Going thru my recovery from a drug and alcohol addiction I have realized that my wounds as a young child helped me to choose addiction. As a child I was abused, abandoned and later adopted into a loving home but the words I was left with on my heart were, ‘YOU'RE NO GOOD’, ‘YOU'RE NOT WANTED’, ‘NO ONE LOVES YOU’.
Tuesday afternoons at 1:30pm Doug Sprunt teaches at our discipleship house. He has been teaching at the house for about 8 months and I’m pretty sure he is Jesus’ right hand man. We have been learning out of the book ‘Emotionally Healthy Spirituality’ and were just wrapping it up on this particular Tuesday afternoon.
The night before, so Monday night, my wife and I attended our Celebrate Recovery meeting downtown, got a bite to eat after and got home at about 11:00pm. On our way into the house my wife grabbed the mail and in it was one of those ominous, manila, government envelopes addressed to me (if you lived an addicted life style you’ve probably received your fair share of these envelopes and usually they bear bad news). I sat down at our dinning room table and began to open it as Vikki ran up stairs. As she returned I said to her with a blank look and tears in my eyes ‘I’m a Kilbreath’. You see I had received my identifying papers from my adoption with my original birth certificate in it. My original name said I was Macy Kilbreath from
Immediately the words that had run my life for so long came rushing back……you're no good…….you're not wanted…….no one loves you.
Tuesday afternoon as Doug began to teach he stated how words can effect our lives. He told of a time in high school volleyball where he was serving the ball and at the same time another boy yelled out the word ‘FAGGOT’. Everyone laughed. That effected how he felt about himself all through high school.
Did this man read my mail last night??! Or was God starting to speak to me? Doug told us how believing lies from the enemy can distort our whole lives if we choose to believe them.
There was 8 of us in the room that afternoon and Doug had 7 numbered pieces of paper. He asked if I would sit this one out. The 7 men each chose a number and Doug read them their piece of paper:
'you have personal power over your own life', 'you are allowed to be imperfect and make mistakes', 'you have needs' (at this point I could not hold back my tears as each word was so specific to each guy and to me. God was speaking!) 'you are unique. Be you', 'you are a delight', 'you are lovable and good enough', 'it is good that you exist'.
Doug asked the guys one at a time to give me a statement of truth. As I heard their words tears flowed down my face. I knew they couldn't know the tremendous impact this was having on me.
God will always build. The enemy will tear down.
Today I try to remember to react on the truth: God loves me and will take care of me.
God had prepared this for me and it was a part of my healing journey. This is what an intimate relationship with my creator looks like. God will always do a greater work in me that thru me. THANK YOU JESUS!!!!!!
