Renewed Strength

Yesterday, I went to a benefit for the rehab center that my son attended.  It was a luncheon to benefit the women's program.  The featured speakers were  mother and daughter,  who had written about their experience with addiction.

They did a wonderful job.  They spoke in the same fashion that their book was written in.  A certain event or memory would be discussed by both mother and daughter; Each from their own perspective.  For me, it was most enlightening.  The mother would record a memory and I could totally relate and understand her point of view.  Then,  the daughter would speak and she would talk about her response to her mother and it would resemble the same angry, manipulative response I might have gotten, oh a thousand times.  But, underneath that anger and desperate physical need to support her own addiction were memories of right and wrong and worry over her  mother.

The daughter started the talk by discussing a moment where she received a spiritual awakening....on a floor of a bathroom, blood dripping down her nose, with no idea how she got there or where she was.  One thing she felt sure of was that she was probably dying.  She lay there feeling her breathing grow more shallow with each breath.  She said that her main feeling was how sad it would make her mother to learn that she died this way.

This gave me hope.  I always worried that his thinking might be permanently altered.  And, maybe it is, but maybe it has been taken hostage by addiction.  Lately, I have been the "holier than thou" gal in the house.  I might be, but it is not my intent.  My intent is to bring all the "boogers" out of the closet and expose them for what they are so that my family can be heal itself and grow closer.  The day in and day out anger makes you start to question yourself. 

Yesterday, that talk renewed my strength.  It reinforced that I am fighting addiction and it fights dirty.  I will not let discouragement get the better of me.  I will close my mouth and lean in to this storm as I walk through it.  I will imagine that I have an actual "lifeline" attached to me and allow our Lord to help me to walk through all of the anger and bombs that will go off along my path.

I am not angry.  I have not been perfect in my life.  If I got what I deserved, I'm sure I wouldn't be able to take it.  So, I am thankful for God's grace and help.  Today, I pray for continued direction.  I am so thankful for my beautiful cousins who spend a lot of time and money helping the cause of addiction and for being there for me with love and concern, yesterday.  I know our grandmother is smiling from above.  I am thankful for those who aren't afraid to tell their stories no matter how bad.....that is the epitome of courage.  I am thankful for all of the prayers that you all send and I say a prayer for Henry.