Pain. Addiction. Recovery. Relapse. Recovery.
These words are all too familiar in my life and the lives around me. I attend a local Celebrate Recovery group. Celebrate Recovery is a Christ centered 12-step group that assists people in dealing with the hurts, habits and hang-ups that they experience in their lives. As a part of the meeting there is an opportunity for a person to share their testimony. This reflection is based on the testimony that Joey Rodriguez shared this last week. You can hear his testimony here: http://www.celebraterecoverygr.com/listen.html
Joey began his story telling of the pain that he experienced in the life of abuse as a child. He talked of beginning to use alcohol and drugs to self medicate, the beginnings of the chains of bondage that held him captive for so many years. He spoke of being a gutter drunk, of not caring anymore, not feeling, of his feet literally freezing to the ground as he numbed himself with the syrupy poison that comes in a small glass flask. He began his tortuous march as a slave to his addiction, he couldn’t see that as his feet were shuffling on the ground in the shackles of his addiction, that he was enveloped in a cloud of dust, the dust of the earth- God’s medium for creation.
Even as he fell deeper into his addiction- his heart beat to the sound of God, whispering into his heart the same cadence and rhythm that God has often softly drummed into mine, and his heart began to cry out, undetectable to Joey but in violent crescendos to the Creator, “You won’t relent until you, have it all, my heart is yours, You won’t relent until you, have it all, my heart is yours…” Even as he went through program after program and relapse after relapse, trudging on, desperate, alone and in so much pain- God was stirring the dust, molding him, shaping him, showing him glimpses of God’s infinite mercy.
As Joey grew in his dependency on God, his dependency on other things began to lose some of their grip, his desperate trudging through life began to change over from shuffling through the dust in chains to the deliberate march, the same march away from slavery that the Israelites made, the same march away from captivity that I share, the same march that so many of my brothers and sisters share, a deliberate march against the shackles, stirring up the dust, falling down and collapsing from the exhaustion of desperately marching away from captivity, but getting up again and letting our hearts keep the constant cadence of its song,
“you wont relent until you have it all, my heart is yours…”
At the present moment Joey is experiencing the ability to see that God is creating beautiful things out of the dust that has been stirred up from Joey’s pain. He shared that he ate dinner with his daughter at the same table for the first time in many years- he exchanged smiles and fried ice cream with his grand daughter. He now lovingly cares for his father who was his abuser- he is now 80 years old and cannot take care of himself.
“ You make beautiful things, you make beautiful things out of the dust…” God has made beautiful things out of the dust that Joey stirred up around him in the midst of his addiction.
Joey shared that on his screen saver he has a picture of graffiti that says, “in me are the bones of a better man”. He uses it as a reminder to himself to keep pushing forward, to keep marching toward victory. Along the journey there are times where he stops, where he listens to the melodies playing in his heart he can hear them those small phrases of encouragement woven into the life of a slave,
“He makes beautiful things, he makes beautiful things out of the dust…. He makes beautiful things, he makes beautiful things out of us….”
And in those moments, where he can hear the sound of freedom, the sound of victory, the hope of eternity- he sees God, in the eyes and smiles of his daughter, and grand daughter— and his heart sings!
Rachel Olexa 