Real-life stories of God's love through faith in Jesus

It wasn’t that I necessarily longed for the alcohol, but alcohol was part of the social life I loved. It was always just a social thing.   

Except when it wasn’t anymore. It became an open invitation to kissing random guys in bars….at concerts….in cars…which eventually led to sleeping with boyfriends. These were boyfriends – men who technically weren’t under any obligation to stay loyal to me. I felt wanted in the moment, but I woke up with an “ick” feeling every time knowing I wasn’t honoring who I was. I even felt used in dating relationships. Something always felt off but I didn’t know how to fix it. It was a harmful cycle primarily fueled by alcohol. Drink, kiss, maybe sleepover?…repeat. There was nothing truly fulfilling about this pattern. I felt weighed down and stuck and frustrated that I had gotten myself in this cycle.

However — I could never get away from the pull towards living life fully surrendered to the God I had met in childhood. I still knew Him, kind of. At least I thought maybe I did. (Spoiler alert: He knew me the whole time. He created me, after all) He knew how I needed to see Him working. I just didn’t know it yet.

I also didn’t yet know how free I could be if I lived everyday FOR Him, instead of living like He only existed on Sunday. Sunday. The day I’d go to church and plead for forgiveness. Where I’d cringe during most of the sermon because I couldn’t even remember what had happened the night before. Where my stomach would churn and flip flop. Where I’d weep because I knew I wasn’t living the life I wanted but I didn’t actually know how to change it. But every Sunday I was there. Showing up is half the battle, right? But my spirit knew a FULLY surrendered relationship with Jesus was how I could be free.

During this time I dated a guy who gave me a bike chain keychain. It was sturdy and strong and also a bottle opener. I broke up with him, but I kept the keychain attached to my keys because it was useful. After a few more unhealthy relationships and many more drinks, I started to plan a “breakaway” from my own lifestyle. I was planning to move out of state and start over, basically to run away, make new friends, and find a new job. I also knew I wanted a rock solid relationship with God. I became so hungry for the things of God that I was willing to try anything. So I cried out to God. “God help me to change and show me how to break free!” 

A few days later, I was walking up the steps to my apartment and heard something fall to the ground. I stopped in my tracks. I looked down and saw the bike chain hook had completely broken in half and the entire bottle opener had fallen off of my keychain. I immediately knew God was speaking to me. He broke the chain! And simultaneously, my “chains” were broken!! In that moment, it was a final confirmation that my drinking habits were separating me from a full relationship with God, my creator and Father. I didn’t even have to do ANYTHING but cry out for help and He answered me. By breaking off the physical chain in my hand, He showed me how He was breaking off the chains that were holding me back from walking worthy of what He called me to! True freedom was available to me and I had a choice to make.

I’m so thankful God speaks to us in ways we can understand. He literally had to break a chain in my hand for me to believe He could break off spiritual chains holding me in bondage. It was also in that moment that my desire for drinking diminished. I suddenly believed God had created me for a purpose greater than the lifestyle I was living. I also made the conscious choice to remove myself from situations which made me feel vulnerable. I started to turn down many invitations to hit up the bar. I was thankful for friends who knew the Lord well and asked them for prayer and for help to keep me accountable. I was encouraged by many people at my church who didn’t even know my story. God used them to speak in to my life at a time when healing and restoration were so necessary. I began to change what I did with my time. I read my Bible. I began to go to conferences and Bible studies that challenged my old ways of thinking. I was hungry for the things of God and sought out opportunities to grow closer to Him. God even used a friend to pray with me to erase the negative details from my escapades – and God freed me from those memories! Stepping out of that unhealthy cycle required me to be fully surrendered to God. Occasionally the urge to take a sip would resurface and I needed to lean on God to help me say no. I couldn’t tiptoe in the “gray areas” any longer. God had my whole heart and I wanted to know His. 

God has completely flipped my life upside down in the best way possible. Crying out to Him and laying my life at His forgiving feet changed everything for me. I didn’t have to move out of town; instead I married the most wonderful godly man who forgave me for all of that nonsense and who chose to love all of me despite my past choices. Needless to say, it’s been an incredible and redemptive journey with God. When He is in charge, life becomes WAY more fun. Following Him is the most exciting adventure of my life. He has given me abundant wisdom with this whole parenting thing, been the arms I can run to in every single situation, and the one who encourages me to encourage others. His Word is my lifeline – I can turn to the pages of the book He has written to build my faith, find answers, and find true stories of hope, mercy, and grace.  “My truth” got deleted when I started reading the Bible and spending time in His glorious presence – all that matters is His Truth. The Truth. The Truth is that God’s Son, Jesus, gave us the victory over all things when He died on the cross so that we may be saved, set free, and our chains can be broken! Hallelujah! 

Coming from a modest but comfortable background, I was never spoiled by material things, but I never really knew what true poverty was either. Life was often mundane, so I found myself escaping through imagination and comics and later through horror and suspense novels. My parents had taken me to church when I was a child, but as soon as I was allowed to, I stopped attending, rejecting what I considered to be a dead religion. I never stopped believing in God, even in one who was good, but I felt that each person must find their own way to Him. In high school, I rebelled against most forms of authority and became involved in drugs. I was heavily influenced by music and poetry, and I continued to search for meaning through these new outlets. Jim Morrison, of the Doors, led me to William Blake and Fredrick Nietzsche and I eventually found Fyodor Dostoevsky. I began to see life as absurd and meaningless; however, I felt that it was our responsibility to give it some kind of meaning; I felt we all had a piece of God in us that called us to find our place in the world. Thus, I began to look for mine.

Around this time a very good friend of mine stopped getting high with me. He said that it was all about meeting Jesus. I laughed about it at first, but we continued to be friends and I saw that he really was different; he had acquired some inner peace that I couldn’t relate to. We had many deep talks and debates, and I began to read the Bible again to search for answers. It wasn’t too long before I no longer had the need to self-medicate. I found my own inner peace with Jesus. I discovered that Christianity is dead when it is seen as a religion, but that when you discover the Creator of the universe wants to have a relationship with you, it opens up an entire life of possibility, of adventure, of love, and of meaning. My relationship with Jesus is what determines how I view human nature.

I believe that everyone is conceived in a state of conflict. We are all made in the image of God: We have a desire for purpose; we want to be good; we want to love and to be loved. Yet, we all also possess a sin nature that we are conceived with: We are all selfish; we are all about pleasure, even at the expense of others; we deny responsibility and pass the blame along to someone else. These two aspects of human nature, what the Bible calls the spirit and the flesh, are constantly at war with each other. Which one wins out on a daily basis is determined by individual choice. At any given moment in life, we respond to our environment either through that God-like part of man, or we respond in selfishness and self-preservation.

Our choices are the result of both nature and nurture. I believe we are born with the personality tools and talents to fulfill a genuine need the world has. We have purpose, we even have some kind of destiny, but we also have the free will to deny our purpose. When we seek to fulfill that purpose, when we put the world’s, or others’, needs before our own, we are responding in the spirit. When we choose to only serve our own means, we are responding in the flesh. Even though we are born with this purpose, our environment is usually what teaches us what to do with it. Many people are born into hostile situations in which survival becomes their highest priority; others are born into healthy families that live and teach selflessness and purpose. So, we are born with gifts and talents and leanings toward certain beliefs, but our environment shapes how we decide to use what we are “given.” Environment doesn’t, however, have to determine who we are. We still can choose to be good (or bad). One of my favorite lines is from a children’s movie called The Iron Giant. A large robot falls from the sky, but has lost its memory. It is, at first, benign, and it befriends a boy. However, the robot was designed for warfare, and when it is attacked, instinct kicks in, and the robot begins to destroy everything in its path. The boy is able to get its attention and at a very emotional moment he states plainly: “You don’t have to be a gun. You can choose who you want to be.” The robot begins to fight his natural instinct of war, and ends up sacrificing himself to save the community (1999). In the same way, we have the responsibility to follow the spirit (selfless nature) rather than the flesh (selfish nature) no matter what environment we are shaped by. There are multiple examples of persons who have overcome adversity to become heroes and others born into all the comfort and support one could ever need who live at the expense of others. The choice to “do the right thing” is a daily struggle for all people.

Metaphorically speaking, we are all three people in one. There is our selfish and base nature that seeks only pleasure. There is the godlike selfless part of us that seeks to fulfill our purpose through serving others. And there is the person existing in the here and now caught between the two. Every time we make a choice out of selfishness, we move closer to our base instincts, yet pleasure is only momentary and can never be fully satisfied; therefore, if we seek to fulfill life through pleasure we will never find peace. Every time we make a selfless choice, we move closer to the spirit and fulfillment; true fulfillment is found in giving and having a purpose that meets the needs of others. However, no one can be good all the time, and often the attempt to be a good person can lead some to feel guilty when they make mistakes, or some will justify their bad choices and become judgmental of others; either way, they are in a state of dissatisfaction. It is impossible for a human to exist in a constant state of fulfillment. The closest we can get is a simple satisfaction while we all experience the highs and lows of existence. The key to consistent satisfaction is accepting that we have the potential to sometimes go to the highest level of goodness, yet we are also faced with the truth, that under the right (maybe wrong is a better word) circumstances we are no better than the worst of criminals. We need to always strive to be our best, but always be aware of our weaknesses so we can avoid them. We need to live in the moment, and decide for the here and now what choice we will make. The more we practice making good choices, the easier they become and we find a greater sense of fulfillment. The more we practice making bad choices, the easier they become, and we find ourselves never filled, never satisfied.

It is my personal belief that there is only one way to find true peace between the flesh and the spirit, and that is through the forgiveness of Jesus Christ. Believing in the power of his self-sacrifice for humanity enables us to live under grace, so when we do choose to be selfish and serve the flesh, we can be easily forgiven, and quickly move back into living for our purpose in life. Believing in the power of Christ’s self-raising from the dead gives one the advantage of receiving the Holy Spirit of God which empowers the human spirit to deny flesh and make the right choices. A nonbeliever can live righteously and practice good choices and find some times of fulfillment on earth, but as stated earlier, none of us can be fully good. Only God can be good. Without Jesus, we can’t reach our full potential in this life, and we won’t make it to everlasting peace in the next life.

I can’t pinpoint one psychological theory that supports my view of human nature on its own, but there are a variety of characteristics from a few that can easily be integrated together to form a solid base for me to work from. Of the theories I’ve studied, Adlerian Theory was the first one that really appealed to me as something truthful. I fully agree that the conscious is far more important than what is going on in the unconscious. I believe that exploring the unconscious can be a useful tool, even a doorway, into understanding what a person’s issues may be, but it is in a present state of consciousness that we live and deal with our issues, and that should be where we find practical solutions to cope and find healing.  I also agree that what we do with what we are born with is central to getting better. We do not have to be defined by our past. Additionally, I believe that all behavior is goal oriented, but we may not be fully aware of what our goals are, or the best way to achieve those goals. I think Adler’s theory of our need for significance and social connection is probably his most important contribution. I believe the two are dependent on each other. When we master a skill that is needed in society we feel valued and important. That leads to self-confidence, and others respect us for our abilities and for who we are, so we develop a social network we belong to which gives us a sense of meaning.

The search for meaning has been such a large part of my personal journey, there is no way I can ignore Existential Therapy. Much of my favorite literature was written by existentialists, but most of the literature focuses on the absurdity of life and states that life is essentially meaningless. It was very refreshing to find that Victor Frankl used the same ideas in his work to help people find meaning. I love his statement: “Man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked…by life” (1963). This puts the responsibility on us to find our meaning, to find our purpose. We can look into the past to see what brought us to this point, and we can consider where we want to be in the future, but ultimately it is the right here and right now that we are exist in, and we need to be the ones who put meaning into this very moment: Carpe Diem.

Showing someone they need to find meaning in life is relatively simple. Most people already consciously year for meaning. Finding out how one individually fits into the great scheme of things can be a bit more complicated. Because so many of us live in a state of selfishness, there are many of us walking around damaged and unable to take risks. How can people find their place or purpose in life and additionally find the confidence to take the risks needed to achieve mastery and social connection? The answer may be found in combining Rogerian and Reality Therapy. The need for genuineness and empathy is essential for any real relationship; since all people have a need to become socially connected, we must find someone who is an example of a genuine, caring and understanding person. He must be a safe and trustworthy person. This is the most difficult in life, isn’t it? I have personally found these relationships in the church through Jesus. It is important to realize, that no human is perfect and able to be fully trusted, but we must learn to both accept grace and forgiveness and offer grace and forgiveness in our relationships with others. It is only through a relationship with Jesus (the only man who was and is perfect) and following his teachings that I have been able to do so.

It isn’t until an individual learns to trust, that he will be able to truly find meaning. This is when the techniques of Reality Therapy come into play. Each individual needs to focus on current behaviors and learn to see the consequences of those behaviors. This most often occurs through open and honest relationships with those we can trust. The next step is for the individual to understand that his behavior is chosen, and therefore, he can choose to behave in a way that will more effectively reach his goals of finding meaning. It must be emphasized that we can control our thoughts, and our thoughts lead to our actions and feelings. I believe the most important part of Reality Therapy, however, is making a plan. Once we see a need for change, we can be at our most vulnerable, and that is the time we need someone to help us step up to make the changes. However, it must be a plan that the individual takes ownership of. If others are over involved, the individual is not really taking responsibility for his life. Once he finds small successes in a few areas he will begin to develop a new pattern of thinking, and begin to make good choices on his own that build purpose and contribution to the world.

Although I often fail at my attempts to make good choices, I try to live my life by the values I have been taught by Christ through his Word and through the leading of the Holy Spirit. Once I gave my life to Jesus, I set forth on a path of self-discovery through the renewal of my thinking. As I began to deny my desires to put myself before others, and I sought to love my neighbor as I love myself (Matthew 22:39), I was able to see how the gifts and talents I possessed could fill needs in our world. Once I stepped out and took risks to help others, I began to develop stronger relationships and now have many concentric circles of friends and family that I can trust in and rely on when the randomness and seeming meaninglessness of life can drag me down. I am always striving to do my best, but it has been a long arduous journey and many of my choices have not always been positive. When I do fall into selfishness, I rely on God’s mercy, and I get up and continue on my way. Life is a refining process. The Bible states that “we move from glory to glory, and little by little the veil is removed from our faces” (2 Corinthians 3:18). In other words, when we make the choice to live righteously, by God’s grace we are able to become better people and gain more understanding of our purpose in life through our ever-increasing knowledge of our Father and Creator.

At least for me it did. There was apart of my heart that I had lost over the years from disappointment and bad choices. Up until that point I had no direction for life, no joy and I was trying to run away from every memory and reminder of my family and childhood. I was able to ignore things and get by, but then I gave birth to a baby girl. I had a strong desire to protect her, get well and give her a good life.

About a  year before giving birth, we (boyfriend then, husband now) had just bought a nice house and I had started a good paying, respectable job. I thought I had everything I needed to be happy. The house, the job, the car and then, a baby. Yet I still felt sad and carried a lot of negative emotions, but didn’t know why. I thought that because I wasn’t apart of the unhealthy environment that I grew up in anymore and had a new life of my own, that I should be joyful.

I decided to talk to a counselor to figure out what was wrong. After only two appointments I decided it was a waste of time. With the long list of questions and so much history to tell, the sessions weren’t going to give  me the answers I needed fast enough. I knew in my heart it wasn’t what I was searching for and she was not going to get to the bottom of it. I had many layers and years of stuffed emotions starting at a very young age. Most that I chose not to remember (and didn’t want to talk about).

One day while putting clothes away and cleaning my room I came across Joyce Meyer on television. When I heard her talk about her life growing up and what God had done, it was like a light bulb went on. My heart was ready. I soaked up every word of truth she spoke.

The first book of hers that I read was Beauty For Ashes. What changed my life was learning about Jesus’ unconditional love. That’s what my heart had been needing. I cried and cried as I read it. I now know that pieces of my heart were being healed.

My whole life my mothers love came with conditions. Do what she says or there’s a long list of consequences. It was always a system of control. I also had a father who was never home and if he was, he was angry and didn’t want to be bothered.

When I read that Jesus loves me and I don’t have to work for it, my heart was like “ding, ding, ding that’s what I’m looking for!” I instantly fell in love with God and Jesus (I didn’t know about the Holy Spirit until years later).

If you were like me and didn’t have the best home life or childhood, tried to fill the void, made a lot of bad choices, big messes and wrong relationships, only to end up not knowing who you are anymore or what joy is….. I have great news. Jesus loves you and He is the answer.

God cares about you and your life. He has great plans for you. Surrender your life to Him and he will make something beautiful out of all the ashes.

But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.

For the past several years God has been turning my perception of Him upside down. In the past, I couldn’t wait to bow down and worship Him as a very distant king, high and lifted up. I saw myself as His faithful yet undeserving servant. I waited on the fringes for Him to notice me, working hard to earn His favor, but messed up a lot. I was ashamed of my weaknesses, always feeling like God was putting up with me, but how could He really like me? My devotion grew with a willingness to go anywhere He sent me, but God was showing me that He wanted to draw me close right where I was. The thought made me uncomfortable. Looking back, I can’t believe my preference to grovel as a servant because of a reluctance to accept my position as a cherished daughter.

While a number of root causes may readily be identified by delving into my childhood, examining my relationship with my natural father, cultural things, and the general function of fatherhood in society–my deliverance came by tearing down a lie that we must all confront. If I were Eve in the garden, the serpent would be asking me, “Does God really love you”? This question forced me to examine every bad thing that’s ever happened in my life and worldwide to teeter on the conclusion that He can’t possibly love any of us. At best we bend toward His will, hoping to hear “well done, you good and faithful servant.” (Matthew 25:21).

Deep down, I’d have to admit that this was true for me until we were shut down in our homes over COVID 19. Fear gripped me like never before, watching the news day after day, I faced the reality that if I didn’t have God, I didn’t have anything. I decided to look at my Bible again. Either I would embrace it all or none of it.

That first year I read my bible from cover to cover, chewing on every word like there was a nugget there just for me. The more I read, the more my perceptions changed. Not only does God love me, I saw over and over that God IS love. He loved me while I was still messed up. He gave up everything to snatch me out of a mess. I can never earn His love, but neither can I lose it. I was already good enough. His high value for me became very evident by the overwhelmingly high price He paid to redeem me. I had read the same scriptures for years, but the moment I determined to know truth, God showed me that He is truth and His words became life for me. He loves ME, not my efforts and not my sacrifices. I work and sacrifice because I love Him. I already have all of His favor. God loves me. I am His cherished daughter. He wants me close.

Today, looking at every bad thing that’s ever happened to me and worldwide has me leaping to the conclusion that God loves us all, continues to call us all, and has done everything necessary to redeem us all from a disaster He describes as darkness. He doesn’t want any of us to perish but Love is giving us a choice. This choice has rooted me in an identity and purpose founded on truth. I have a new peace and confidence in a good future, because God is good. I have rest from trying to fix a relationship that’s already been made right. I can finally be still knowing that He is God. God loves me. His truth is everything and is available to all of us through His word. We can choose to know His love. This choice has grounded me like nothing else, in a world that’s constantly shifting and trying to redefine reality. You can know it too. God loves you too. Be blessed.