Recovery

[MercyChild]

Okay so I am no longer posting in the relapse thread.Why? Because our words has power to it. I am no longer going to speak death or relapseover myself, but last night I chose to cross over to recovery with God's help.

Today is day 3 of my addiction recovery. Day one of sitting back and allowingGod to steer my life. I know that it is not going to be that easy, but my willdoes not belong somewhere else other to Gods will as from last night.
I have done well before and I will do well in again. Howdid I do this in the past? That is exactly it, I did not do it, but God did.
Last night I surrendered to God, it was clear that I wasdoing things in my own strength, trying to do God’s job for Him. I am no savior,so also is no one else. There is but one savior, but one God who sent His sonto die for me, which is Jesus, and that is enough! I had to repent and ask Hisforgiveness for all I have done, all I have thought and all I did, thinkingthat I was doing all the right things. I fell short on many things, but I amstopping to execute my will and will allow God to fill this void. If I do notallow Him to do it, something else will come along again and fill that space. Ispiritually took back what is mine and gave it to God, because it was not mineto start with. I took back my will which I gave to addiction the moment I choseto use and asked God to take that as well. I am back on my medication, I alsorealised that I lost more and more control and was busy spiraling downwards withoutthe medication. So, I might be wrong again by using it, but it doesn’t matterbecause it is no longer me having to make any more choices. I will stay on it;until God decides to show me to stop, then only will I stop.

There are many ways to go from here and still I don’t know the right way, Ionly know that this time I have started my journey all over again with theright step, by choosing to go back to God, warts and all. Whatever otherchoices I have to make as from today, I will pray about first and wait until Ihave a yes or no answer, if not one of them, it will mean that I will just haveto ride out the time and wait upon Him.

There is no other way I will ever be able to get this right. And at the end, itwill not be me, but God that will do the work. I am putting everything asidefor now and will pray about it, one by one and see what God wants me to do orwhat He wants me to lose.
Instead of walking away from the past, I chose to walktowards the future of eternal life.

[Dani H]

You don't know how happy I am to read this. Love you, sister.

[MercyChild]

Day 4 into recovery. Yesterday I went back to see the doctor in connection with the medication. Maybe I need to be on it. God forgive me if I am making a wrong move again. Then at arrival at the doctor he wanted to admit me into hospital saying I am currently having a nervous breakdown, but really I don't have the time to go lay in a bed so that they can toy around with medication, until they think they have what will be working for me. Still stubborn I suppose.

I am trying as hard as I can to function as normally as I can. If there is one thing I personally feel which is breaking me down, it will be the changes in medication. First of all I really dislike medication for some unknown reason and will always fight against taking any. Then every time they change my meds, there is new mood swings, new feelings, unexpected behaviour which makes it very difficult for me to deal with as the effects feels strange, unknown and out of control. I have however in my mind agreed to change medication as doctors wish and will do as I am told, (laying down my stubbornness) until I have an answer from God to do differently.

This song......my prayer for today.

[ChristianCoffee]

Here, my sister. A special song for you to try to help:



Prayng for you.

[MercyChild]

Here, my sister. A special song for you to try to help:

Prayng for you.

Thank you, I lov that song and off course the band too!

[MercyChild]

Day 5 - I am thinking of giving up my studies until next semester. Reasons are that I cannot fund it and that I need to use this time to focus on recovery only. Being a student with a grade is not going to make me a better person, being clean is.

I saw the shrink last night and have to stay in contact with him daily because I had many side effects on the medication. He pointed out that I always do what I think is good and hardly follow any advice. Off course this is true, I have a lack of trust in people and who else then me is going to look out for myself. Or at least that is how I was reasoning all this time. I know God is looking out for me. He showed it to me last night again.

I didn’t have the finances to do any kind of program to get myself sorter get some clean time behind me and to work the steps. Programs here are costly no matter where you go. And I am not going to participate in any methadone program. Of that one I am 100% certain to stay away from. But without the methadone program statistics shows that I will have less than a 1.5% chance to stay away from heroin. You see this is where they are wrong, God has helped me before, and I know that He will help me again, as long as I do my share by abstaining from any drugs.

So, back to the program. The shrink is willing to fund me a proper outpatient program for the next three months. I will have to participate on a daily basis without skipping one of the daily meetings. I mean all the help I seeked since January until now depleted my finances and that is one of the reasons why I cannot fund my studies. Now, is this God giving me a hand here or what? I know I cannot do this alone and up until now I have been functioning as an island. This is the only place where I came to chat, seek help and advice. You know how addiction goes, one mess up and you isolate yourself from the world.

My starting point will be to give thanks for the things I have. Thank God for what He had given me and allowed me to have and take care of it. You see I will have to dig deeper than just changing my attitude. Changing ones attitude is just a short term solution. I need to change my values, believe, perspective, philosophy and much more, which will change my thoughts, the way I handle emotions, my attitude and eventually will reflect in my behaviour. So how will I manage to change this? By giving the past to God. All of it! Values and believes can only change the more I stick to the Word, do as it tells me, and make that a way of living. By prayerfully consider each decision and asking God for direction and then also by slowing down and trying to live life instead of chasing and trying to catch up where I am currently falling short.

God knows I have to do this, not only because that is my greatest desire, but also because I am an owner of life and I want to take up my ownership and take care of this body the way God desired us to do.

[MercyChild]

Apparently I am not allowed to count Monday as a clean day, so today I am on day 7.

I started off with the 90/90 program on Friday. Seeing that the program is taking so much time out of each day I considered to quit the studies, or delay it until next semester. My head said yes, that is the most logic thing to do in order to reduce stress, but my heart kept on saying no.

I must admit that I realised that not everybody gets recovery, which included me. I understand more as I work the program although it is hard work and loads of time to put it to practice. In the beginning I was rather dissapointed as I have done so much time already, but mostly I tried to do things out of my own strenght. This time it is to do each step, take it to the Lord and hand all over to Him.

Yesterday one of the elderly ladies that used to be in our home fellowship group said we needed to go and have coffee after church. During our conversation, as she asked me a lot about how the studying is going I realised just how much work, time and effort I have already put to practice. As I drove off I was still puzzled on where to from here. First it would have brought some financial relieve to quit, never mind the fear of failure. Then it hit me, although studying in this direction is something I always wanted to do and allow me to benefit in the future, this was never the real reason why I want to go into social work. The real reason I think, it is a calling. If I drop out now, I will not only drop myself but all those people who I am supposed to assist in the future. Life had taught me so much lessons and the experienced gained from it is enormous. Not only that, God had taught me so much as well.

So, the same goes here, not everyone understand the need of suffering children and youth. On the other hand, I have been there and I understand the need. I might be wrong, but I think to go into that direction surely is a calling for me to fulfil. Others might have their opinion, but I have prayed over this (yes, even if I am still wobbly, I do pray) and I am certain that I should continue. Once I made up my mind to continue, I strangely felt at peace with the decision. You see God definitely has given me the gift of determination and I will use what I have until I am where He wants me to be.

The other amazing thing which happened this weekend concerns my brother. I don’t know where to start with everything which we spoke about, but the main thing is, he is saved! The night he tried to commit suicide, I have asked many people to send him scripture. God knows what happened, it wasn’t because of what one of us did, but His Spirit convicted my brother. Lol, actually he recorded a song for me, which my mother used to hum always and send it to my phone. Last night when I felt alone, I listened to it. The song is none other than Psalm 23. My brother, a man with dignity and pride was willing to do such a child like act, to remind me that God is my Sheppard! Not only did that blow me away, but I realised that God is the only one that can give me rest and peace. It is only in Him where I will find joy again. He is my only hope.

My sister left yesterday, back to Hungary. It was hard to let her go, but I know that my journey will be one where I am alone with God. (or so it feels like right now)

I have no idea how I will sort tomorrow, how I will fund the rest of the studies or how I will be able to pay for medication. All I know that if all of these are within God’s will, He will make a way. That is the only real thing I can rely on as I lack in even trusting myself.

I have to be in contact with the shrink on a daily basis. It seems that we are struggling to find balance in the use of medication. Sometimes it appears to help then other times emotions feel like a roll-a-coaster. From an extreme high to an extreme low. So, I am doing as the shrink says, but I do pray that we will find balance soon, or that God would really just heal me from it. I still feel that I brought this bi-polar over myself through the lifestyle I lived, but now I just have to accept it, until I have worked the program, and yes forgiveness is still top of my list daily.

[MercyChild]

In everything I do, I need to be so careful to ensure that I am not doing things in my own strength. Emotionally I feel defeated, but I also know that I have to ride out this feeling, because it is not factual. Every sin was already defeated when Jesus died on the cross for me. I also know that my only hope in in Christ Jesus, there is nothing which I can do to change things accept to remain in God's will. God did not destined me to be what I chose to be up until now. I used to rush into things, but now I am learning that easy does it and nothing in my time, but His.

[Dani H]

Choose God in every situation. Every moment, every day. Choose God.

Choose to apply God's standard to past situations and to how you were treated by others and did treat others. People make choices, and often not according to God's standards, resulting in sin and mis-treatment. Choose to forgive the mis-treatment. Choose to seek forgiveness for your own doings.

Above all, choose love. Always, always and always, choose love. Choose mercy. Mercy always triumphs over judgment. Grace, grace and more grace to you.

[MercyChild]

Thanks Dani,

Last night I realised that I did it all wrong. I was relying on head knowledge, like you said I looked at past situations and used that information, but within my heart, God did put something else, which are love, forgiveness, grace and mercy. I realised that I will have to let go of the head knowledge and allow the heart knowledge to flourish instead.

Something amazing happened again. For the first time in a long time, I could understand what I read in the Bible. I am busy with the book Isaiah and many scriptures spoke to me. I was again reminded how Great our God is, and that if I do not listen to Him, how easily we can be destroyed. I also had to acknowledge the way God protected Jerusalem and gave them grace and mercy. We are such small creatures and nevertheless I thought I was something. Actual fact is that I am nothing unless I am in Christ. I am only of any value if Christ lives within me, without Him, I was right all the time, I am nothing.

I was also satisfied that Christ is giving me the strength to see situations through with a sober mind. It’s not always easy, but I prefer going through hardships sober. This way I get to learn where my weaknesses are and just how I was always following my own head.

Stubbornness I could identity. Right through my life I thought that I had to fight on my own for survival, and somehow now it felt the same, until I went back to look how I made things through. There was not one successful scenario, expect those times I honestly relied on God and God alone. I actually felt a bit stupid knowing that I always had the answers inside of me, yet I wanted to fight things my own way.

Going back to blaming God, I need to make one thing clear. God is not to be blamed for anything. Instead He used every bad situation in my life and turned it around to something good. It is hard to look at yourself and acknowledge your own faults. So, for a very, very long time in my life, I blamed people, blamed circumstances and even blamed God. I am not angry at God, the truth is, I am angry at myself. I always knew God existed, but always did my own thing and that I think is what had me thought that I was angry at God, but truthfully, I still went along and did what I thought was right, without consulting Him.

I don’t need to change anything but my attitude towards God. That is where the big problem lies. I do love God, but will I love Him enough to trust Him to guide and direct me, that is the question I had to ask myself.

Day 8 and doing great, because of grace and grace alone.

[ChristianCoffee]

I am praying for you. I pray that the Lord will continue to give you the strength and conviction to keep going, and that when you are weak, He will carry you in His strength.

God bless.

[MercyChild]

I am praying for you. I pray that the Lord will continue to give you the strength and conviction to keep going, and that when you are weak, He will carry you in His strength.

God bless.

I think I am going through a process of being broken down so that God can lay a new solid foundation in my life. I accept that.

[MercyChild]

Day 9 - The book of Isaiah is speaking loudly to me about having other gods in one's life. Yet there is many promises that gives me hope, slowly leading to peace and brining some joy in my heart to see the goodness of God. Mercy and grace is what it is all about.

[ChristianCoffee]

Something special for you this morning, from Petra:



You say you've been feeling weaker, weaker by the day
You say you can't make the joy of your salvation stay
But good things come to them that wait
Not to those who hesitate
So hurry up and wait upon the Lord

(Chorus)
More power to ya
When you're standing on His word
When you're trusting with your whole heart in the message you have heard
More power to ya
When we're all in one accord
They that wait upon the Lord, they shall renew, they shall renew their strength

Jesus promised His disciples He'd give strength to them
Jesus told them all to tarry in Jerusalem
When they were all in one accord
The power of His Spirit poured
And they began to turn the world around

So be strong in the Lord, in the power of His might
Put on all His armor and fight the good fight
In all of our weakness, He becomes so strong
When He gives us the power and the strength to carry on

[MercyChild]

From jayne: Dear sister, I have accidently deleted your post and did not mean to. I thought I had quoted it in my own post. Please repost it. I am so sorry!!!!! I could feel your heartbreak. Please repost.

I felt hopeless. Today, I know that only God can fill all of these empty spaces.

Then, dear sister, please let Him do it. Give Him access today to all of those empty spaces. It's a conscious thing. God bless you today.