by C.T.
I am a grateful believer in Jesus Christ, who is in recovery from childhood trauma, adult trauma, and drug abuse. As a result, I still struggle with anger, abandonment, anxiety, depression, self-worth, and many other things. I have spent most of my life feeling like I have to live up to other’s expectations to earn their love. This includes everyone, my parents, family, relationship partners, and friends; and most of the time I failed to meet the mark.
This has
led to a lot of self-esteem issues and exhausting people pleasing efforts, because no one could love me for just being me. I learned at an early age that I could get attention through promiscuity, and at that point attention was attention, regardless of how it was gotten. This set me up for jumping into toxic relationships, because hey, they gave me the attention I craved. Once I was in the relationship, though, things would change for the worse. This would continue to be my life cycle up until the not-so-distant past.
I coped with my pain in mostly self-destructive ways, and when it reached the point, I couldn’t cope at all, I turned to drugs and chaos. I didn’t think I was someone who needed a recovery program, because multiple times I had gotten sober on my own. What I failed to realize until fairly recently, is that “sobriety does not equal recovery”. If they were the same thing, I wouldn’t find myself back in the same situations every time, unable to cope with my own life. Even after I had gotten myself sober the last time, I hadn’t changed anything else in my life.
And so at about seven months pregnant I found myself sitting in county jail. It was during this time that I, for the first time in my life, sat and actually read the Bible. I read it from beginning to end in about a week. It was while being locked in a cell that I started to reach out to God. I finally opened myself to Him, and I prayed.
After about a month, the judge agreed to release me to the Crisis Center, and my faith has grown immensely since then. I have gotten custody of my children back, closed all my legal issues, I am currently going to school online, and looking to start my own ministry to reach the people who are still lost in the darkness I thought would consume me. Absolutely none of the things would have worked out like they did without Jesus coming in to guide me through the mess.
*A favorite Scripture of mine is Psalm 139:23-24:
Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
Point out anything in me that offends you,
and lead me along the path of everlasting life.
Find out more about Celebrate Recovery
