After being healed from alcoholism I know know if you don’t deal with why you drank you can easily get caught up in other addictions. Addiction is numbing out feelings and I already had become really good at that. Yes I didn’t drink anymore but I still carried all the pain, hurt, anger, unforgiveness, and was still running from my past. It seemed like the harder I ran the tougher life became. I still had depression and still found life really hard to deal with. I often got overwhelmed and shut down. Any habit that you have and you don’t deal with it with can turn into an addiction. I had a intimacy disorder from attachment issues that started from when my dad took me from my mom at a year and a half old. I had serious trust issues because everyone I loved hurt me in some way or another. I learned that love always came at a price. It was so hard to love anybody and what I thought was love was not. Don’t get me wrong my mom and stepdad loved me but I had no idea how to love back. My family loved me my grandparents but love was so confusing to me.
I still needed to numb out feelings I didn’t know how to deal with and one addiction replaced another one. I again sought out counselling from a Christian lady who helped me so much and today I’m free of that addiction. I realized that I had deep rooted unforgiveness in my heart. I hated my dad and stepmom for what they had done to me. That hate consumed my life for years and years. Finally I asked God to show me why I kept failing in my addiction. I used blame as a tool to keep me in bondage. One day brushing my teeth God showed me that the root to my addiction was unforgiveness.
On a trip to Bend, Oregon to visit Crystal Peaks Youth Ranch I had an opportunity to go for a walk with one of the founders of the ranch. Her and I have become good friends. I had gone to Oregon at Christmas time and the day we walked in the wilderness it was a day when the sun was out. It beat on our faces as we walked. At one stage we stopped and we knelt down in the dust and prayed. God showed me where He had been with me when I was locked in my bedroom and I called out to Him to help me. I saw him He was standing behind me and He was holding me when I was scared and alone. We prayed more and with tears streaming down my cheeks I forgave my dad and stepmom for all the pain and abuse I had endure all those years. Forgiveness is not a free pass to those who hurt me but a way for me to be freed up from that pain I carried everyday of my life. It was a release and I realized that day was the last day that they ever could hurt me again.
I had forgotten that I was out in the Wilderness with my friend. I forgave myself as well for that hate I carried in my life for so long not knowing what to do with it. It was not my fault. I was reminded that day that I am so loved and that God was standing beside me everyday and that is how I was able to survive. I’m almost 5 years free of that addiction. It went away because I dealt with the root of it. I now live life to its fullest because everyday is precious. I follow my passions and live life in freedom and redemption. This is why my blog is called Beauty from Ashes. Even though forgiveness was so hard for me to do it was the best thing I’ve ever done. That love grew in my heart and its not stopped growing.
Beauty from Ashes. 