The room was cold when I woke up. I knew that much but was not sure about anything else. Trying to calculate what time it was or even what day. I lay in bed staring at the ceiling, no answers there. Reaching over to the table near the bed I picked up my watch, 4:41, A.M. I assumed. Pulling the thin blanket up below my chin, a feeling of dread and loneliness crept over me. It was not the first time and from my track record it would not be the last.
As I lay there, I felt tears beginning to well and I wanted to scream, “Stop. Why are you crying? Man-up!” but instead the tears came, and I began to sob uncontrollably. My life was a mess. My second marriage had ended after months of accusations and violent fighting. Drug usage which had slowed to a trickle was now becoming a torrent again. And I was soaking up the booze at a level even out of control in my eyes. Even my boss who tolerated a lot from me was starting to question my employment. I needed to get my act together, I knew it…. but.
Grabbing the pack of smokes from the same rickety table I lit one up. I was now remembering the night before and it was another night of too much booze, snorting a few lines in the bathroom of the club and then driving home completely wasted. In fact, I remembered having a bottle of whiskey next to me on the seat of the truck, taking hits off of it as I drove. How crazy is that, I thought. What a sad loser, I am! Was my next thought.
But even as I lay there, repenting my life, in the next instance the urge to wash it away, forget it all, swept over me. Was that bottle in the room somewhere? I could down just enough of it to get rid of this dread and aloneness. Where was it? Flicking on the lamp next to the bed, a pale-yellow light filled the room. And as I searched this dingy place, I now called home, I spotted the half empty bottle sitting on the old chair by the door. For a minute I was torn, I knew I should resist the urge. Let it go. Start this day as the first day of my new life! Yes, I should! But within a minute I was out of bed and grabbing the bottle with shaking hands. Just a few to stop the demons, that is all I need. Knowing deep within me that if I fed these demons just a little, they would want more and more, they always did. I was a loser, I was lost!
I hope none of you who are reading this have ever been in the place I have just described. But if you have or if you are. I do not write these words to discourage or say there is no hope.
Yes, I can truly say, that morning as I recall it now, there was no hope. I absolutely knew that. I was defeated and, in my mind, there would never be a time when I would not wake up repeating this pattern day after day. For those of you who have never experienced this depth of lostness, the only way I can accurately describe it is like living on the edge of a deep chasm. Out in the distance you can see a place full of beauty and peace but there is no road to it. The chasm is where most all your attention is held. Daily it seems you are being drawn closer and closer to it. And eventually you know there is only two choices you live each day; each moment being led into the void or you jump into it instead. That is what my life of hopelessness was like!
Don’t get me wrong. There were days when it seemed the road to that beautiful place was opening up. I could feel hopeful, but that road was being built on sand, bolstered by temporary, worldly things. Moments of passion or extasy. Or seeing the innocent joy a child showed. But soon the booze and drugs would rob me of those hopeful thoughts. Something was missing.
Jesus said it this way, “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.” (Matthew 7:24-27)
That is what I was missing in my life. I had no solid foundation in Jesus and in the Word of God. I know many people have been able to overcome addictions with programs or even AA, but few of those who I have talked to made it to this beautiful land without faith and believe in the higher power. That higher power if people admit it or not is Jesus Christ. For me he became the road builder. And he built it strong, through his Word. It took him years to get me to this land I saw out in the distance years ago. But he knew I needed time along that road to stop and look back at the void behind me, see it receding into the distance. Then turn to see I was ever closer to the peace of HIS land, the land of joy and eternal life.
I now live at the edge of that beautiful land. I am awaiting the soon coming of Jesus Christ. There are times when I still turn to see that chasm far distant from me and Satan calls from it saying, “You need to find that bottle you lost!” But now I am able to turn away and see the cross and the one who wants to spend eternity with a ‘loser’ like me. My friend, if today you find yourself standing at the edge of that chasm, don’t wait, get help. Seek out a Christian program or at the very least say this prayer, “Lord, Jesus, help me a sinner! Save me from this darkness and bring me to the beautiful land. Build the rock-solid road for me!” He will do it, I live to tell you, it is true!
Blessings,
John
4/3/19
