Sleep doesn't come easy post surgery - especially when all that you can do is rattle around, and rest. It makes for much intermittent sleeping. Two hours here - an hour there - but nothing solid.
So I've been up for quite sometime, reading and reflecting over the past year. I cannot convey how much life there is from/in my bible. Passages that I've read so many times will just speak new truths to me as I re-read them. There is such beauty in the truth. I've always found there to be, but not everyone is in agreement with this. For some, its become their life's passion to run from it. Trust me, I know - when I was using, to a degree, I did the same thing. It's a natural part of the disease. Who can tell themselves the truth when your whole life is a lie?
At least this is what your addiction is telling you. And tell you it does. The power over the mind that active addiction has is mind boggling. I've known it to take men and women with PHD's to their knees. So it certainly isn't about intelligence. You can think all day and night about having an addiction and still not stop. It is the one disease that tells you - you don' t have one. Denial being one of it's greatest (strongest) features. I talked to someone yesterday that almost blew their face off - and asked them how it changed their life - the accident - and I got an astonishing answer, "not much, really." The brain's capacity to protect it's supply is amazing. Even in the face of consequences that could have produced death --- we'll keep right on using or drinking. I know because I've done it. I've seen it in action right in front of me - heard denial's excuses, from my clients - and from people that I love. I've watched it take the lives of those that I love, on too many occasions.
I still wonder if someone had told me then that God wasn't mad at me, and that He's never been mad at me -- would I have believed it? If someone had taken the time to tell me that we weren't under the law of sin and death any more -- would I have listened? If someone, somewhere had have told me that I was loved more than I could imagine - more than I could ever dream... would it have made a difference? I wonder this because I always loved God -- you see the best way that I knew how. I read my bible -- high. I have burn marks all over my King James Version - study bible. How humbling it was to take that to church, and then to fall asleep during the sermon. How horrible that was for my parents. Not only did I have a machine giving me too much medicine ( pain pump) I had break through meds besides. I'd often fall asleep in my food - etc. I was a constant source of embarrassment to my parents. Nodding off all the time, isn't normal. Burning up everything with cigarettes isn't normal. I've had few bedspreads that didn't have burn holes in them, or mattresses for that matter - because I'd smoke in bed. The sight of my apartment living room was scary - and then there came the day I caught myself on fire....
I want to tell you something today. You're Beautiful. No matter what you're doing, how far you think that you've gotten out of control -- how despicable you think you're life has become -- you are still loved by God. He/She - (however you need to see It) has never stopped loving you -- since you came into existence. You want to know why? Because it isn't about us or our behavior! It is about what Jesus did at Calvary! He became sin who knew no sin, so that we could become His righteousness ! How do I know this? It's in the bible. We seem to think that we've done all of these horrible things -- and just can't be forgiven or saved -- and did you know that back in the Old Testament times they were offering babies for sacrifice? Moses was a murder! He had just murdered an Egyptian prior to his going before Pharo (spelling) to demand letting the people go. We hammer at people the 10 commandments - the "moral law" and we aren't even Jews! We are Gentiles! And besides that there were 613 "laws".... not just 10! What man has done to the bible is astonishing! We've never been under such law. Never. Yet we've swallowed what these preachers had fed us for years and years, hook line and sinker. We've felt the guilt, week after week, after week. We've allowed them to tell us what's in OUR bibles and we haven't read them! They take one verse here and another there and shove it down our throats. And we've allowed them. We've even allowed them to let our salvation be at risk, thinking we have to be saved and re-saved, week after week. It's just not true. All of that is really low-level Christianity.
I want to tell you something. Don't believe me -- check it out for yourself -- there are lots of grace preachers - just google it. Find you're freedom. I've written about it, but you don't even have to believe me. The information is out there. Andrew Farley is a great teacher/pastor. Paul White my pastor, Creflo Dollar, just search for grace teachings and see what you get.
But most of all, I want you to know that you're beautiful. Despite what your addiction is telling you so that you keep getting wasted - you aren't worthless. You never have been - no matter who told you this. Love and pain are universal. You know pain -- why not set forth to know love? A love like you've never known, A safety and a security that is beyond explanation. There just are no words for the peace that I have in my life today. And it all begins with a single step into a different direction. I won't tell you that it will be easy. Nothing in life that is worth having is. I can tell you if you'll take a step in love's direction -- love will be returned.
I so hope this inspires. I so hope that someone somewhere - chooses differently. I so hope that someone realizes that they are loved and always have been.
I wish someone had have told me....
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