When Everything Changed

When I’m having an off day and not feeling motivated, I typically turn to music, movement, and fresh air. Every single time it makes me feel better. All I have to do is pray, put my headphones in, turn up the music, get outside, and start moving and then it happens. The fog in my head starts clearing, burdens begin lifting, my mind starts tracking, and it usually pulls me out of my funk.  

But when I was broken and full of despair and didn’t know if I had the strength to go on, nothing I tried seemed to help. I have survived a lot of hard times in my life, and I’ve managed to get through them by pressing on and being strong. But when addiction nearly destroyed my youngest son, none of my prior survival techniques worked and slowly, over the six year journey, I began to unravel.

I lost weight, couldn’t sleep and was in a constant state of anxiety because my child, my beloved youngest son, had turned into a criminal. He was living on the streets addicted to heroin, and I just couldn’t bare it.  My children mean the world to me so watching him destroy himself with drugs was more than I could take.  There came a time when I finally unraveled completely. And in that brokenness, I surrendered all and turned to Jesus.  That lonely, scary night changed my entire life.  Jesus rescued me and then he rescued my son, and then everything changed.

I know there will be struggles ahead, but I don’t think they’ll break me.  Not again.  Because now that I have found Christ, I realize how little control I actually have over my life.  Initially that reality hit me hard, but eventually it freed me. There is so much freedom in letting go when you need to.  It doesn’t mean you give up on things or people, it just means you’re trusting in something much bigger than yourself. 

I’m trusting in redeeming grace, in mercies made new every day, and love that is sovereign.  I’m trusting in truth.  I’m trusting in the one who saves.

That is freedom.

That is peace. 

That is glorious grace.

If you’re searching for something; a need that you just can’t seem to fill.  If you’re uncertain in your faith and where to turn, I hope you turn to Jesus.  He’s waiting on you.

2 Corinthians 12:9 says “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”  Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.