My Spiritual Slap Across the Face

God’s word tells us, in Luke 12:48, “to whom much is given, much will be required.” The much that God has given me has been unending from first breath and will be to my last. The much that God requires from me is to share my life stories with fearless transparency, so the light of His Glory blots out the darkness of my sins.

Struggling with a sense of self-worth, I escaped often into drugs. My drug usage was on again, off again, and I never considered them chains that completely bound me…until the day I took my first hit off a crack cocaine pipe. This was just three days after my last child, my first daughter Katie, was born. All my children were bottle fed from birth, so, no…I did not do drugs while breastfeeding Katie. I had my boundaries, lines even I didn’t cross.

But it is not a lie that you can become hooked on crack cocaine with the first hit. I was. Immediately, instantly. I was ecstatic, energized, enlightened…I was euphoric. This was NOT a feeling I was willing to lose. Crack cocaine became my god…the only thing I had my eyes set on. My thirst was undeniable and unquenchable, but I was drinking from the enemy’s poisoned well.

At the same time as I was consumed by my addiction, I was raising three children. While I somehow managed to cook, clean, do laundry and provide for them, I neither loved them nor cared about them the way God intended.

I allowed my addiction to take away from me not only the joy of my children, but also cherished memories that might have been; especially in my daughter’s first full year of life,  those memories forever lost to me in a haze of pipe smoke.

It was on my daughter’s first birthday when the Lord decided He’d had enough, He drew the boundaries, and let me know, in no uncertain terms, that I had crossed His line.

My oldest son was five at the time and attending half-day kindergarten. Within eyesight, and with the help of the crossing guard, Jeremy walked to where I stood waiting, his younger brother at my side and his baby sister on my hip. I got the two little ones settled in for their naps, then my son, standing in the kitchen, said to me, “Mom, I’m hungry.” Out of my mouth came, “I don’t give a CRAP if you’re hungry!” But I did not use the word crap, oh no…it was the full- on expletive and THE. LORD. WAS. NOT. PLEASED.

The only explanation for what happened next is that God gave me a spiritual slap across the face!

To this day, I still cannot put the right words around how fast it happened. The space nonexistent between God’s rebuke and my knees hitting the floor. Falling before my son, hugging him and sobbing in sheer sorrow, apologizing and begging him to forgive me. And, of course he forgave me, just as I knew God had. I felt God’s love as surely as I felt Jeremy’s when he hugged me and said, “that’s okay mommy, I love you.”

I dried my tears, and I put my son’s lunch together with care. We sat at the table together, and I set my eyes on him, not even remembering the last time we’d done so. Jeremy was happily sharing his day with me, while gobbling down his lunch and completely oblivious to the life change that had just happened in his mom. I didn’t just feed my son lunch that day, I nourished him, in a way that I had not in nearly a year.

With lunch completed, I settled Jeremy down for his nap and made a call to my parents in Tennessee, 2,300 miles away. I confessed my drug addiction, and I told them I needed help. My mom and dad listened in silence to all I shared, and it was a lot, and their only was response was, “we’ll be there in 3 days.”

My ex was already leery of my leaving, so I didn’t walk away from the pipe that day. To do so would have been dangerous to our escape plan. Instead, we held our daughter’s first birthday party that evening, put the kids to bed… and I continued in my sin while preparing to be delivered from it.

My parents showed up at 5:30 in the morning, three days later as promised. With my ex passed out on the couch, we silently loaded up first the kids, then our clothes and all the toys, games and books we could stuff into the truck of my parent’s Oldsmobile, and we drove off…not into the sunset, but just as God was bringing a new day into existence. It was stunning in its symbolism.

That was Sunday, January 13th, 1991. It took me another 9 years to fully surrender to God. But on that day, God knew that I was ready to fully surrender my drug addiction to Him, and He took it fully away. The burden of chemical addiction was miraculously lifted from my shoulders. I did not want it, I did not crave it, I did not suffer withdrawals from it, and I had no relapses…it was just gone, as if it never existed.

Through God’s grace, Jeremy has no memory of that day, but we talk about it often, because I never want to forget that God’s timing is perfect. It was EXACTLY one year to the day after I became bound in my drug addiction, that God broke the chains and set me free. Nor do I want to forget that God’s will is sovereign, He sets the boundaries. I praise His name that He already had a predetermined line He would not allow me to cross.

And I’m beyond grateful that He patiently waited for me to cross over to Him and drink not from the enemy’s poisoned well, but rather abundantly from HIS eternal well of living water!