If the Lord had not been on my side
I’ve been doing a Bible study by Beth Moore on the Psalms of Accent and today read Psalm 124. The first few verses start out, “If the Lord had not been on our side when men attacked us, they would have swallowed us alive.” She then went on to talk about times when she felt like she was being swallowed alive but thanks to God, she wasn’t. She also makes this statement which is thought provoking, “Our battle is not with flesh and blood but with the powers of darkness (Ephesians 6:10-12), but Satan successfully enlists human help in his scheme against us. I know that before I started to follow Christ, Satan definitely used me for his schemes. I am so thankful that God can take my entire past and use it now for His glory.
One question which really struck me in her study is this…What about you? What might have happened with your life ‘if the Lord had not been on your side?’ Wow, great question. I know I would have either ended finally succeeding in killing myself or I would have drank myself to death. I would have continued to live a life filled with pain, sorrow, regrets, shame, guilt, depression and so many other things had not the Lord intervened in my life. I am so grateful every single day of my life that He lifted me out of my pit and set my feet on the Rock. I can’t believe that on July 14, I will be sober for 10 years! Not only sober but it’s also the day of my new life in Christ and my salvation. I am convinced that if the Lord had not been on my side, I would not be here today. I pray that I would never, ever forget the depths from which God rescued me. Thank you Lord!!
A Changed Life-My Testimony
I have always struggled with a deep emptiness that was inside of me. I started drinking, smoking, and doing drugs when I was about thirteen years old. I chose a life of rebellion and self destructive behaviors. I thought I had nothing to live for and I just did not care what happened to me. I was going to enjoy my life and go through it feeling as little as possible. I never knew that I was created to love and to be loved. I never knew that what I was truly searching for was something to fill the big, empty void inside of me. I didn’t know that I would end up being a drug addict, an alcoholic, and an anorexic just to name a few.
On top of all my addictions, I was diagnosed as a manic depressive. The only way to describe this horrible mental illness is to compare it to a roller coaster ride. One day you are on top of the world and the next, you are in a totally debilitating depression. I have been hospitalized in various psychiatric facilities, for attempting to end my life, six times since age fourteen. Twice I have succeeded. My heart has stopped beating on several occasions and I have been resuscitated many times. My last attempt was fatal. I took a lethal dose of alcohol and pills and ended up on life support. My family was called in to say goodbye to me because the doctors felt I would not live through this. My family lived about three hours away and by the time they arrived, I had been taken off life support and was miraculously breathing on my own! I’m not sure why God chose to breathe air back into my broken body, but He did. I started to wonder if there was a God and if so, why on earth would He bring someone like me back to life. Most people would think that after a few wake up calls like that, I’d be grateful. But I wasn’t.
It didn’t take me long to sink right back down to where I was before this happened. I started drinking very heavily. To make a very long story short, I finally hit rock bottom and I knew deep down that if I didn’t surrender to God, I would end up dead. That was July 14, 2001 and I haven’t had a drink since. As a matter of fact, I have been off all medication for my manic depression since February 2002. That in itself is another miracle because many doctors told me that I, like my sister and father, would have to be on medication for the rest of my life. I really felt that the Lord wanted me to have total freedom and He wanted me to be totally dependant on Him. Being free from “mood stabilizers” has allowed me to really get to the core of my hurts, hang ups and habits that led me to my many addictions.
On that night back in July 2001, I cried out to God. I asked Him if He cared about me at all, He needed to come save me quick because I couldn’t live like this anymore. I was so full of despair and hopelessness that I cried and cried for what seemed like hours. Then a funny thing happened. I felt so calm and peaceful. I had never felt peace in my entire life. Then it hit me what I had done. I had no idea what to do now but I knew that I had to find a church and quickly. At that instant, I felt like God was telling me to go to The Church of the Redeemer. I was living in Frederick at the time and had no clue where this church was. Again, I felt a prompting by God to go look on the internet and find it. I went online and was glad when I found it and knew I wasn’t hearing voices and going crazy! I immediately saw that they had a recovery program and knew without a doubt this is where I belonged.
I will never forget the first time I walked into the church. I sat in my car in the parking lot and thought that if I walked through the doors of the church, they would see what an awful person I was. I felt that I was marked with a scarlet “S” on me that stood for sinner. I didn’t give in to my feelings though. I walked in and actually sat only a few rows back from the front. As the music began to play, I looked around and saw many people with their eyes closed and their hands lifted in the air and I thought to myself, wow, do they really love God that much? I met many people that night who took me in and prayed with me and for me. It was the first time in my life I actually felt like someone really cared about me. One of the guys in the group asked me to share my testimony and I had no idea what he was talking about so I asked him. He asked me for my story. I said I am an alcoholic and I want to change my life. He then shared his testimony with me and told me all about how he used to drink and do drugs and actually became a Christian in jail. I was kind of shocked because of how open he was with his past. I had been sober 3 days and I couldn’t ever imagine then that I would one day want to share my testimony with everyone I meet too! I entered the church that night feeling dirty and full of shame, and by the time I came home that night, I knew without a doubt that my life would never be the same.
I was always so ashamed of my past. I believed that no one could or ever would love me. I was carrying around so much guilt, shame and self hatred. I didn’t know that there was a God who knew my every thought. Who knew all my pains, my hurts, and all my sins. I have learned that I am forgiven and loved. I have also learned that I no longer have to be trapped by my old way of thinking. My recovery group, Celebrate Recovery taught me how to deal with the pains of my past so I can begin to live a life worthy of Christ. I don’t want to just be sober or have periods of abstinence, I want to have the freedom, the joy, and the peace that God wants me to have. I never thought that I could have all these things. I never thought He could love me, after all I broke all of his commandments. I had two abortions, how could He forgive that? How could He cherish me when I didn’t cherish life myself? I didn’t deserve His love.
Which is exactly my point. I don’t deserve any on it. It is a gift called grace. A gift I have finally been able to receive. God loves you and me so much that He sent His only son to die for us. Can you imagine? Someone who would take your place and die so you could be forgiven from your sins? Someone who would take away all your pain, your shame, your heartache if only you would ask Him to? All you have to ask Him. I know it can seem scary. Trust me, I have been there. I can promise you that if you trust Him, your life will never be the same either. I have learned that with Jesus Christ in my heart, there is no room for drugs, alcohol, guilt, or shame. I left all those at the foot of the cross. My favorite and first scripture I memorized is Romans 5:8, “ This is how Christ shows His love for us, That while we were STILL sinners, He died for us”! He wasn’t crucified on a cross after I surrendered my life to Him! It was while I was a drug addict and an alcoholic! He wants to love you, heal you of your hurts, encourage you, and forgive you. All you have to ask. It’s that simple. All I did was cry out to God to come and help me. And He did.
So many people I share with can’t believe how much my life has been transformed in since I gave my heart to Jesus. It’s so hard for me to even remember feeling so hopeless that the only way I thought I could handle the pain was to end my life. If I wasn’t the one living through all this, I am not sure that I would believe it!
If someone would have told me that today I would be sober, drug free, sexually pure, healed from depression, working for one of the pastors at church, teaching Bible studies, earning a degree in Theology in Bible College and living a life in abundance I would have told them they were crazy! God has blessed me and shown me mercy that is indescribable.
2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come.”
