Today is an incredible mile stone for HMA. I woke up this morning to a text saying, "Hey brother Todd it's me Christy. Where in Genesis does it talk about Cain killing Able and so forth? By the way, I am FIVE YEARS clean today."
You need to understand something. When you have been a meth user for 16 years. Been arrested and jailed for it dozens of times, your mom, your dad, your brothers, your husband and your kids all use and sell drugs. It is not so much as addiction as it is a life style. To be a non-drug user is the most far fetched, unbelievable thing ever thought of. So when she said, "five years clean", I said, five years saved. At HMA the meth addicts call it "clean, saved and sober". You would just have to come and see to fully understand. Anyway, my point is, this is a new high for us. We have now worked with some of the worst, meanest, deepest in sin drug addicts that this country has to offer and for the first time ever, one of them is "clean" for five years. All by the blood of Christ.
Christy was actually a meth maker. Called a drug cooker. She made it for a bunch of distributers in the "triangle" area. Three towns in the mid-west known for thier meth traffic. As a matter if fact, when she first got saved, I recieved multiple death threats. I always assumed that it was because she made so much product and her conversion literaly "interupted" the drug traffic in that area for a time.
Chris battled a lot of things in her life after her conversion, but meth was not one of them. God brought her to us for a reason. To show us how far reaching his power was over drug abuse. Although most of the addicts that we have ever worked with battle thier withdrawls long after their salvation, she being our first, prayed all the way through at the altar, got up and never had a withdrawl, did not have "meth sickness" and never took a drug again.
She actually got discouraged and quit church at one point. Took back up a few things that she had laid down for the Lord and the devil kept her beat down for several months. One day I saw her in town and told her that I had been praying for her. She preceeded to tell me the most incredible story. She said that since she had quit going to church she had wanted to do drugs several times. She would buy the drugs, get the drugs, go to where the drugs were and then she just couldn't take them. She could never bring herself to use drugs again. She finally quit fighting God and came back to him. She has lived for several years in a horrible environment of druggies, pushers, alcohlics and gang members. She has been so poor that there has justd been no way for her to get out of the family control that keeps her afloat. I have actually taken my assistant and gone over to their house to pray for some one that was sick and the family would be dealing drugs in the front yard or in the other room while we were praying.
When Christy's momma died every drug dealer in the country it seemed came out to the funeral. Her mom was a very hard woman and was the "king pin" of the family. Everything revovlved around her. Even the bad stuff. Especially the bad stuff. Christy had me visit her mom when her cancer got bad. I ended up visiting her and praying with her on her death bed about a half dozen times. She accepted Jesus the second to the last time that I spoke with her. The only time that I even got to see her alive alter her conversion was hours before her passing. She had changed from an ugly, mean, selfish person to someone who had peace a beauty. She had finally prepared for what she was about to do. I preached her funeral. There were people high and drunk, biker gangs and three forth naked women, all at a funeral for a lost loved one. But God came by and helped us. We had a little church in there that afternoon and Christy got strength. Some were convicted and prayed afterwards. I still recieve calls from people that were there or see them in town and they ask if I would pray for them or pray with them.
This is just a sliver of one of hundreds of stories of the lives that are being changed. Won't you join us.
written 10/5/2011 by
your humble servant
No comments:
Post a Comment