Scriptures of Recovery James 1:2-4

James 1:2-4 - "Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking of anything."
I used to be very ungrateful. I felt that life was a chore at best, and punishment for being born at worst. I was generally not in the best of moods, as most of my peers and co-workers would gladly inform you. I was a bummer to be around most of the time. I was this way due to my viewing life as a punishment for being born. That was how I actually felt most days.

To work through this, I did my best to remain drunk all of the time. The only exception was while I was working, and for many years until I began the job that I have now even being on the clock never stopped me. In my drug using days, I would bring meth with me to work. You know, just in case I started to come down.  I would also bring the other drugs I was doing at the time. I remember bragging once after a double that I had pushed my crack pipe two dozen times and gotten a hit every time.

That was my life, stay high and drunk. The only purpose for living is so that we may one day die and that will be the end of it. There in a nutshell was how I personally lives when I was an Agnostic, which I was from 5th grade until I was 37. When I had problems in my life, they occurred simply because life sucked......then you died. I saw death as the end of suffering.

I can remember seeing the faces of my friends after they died and being jealous of how peaceful they looked. The only reason that I refused to commit suicide was because my sister had found me unconscious after a failed attempt and I promised her I would never try it again. That said, I wished for death and tried to put myself in situations where others would kill me. I was unsuccessful at even that.

Now I live my life differently. I have come to realize several things, and this scripture is a large part of why my perception has changed. I no longer feel that what happens to me are horrific things with no purpose. It took some knowledge for me to realize what the purpose were. To realize the reason things happened to me I had to get busy living instead of busying myself with the act of dying.

Know I know that I needed to learn lessons, and every trial and tribulation that I have gone through in life has made me a wiser and stronger person once I learned to work through it. This has in turn given me the ability to have compassion and empathy for my fellow man that I would not have had otherwise. It has also given me the wisdom I need to empower others to work through their issues that are similar that I would have never had otherwise.

Secondly, when life is complicated I know that there are a lot of twists and turns in this life that I will need to work through. For starters, the devil would like nothing more than to steal my faith and hope and bring me back into his flock. Also, this is nothing more than a great way for me to show my faith and hope in Christ. I have hear it said that worrying simply shows that you do not have enough faith in God.

It is quite easy to believe in Christ and praise him when things are going well. The true testing of our faith is how we react under pressure. Do we consider it a joyous occasion when we are being attacked by life. Do we realize it is an opportunity for growth, or do we get angry. Do we remember or do we forget one simple truth, "God's got this!"

In my past I got angry and upset, which was a sign of both my immaturity and my lack of belief in God. Now I gravitate towards appreciation, which is a sign of my maturing. In order for me to change my perspective, I needed to make one chane. I did that by gaining faith and hope that I never had. All that took was me looking at the trials of life through a different lense. Now I see life through the lens of a believer in Christ, and that has made all of the difference.

Get Busy Living.....Better Life in Recovery

Of all the movies that have been made, there are a lot of quotes that I really like. My favorite quotable movies when I was a kid were Breakfast Club and as I got older Tombstone. That said, the one quote that really sticks out in my mind is from the movie Shawshank Redemption, and that quote is, "You either got to get busy living, or get busy dying." In my addiction, I was busy dying. Sure, I might not sleep for a week or more at a time, but I never really did anything. I put myself in situations where I hoped that someone would kill me, but they never did. I would have done it myself, but the time that my sister found me passed out in a pool of blood after a botched attempt I promised her that I would never do it again. 

I would keep that promise to her, but I tried to commit suicide by using drugs, alcohol, cars, police and other addicts. I had no real reason to live, and my life went no where. That is a pretty sad place to be, and I could not seem to find my way out of the depths of self-pity and self-loathing that I was stuck in. Then I had my conversion experience, and nothing has been the same since! That is why the quote from Shawshank Redemption really sticks out in my head!


Since I had my conversion, I have gotten busy living. I volunteer at least 10 hours a week. I share my strength, hope and experience with kids and adults when ever I get the chance. It could be one-on-one, it could be at a church, recovery meeting or college class with 500 people. The bottom line is that I share what I have, and I have a life worth living now. That is a wonderful feeling! The longer that I live sober, the more I owe back to the society that I once drained. That is why I am writing this blog today, to talk about what I am doing to improve society.


I am currently working on a documentary called "Better Life in Recovery." It has its own website found at www.betterlifeinrecovery.com  It also has its own Facebook page found at www.facebook.com/pages/Better-Life-In-Recovery/171246616294150 that you can like and follow how the documentary is coming and give both it and those involved with the project your support. 


We are trying something innovative with this documentary. With edgy editing techniques and modern music we will show the tragedy of multiple young adults who have entered into addiction and the tragedy that it has caused in their lives in a format that will keep their interest. We will then showcase how they stepped into recovery and how much better their lives have become since they escaped the clutches of their addictions. This documentary is intended to be taken into junior and high schools, colleges, seminars, trainings, forums, detention centers, churches, youth groups, recovery meetings, rehabilitation centers, film festivals, PTA meetings, etc. 


Any way that we can get the message of recovery to the community, we will do it. This in turn will transition into several more documentaries that will assist us in reaching even more people. The difference between most videos and documentaries and this one is that we will be bringing 1-3 people who were in the documentary to do Question and Answer sessions after the documentary is shown. This will be much more impacting on the viewers. It will not be someone 40 years older than them that has never had an addiction issues. Instead, it will be younger people that they can relate to who have actually lived with addiction, and beat it! 


We will be in the Pepsi Refresh project as of November 1st. That means that as of November 1st we will need as many people voting for our project every day as possible. We do not yet have our voting instructions. We  will be able to put those as well as a flyer that you can copy off on our site at www.betterlifeinrecovery.com/page3.php when we get it. This page contains instructions on ways that you can help us and the flyer that will be available to be printed off is on the bottom right hand of this page. I ask that you share this blog with all of your friends that you have on Facebook and by email and twitter, like the Facebook page and share it with everyone also. We need as many voters helping us as possible. 


Help us make this project a reality so that thousands of adolescents and young adults can stop being busy dying and instead get busy living!!!!!