Bandages in Recovery

Ending my addiction was a great gift of mercy and grace from God. I was blessed in my life to have loving people who prayed for me regularly and God answered their faithful prayers. I feel it is a gift every day to be in recovery.

However, it is not easy. I made tons of messes along the way while I was busy being a selfish addict- which all addicts are- and bandages have to be ready to apply all the time. God forgave me and I have recently also forgiven me. But, I made many bad choices that people are not so easy to forgive because they seriously hurt them. I have to try to heal relationships with my kids for one. I have given them years of bad parenting- I did my best and tried to love them but was a secret selfish addict and that always affects innocent children for years. Trying to do my best now is hard because I am not sure how to do all this while feeling everything. I have come a long way but have very far to go. I need a lot of bandaids ready at a moment’s notice and hope and am praying that my kids don’t take up addictions to temporarily mask their pain. They never last long and God is a much better, healing choice for true freedom.

I have to give myself grace while feeling very alone. My saving grace is having a relationship with the Lord. I trust Him and He takes care of me. I am trying to figure out how to do things. So I keep putting on bandaids and pray for God’s deep healing in their lives and mine as we keep going in recovery. Praise God! I am so thankful to be in recovery! God is so good!😃❤️

The Art of Forgiving

Forgiving someone is only really easy if your emotions were not shredded or if you barely if at all trusted that person. If they were trusted or loved or were supposed to be trustworthy or love you, it can get complicated. Feelings were hurt, trust broken, lies were always involved, etc. This forgiving we must do (because God requires it of us) becomes more of an art.

I have learned this art of forgiving, forged after many disappointments in people I trusted, betrayals, losses, etc. Here it is… God has to help us. Seems simple? Too simple, like I am an idiot for saying so? On the contrary, pride is the real obstacle to forgiveness. Remembering humbly how many sins God forgave me for helps me forgive others, even the closest people to me. I can forgive someone who did anything to me because I have been forgiven of so many wrongs myself. And also, God assures us that we will be forgiven as we forgive others. That is pretty strong motivation. Realizing we are not perfect allows people to sin/make mistakes/hurt us. God says it is really God they are sinning against and He will repay them. But we are supposed to forgive and God will help when we call on Him. Then forgiveness frees you of the burden of carrying it around and reliving the pain over and over, giving you life and vitality as a reward. Forgiveness is an art and we need the Master Artist’s help to make it.❤

Forgiving is the Key to Being Forgiven

Jesus’ words in Matthew 6 were very clear. As we forgive others, we will be forgiven. So if we harbor unforgiveness, we put ourselves in harm’s way and put ourselves in bondage to our own sins. Pride is the culprit, yet again. Ego says they don’t deserve forgiveness. Even if that is true, when you make that judgment, you doom yourself to not bring forgiven by God, so they win twice- one by the offense and once by your pride keeping you from forgiving them. So forgive and they only hurt you once, you are forgiven your sins, and God will deal with them later. “Vengeance is mine, says the Lord, I will repay.” Trust that and forgive. Let it go and you will have obeyed God, which brings blessings. It is freeing and feels great when you dump that baggage. And then you can be forgiven and closer to the Lord. Beautiful!😄❤

Spouse or Family of Addicts Yields a Forgiveness Expert

One big thing about living with an addict, whether you are married to one or there is one or more in your family, you become a forgiveness expert. Now, this isn’t automatic. It took me a while to

1. be humble enough to admit that I was not perfect (when you see someone every day in addiction(s), you tend to compare and feel pretty holy and it takes maturity of humility to admit to not being perfect and thus forgiving. (It helped me a lot with this when a pastor said “Our comparison should never be against other people who are also flawed but against Jesus who is perfect, then we see the need for His grace”) and

2. Be mature enough to know that God will forgive my sins as I forgive those who sin against me and

3. Trust God enough to have control of the situation and yield my control of it,

4. Find comfort and strength in a strong relationship with God, and lastly

5. Realize that forgiveness does not mean enabling as long as they know where we stand and we maintain healthy boundaries (forgiveness is the earthly manifestation of grace which frees rather than enables – they carry obscene amounts of guilt continually and this frees them of more).

All these things needed to be in place for forgiveness to come easy to me. When you decide to stay with the addict, you decide to purposely stay with someone who has chosen to feed their own selfishness and narcissism based on lies and escapism over any real love for you. They decide to be Willoughby from Sense and Sensibility. They do love you in their way “but not enough” because of this sin sickness, this self-inflicted denial and escapism (escaping from pain or discomfort or trauma and God). It is humbling and to survive relying on God is paramount to success.

Know that it is always God’s desire to draw everyone close to Himself and so He rewards those who stay with those running from Him and who keep showing His love. He wants them back and appreciated you standing in the gap through prayer, Bible study and loving example of grace and forgiveness.

So we have the extra blessing of opportunities to forgive. As such, we are in a very good position to be rewarded richly by God and also to be able to help other people in the same position or less experienced at it. Anyway, God bless us, everyone. Much love to you on your journey. 😄❤