I Am a Blessed Child of God

Hi, my name is Cindy. I am a very blessed child of God and this is my story. The start of my life I remember like a fairy tale. There was my sister Missy who is 6 years older than me, my parents, and, of course, me. We got together with extended family on a regular basis and life was good. I was happy, they were happy, and I was too young to recognize or remember any dysfunction that might have been hidden in that happiness.

Then the turning point came. At the end of my 2nd grade school year my Papa Smurf, my dad’s dad, passed away. I guess he was the glue that held my family together. He had been sick for a while, so everyone knew it was coming. I think my parents were just waiting on it to happen so they could let out all the hate they had toward each other. The fighting between my mom and dad was horrible. They would get in each other’s face and just scream at the top of their lungs. It didn’t even seem to matter if I was standing there, they didn’t hold back. It was so terrifying; I didn’t understand what was happening. I would run and hide in my room, usually curled up in a ball under my desk trying to wish away the fighting. My sister, Missy, would find me and take me out of the house. We would always go to one of her friends’ houses until the fighting was over. When we would go home I would pretend nothing had happened. I was scared that I might make the fighting happen again if I said anything; or I might make someone cry, or worse I might cry and big girls don’t cry. That was the beginning of my denial.

In 5th grade it happened, my parents got a divorce. I was torn, my best friend at the time had divorced parents and I was encouraged to talk with her about how I felt. Her parents had been divorced since she was very young so it was part of her norm. When I would tell her how sad I was about my parents split, or how angry I was that I didn’t get a say in the decision she would laugh at me. She would tell me I was just being a baby about things and I needed to grow up. Out the window went any ability I had to talk about my feelings. From then on I just didn’t. I put on that mask that life was good and I ran with it. My grades did start to slip a little, but by this time puberty was starting so my grades were just blamed on hormones and no one thought anything else about it.

The beginning of 8th grade, right before my 14th birthday, I was raped. My mom did her best to help me through this. She put me in counseling and told me over and over how she would listen if I ever wanted to talk. I told her once that I wanted to run away and she said let’s do it. That weekend without telling a soul we packed a tent, some food, and a map and took off to the mountains. This is my favorite memory of me and my mom. I had so much fun with her and I laughed some much needed laughs. But that weekend came to an end and so did my temporary happiness. I sunk into a sea of depression, and isolation got the best of me. I got to where I only went to school maybe once a month and I wanted nothing to do with my friends.

On one of my attempts to go to school there was a new girl on the bus. I don’t remember talking to her, but she started knocking on my door every day. I would never come out so she was always stuck talking to my mom. Somehow she convinced my mom, and my mom, only because she was completely desperate to get me better, convinced me to go to a New Year’s Eve party. That was my first night drinking alcohol and smoking pot. I had fun that night and forgot about how broken I was. I wanted to continue to forget, so I continued to get high. I started smoking cigarettes on a regular basis, I think just because it seemed to fit well with my new ‘carefree’ life style, and I also became voluntarily sexually active. Saying no didn’t work anyways. I also began getting into a lot of fights. I got into one at the bus stop one morning and the cops got called. My mom put me into a boarding school to keep me out of juvenile. I stayed there for 3 months and after expressing how much I hated it there my mom let me come back home. I went right back to my old ways except I made sure not to get into any more fights.

While I was at boarding school I met a girl named Jennifer. We were inseparable the 3 months that I was there. After I left we saw each other when we could. One night I get a call that Jennifer (who was pregnant) was in a bad car wreck. They were able to save the baby but didn’t know if Jennifer would live (She is still alive today but is in a permanent vegetative state). I was devastated. I didn’t know what to do, how could this happen to my best friend? Instead of processing this nightmare I decided to call another friend and for the first time that night I tried cocaine. On nights to follow I experimented with any drug I could get my hands on.

When I was 17 I found out I was pregnant, I quit everything except the pot and cigarettes. Nine months later I gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. In less than six months after her birth I was back into the drugs. This time around, I found meth. I was hooked the very first time and for the next almost 10 years that drug took me over.

In this time period I moved from Georgia, where I grew up, to eastern Idaho and I got married. When I first moved to Idaho I attended church with my husband’s family and not long after our marriage I got pregnant with our first son. I was sober at the time but not long after his birth I started using again and quit going to church. I really didn’t get the whole God thing anyways. Before I had much of the chance to start looking the part of a meth head I found out I was pregnant again so I stopped using. As soon as I gave birth to our 2nd son I started up again and things got rough.

It became obvious to everyone that I was on drugs, I denied it but they knew. I started to realize what a mess I was in. There were many times that I would pray to a God I wasn’t even sure existed, begging for help to get sober, and pleading for Him not to let me lose my kids. I tried going into the ER for help once and after telling them how lost in the addiction I was they sent me away, telling me they couldn’t help me I just need to quit. There were times I thought about suicide and even attempted it once. Thank you, God, for not letting it work.

The winter of 2008 my husband and I were homeless with our kids. We had a hotel room we could sleep in at night but nowhere for the day except my car that was missing the driver side window. A friend who had recently moved to Boise had come to visit. When she saw us with nowhere to go she told me and my husband to come get our life together in Boise. We could stay with her, but she lived in a small apartment so we couldn’t bring the kids or she might get evicted. We signed over temporary guardianship of our kids to my in-laws. After they had the kids for about a month they brought them back to us but we didn’t have a place to live yet and stayed in a hotel for another month. Through the help of a local church we got into an apartment.

One night I took my kids to drop them off at a church for a mid-week kids program. I had planned on dropping off the older two and taking my youngest home with me because he was too young to stay. God had different plans that night, my youngest wanted to stay and play. I asked the lady teaching and she said it was fine as long as I stayed too. There were probably 12-15 kids there and just this one lady so I pitched in to help where I could. At the end of the night this woman told me she had just started working in the children’s ministry and was looking for volunteers. I began to come every week and help out. I loved it, I was having a lot of fun and before long I was attending church on Sundays and even teaching Sunday school to the kids on Sunday morning.

Living in an apartment complex people are moving in and out a lot. There was a new family that moved in and the mom and I talked outside a lot and one day I invited her up to my home. Before I knew it she pulled something out of her pocket and stuck it in my hand. The devils drug again. I was sucked right back in at that moment. I started drinking heavier at night to help counteract so I could sleep, it was pointless. I was gone. It wasn’t long before my friend at church noticed something, she would question me but I would lie. She knew, she made it very clear she knew, and the first time I went to try and teach Sunday school like that she sent me home saying she loved me but I felt hot and I shouldn’t work around the kids if I was sick.
It didn’t take long for my life to start falling apart again. I lost my job on New Year’s Eve. I was able to catch up on the bills I had got behind on and pay a little extra with my income tax return. The leftovers of that went to help waste my life away and when it was gone and I was totally broke. I was disgusted with myself and was able to get off meth again. I kept close to the drinking though. My husband found work and I made excuses for my drinking. I wasn’t having fun living this life anymore, it was miserable. I realized that I needed a way out.

Some nights I would stare at the moon and ask God if he was real why He would let me live like this, and then I would tell Him how fake he was. I got nowhere with that so I started asking my husband if he thought there really was a God and when he would say yes. I would tell God how He needed to take away my desire to drink but I put forth no effort to stop. I knew I didn’t want to live the life I was living, treating my amazing kids the way I treated them. I didn’t know what to do. One of my moon prayers was something like, “God, if you are real can you give me just one friend that doesn’t drink and do drugs.” I was not prepared for what happened next!

I don’t know the time frame after that prayer, but it wasn’t long before I got new neighbors; a lady my age and two kids. My youngest and her oldest already knew each other from school. They were best friends and so happy that they got to be neighbors now! The mom and I talked almost on a daily basis and after a few weeks she said to me, “I feel like you are not living the life you want to live, my door is open if you ever want to talk.” She also invited me to Celebrate Recovery, telling me it was a Christ Centered Recovery program that helped people who struggled with anything in life: depression, co-dependency, addiction, anything and most importantly it could help me grow in my relationship with God. In the moment I think maybe I quit breathing. Who was she to say that to me, we weren’t friends, our kids were. I just smiled and said thank you, but I knew she was right. I hated my life, I constantly complained that I wasn’t happy, and I went to church sometimes but I still wasn’t so sure God was real. I’m pretty sure that, if she hadn’t already been praying for me, she started after this conversation.

One night my husband and I got into a fight, a big one. I don’t remember what the fight was about but I know I was mad. I decided I needed to leave and that night, for the first time in my life, I drove while drunk. For some reason (still unknown to me but God had to have been in it) I decided I was going to see a friend that I went to church with. She just lived across the highway and I do remember thinking to myself that, even though I was drunk, I could make it there. I didn’t even know exactly where she lived; I guess I was going to look for her car. As I am pulling into her neighborhood area she passes me leaving so I turn around and follow her. I follow her right to church.

It just happens to be Good Friday and she is going to the Good Friday service. I park right next to her and as she comes to me to say a cheerful hello I get out of my car and start bawling. I tell her I’m drunk (I’m sure she didn’t need me to tell her that) and that I need help. She takes me inside to my friend that runs the children’s ministry. She takes me to a small room and asks me to promise to wait there. I did, I waited for over an hour. The whole time going over in my brain how stupid I was for driving like I was and this was it. Church was to help people and I was at church so I was getting some help. She came back in after service was over and she brought two more people in that I had never met. I told them everything there was to know about my addictions. The love that poured out of the 3 of them was indescribable. They cared, they felt my pain, and they wanted to help.

That friend that I followed to church, her husband just happened to be a drug and alcohol counselor. To add to that he offered counseling at the church. At first I didn’t want to talk to him because he was my friends’ husband, but I was told if I wanted help he was my only option and was reassured that it would be confidential. I agreed and started going to meet him once a week. He also recommended Celebrate Recovery to me and said that I needed to start going, so I finally did. April 29, 2011 I walked in the doors for the first time at Celebrate Recovery. I did step 1 of the 12 steps. I admitted that I was powerless over my addictions and compulsive behaviors, my life had become unmanageable. The next month was a rollercoaster. I would make it four days sober and then I would blow it, four more days, and then I would blow it. I spent a lot of time with my neighbor friend during this time, she was so encouraging and every time I screwed up she would tell me I could just try again.

Then the day finally came! It was May 26, 2011. I drank the night before and had been telling myself all day that it was a new day and I was staying sober. Nights were my biggest trigger and I knew that. Making it through the day was easy compared to the battle that I fought with myself at night and this night was no different. Losing the battle was as easy as walking in the kitchen and opening the fridge. I didn’t want to lose anymore, tonight I wanted to win. That night while lying in bed forcing myself not to get up I had what I have been told was a panic attack. I had never had one before and thank God I haven’t had one since. It scared the crap outta me. For the first time in a long time I prayed to God instead of talking to the moon. I wrote kind of a mini testimony describing that experience a few months later at a women’s retreat, and I want to share it now.
I was brought to Jesus when he took my alcohol addiction from me. I’ll never forget that night: The itching pain that covered my entire body. The fear that I couldn’t not drink. Being so terrified thinking I might call 911. The voice that said “Fear not, I am with you.” The prayer that rescued me. The comfort of his arms around me. The peace that I am okay. God is snuggling with me tonight and holding my heart always. He will never let go and neither will I.

Principle 2 of Celebrate Recovery’s 8 recovery principles: Earnestly believe that God exist, that I matter to Him, and that He has the power to help me recover. I still today hold on to what God said to me that night, one of the few memory verses I had memorized and he reminded me of it in his perfect time. Isaiah 41:10, “Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, yes, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”

The end of August that year a new women’s 12 step program opened up at Celebrate Recovery. I had been sober 3 months by this time and really wasn’t sure that I needed to join a 12 step but I did because some of my new friends were joining. Over the next year I examined my life under a microscope. I also found out the importance of a sponsor. At times it was so emotionally painful that it physically hurt. Things that I had forgotten about were brought back to the surface but this time instead of burying I processed them. My sponsor was there for every bit of emotional vomit that came out. I wouldn’t have made it through without her. She would just sit there and listen to everything that came out with such a loving disposition, even the nasty stuff didn’t shock her. Each time I got through talking to her I felt so much lighter. I started that 12 step wanting to punch most people I came in contact with on a daily basis and I walked out hugging them.

I joined the next women’s 12 step as soon as it started because I knew I wasn’t fixed yet. A few months later, I even got to start helping lead! During this 12 step God carried me back to time periods in my life and held my hand as I stood up for myself and I know he was smiling at me. The guy who raped me so many years ago struck again and I was asked to testify. I stood in front of him in a court room and for the very first time I got to tell him how his actions affected my life. I don’t know what his thoughts were, he wasn’t given a chance to respond, and it doesn’t matter. In that moment God set me free from the nightmare that I had held onto for over 15 years.
2 Corinthians 3:17 – “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. God promises freedom and He has given me so much since I turned my life over to him.”

My boys are in Celebration Place and my daughter is in The Landing, programs that are offered at Celebrate Recovery to help break the cycles of family dysfunction. They have learned to trust God and offer and ask for forgiveness when needed. My husband has recently started attending as well. I see the changes God has made as of today and I know he is not done. Philippians 1:6, “And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.”

Celebrate Recovery was here to teach me how to change. To show me the tools I needed to succeed. To give me a family that encourages me and loves me. I am happy now, I smile and laugh a lot and I rarely have the urge to punch annoying people. My relationship with my kids and husband has never been better and continues to grow every day. I have many restored family relationships that were nonexistent 3 years ago. God has restored my relationship with myself as well and I finally believe that I am good enough! With that reassurance I started college last year and I am currently half way through my 2nd semester! Also this coming Saturday I will celebrate 11 months without a cigarette and I just received my 3 year chip for meth recovery last Friday. None of this would be possible without the love and grace of Jesus Christ.

I have developed a huge passion for God, Celebrate Recovery, and church. I find myself telling others about it without even meaning to. I know that I don’t have to face my disappointments and fears alone and I am happy to be able to share this and other valuable life lessons with many amazing women. I plan on becoming an emergency room nurse when I am done with school and I am excited to see the people that God puts in my path there. The stories that I will be able to tell, and the stories that I will be told!

If you are just checking out this whole God thing and you’re not quite sure what to make of it all yet that’s okay. 3 years ago, I didn’t either. I never would have believed you if you would have told me that I would be up here writing my testimony. I would have thought you were crazy if you would have said I was going to lead a women’s 12 step group and help facilitate the women’s chemical dependency group at Celebrate Recovery, and I still sometimes pinch myself when I think about the friendship that I have with Jesus and the true happiness that has brought to my life! Don’t give up on God; He will never give up on you. He will be there to carry you when you can’t walk and love you when you are unlovable. He has miracles for your life, too!

To the rest of you, I want to say thank you. Thank you for being a positive example to someone in your life. I hope that you are willing to share the love and grace of Jesus Christ with those you come into contact with. Had my neighbor not shared that with me I would still be lost in the darkness and literally headed to Hell. Do what Jesus has called us to do; go, love others, and make disciples. God bless.

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