again use drugs and not get caught.
My life was about to change. I took a planned trip and stopped along the way to check into a motel and use drugs. My addiction had continued to progress in spite of my abstinence, and I used my drug of choice as if there was no tomorrow, consuming massive quantities until I was so sick I thought I was going to die. I lay in a motel room unable to keep even a single sip of water down, and too weak to leave the room. I knew that when I returned home, my wife would divorce me. She had been through a lot with me. I knew that I would probably lose my business and be pretty much done for. I felt as hopeless as a human being could feel.
I called a former "sponsor" from the 12 step program and God put words into his mouth that changed my life. He said, "You know, maybe the answer for you isn't in the rooms of narcotics anonymous. Maybe your answer is with God in a good church somewhere." This friend is devoutly Catholic, but God used him that night. You see, there was a faith that my great-grandmother had that she passed on to my grandmother and from her it passed to my mother and then to me as a child. I knew exactly whom it was that could deliver me from thee bondage I was in.
Lying on the bed, I was too weak and sick even to get on my knees. I was afraid I would not be able to get up. But I closed my eyes and I lifted my hands in the air and I pleaded for God to come into my life. I surrendered my will and my life to Him, no matter what was to come. You know, I've never had a vision or anything like that, but I know that the entire room was filled with His Holy Spirit in that moment. He knew that I was finally ready to give up and give in. As I prayed and asked for God to forgive me - there was an awful lot to forgive - I was not just a desperate addict wishing I could be clean. I was surrendering to God's mercy. I knew His son. I knew His blood would cleanse me. I knew He could deliver me from bondage, and I was given instant assurance that everything was going to be okay. There was no physical light, but there was a kind of spiritual light that filled the room and filled me that I can't describe. And I knew absolutely beyond a shadow of a doubt that God had healed me of drug addiction.
I was still sick as a dog and it took me a full 2 weeks to recover physically. I had a 750-mile drive to get home, and I had to take a couple of days to do it because I was so sick. But God granted me an absolute assurance in my soul that He had delivered me from the bondage of addiction. Other kinds of deliverance were yet to come - cigarette smoking, and other things, but the drug addiction was gone. From that day to this I have not had a single instant where I have craved a drug or desired to put that substance in my body. The thought is repugnant to me. God healed me of addiction in that instant.
Since then, I have devoted myself once again to study God's Word and to pray for His guidance for what is next in my life. My wife did not divorce me. God has led me to a church where His Word is taught, and my daughter now attends the Christian school at that church. God has blessed me tremendously in ways I never would have dreamed. I wake up praising Him and I go to sleep praising Him. He is the most awesome force I could ever have imagined. He moved my mountain.
Unless someone has been in the kind of bondage I was in, it may be hard to relate to the kind of miracle I've been given. Trust me, it is as miraculous as if I had been blind from birth and now could see. I don't know longer term what God will have me to do. I fear I may get it wrong. I fear I may still miss His will because I still can be arrogant and I can still be too self-centered many times. But I do not fear that I will lose what I've been given. God is awesome. Salvation and deliverance are miracles. If God will do this for me, He can do anything you need as well. Through it all, He was never far from me. He isn't far from any of us.
I was born in Appalachia where my mother and grandmother lived in a two-room shack with no running water. Fortunately, we moved to Michigan when I was about 4, and things got better when the Johnson administration put together the social safety net that allowed my ailing mother to receive public assistance. As I grew up, I was very aware of being 1) poor and on public assistance, and 2) not growing up with a father at home. He left my mom, his wife, while she was still pregnant with me. At the age of 14 I thought I tried to accept Christ and I was baptized, but I found it so very hard to live a life without sin. I felt I was overcome with lustful thoughts and actions - perhaps normal teen feelings, but for me and the church I was raised in, the guilt was overwhelming. I was also a very angry young man, feeling deprived of having a father and always focusing on what I had been cheated out of rather than what God had blessed me with.
After age 19 or so, I chose to live my life as I wanted. I was tired of the guilt of never being able to be good enough to earn God’s love. I would sin and I just knew he would not want me after that. I rejected God and decided I would never subject myself to guilt or shame again because guilt and shame were destroying my life. That’s really what I thought.
I tried to be an atheist for a number of years but couldn't, so I settled for being agnostic. If God really wanted me to know him, I figured, He knew where to find me - that was my arrogant thinking. I figured if He wanted me to know Him he’d have left me a better roadmap to go by than the cryptic “religious” writings of the Bible. When I was 27, God took my mother home to be with Him when she was only 48 and I was quite alone in the world after that.
Over time, I worked hard and became very successful financially. I had a high income, beautiful luxury home, a lofty job title, and the respect and admiration of my peers. I did not have God in my life. I also remained consumed by lust, and I would act out in terribly destructive ways. It was a part of the utter self-centeredness of my life. Everyone and everything existed for how they could serve what I wanted. I thought I was a “nice” person, but I was anything but a nice person.
At the depths of the sin that was in my life, I was introduced to crack cocaine and I became instantly addicted to it. Now, there I was, a highly respected senior executive in the company where I worked, but I quickly fell under the complete control of drug addiction. It became all I lived for and nearly destroyed my wife, my child, and me. Eventually, in desperation, I tried going to 12 step programs like narcotics anonymous and AA. They told me that I could have "a god of my own understanding". I thought that was great. I could create a god the way I wanted him to be. That god would stop me from using drugs and get my life back to the way it was. You see, I did not want to change; I just wanted to be free of addiction. I was living a double and even triple life. Home was one life. Work was another life. And my secrets were the third life. And I worked hard to make sure that they never came into contact with each other. What I did not know, and could not yet realize, was that the God of my understanding was Jesus Christ (and no, His middle initial wasn't "h").
I was clean from drug use for over 3 years and my wife was again beginning to trust that I might be over the addiction but I was miserable. Every single day of my life I thought about using drugs. I played at praying according to what they taught in NA, but I did not have a personal relationship with God and I started to plot a way I could once again use drugs and not get caught.
My life was about to change. I took a planned trip and stopped along the way to check into a motel and use drugs. My addiction had continued to progress in spite of my abstinence, and I used my drug of choice as if there was no tomorrow, consuming massive quantities until I was so sick I thought I was going to die. I lay in a motel room unable to keep even a single sip of water down, and too weak to leave the room. I knew that when I returned home, my wife would divorce me. She had been through a lot with me. I knew that I would probably lose my business and be pretty much done for. I felt as hopeless as a human being could feel.
I called a former "sponsor" from the 12 step program and God put words into his mouth that changed my life. He said, "You know, maybe the answer for you isn't in the rooms of narcotics anonymous. Maybe your answer is with God in a good church somewhere." This friend is devoutly Catholic, but God used him that night. You see, there was a faith that my great-grandmother had that she passed on to my grandmother and from her it passed to my mother and then to me as a child. I knew exactly whom it was that could deliver me from thee bondage I was in.
Lying on the bed, I was too weak and sick even to get on my knees. I was afraid I would not be able to get up. But I closed my eyes and I lifted my hands in the air and I pleaded for God to come into my life. I surrendered my will and my life to Him, no matter what was to come. You know, I've never had a vision or anything like that, but I know that the entire room was filled with His Holy Spirit in that moment. He knew that I was finally ready to give up and give in. As I prayed and asked for God to forgive me - there was an awful lot to forgive - I was not just a desperate addict wishing I could be clean. I was surrendering to God's mercy. I knew His son. I knew His blood would cleanse me. I knew He could deliver me from bondage, and I was given instant assurance that everything was going to be okay. There was no physical light, but there was a kind of spiritual light that filled the room and filled me that I can't describe. And I knew absolutely beyond a shadow of a doubt that God had healed me of drug addiction.
I was still sick as a dog and it took me a full 2 weeks to recover physically. I had a 750-mile drive to get home, and I had to take a couple of days to do it because I was so sick. But God granted me an absolute assurance in my soul that He had delivered me from the bondage of addiction. Other kinds of deliverance were yet to come - cigarette smoking, and other things, but the drug addiction was gone. From that day to this I have not had a single instant where I have craved a drug or desired to put that substance in my body. The thought is repugnant to me. God healed me of addiction in that instant.
Since then, I have devoted myself once again to study God's Word and to pray for His guidance for what is next in my life. My wife did not divorce me. God has led me to a church where His Word is taught, and my daughter now attends the Christian school at that church. God has blessed me tremendously in ways I never would have dreamed. I wake up praising Him and I go to sleep praising Him. He is the most awesome force I could ever have imagined. He moved my mountain.
Unless someone has been in the kind of bondage I was in, it may be hard to relate to the kind of miracle I've been given. Trust me, it is as miraculous as if I had been blind from birth and now could see. I don't know longer term what God will have me to do. I fear I may get it wrong. I fear I may still miss His will because I still can be arrogant and I can still be too self-centered many times. But I do not fear that I will lose what I've been given. God is awesome. Salvation and deliverance are miracles. If God will do this for me, He can do anything you need as well. Through it all, He was never far from me. He isn't far from any of us.