CHAPTER THREE
The God She Finally Found
The search for relief became a journey toward redemption.
For years, she searched for something that might bring relief to the places in her life that hurt. She looked for it in places that could never truly satisfy her, until she eventually had to face what those choices were doing to her.
But God had not abandoned her during those years.
He had been there.
Even when she did not recognize Him, He knew exactly where she was.
As she grew older, her understanding of God began to change. The faith she had grown up with was no longer simply an inherited tradition; she began embracing the Apostolic doctrine she believes today, and her relationship with God became personal.
A PERSONAL FAITH
The God she had cried out to in fear and desperation began to feel real to her in a new and deeply personal way.
She began to understand that the presence of God she had been searching for could not be found by chasing the things of this world. Addiction could not provide the lasting relief she needed, and neither could anything that demanded so much of her in exchange for a temporary escape.
What she needed was not another temporary escape, but a relationship with God.
As she began turning toward Him, something that had been broken for a long time started to change.
SURRENDER
She did not lose her ability to surrender.
She found the right place to surrender it.
That is what I love most about her story.
God did not have to make her into someone completely different. Her heart needed to turn toward the One who could receive the devotion she had been giving to things that could only harm her.
WHAT CHANGED
The woman who had once been captivated by something destructive discovered that her heart could be captivated by God instead.
After years of trying to escape her pain, she discovered that she could bring it to Him instead.
The woman once held by something that was destroying her found herself held by the God who desired to restore her.
That is why I cannot look at her life and simply call it a story about addiction. It is the story of a woman who spent years searching for something that could satisfy the deepest places of her heart, learned to surrender that longing to God, and became part of a family story marked by addiction's devastation and the possibility of freedom.
THE GRACE OF GOD
Most of all, it is a story about a God who could look beyond the addiction and see the person He had created.
In the middle of her struggle, she may not have understood how deeply God loved her, why she could surrender so easily to something that hurt her, or how she had become so attached to something that was taking so much from her.
But God understood.
THE WORSHIPPER
He knew there was a worshipper underneath it all.
He knew that if her heart turned toward Him, she would do more than walk away from what had held her captive.
She would begin walking toward Him.
She did.
And now the story is different.
The thing that once held her captive no longer gets to define her.
She is alive.
She is free.
She is still a worshipper.
But now she knows who deserves her worship.
She belongs to God.