Looking back over the course of your life, what is the one thing you wish you could erase? If you could rewrite your life story up to this point, what is the area that you wish you could use a big ol’ black marker and blot it out?   Maybe it was an illness you suffered through. Maybe it was a sickness or death of a loved one?

In my own life, the one thing that I would be tempted to erase is undoubtedly the most painful experience which is my 7 year addiction to prescription pain medication. This is the one experience that most affected not only me, but my family, friends, and loved ones the most and brought so much pain and sorrow, grief and despair. It brought me to the brink of losing absolutely everything and for a time I did experience the heartbreaking separation of being away from my family-my three young boys, my husband, my home. All choices revolving around avoiding help, being stuck in a cycle of addiction, and trying to run away from the problem and running away from God. There were terrible days full of uncertainty, nights of tear stained pillows and sleeplessness. Seeing my family suffer as a result of my rebellious behavior was unbearable and is heartbreaking for me to even think and write about now. However, despite the difficulty surrounding my addiction, I can honestly say that I would not be where I am in my relationship with Jesus if I had not gone through what I did.

As easy as it would be to want to erase it because of the pain it caused…. I would then have to erase and forfeit all that I have learned.

 

Lessons Learned:

 

Lesson #1: The Dance

Garth Brooks had a country song out in the early ‘90’s called “The Dance”. He was talking about this dichotomous relationship between joy and mourning. He said, describing a loss of a loved one, “I could have missed the pain, but I would have missed the dance”. That is how I feel about my trial. If I had never known the pain it brought, I wouldn’t know the joy of the lessons I experience now from it. I and my family could have been spared pain but at the cost of losing spiritual lessons that one just can’t always learn by reading about them. Living through the bad in light of the good things to come….that’s the dance.

Lesson #2: Sins are Forgiven-There is no Condemnation in Christ Jesus

  Jesus won’t always erase all of our hardships, but when we come to him with a repentant heart, confessing our sins and ask forgiveness of our sin, (I’m not saying that all hardships are a result of sin. But, this was the issue in my case) then “he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (I John 1:9). Sin will put distance between you and the Father and it will interfere with your relationship with Him. This needs to be dealt with in prayer so that relationship is restored. Guilt and shame should not have a hold on a truly repentant Christian. This restored relationship with our Father frees us of shame and guilt that sin still causes. “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom 8:1).   As the old hymn, written by William Cowper goes, “There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel’s veins; And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.”

 

Lesson #3: Listen to the Alarm Bells

 Another lesson I learned is to listen to His warnings….the first time! You see, God had sent all of the alarm bells and whistles to try to warn me of an impending disaster, but I, after ignoring the alarms and hitting the snooze button, was awoken to the reality and the buzzer in my head I could no longer ignore by the time disaster had already struck. It is painful to realize it did not have to get to the point that it did. There were some very loud warning signs sent out by the Almighty pretty early on that should have been my wakeup call! But, sadly my deaf ears couldn’t hear (or better stated, wouldn’t hear). He may have whispered something to me that slightly resonated in my heart but I was too busy to pay attention or too lost in my addiction to hear or see impending doom. Soon, I was ignoring his warnings and his once loud signals and even the whispers were becoming background noise, white noise on a busy city street.

There’s actually a scientific term for this that I remember learning in my Sensation and Perception class back in college that I think applies well here.  When we first hear a loud high-pitched sound that is continuous, it bothers us at first. It stirs us up on the inside and unsettles us.  Our blood pressure may go up. We are keenly aware, our senses are on “high alert”. If we wait long enough, we will become acclimated to the sound and what was first highly disruptive and what first arose all of our senses, becomes a sound we tolerate. After we tolerate it, and it continues and there is enough passage of time, we no longer even hear it. Like static on a transistor radio, it just becomes blended in with the things that we are hearing around us and the first loud, obnoxious sound becomes just a sound like any other. No more high pulse rate, physiologically everything goes back to normal and we simply become accustomed to what we are hearing. We are acclimated to our surroundings. We can even relax to it.  This same kind of acclimation can be applied to our spiritual lives as well.

 

 Spiritually, when we first sin, there are very clear warnings that unsettle us. If we are saved and know Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, this is the Holy Spirit stirring in us and warning us that something is not quite right. If we keep on sinning, we still hear the Holy Spirit trying to get our attention but we are getting “comfortable” in our sin. We no longer hear the spirit like before. Keep on in our sin and you get so accustomed to doing it, the warnings that are being transmitted are often not even heard. You have then become desensitized to the sin and its effects.  Call it a Holy Spirit defense mechanism if you will to make you feel better while you are sinning so you can keep doing it. Or, it’s just God’s way of designing us with free will and allowing us to experience the consequences that come with that. Either way, trouble is on the horizon. Your ship is about to sink because you have ignored the bull horn for way too long. Which leads to my next lesson.

Lesson #4: There is ALWAYS a consequence to sin

I’m not sure who first penned the quote: “Sin will take you further than you ever thought you would go, keep you longer than you ever intended to stay, and will make you pay a price higher than you were ever willing to pay”, but how true this was for me! Unrepentant sin in our lives does not fall below the Lord’s radar. The consequences may be small or detrimental, but nonetheless, the consequences WILL come. Sadly, these consequences fell like dominoes and effected not only me, but my loved ones as well.

 

Lesson #5: What Satan Uses for Evil the Lord Uses for Good

“God causes all things to work together for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28).

I am a better Christian, friend, wife, mother because of this trial.  Sin no longer permeates and has a hold of me.  I hear His voice more clearly. It has made me appreciate who He is as my personal Savior and has made me appreciate my family, my friends, my home, all that He showers me with as gifts from Him. I don’t deserve anything but He so graciously bestows His Amazing Grace on me!

             He has now laid it on my heart to help others who are battling with addiction. I understand with a whole new set of eyes (and ears) that I may never have had having never lived through it. Simply, what He has taught me through this trial (though He did not cause it but allowed it) I must not have been able to learn any other way. Only God could perform a miracle and bring about good from the mess I created. Hallelujah! What a Savior!

 Lesson #6: After an Encounter with Jesus…..You are Changed!

 Today I feel like the woman at the well who we meet in the bible in John 4. She had an encounter that hot mid-day when she went by herself to a well to draw water. This encounter changed her life forever.

 The Samaritan woman was living a sinful lifestyle and the way she is behaving (going by herself in the middle of the afternoon to draw water) tells us she did not have a very good reputation. She had had several men in her life and was living with a man that she was not married to. Jesus, of course, knew this about her and told her what He knew. He introduced Himself as the Living Water to her. If she drank from His well, she would never be thirsty again. She knew this was the Messiah. She was so excited and so transformed by her encounter with Jesus that she ran into town to tell others about Him. “Come and see a man…the One who told me everything I ever did!”

            I’m telling you now, Jesus met me where I was. He knows everything about me…every sin and every sorrow. In the shame and embarrassment that addiction brought, He offered up a cup to my dry, thirsty soul and quenched my unhealthy desires with Living water. I will never be the same!

            Jesus wants to have an encounter with you and He will use whatever it takes- whatever horn-blowing method or knees-bent-at-a-well experience He chooses to get your attention. Are you hearing bells and whistles? My plea to you is to not ignore them. Are you struggling carrying guilt and shame like the Samaritan woman?  Ask the Lord to meet you where you are. He sees your heartache and knows everything about you and all that you have ever done. In His infinite wisdom, He knows the joy and strength that will follow from the pain and suffering now. That very thing in your life that is your greatest struggle or hardship, the Lord may be using to draw you closer to Himself. Believe me…. He wants to turn your mourning into dancing too.

 Listen to His voice calling. Do you hear Him? He’s asking in the most Chivalrous, gracious way, and patiently awaits your response, “May I have this dance?”