Returning back to my roots!!!!!

Returning back to my roots!!!!!!

Friday I returned back to the roots of my recovery, went back to where I started, a place where I had not visited in a very long time. I was asked to be the guest speaker at a recovery meeting through our local hospital. I had not stepped through the doors of a secular meeting in years, the area of my pride is something I had to truly get under control before I placed myself back into the shoes of those I use to wear.

Early on in my recovery I become arrogant and prideful and that had to be broken. So, here I was sitting in a room with woman all around me who had hours, days and months, celebrating there clean date. I remember being in those shoes of early recovery and seeing someone like me today and thinking “they have no idea what it is like, how can they relate to my brokenness?” I had been praying for them and the meeting for sometime and felt like the Lord said go with only me in your heart and the message on your lips.

This was a big request because my training wheels for sometime have been my notes and preparation. I am learning now that the last four years have been preparation so that I do not have to prepare when it comes to sharing the hope I have in Jesus Christ. The immediate connection I made with these woman was that every single one of them in the room had children and were fighting to either keep them or get them back. And my testimony began on Mothers day 2003 when my children almost lost me.

As I sat there listening to the check in going on, each lady going around sharing her drug of choice, clean date and a word feeling for the day I quickly remembered how ugly early recovery actually was. The brokenness is so beautiful and it gives the word ugly a whole new meaning. Ugly in the sense of how the women see themselves and feel about who they are. The ugliness of where we have come from and what we have done is so loud in those early days.

I fell in love with these ladies immediately as I remembered how I felt the very first time I introduced myself as a drug addict with just days clean. Ashamed, guilty and convicted is how I felt and ugly was all I knew…. Early recovery is about learning that we are not what we do, or what had been done to us but rather who we are in the Lord. Praise God for Roots that keep us grounded so that we can give back to others what was given to us.