Winning the Race Through Grace

Winning the Race Through Grace

I have already beaten the odds. I have already come so far. Statistically speaking I should be dead in the Hospital dying or in a prison somewhere trading my sleeping pills for honey buns or visa versa. I can honestly tell you this much . This much I know for certain. It is nothing good I have done that has gotten my life in somewhat order. In fact there are a lot of times I go to bed with the knowledge and wakeup the next morning with the understanding that the worse I have been the better God has been towards me.

Unless you have been a homeless drug addict like I have been you probably won’t understand where I am coming from. But If you are or have been you probably can relate to what I am about to write and I hope this helps you. If your not I pray this gives you a unique insight into the bizarre paradox that exists for the person in recovery…

Let me start off by saying this I am clean and sober and in my right mind. However I have learned recently it does not matter who good life is going or how smooth the road is that I am still subject to a craving periodically. To the reader who has never used meth amphetamine  you might read this and say so what who cares. But to the addict and men and women in recovery they know all to well that these cravings are intense painfully reality. When I first made a decision to seek sobriety and recovery in 2007 I said this …”God if you just give me a home to live in and a place in society I know I can stay off drugs” guess what? God gave me a home and place and a good one too. But the cravings came and I caved in and used and lost my home and place gave up my new identity and for a moment exchanged it back for the false one …I just wanted the craving to stop. I got back up regained my foothold on life and began to push through and said something like this….”God you have given me a place in society and a home now if you could just restore my life back to my children I know for certain I would never do drugs again.” God looked down at me and did exactly what I asked him to do…and guess what a craving came and eventually after a short brief wimped out battle I caved in and used drugs. Then after once again getting a foothold back on life and climbing back into the fight I said a prayer and it went something like this…” God you have given me a home and a place in society again…and you have restored my children back into my life …now if you just give me a wife someone who loves me and I love her so I am not so alone I know without a doubt my life will now be complete and I will never have a need to use drugs again….God looked down at me and did just that ..in fact he gave me a beautiful wife who loves Him more then she loves me. He gave me a wife who embodies Proverbs 31  and yet the cravings have come a couple of times and I have used drugs each time.  Then came this last prayer…Lord I know the stress now that comes with having the family the wife the bills are adding up…and man God these jobs are just not making ends meet and my bosses are idiots…and I said God if you could just give me a good job…where I make enough money to pay my child support ..where I can pay my bills support my new wife and our children here and Lord if you could make that near my house…I know without a doubt I will never use drugs again….and wow to my amazement the cravings come….but they go too.

It wasn’t until this last craving that I realized that in my mess when I am week that it actually doesn’t matter how many good things I have in my life when I am craving meth amphetamine its nothing personal towards anyone that is in my life that I love or a slight against a great job but If I don’t learn to stand I will use drugs again.

I think the point I am trying to make here tonight is this…my whole life God has been hearing my prayers and answering them and I finally get it ..yes He wants me to be happy but I think what he is trying to show me finally is that I won’t find that peace that completeness that ahhhh feeling and I won’t find that rest in anything outside of Him. He wants me to be complete in him ….not in my home my place in society not in my job not in my marriage…though he wants me to have those things …they won’t keep me clean..but He will.

I think the mixed message that we in recovery have trouble wrapping our mind around especially charismatic Christian people in recovery is this. We see Gods hand move mountains We see people who are definitely set free and completely delivered from hellacious situations….and we get discouraged because we think wow that could be me. God can remove this craving from me. God can take this addiction from me. …..and we are right God can and He does for some…but for those of us who are left to endure He says to us MY GRACE IS SUFFICIENT FOR THEE. What was Paul thinking when he read the words he wrote that day…cause you know he read them. I think he felt like I do sometimes kind of a sinking feeling inside a resignation…We all want our recovery and we want to believe it is instantaneous and for some it is…but for some of us it is anything but pretty. For some of us recovery is kind of ugly and we don’t like to talk about it because we haven’t completely wrapped our mind around this concept of enduring the race and winning the race through grace….

It has been some time now since my last use of meth amphetamines and I have everything going for me in fact I have the  most amazing life any one person could have ..I mean that too. I have a great wife I have five count em five of the most amazing children…I am great at my job and well respected for it and very well compensated for it …and yet evil still entices me evil still tempts me and in my mind I have used several times…despite knowing it would cost me all of that…That is not to devalue anyone of those individual things it is just being honest that we sometimes get through the storm but still get a little dirty.

I wish that we could smash this idea in recovery that everyone in recovery gets to celebrate not using drugs like it is some kind of big deal…common me not getting high is actually me just not committing a felony and possibly not committing suicide. There is nothing to celebrate in that. The minute I stand up and accept a round of applause because I haven’t stuck my arm with a needle I have lost the battle….Its not that easy. Recovery has to be fought for contended for in the wee hours of the morning when nobody is around seeing us struggle when we get woke up with a dream that we were getting high and were pissed it aint real…society doesn’t get it even people you go to church with are confused …but we can stay clean despite the cravings despite the sweats that still come despite the mental breakdowns that were scared to talk about.

We have to allow Gods grace to cover us in these days. and use them as a tool to provoke us to draw unto HIM> not seek things from HIM but to just seek HIM for HIM> Because the job one day believe it or not will can you…the wife you love and adore is human and she will hurt you …and the home you live in and the place in society you sought can be removed like that…but Gods love and grace is never subject to mans free will….and it endures for ever …all we have to do is accept it. Winning this race through Grace means accepting the fact that I am screwed up from head to toe…on my best days my offering is more like a cain offering then an able offering…and my best deeds can and should lead me to hell…it’s a good thing God looks down at me and does not see David Freeman but He sees Jesus Christ. And blesses me richly because of it…I will take grace any day …..any day and any night especially nights like tonight.