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rofaith -> RE: Testify!!! (7/8/2008 7:15:45 PM)
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My Testimony written 4/17/2008, somewhat edited for this forum... enjoy everyone.... Let God be glorified in all that we do, say and think....
I was born and raised in NY state in the village of Massena, in the St Lawrence River Valley. This is sometimes called the “North Country'” because it typically gets the dubious honor of being one of those favorite little towns that the television or cable weather networks like to name as the coldest place in the nation during the months of December through February. Nevertheless, the 1st five yrs. of my life were an innocent time where life was safe and good. I had friends and hiked, played baseball, little league and other things boys like. I have memories of watching the St. Lawrence Seaway being built which fascinated me as a little boy. I loved watching the huge ocean going ships as they sailed the St. Lawrence River. I do remember one particular evening though, when I walked into my back yard and my attention was riveted on my Mom where she had a glass of something in her hand. I asked her what it was and she answered jokingly that it was “booze”. It took only a few months before things began to change dramatically. My Dad was a quiet drunk. My Mom on the other hand was different. She would drink and become increasingly angry. Mean and indignant she would lash out at me and my brothers.
Alarmingly, this escalated when Dad came home from work. He worked two jobs.. He would pour himself a shot glass and have a beer and then soon my Mom, in a drunken rage, would verbally and emotionally abuse him for hours on end.
To cope w/this as a little boy, I resorted to food to feel good, the bonus being that this got my Mom and Dad’s attention since I gained so much weight and started to grow out of my clothes while becoming an object of ridicule at school with students and teachers. Also, as early as 9 years old, I became sexually addicted, creating fantasy’s that were happy and warm for myself since I could not cope with the reality that I was living in. The seeds of codependency were firmly planted at this time as I strived to obtain love and attention from my Mom and Dad by lying, manipulation, shoplifting and vulgarity. I was confused, broken and angry about the insanity of alcoholism in my family.
When I was in 10th grade, my Mom’s health deteriorated. I remember noticing how her eyes and skin were yellow. One hot summer day I returned home from school and surprisingly, she said to me, “I love you, Chris”. My neediness betrayed itself as I remember feeling so good about hearing that from her, since it was rare that she would express affection. I was still worried about her sickness and wondered if everything would be ok. Within two weeks, though the reason for her saying that became clear as my Mom died of cirrhosis of the liver. She was gone and shockingly, I was relieved. “No more insanity” is all that I could think off. I remember the funeral, where I finally had tears upon which immediately, my father whispered into my ear to stop crying. I surmised in my young way that it somehow embarrassed him for this to occur in public. So, I with all the effort I had as a teenage boy, honored his request and choked back what tears I had.
My Dad remarried two years later. From the beginning, my stepmother and I didn’t get along. My Dad had made a decision to move on to a new life now, and leave all vestiges of his old life behind which included me. My grades had suffered badly and it was 1969, during the Vietnam War. It was a dangerous time to have bad grades while graduating from high school.
I enlisted in the USAF w/o telling my Dad. I did this, to avoid the infantry and of course, to co-dependently please my Dad. I left home lonely and afraid, completed my basic training and relieved, received orders state side rather than South Vietnam. Later I volunteered for Southeast Asia but was turned down, which I can only attribute to God's intervention. I had made friends during my first assignment and one in particular was Ken. Ken and I talked about our lives and he talked to me in detail about his life in Pennsylvania. About 6 months later, his parents came and we all had dinner together. Ken had to report for duty and I stayed and talked to his parents for awhile and codependently let slip out what seemed like a trivial detail about Ken. I soon learned that everything Ken had told me was a lie. To cover himself, the next day Ken went from room to room telling everyone in the dormitory that I had lied to his parents about him. For 3 lonely years I was physically and emotionally exiled. My addictions were the only comfort I thought I had and if felt safe escaping into these fantasies while acting out.
God seeing my brokenness was watching over me and pursuing me. A Christian girl named Joann approached me one day and invited me to church. There were sermons and altar calls which I totally ignored. I returned to Massena on military leave and met two high school friends, both of them being Christians that had been kind to me. Unbeknownst to me, they had been praying for me all during High School and one day one of them sat down with me and talked about what she called the four spiritual laws. She invited me to accept Christ and I foolishly said no. However, two months later, I finally realized I was broken and at a church service, I accepted Christ in a sheer act of desperation. The change was profound and it was good to feel peace. I was a naďve, new Christian with addictions and compulsive behaviors that still remained which in turn damaged my newfound Christian relationships while leaving me with feelings of rejection and betrayal. I often wondered if God could love me given my sinful problems which many years later in recovery were revealed to be rooted in codependency, sexual addiction, food addiction and isolation.
I met a nice girl not long after and our relationship turned into romance for two years. To her, I seemed to matter and she considered me a significant part of her life. I started college immediately after leaving the military and we were married soon after. Within weeks she expressed disappointment with me and felt she should have called off the marriage but had been too embarrassed to do so. I felt betrayed and hurt and wept secretly so as not to upset her. She lapsed into anger, bitterness and rage. I later learned that her rage had long been a part of her life and my dysfunction was a trigger for it. In time, her rages became verbally and emotionally abusive and soon after, physically abusive towards me. I remember rationalizing as being normal. My arms, shoulders and chest were bruised so much that when I took a shower, the water hitting my body was painful. I retreated further into myself and would try hopelessly and codependently to somehow fix the marriage and make her happy. Looking back, I often wonder why I stayed in the marriage. In fact, it was because I was terrified of being alone while facing my sinful acceptance of my own insignificance.
In June of 1978 I entered the USAF again after a 2 year stint with the AFROTC. We had two beautiful girls over the course of the next two years. They were adorable and we loved them dearly. I decided to see a Pastor in a local church we were attending about our marital difficulties. He told me to pray more and read my bible. Although I knew how to pray and read the bible, I didn't truly believe that God cared and loved me enough to make a difference. Maybe others, but not me. Nevertheless, my sense of entitlement and my inability to accept responsibility for my dysfunction consequently led to me becoming angry with God and confused. Nevertheless, tenaciously I continued to attend that church and subsequently dedicated both girls to the Lord in a Sunday AM service.
As time went by and I tried unsuccessfully to codependently make our marriage and family happy. Alarmingly, I realized that the same thing that had happened to my Dad had now happened to me. It was like a replay of my childhood where I was attempting to rescue our broken family. My daughters were going to experience the same insane life growing up that I did and I had no way to stop it. I felt alone and hopeless about my future and feared for my daughter’s future.
Things were stressful @ work and @ home and my hurts, hang-ups and habits caught up with me. I was admitted to a local hospital twice with stress symptoms and alarmingly, with a potentially lethal disease called Pancreatitus. The symptoms escalated as I changed jobs a couple of times due to corporate downsizing and my inability to sustain relationships due to behaviors associated with my codependency, secret shame and complete surrender to FA and SA to cope. One morning, I found my wife and eldest daughter in a violent argument. I ordered my wife upstairs. It was the end and we divorced 3 months later. This episode was the final act of destruction to our family. Somehow, in my brokenness I subsequently prepared our home for sale which took much effort as it had become much neglected as our marriage had deteriorated. It was very difficult to leave it behind since I had raised my daughters in that house. I remember taking one last look at their bedrooms and remembering good memories when it was sold. It was a very sad day.
But on the other hand, for some reason, I actually looked forward to being alone. This despite the undercurrent of anger in our family due to the divorce and the heartbreak both girls felt at the loss of their family. I remember the first time I entered my new townhouse as a divorced single man and how I walked on eggshells as if my ex-wife was there waiting to begin another episode of verbal and emotional abuse. I began to feel the so called “safety” of seclusion in that I could almost feel it seeping into my heart, mind and body like it was some kind of drug. My addictions and abuse of the marriage had taken its toll on me and I just wanted to be alone, where I wouldn’t disappoint anyone and no one would hit me or verbally/emotionally hurt me anymore. The isolation and the silence were addictive and like a sanctuary. When I wasn't isolating at home, memories were everywhere I went and so, subsequently I moved, leaving my life behind so to speak and secluded myself in a new job in California. Weekends were very difficult as my loneliness turned into truly being alone where I had no significant emotional attachment to anyone and I lived a life without any friends.
I eventually moved from the San Francisco Bay area to Irvine, CA and had hired a colleague who coincidentally attended a local church called Saddleback Church. I attended there anonymously for 2 years. Finally, one Friday evening @ 6 PM, I was looking out of my office window, facing another weekend of insane aloneness while remembering how much I had failed as a husband and father even though it had been seven years since the divorce, I decided to attend Celebrate Recovery @ Saddleback Church. I didn't feel any hope for my now or future and I knew that my life as it was could not continue. Later in my recovery I could see clearly that I walked across the church parking lot so broken. I may have been upright physically, but emotionally, I crawled into that Celebrate Recovery worship service on my hands and knees. In sheer desperation, I read the worship bulletin from cover to cover. I attended a small meeting after worship called, Newcomers 101, and was taken by the short testimony and things that they talked about. I felt a spark of hope for my life. The next Friday night I bought all of the books and attended the Monday night small group. I remember the emotion I felt reading the title on the front page of the first workbook, Stepping out of Denial and into God’s Grace. Returning home one night, I asked God if He would just show me that He loved me and I realized that I not only was asking Him if He loved me but also was asking what my value was in existing and whether I had any significance at all. I began working the program and God began to reveal my worth in Him to me. My small group leaders never hesitated to hug everyone when we started and finished and always greeted everyone with kind words. For some reason this was significant to me after being alone for so long. As I worked through the program, I was challenged by what was termed a spiritual inventory of my life. It didn’t seem like it would be hard, I could probably easily recite it verbally, but in denial, I put it off for several weeks and finally completed my spiritual and moral inventory with a deadline in mind. I sat down and event by event, person by person, my life poured out of me on to my inventory. I wept over and over again as I faced myself in the mirror. I had truly come out of denial, and God would not allow me to turn my face away. I finally saw how broken and empty I was, and how it had driven me to be a selfish and self centered man. I had been a “taker” all my life and had never, ever given to anyone. My wrecked life was all around me and I had hurt so many people, including those I held so dear. When I completed sharing my inventory with my mentor, I was at peace and grateful and I almost did not know how to react to it. Not long after, my small group leader recognizing my addiction to isolation called me out and suggested that I serve others in a variety of different ways including greeting at church before church services. This was a challenge for me. A faithful friend committed to stand with me during the greeting time and amazingly, I absolutely loved doing it. The coup de grace followed where I greeted for Saddleback Church for about two years on Sunday's @ the 4:30 afternoon service. This is something I cannot explain except that God has an incredible sense of humor. God is full of mercy, grace and laughter. As I continued, I prayed and examined myself and wrote down my character issues, while creating a life plan to deal with them. I was overwhelmed with what I had to face. My addictions and compulsive behaviors had all come to a crisis point, and for me to tackle them all @ once seemed futile. Nevertheless, it was time to change and move on to the life that Jesus Christ wanted for me. It was difficult and I continued to struggle with relapse(s) and two more hospital stays with Pancreatitus all related to my character issues. Since Pancreatitus can be a lethal disease, it truly was life or death for me. But, little by little, I learned about the grace of God for me and how completely Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior loves me. It was impossible for me to take it all on at once and for a black and white legalistic person like me, accepting the overwhelming grace of God and His gentle chastening to make up the difference during the process of obtaining peace and freedom from the sin(s) that so easily beset me was difficult but life changing. I began to see that I had value and significance especially to Jesus Christ and to the men in my small group. I continue to be astonished by this. I made progress, and continued in the program by making my amends with those I had hurt and those who had hurt me. I had always thought that I was the only victim when I wasn't, there were other victims and I had to make amends to those that I had selfishly hurt. Selfishness is such an evil character issue. It doesn't have the same stigma as alcoholism or drug addiction etc., but it is just as lethal to anyone and had taken it's toll in destroying my marriage and family. I met with my eldest daughter and later my ex-wife and made amends to each of them. There were tears, lack of trust but also forgiveness mixed with their resentments that I had to make the amends at all. Amends with my younger daughter was tough and in retrospect, I think I should have waited. Someday there will be another time for us. My amends were unpredictable but necessary in the process of my leaving my pre-recovery life behind. To me it's part of the process in recovery that God has committed to in making a new and beautiful life for me in order to glorify Himself in me. Through this I have learned that forgiveness is a gift not only to the other person, but also to myself. It is also a sweet smelling fragrance to our Heavenly Father. Amen to that.
And so, in my search for forgiveness, significance and hope I discovered them both at Celebrate Recovery in my relationship with Jesus Christ, my Lord, Savior and Friend and coincidentally while serving others so that they can discover the same for themselves.
I also sought to resolve in my heart, the loss of my marriage and family. I had countless times condemned myself for finally seeking the divorce. I have come to the conclusion that I had to be removed from my abusive marriage so that I could recover from my hurts, hang-ups and sinful habits. I was shocked to discover that God's love for me prevailed and that He considered me, my spiritual destiny and significance more important than the dysfunctional and abusive marriage. I also choose to believe that over time that will be proven to be true for my ex-wife and daughters as well. I pray daily that they will find the same love of God for themselves that I found in my life experience.
I find that my life and recovery experience can be described best in a scripture in Lamentations 3:20-26. It reads “I will never forget this awful time, as I grieve over my loss. Yet I still dare to hope when I remember this: The unfailing love of the LORD never ends! By his mercies we have been kept from complete destruction. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each day. I say to myself, "The LORD is my inheritance; therefore, I will hope in him!" The LORD is wonderfully good to those who wait for him and seek him. So it is good to wait quietly for salvation from the LORD.”
I also was astonished to discover that God seemed to know how I felt as described in Psalm 71,. It reads, “And now, in my old(er) age, don't set me aside. Don't abandon me when my strength is failing… Now that I am older do not abandon me, O God. Let me proclaim your power to this new generation, your mighty miracles to all who come after me. You have allowed me to suffer much hardship, but you will restore me to life again and lift me up from the depths of the earth. You will restore me to even greater honor and comfort me once again”
My life journey continues with constant challenges as He seeks to grow my character. Gratefully, the bible, prayer, daily quiet times, accountability partners and weekly small group meetings have worked wonders for me and in my relationships. God, in concert with my accountability partner(s), seeks to ruthlessly remove every bit of codependency, sex addiction, food addiction and isolation out of my life in order to grow my character for Himself and others. I am grateful to the Lord Jesus Christ because he has demonstrated that He loved me and believed in me by inserting Himself and intervening in my life on His own accord. He saved me from myself and I discovered value and significance in knowing that I have been created and loved by Him. Wow on that ! His grace and truth are my refuge. The verses that sparked hope for me are written in Jeremiah 29 verses 11-14. They read, “For I know the plans I have for you," says the LORD. "They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. In those days when you pray, I will listen. If you look for me in earnest, you will find me when you seek me. I will be found by you," says the LORD. "I will end your captivity and restore your fortunes.”
Someday I will enjoy wonderful and beautiful intimacy with Jesus Christ face to face where I will personally enjoy His love and worship Him there in that place. And as He examines my life I dream of Him saying “Well done, Chris, you have been my faithful servant.”. I so look forward to that day. Thanks for reading.... there is no other Name, rofaith
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