in recovery

There are costs and risks to a program of action, but they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction. -John F. Kennedy

Those of you who know me, know that I have been working in the field of substance misuse for the past couple of years. When I think of addiction or substance misuse the words of Stevie Nicks run through my mind

Rock on--gold dust woman
Take your silver spoon,
And dig your grave

Those lyrics remind me of the life or death choices people in addiction, as well as recovery, face everyday. You can choose to dig your grave, or turn and begin a journey commonly known as "recovery."

For a long time, I only thought of recovery as helping people get off the bottle, needle, or pipe.

However, my suspicion is that we are all recovering from something.

It may be an evasive illness or addiction that is leading us to death, or it may be a past hurt or current belief that is robbing us of our joy. In a lot of cases, I believe it is a combination.

I have come to the conviction that my suspiction is true. The question that convicts me is "why is there so much pressure to act like everything is ok?"

If we are honest, we all need healing from something. We all need to recover. The church calls this the process of sanctification and redemption. As a church, we have these big words, however, we live and interact as though we do not need to be redeemed from anything. I live like this a lot of days.

The journey of recovery or redemption is one that I strive to be on. The hard part of this journey is being transparent. It is much easier to act like everything is "ok," than it is to surrender. The beautiful part is that it is not a journey you have to take alone.

I have found strength and healing from God and the church when I talk about what I need to recover from-the areas I need Christ to redeem and make new.

Today I encourage you to experience the joy and healing of admitting your struggles and proclaiming your need to be redeemed-made new.

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Colossians 1:13-14

For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves,in whom we have redemption,the forgiveness of sins.

Recovery is the process of making
all things new