Many years ago I found myself having to take inventory of my life. I lacked inner peace and purpose, and the loneliness and emptiness I felt was more than I could stand. I had been in an extremely abusive marriage, which ended in divorce; my children were growing up and going their own ways; my health was deteriorating with no hope of recovery. I was forced into early retirement and to go on disability.
All of these things left me feeling abandoned and unloved. As an abused person I had put up walls around my heart that kept me from being happy. My soul was empty and unsatisfied. So, I began searching for ways to become fulfilled. I started to surrender my moral convictions. In fact, I was on the road to becoming something I never thought I would be, an immoral woman. My life was totally unmanageable and out of control.
I finally reached a point where I just knew that there had to be more to life than what I was experiencing. I still felt that finding love would be my answer. I had tried all the wrong ways to find LOVE, so I decided to try church. It was a real personal struggle for me to go inside the church building, but once I was there, it was as if every word the pastor said was directed right to me. The message I heard and the decision I made that morning was the most important one of my life. I realized that the love that I was missing and searching so desperately for was the love that Jesus Christ was waiting to give to me but couldn't, because of my disobedience to Him. I learned that Jesus loved me so much that He died on the cross-for me (John 3:16). That day I learned that all my years of disobedience could be forgiven and I learned that Jesus died for me that I could have eternal life.
That Sunday (23 years ago) I prayed and asked Jesus into my heart, receiving salvation. God's greatest gift of grace. I also asked Him to take control of every area of my life and that I might live for Christ. I have discovered that God's Love and my growing personal relationship with Him fills all the voids that I myself tried to fill. It wasn't until I met Jesus and developed a personal relationship with Him that I was able to experience God's grace in my life. Now Jesus makes me feel whole and I feel the acceptance of God's love for me.
I still have trials and tribulations in my life, but I have peace knowing Jesus is always with me. The Bible says Jesus will never leave you nor forsake you and that promise is very comforting to me.
At this time in my life, the Lord has blessed me with a wonderful Christian husband. We are growing together in our relationship with Jesus. I am not saying we don't have our struggles, but Christ gives us His strength and His power to get through those difficult times. And I personally am striving to let Christ control all of my life. He has given me a whole new set of priorities to live by, as well as a purpose for living. With God's gift of grace I will continue in His strength to live for Him. Using the failures and struggles in my life as stepping stones, not as stumbling blocks. But the greatest thing of all is that I know for certain that my hope is in being with Christ in eternity, that I am a child of God and that I have the gift of eternal life.
My name is Dennis Smith, and I am a believer in Jesus Christ. I am also a child of God, who has struggled with alcohol. I want you to know that Christ has completely removed any desire for alcohol from me, but it would be foolish of me to say that I am completely healed and that alcohol could never be a problem for me again, because it is only through the grace of God, that I stand before you tonight, as a clean and sober man. It is completely due to the God … that I serve … and the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, that I have received VICTORY … one day at a time … for over 18 years. Praise God.
A several years ago, I was involved in leading the “Overcomer’s” drug and alcohol support group at Community Bible Chapel. There were times when I was the only one at the meeting. So I was really excited when we started up the Celebrate Recovery Program. And I am pleased to say that I have been involved in it since the beginning.
I know that Jesus is the answer for all of us who. have hurts, habits and hang-ups. That is why I am excited about Celebrate Recovery, because it is centered on Christ. I know that Jesus has used this program to change lives. I believe that God has called me to serve in this ministry, as my own life continues to change as I grown closer to Christ.
In-fact God’s word says in 2 Corinthians 1:4, that God “comforts us in all our tribulation that we may be able to comfort those who are in trouble.” And that is one of my purposes…to comfort others who are in trouble. I didn’t always feel like there was a purpose for me though. For years my life was filled with insanity
The term “Darkside” is a word that is often used in recovery. It is a word that brings up memories of PART OF MY LIFE THAT I DELT WITH EIGHTEEN YEARS AGO WHEN I WORKED THROUGH MY “MORALE INVENTORY” It was then that I had to make an honest, searching and fearless inventory of a part of my life that I had kept hidden. Up to that time I wasn’t able to deal with it because of the shame I felt and for fear that my family and loved ones would find out. I just didn’t know how they would respond to the truth. So I had been stuffing and hiding the truth of my past and being miserable deep inside all these years.
While I was working my denial inventory God had been working in my heart. I know that He opened the door for me to deal with this darkside. I finally realize that it is more important to be right with God first and then my personal relationships will fall in line. It had been too long coming, I realized that I had to do the right thing and complete my inventory honestly and that is what I was able to do. Let me share some of my story. It begins in a Christian home. I accepted Christ into my life at the age of ten. I went to a small country church, learning all the right things from the wrong things, being brought up as a good Christian kid. When I became a teen-ager my focus changed from God to myself. That is where it stayed for most of my life. I started drinking as a teen-ager and it just got worse from then on.
At the age of 20 I was married. By the time I was 21 I was the parent of two children. And I had become a full- blown alcoholic by the age of 28. Because of wrong choices and self-indulgences that I made by putting my drinking first, above my family … my marriage ended in divorce, and my relationship with my kids was in jeopardy.
I knew that I had to do something to reconcile my marriage, so I made the choice to go into a treatment center to stop drinking, hoping that this would help. But I went for the wrong reasons and when I wasn’t able to reconcile my marriage the drinking started back up again.
I soon went into deep depression and was drinking to extremes, causing me to loose my job. There were times when I wouldn’t have a sober breath for a week to ten days at a time. This went on for about 1½ years. This is when my “Darkside” surfaced. I was full of anger and hate because of things that had happened to me and it came out in mean and ugly ways. My personality changed as well as my character. I would walk into a bar for example and if I didn’t like the way a person looked or acted I would pick a fight with them. Because of my combat training in the Marines I had the ability to inflict pain on people and that is just what I did.
Deep inside I was ashamed of my actions, so when I did see my family, I always tried to hide this side of me from them. And other than Karen, my wife, I still don’t think any of them know about my “darkside”.
But the truth is that is what I became like after my divorce. I was full of anger and hate and I was going to take it out on anyone I felt like. I had no concern for others; they meant nothing to me. I knew I was hitting the bottom and I knew that what I was doing was wrong and I hated myself for it.
I thought that my answer was getting back into church. So I started faithfully attending church again. Staying sober most of the time. But there was still an occasional weekend binge. I had some contact with my children, but our relationship was not what it should have been.
It was during this partially sober time that I met my second wife. I started having counseling and was maintaining sobriety on my own. I was able to hide my “darkside” very well. But I couldn’t hide the fact that I had lost all confidence in myself to hold down a decent job. We thought a different environment would be a good career change for us both, so we moved to Seattle, but by doing that I severed all communications with my children.
I had been successfully maintaining my sobriety on my own. I still felt that I could do it alone that I didn’t need anyone to help me. I had been trying to straighten my life out but I was only putting up walls around my “darkside”. I had been married for about 4 years, by this time, and I thought that things were going good. But apparently my wife thought differently. There were emotional and spiritual changes taking place in her life that I wasn’t aware of. She made career and emotional changes that didn’t include our marriage or me. She basically deserted me, filling for divorce, so she could be with her woman lover.
It wouldn’t have been so bad, if I had lost her just to her job, but for her to choose her job and another women over me caused me great pain and made me feel less than a man all these years.
As I look back I can see just how dysfunctional we were in our relationship. And how for me what she did to me was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I lived the next 2 years being a slave to my drinking and my “darkside.” I was jeopardizing my job again. I was basically homeless sleeping in the parks and countryside and washing up at the YMCA.
One night I was on my way to meet my drinking buddy’s. The plan was to take care of some guys who had been giving us trouble. That night I had a loaded pistol with me and I was ready to use it. But God had other plans for me.
When I was about a block away from the bar I was going to, I wrecked my motorcycle by running into a brick retaining wall. The cycle caught on fire and burned so hot that it was starting to melt. I was pinned under my bike and at that moment I called out to God for help. That is when two policemen showed up and pulled me out from under my burning bike, just before the bullets I was carrying exploded. I believe that those two men were angels in disguise, sent from God to rescue me. But that is another story. My cycle was destroyed and my legs were severely burnt, but I was still alive.
It was then that I realized I needed to make changes in my life. I truly believe that God used my accident as a means to allow those changes to start coming about.
After my accident I was a totally changed person. Still very dysfunctional but changed. I stuffed my anger instead of venting it and I didn’t like confrontation anymore. I was still in constant turmoil, lonely and miserable. It had been two years since my second divorce. I was going no place and I thought I had no one to care about me. I decided to move back to Spokane in hopes of re-establishing some kind of relationship with my kids and getting my life in order.
I knew that my choices for my life had been wrong over the years. And deep down I knew what I had to do, but I was never willing to follow through with turning my life completely over to God and put Him first in my life.
I moved back to Spokane. And though I continued to make wrong choices in my life God was always with me. Bringing a little bit of encouragement into my life. That is when I met Karen. I truly believe that God allowed us to meet each other. We started dating. I started attending CBC. Eventually we got married.
I thought my life was finally coming together. There were still occasional binges and drinking but I was sneaky about it. This went on for about two years. I was still in denial trying to stay sober on my own and trying to justify my actions. For me, my life was better than it had been for years. My “darkside” no longer surfaced, but I was putting Karen through hell with my drinking.
God gave Karen the strength to confront me about my drinking, to tell me that “I had to get right with God before our marriage could go on.”
I don’t know where I would be today if God hadn’t allowed that confrontation to happen. After that, for the first time in my life, God really became important to me. I admitted I couldn’t do it on my own anymore; I needed Him to do it for me. It was then that I asked Him to take control of my drinking.
It was then that I made a personal choice to let God’s power work in my life. By having a willingness to accept God’s power in my life, and by leaving Jesus in control of my drinking, I have been sober for 18 years.
Jesus gave me immediate victory over my alcoholism, removing any and all desires for alcohol from my life.
I continued to have struggles in other areas of my life though. I was still in denial and not wanting to deal with my “darkside” and the pain and remorse from my past actions. And my efforts to restore my relationship with my kids was still failing. Nothing I did seemed to work.
God showed me that if I wanted to rebuild my relationship with my children that I would have to let go of them too. Admit that I am powerless and that I needed Him to intervene. I gave my children and all my difficulties regarding them over to God at that time. That was 15 years ago. I can tell you those years were very difficult for me, but since I made that personal choice to let go and to let God be in control. It has been a process but God has been slowly restoring my relationship with my children.
God does sometime give you victory immediately like He did with my alcoholism. But most of the time He asks you to wait and go through a healing process. I can’t tell you that it has been easy … because it hasn’t. My spiritual growth has been a process, where sometimes I took two steps forward and one back. There have been times that I was trapped in self-pity, when I was unable to feel or experience any growth at all.
I was able to accept God’s forgiveness for what I had done, but not His love. And I wasn’t able to forgive myself either. I just felt so unworthy and undeserving. You see I was so shameful of my past and the people that I hurt, people that I didn’t even know, that I felt undeserving of God’s love.
He knew I couldn’t handle dealing with everything at once. So this has all been in God’s timing. He has been waiting for me to grow up spiritually and emotionally. It has taken me all these years to realize that I do have value and that I am not junk. Sometimes I do fall back into wrong thoughts of self-pity, but I turn them over to God right away, knowing that He will give me His grace and peace to get through each and every day. I can’t begin to tell you the freedom I am able to feel now.
I find that God’s truth isn’t changing … my feelings and the way I think are changing. And while I am faithful to apply His Word to my life … He is faithful to give me mercy and grace. I am learning to use my quite time to talk and pray to God about my anger, as well as other issues that He brings up. I am developing a willingness to let go and let God work in my life.
I study and read the Bible faithfully, but 10 years ago I made a commitment to read the Bible through in a year, that is when I started having a real break through. Since then I have been able to feel God’s love. I am embracing His word and it is opening my heart to accept His love. Over the years between the teachings and “working my steps” as well as my quite time with the Lord is helping me to really talk to God honestly and give it all to Him and let Him deal with it.
It was hard to tell Karen about my past and what I used to be like. For a long time my fear prevented me from expressing my self honestly. I stayed in denial not wanting to come clean about my past.
God’s timing is perfect. I know he planned for me to have to give my faith story on “Denial”. This way I can share that He has given me victory over my darkside. God is helping me to change my life so I can be the person He wants me to be. I know that God will continue to bring to mind things that I need to deal with. I also know that He will give me His grace and peace to get through each and every day.
Now I know that I still have other habits, hurts and hang-ups and my recovery in every area of my life is going to be an ongoing process. The truth is that now I am willing to change in any area that God directs me in. I continue “working the twelve steps” to help me develop a closer walk with God and He is helping me to live a healthy life.
I have made a plan to set aside time every morning during my quite time to get with God and work on my inventory. My prayer is that my heart and mind will be open to see the real truth and to express it. That I will try to keep a balance by focusing on what God brings to me. And knowing that Jesus will give me the courage and strength that working “the steps” require. Thank you for letting me share.
