I am redeemed by Christ, life has been given back to me, beauty for ashes, strength for fear, gladness for mourning, and peace for despair.
My parents divorced when I was 5 years old, and I was devastated. I can remember the night my father came into my brother’s room where we were playing and told us he was leaving. I remember the insecurity, uncertainty, and pain flooding my mind as I entered kindergarten. My foundations had crumbled. I had nightmares about my mother or brothers dying. If my father could just leave, then anyone could. The loss was unbearable. Such is the world, right? There is loss and pain all around us. What added to the struggle was the fact that I was expected to be okay with it. The phrase “the kids are alright” was a thought in the minds of most people seeking freedom from marital struggle. It was the thought that kids are resilient, they bounce back. I didn’t and I received no help, no care.
I can remember feeling awful, and heartbroken. I was scared and anxious. I just wanted to feel better. It started with food. I found out that if I ate certain foods or large amounts of food, I felt better. That graduated as I grew into food addiction at a young age. I consumed large amounts of caffeine or chocolate because they made me feel better. Add in that we were instantly poor. Many times, as a kid, I went to the cupboards to find them bare. Food insecurity was a feature of my growing up therefore, when I ate, I ate far too much. First because eating made me feel good and second because I feared that food also would disappear.
Like all drugs that are used to mask emotional pain, the suffering breaks through and it’s not enough. By the time I was 15, coming of age, becoming a man. I got taller, stronger, trimmer. But with a full-on caffeine, sugar, and chocolate addiction, my adolescent development made permanent my need for substances to feel better. It was as if my maturation solidified my need for “something else” to feel right. It’s ironic because I remember feeling ambivalent about alcohol and very opposed to drugs. But when I was a freshman in high school, I got drunk at a party. I remember waking up in the front yard of my friend’s house laying on a picnic table and the anxiety was gone, the consistent worry and “what if” had disappeared. As the alcohol left my system, the pain returned, and the addictive cycle took hold. I drank Thursdays through Sundays through most of the rest of High School. That was enough for me to feel better, as the alcohol would leave my system for me to refill on the weekends. My grades suffered greatly. I graduated with a 1.9 GPA and had to tell my mother that I was walking across the stage but not graduating the night before graduation. I took a class over the summer and got my diploma the following Fall. I then half-heartedly entered college.
I still hate drugs. I hate everything about them. Therefore, when I moved to using drugs because alcohol needed some help making me feel better, I hated myself. I was a drug addict. I’ve tried just about every drug, but my drugs of choice were a combination of strong alcohol and usually laced marijuana. You might be saying that marijuana is legal, right? The devil is cunning and has a way of convincing the world that he doesn’t exist. The same is true with this drug. It’s not good in any way, it’s highly addictive, more powerful than anything the hippies smoked and now it’s engineered and likely laced with something else to make it more powerful. It’s bad and it had me. I disappeared from my family life and folded into a group of like-minded friends in my late teens and early twenties. The name of our game was teenage partying and hooking up. Throughout my time growing up, I also used physical encounters to make myself feel better. I ruined some lives in that way along the path. I don’t remember much about being 19 or 20 years old. By 21, I had frequented the bars so much that partying on my 21st birthday wasn’t a novel experience, but an old game. In our relatively small town, I could get served alcohol just about anywhere. But drugs were the adventure, the way I was masking all the damage.
God has a way of getting our attention no matter how numbed our senses are. When I was 21, I began having panic attacks, especially when I was high. They are unpleasant, to say the least. It’s the feeling that there’s an emergency, there’s severe danger, a reason to be extremely scared, but nothing’s there. Blend that with brutal rumination and self-loathing and I dove into a dark hole of mental illness. I began withdrawing from everything. No job, college ignored, family disillusioned, friends sidelined, sitting alone at my mother’s house or my girlfriend’s apartment for weeks, trying to figure out how to not feel, how not to hurt. I wanted to use, but when I did, I would panic. Without the substance, my mind reeled and twisted. My depression was so deep that it featured delusions. I remember thinking that a van parked on the street outside my mother’s house was a hitman hired by my friends to kill me. I felt I was disappointing them and deserved to die, so my mind invented a delusion. Anything of value that I had, including my mind, I lost.
I lived mainly with my mother and stepfather during this time. There were two places I remember where we lived. One was an apartment on the lower level of a three-story house. The other was a duplex that my folks had purchased. I had a place to stay with my parents as long as I stayed in school. We ended up moving during my time of mental decline. I was packing my room to move from the apartment to the duplex. I was going through the closet, sorting my stuff and something on the floor of the closet caught my eye. It was the symbol of a credit card company on the front of a business card. I thought, “Ah, maybe it’s a Credit Card”. I reached down and picked it up. Who knows how long it had been there or who put it there. It wasn’t ours. I looked at the card. There were some words written on the front above the Credit Card Symbol. It said, “Give Christ Charge of Your Life”. There was something about it. I turned it over, there were scriptures on the back laid out in numbered points. Again, the title on the back read, “Give Christ Charge of Your Life”. I considered it and somehow couldn’t throw it away. My wallet sat on the top of the dresser, I grabbed it and slid the card into one of the credit card pockets, flipped it shut, and kept working.
We moved into the new place. Sometime later, I got a new wallet. I didn’t throw the old one away, I just put it in the closet of my new bedroom. I continued in depression, rumination, and delusion for weeks. I was trying everything from St. John’s Wort to journaling, to meditation or other drugs. I would declare my freedom from drugs only to use again and panic again. Then, I broke up with my girlfriend. I magnanimously determined myself “no good”. I was setting her free from me. That led to a period of withdrawal from people and life. About two weeks into that isolation, I remember sitting on the edge of my bed. Life was absent. My existence was dark. I sobbed alone. Then I got up and went to my bedroom closet. I can’t remember why. I went through the shelves and saw my old wallet. I picked it up, opened it, and saw the words, “Give Christ Charge of Your Life” running across the top of a card in the wallet. I took the card out, chucked the wallet, and sat back on the edge of the bed.
(Side Note) I was raised going to Lutheran Church with my grandparents whenever my mother could drag us there. We were Christmas and Easter attendees mainly. I was confirmed in the Lutheran Church. I received the lowest grade in confirmation in our local Church’s history. A record that still stands. They don’t flunk confirmands, so I was confirmed in the Church and had my first communion. Going to Church wasn’t the first option for me. But when we went, I liked it. I felt somehow lighter after going to Church on Sundays. Sunday lunch was a staple that I loved with my grandparents growing up. I liked excusing myself from service to “go to the bathroom” where I explored the Church building and got into places and things I wasn’t meant to. I could pack little adventures into 15 minutes and get back to service, and that way, Church wasn’t so long. I have very fond memories of going to our Lutheran Church as a child.
Back in my room, as I sat on the edge of the bed, turning the card over, questioning what it even was, I began to read the listed points along with the scriptures. The subheading below the title said, “The Roman Road to Salvation”. I read the points and the scripture, I came to this Bible verse, Romans 10:9 “because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Lightning struck in my heart and mind. I had been striving so much, declaring my independence from drugs and alcohol only to fail. I was trying desperately to build a ladder by myself and climb out of the deep hole I had created. I remember reading that verse and thinking, “Can it be that simple?” The card then had instructions at the end of the points. It was a simple prayer, but it said you had to pray the prayer for yourself. As I read, I remember thinking, I need to be saved, I can’t do this, God help me, God you’re right, I can’t do this. I need you, Lord. I prayed the prayer, but it wasn’t just the prayer, it was a dual thing, saying the prayer and reaching out specifically to Christ in faith in my heart and mind.
I remember only a few things that happened next. I remember grace. It enveloped me like arms wrapping around me. The thought, feeling, and assurance I received was that everything was going to be alright. There’s a dissonance in grace because the truth is still true. I was still an addict. I had nothing and the respect of no one. I had gained nothing worldly, but at the same time, I had the feeling of having everything I needed. I still sat at the edge of my bed, but I was new. I was receiving the love of God and His Son Jesus Christ. I had been immersed and comforted by the Holy Spirit. At that moment, I was saved. The next thing I remember was mental and emotional hunger. I had to know more. My grandmother, who was extremely precious to me, had given me a blue “pleather” King James Bible when I was confirmed. I’d lost it. But then I remembered that my mother had a white pleather King James Bible in her dresser drawer. I went to it, rifled through her drawer, and found the Bible. I sat at the top of the stairs next to the door of my room and read with new eyes. I understood more of the Word than I ever had. Of course, I didn’t know anything, but the Word was popping off the page to me. The next thing I did was make a proclamation. I was never going to use drugs or alcohol again. Then, the next day, I used again, and I had a panic attack again.
Yet, God has proven to me I am a new creature, the Uncreated One began my redemption by changing the state of my soul. I was destined for heaven, but my body and mind were addicted, broken, and traumatized. The years since my conversion have been God keeping that promise of restoration every day. He’s led me to sobriety and healing, becoming a husband to Cheri, a father of many beloved children, and a minister of His Gospel. I have seen the most hardened sinners’ hearts change and have baptized them as their lives were being saved by Christ. I have witnessed the deepest tragedy and had the honor of seeing God working to draw others to Himself amid the ruin. I’ve watched children I’ve shepherded become adolescents, then young adults, then spouses, and parents, and have been blessed to be a part of each step. Life has been given back to me by the Lord Jesus. Life in Him is indescribable joy and eternal purpose. I will preach the Gospel, teach His Word, and lead His Church until the day I die. Hallelujah, I am His and He is mine.
(Also, I found my blue “pleather” Bible, He gave that back to me as well). - JT