Lives Transformed

Allow me to take you back to the year of 2015. Here I am wishing for life or death. Either way, anything to get me out of the state of stasis within a prison of addiction. 

I grew up with the father who was a heroin addict. I knew exactly the toll that it takes on family and I promised myself that I would never ever be that person. Well here I am. 31 years old and trapped within the disease and torment of heroin addiction.

 I had been begging for a way out. I wasn't able to do so simply by will. I had no clue how to get out of this trap I had built. 

Well on October 5th,2016 the Lord answered my prayers. I was arrested. Oddly enough it was within the confines of those concrete cylinder walls that I was able to find freedom. A freedom to think without that blinding mask of heroin, a freedom to laugh, a true belly laugh and within those first tates of freedom, I knew the main source of my life I was missing. The part of life that I had so quickly turned my back on. I knew that I had to turn around and face our Lord. 

 I started going to Sunday worship and for maybe the first time in my life. I actually sat still, opened my ears and cleared my mind. I was ready to see and be open to what Jesus was trying to tell me. On one of those Sundays I received a Recovery Bible. A girl that we shared the same pod with, and I would get together and read random parts and go over it together and talk about it made us feel and how we could relate. We did this multiple times a week. I began to pray every single day. Sometimes multiple times a day. Little did I know at the time that I was establishing a relationship with Jesus. The one true relationship I needed and yet the one I had let slip through the cracks of life and addiction. 

 After I was released from Jail, I found a church and began going as often as I could. I was in the beginning of forming a Church Family. One built on love, understanding and if there wasn't an understanding there was an openess to understand on both ends. 

 Within my recovery I found these groups, these Christ centered groups to be the very foundation of which was needed. Within these meeting and groups we all had the same common purpose. To continue to build a life with Jesus and to strengthen our relationship with him. Not every person who gave their testimony had a history of drug addiction, some had gambling addiction, some were dependent on food, there were and are such a wide range of issues. Yet we all had one core aspect in common. We have all found a freedom and sense of peace within ourselves and even on the hardest most dark days. The answer... Leaning on Jesus. Through the meetings and being able to share with one another we've been able to grow a firm and solid relationships within our daily lives. We were able to hold ourselves accountable. We also knew that within these meetings, we were able to build a family within. 

 I couldn't be more grateful to have been arrested. Those months of incarceration opened so many doors of freedom. I was able to turn back to my maker, my father and ask truly to be forgiven. To ask for guidance and eventually ask how I can help him for that day. If it wasn't for the women who came every Sunday and reminded me that I was loved, never was forgotten and that I deserve this as well, I may have never allowed the sense of freedom and love and light back into my life. These women shown me how to pray again, how to offer my love and how to receive our father love. 

  This Jail Ministry has opened so many doors within my life that I wouldn't have known to be possible. They put love and compassion mixed with understanding in my life and through all my tears have shown me the example of living with a faith and purpose of the Lord.