There I was...lonely, rejected, lost. I had pushed everyone that loved me away with my selfish desires and my shameful behavior. Could I blame them? When others tried to help me or offer sound advice, I took it as judgement or criticism. I was blind to the truth of what I had become. My only thought was to run. I had to run away and remake myself...I had to run from the addictions that plagued my every thought....I had to run away from the fear that my future was fast becoming my present. So I did.
I found myself all the way across the country, getting off a bus, to stay with the alcoholic parent I never really knew or trusted. It was the only place left to go, and it was not a good place for recovering. In a small travel trailer in the poorest part of town, I began a new journey. I was determined to remake who I was and be some thing new. I started a program at a local Job Corps, and it was eye opening. For the first time in years I was sober, in my right mind, and able to finally excel. I received my GED with the second highest score on record there, and that was the confidence boost I needed. People looked at me with respect, and I was able to focus on getting better.
Still, there was a great void. I couldn't see any future for me, and the realization that I was still missing something profound was nagging at me. One day, out of the blue, I was on the city bus, headed home, when I met a man that was interested in me for more than just what he could get from me. As we spent more time together, he showed me what the real meaning of being loved by someone was. It was special, and I knew that we would never be able to live without each other.
It soon became apparent, however, that the same addictions chased after us both, and eventually they caught up. Soon, I was using again...with him. That old, familiar hopelessness began to set in again. Was this cycle ever going to end for me? I loved this man, felt like I couldn't live without him, but we were cut from the same mold, and we could never break that mold if something didn't change, and it had to be soon. We were in a downward, destructive, spiral, and the bottom wasn't far away.
A knock on the door, our drug induced haze interrupted, and Hope was on the other side. "Until you surrender your life to Him, nothing you do will prosper." That one statement from a person who cared enough to look for us, following the Spirit, and speak truth and life into our darkness. Would we attend a local church? Sure. What could it hurt?
As I stepped off the bus that Sunday morning, dressed inappropriately in my revealing clothes and still high from the night before, I was aware of an uncomfortable nagging feeling that if I walked into the doors of that church, my life would forever be changed. I was not quite sure that I wanted this change. I didn't know much of anything about God, but I knew He was real, and alive, and that I was the absolute last person in the world that He wanted to deal with.
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