The year 2013 was my year of Job. In the Bible, Job was a very wealthy man with a large family who loved God. For reasons Job did not understand, he lost his family, wealth, businesses, and then health--quickly and violently. For about nine months, he was lost to grief and despaired even of life. But God. But God.
I was lost and broken in chronic pain and addiction. But God stepped into my life and brought restoration, just like He did to Job. The Lord restored to Job twice what he had lost, and he lived to see many generations of his sons and grandchildren enjoy a good life because of what God gave back to him. The same God is still at work today! In 2013, I lost my amazing forty-acre farm in the Virginia mountains, my marriage, my health, my horses, and the ability to walk. At about 310 pounds, I stopped looking at the scale. Everyone, everyone I knew gave up on me. I was advised to apply for disability. I despaired of life and had a great plan to end mine. I didn't believe I would ever walk again, ever be able to work again. But God.
This is the story of how a modern-day Job rose from the ashes. The Lord delivered me from overwhelming emotional, mental, and physical addictions that were rooted in dark brokenness. I was so depressed and had been for so long that I believed survival was impossible without drugs. I am not talking about street drugs: heroin, cocaine, and meth. Under the care of medical professionals, taking prescription drugs as prescribed, I became a total addict. They could see the brokenness, but not fix it.
You can't really understand addiction until you wrestle with it. It is easy to look at someone going through it and think it is a character flaw or bad habit. It is much more powerful than that. It takes you over and consumes you. It happens on a spiritual level that science can't reach.
If you are engulfed in addiction, brokenness, depression, and suicide today, please read my story. There is no reason for me to be alive and thriving today. But God. He reached down and picked me up from the middle of my disastrous life. He washed me clean. He set me free from all of it. He still can. He still does. But God!