Out of the Ashes

Today, I woke up and played with my daughter. I chased her around the house, listening to her peals of laughter ringing out as she shrieked with joy. As I walked out of the house I heard the body of 10 year old Hailey Owens had been found and there was a man being charged with first degree murder.  I was instantly overwhelmed with anger and rage. I felt the person I used to be rising up inside of me. I was lost, hurt, enraged and confused all at once.

I was lost because I cannot comprehend how someone could take the life of an innocent 10 year old. The evilness of this act is beyond my scope of understanding. What could possess a 45 year old to take the life of a child? It is an unfathomable act, and one that I can honestly say I am glad I cannot understand for if I could what would that say about me? I cannot fathom the act.

I was hurt because I knew there were parents who loved Hailey that will never get to hear her laughter again. My heart aches because I can not even begin to imagine the depths of the parent’s sorrow. I am emotionally broken because I know the impact a loss like this can have on Hailey’s friends and family and would never wish that upon anyone. No one should have to lose a loved one who is so young in such a malicious way.

I was enraged because I am a father, and as a father I know that there is no justice that will suffice. Nothing that happens to Hailey’s murderer will bring her back. Even the justice that is done will be long and drawn out. Someone will represent this man and try to defend what he did. The parent’s will have to hear testimony and see pictures that no parent should ever have to endure.

I am confused because I believe in a God who loves us all and wants what is best for us. Because of that such a heinous act being allowable bewilders me. At first I could not for the life of me make any sense of how God could allow such a tragedy to play out. Then I remembered a few things. For starters, we have freewill. Do we have a God that loves us all? He loved us enough to give us freedom to make our own choices. Freewill is both our greatest gift and greatest curse. Do we have a God that loves us so much He gave us the ability to control our actions? Yes, he did but not all of us chose to use that control.

Today and everyday we have the power to make choices. We can follow the Golden Rule laid forth by Jesus in the New Testament, or we can act on our own selfish interests. We can listen to what the Holy Spirit whispers in our ear, or we can listen to Satan. The choice is ultimately ours to make. I used to listen to the voice that encouraged me to do wrong. Today, I choose to try to live my life by loving my neighbor. That said, the old me resurfaced today after a long hiatus. I did not feel very friendly and loving. I wanted to come out of retirement.

I stopped because I realized that would solve nothing. It would not be good for me, my family or the family who has lost their daughter. I have done psychological first aid after disasters and I am trained in grief and loss counseling. You give support. You let people know that it is okay to feel how they feel. Their feelings are valid and understandable. You make sure that their basic needs are being met and allow them to grieve. You do not get caught up in the emotions of the event because of the negative impact that can have on those who are mourning and grieving.  

I did give into those emotions for a minute. I allowed myself the luxury of grieving for Hailey, her family and her friends. I cried for a little girl I had never met while I sat in my car. Then I prayed for Hailey’s family and friends to find comfort and strength. Next I went to work and helped other people deal with their own stress, depression and tragedy while my head still swam with unanswered questions.

Will our questions about why this was done ever be answered satisfactorily? I hope not, because there is no excuse or reason that can explain what happened. Will justice be done? No, unless the act itself can be undone. There is no amount of pain this murderer experiences that can quench the pain her parents are experiencing. I have my trust in a much Higher Power that has seen me through so much. I have seen a lot of positives come out of tragedies, but it is far too early for that now.

Instead, I ask that we keep hate and anger to a minimum. It may make you feel better but it does nothing to change what happened or help anyone. It increases the negative impact of an already terrible event. We need to come together and support those who are hurting today in our community. Shower them with prayers, positive thoughts, love and compassion. Today you need to hug and squeeze on your loved ones today. Cherish the people you have in your life today, and action can come tomorrow.

Next we need to identify how to make the system more efficient so time between 911 calls and Amber alerts becomes minimal. Search for ways our community can learn from this tragedy so it is safer for our children and the chance of this happening in the future is reduced. Together we can make our community stronger and safer for those who are most vulnerable and honor the memory of Hailey Owens.

My Life as a Bad Guy Part 3: Meth in Missouri

I decided that I was headed towards jail or expulsion so I moved to Missouri from Illinois. Once there, I tried methamphetamine. I liked it, a lot. Soon school was no longer important to me. It got in the way of my partying and I dropped out  the last semester of my senior year. I headed towards rock bottom. I went to jail multiple times. My probation officer sent me to Scared Straight at the prison in Jefferson City. I spent 120 days on house arrest and several years on probation, stacking up violations.

I had some things happen that should have changed me. I had a couple friends die in drinking and driving accidents. I was the first one on the scene and found one of my friends dead. I saw a friend get beat to death and another beat into a coma. I had alcohol poisoning and stopped breathing. They pumped my stomach and I was drinking again the next night. I saw someone I knew get shot during a drug deal.

I went on the run for a while. I was gone for almost a year. It is exhausting, being on the run. You always look over your shoulder in the party world, and it is three times as bad when you have warrants out for your arrest and all of the city and county police know what you look like. Finally, I needed some rest. I showed up at the probation office, and when my probation officer walked out I told him I was ready to go to prison. He said okay. I turned 21 in Booneville Correctional Center. I was drunk an hour after I was released and used intravenously later that night for the very first time.

I had found methamphetamine and learned that it could help with my pain. I was able to numb myself for periods of time with meth. When I started using intravenously, that was the end of me as a person. It gave me a feeling I had never experienced before. I became dead inside and only felt alive when I was high. After years of being an Agnostic, I had found my Higher Power. Meth became my God. Then it turned into Satan.

I hoped for death. I had alcohol poisoning and lived. Drunk, I flew a car 97 feet down a hill, clipping trees 32 feet in the air and lived. I attempted suicide and my sister found me unconscious in a pool of blood. The ambulance got there in time to save me. I lived. Are you noticing a pattern? That was the 5th time I had flatlined, and I kept coming back. I promised my sister I would never try to kill myself again after the attempted suicide. The truth is, I wanted to die. I no longer wanted to live and I was tired of feeling.

Meth gave me all I thought I needed. I had money, power, friends, women, excitement and so much more. I was the life of the party. But I was still dead inside. I could be at a party with 100 people and feel completely alone. I did not feel alive unless I was high. Meth was all I cared about. I would sit at home in a funk if I wasn't high, so I discovered a new lifestyle. I would stay up from Sunday when I woke up until Sunday morning when I would go to bed. I joked that if God got a Sabbath day, so should I.

I would wake up to a shot of dope on Sunday evening, then stay high through the week until early Sunday morning when I would take a handful of benzodiazepines to help me sleep. I found that I never hurt if I stayed high. No one ever got close enough to me to really hurt me as long as I was high. It got to the point that if I was awake, I was high.

I became heartless and used everyone I came in contact with. I knew if I didn't use them they would use me. Why not be first. Everyone in my life was there to serve me. I let people be my friend because they would allow me to be around a better class of people, they had money, they had dope, they cooked dope, they had friends who bought my dope, they were pretty and would sleep with me or I was trying to sleep with them, they would get high with me, they had things to loan me that I needed, they had a car I could use when I thought mine was hot or they had a house for me to party at so I didn't have to use mine.

Everyone and everything had a purpose. Some times I did nice things, but I even had ulterior motives for that. I remember one of my friends having a baby and being broke. I helped his family pay the bills for several months so that they could not work and  bond. I helped pay rent, utilities and even bought them food. I then would frequently bring up doing that any time people would talk trash about  me being a dope dealer. "Well, look at the good things I do with my money."

I would give people $100's just to remind them about it when I  needed to borrow their car or have a party at their house. I would justify my selling meth with this logic, "I use Super B to cut it. Other people use stuff that is really bad to cut theirs. My people get vitamins so I am doing them a favor by dealing." Life was a hustle, and I was good at being a hustler.

Somewhere along the way I became more suicidal. Some might call it an addiction to the rush of adrenaline. I would show up to a meth cooks house not knowing them to buy methamphetamine. I would hang out with the most sketched out people I knew. I would buy  meth at the  hottest houses I knew just to see if when I got pulled over they would find the dope. I was insane and no longer cared. I always had my sister to fall back on, and for the most part I could always argue that I was only hurting myself.

That is another thing I always did in my addiction. I downplayed the impact of everything that I did. I would justify my dealing with the law of supply and demand and my dope was better for them. I would never look at the money that I took from people. Maybe when they came down they beat their wife or kids. Not my problem. Maybe they gave me their families grocery money.  Not my fault. I would have tons of food stamps, at 30 cents on the dollar if I didn't like you and 50 cents if I did. Maybe they were robbing people for money to buy it. If it wasn't me getting robbed, I was fine with it. Maybe they would get high and rape people. As long as it wasn't my sister getting hurt, who cares? I know that I didn't!

The truth is that I saw and did things that give me nightmares 15 years later. I was insane, doing insane things and I associated with insane people. I have held people at gun point and made them strip because I thought they were wearing a wire. I have beat someone unconscious, waited for him to regain consciousness so that I could beat them some more. That was over $25, to set an example. I have done and seen much worse, sometimes for money, sometimes because they crossed lines and sometimes just because I was bored and angry.

I have ravaged people emotionally and psychologically, leaving them a shell of their former selves. I have built a shot for someone that they overdosed on. Quite a few people have overdosed on my drugs, I am quite sure. I have given many people their first shot of dope, because I knew that if I did that I would have control over them for life. I was evil, and I was okay with that. It was what I was good at, so I did it.

On the flip side of that, I have been robbed several times. I have been held at gun point. I have often been in situations I didn't know if I would live through. I have been beaten unconscious. I have been jumped by multiple people on several occasions. I have overdosed and been left for dead where I was. I have holes in me I was not born with put there by other people. I have been face down on the floor during a raid with a gun to the back of my head. I am certain that I deserved all of that and a whole lot more.

I was a bad guy. I look back on my life and I don't know how I am still alive. Scratch that, after dying more times than I can count on one hand and overamping multiple times, I am alive because there was some good EMTs and paramedics. I would tell you because of luck, as there were probably a dozen times I played Russian Roulette with a 38 revolver and a lone bullet. At the time I thought that nothing could kill me, and nothing or no one would ever get me to stop using drugs. I would have told you that only the good die young, and I was anything but good so I would probably live forever.

The Complete Suit of Armor part 1

To begin this series we looked at James 2:26 and discussed what it means when it says that faith without works is dead. It meant that you can have dead faith. Works are not the key to salvation, they are the proof of salvation. If we have the Holy Spirit filling us, we will live our lives differently. How we are to live our lives was then discussed in the second part of this series by looking at the Beatitudes, found in Matthew 5:3-12.

According to the beatitudes we are to be meek, righteous, pure of heart, and persecuted to name just a few. How are we to do this? How can we apply the beatitudes in this evil world we live in? Most of these are attributes the world despises, uses and abuses. They may make us look weak, cause us to not fit in or simply seem impossible to us because of the influence of the world. To live as Jesus told us to live goes against the normal, and is attacked by those around us at every turn. How do we do it?

It sounds like we are at war. We are! We are at war with the standards, ethics, morals and values of this culture. When you go to war, you need to be prepared. In order to be prepared, there are things we need in order to successfully battle the ways of this world and live our lives with a higher purpose. Our needs are summed up in Ephesians 6:10-18:

"Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people"

So, first and foremost we are to rely on God and the power of the Holy Spirit He has provided us with. He has provided us with various gifts that will allow us to stand up to Satan. Here we are told that we are struggling with spiritual forces. We cannot defeat those of the spiritual realm with tangible weapons and muscles. No matter the amount of muscles we have and the hours we put into self-defense training or the guns we have and the amount of time we put in at the firing range we will never be able to defeat the devil. We cannot use physical things to defeat spiritual ones.

In order to defeat spiritual attacks we have been given spiritual gifts to use. We are given spiritual armor and a spiritual weapon then told to use it. We are not told to apply some of it, but instead to don the full armor of God so that when temptation comes we are able to withstand it. If we put this armor on Paul said that not only would we stand our ground and overcome temptations, but that at the end of all that the world and the devil have to throw at us we will still be standing tall for Jesus.

Next time we will look at what each individual piece of armor represents in The Complete Suit of Armor part 2.



What is A Moral Failure

I heard today that Pastor Tommy, who I think is an amazing pastor, stepped down as the lead pastor at North Point Church for what was called a "moral failure." I have never heard of a moral failure before, and I will not presume to know what he did or did not do. Everyone else can speculate about what he did. Personally, hearing the news today made me think about the affects that his stepping down could have on some of my friends and clients who go to North Point Church. So, this blog is for all of you.

First, what is a moral failure? As someone who is in recovery, I would imagine it is what I would call a relapse. If you are on parole you call it recidivism. Others might label it sin, character flaws, stumbling, sexual indiscretions or any number of other things. Bottom line, you messed up! That might be the best way to say moral failure, really. For the purpose of this blog moral failure will be referred to as relapse.

So, what is a relapse? Imagine you have sworn off something: drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, premarital sex, cheesecake, cutting yourself, cussing, etc. You are off to a good start. A good start is labeled differently by different people for different transgressions. It might be 4 hours, a day, a month or 10 years without a relapse. You are kicking butt and taking names, and all of a sudden you do it again.

One day you find yourself smoking that cigarette you swore off, or having sex with someone other than your spouse and breaking your wedding vows. All that you can think is, "How could this have happened?" You want to know how? In the program they say that addiction is cunning, baffling and strong. I think that addiction and the devil are synonymous, and they are experts at what they do.

At one time Satan was in control of my life. I was his soldier, and my lifestyle carried out his bidding. I had actually made drugs my god. When I got saved, the devil was kicked out of my life. He was no longer the main focus. That said, he is still there. Remember, the biggest trick the devil can pull off is convincing us that he no longer exists. When we do that, we immediately let him back into our lives.

Even if you are aware of him, remember that he is still aware of you too. Right now the devil is in the back of your head. Satan is lifting weights, running on the treadmill and doing research on the internet. He is getting stronger and smarter with only one goal. The Devil wants to get back into your life! He wants to move from the back of your brain and into the front of your brain.

The sad thing is that Satan has a plethora of tools at his disposal. This is his world and he knows it well. He can use your friends and family. He can use the television or the radio. He can use the gas station or even church. If you stop sleeping around, he will use porn. If you stop doing drugs, he will come at you with energy drinks. If you swear off R-Rated movies, he will come at you from the television and the radio. He does not like to lose. The devil will stop at nothing to have you back. He will use any one, any thing and any place to accomplish that goal! 

He will also use the people that we put upon a pedestal. For some that may be Pastor Tommy, and that is what scares me for some of my clients. They attend North Point and they have elevated Tommy to hero status. The problem with heros is that they are still human. My experience with hero worship was my sponsor in Narcotic's Anonymous. He had 11 years clean and had been my sponsor for 7 years when he relapsed. It started harmlessly, he drank a couple of O'Douls at a bachelor party. Two weeks later he was shooting up heroin.

How could that happen? How could someone with that much clean time fall off the wagon? I'll tell you how, because we all are capable of messing up if we let our guard down for one minute. Putting someone on a pedestal is always a mistake, because we all slip sometimes. Romans 3:23 says, "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." That means everyone, even a favorite parent or your pastor, makes mistakes. Everybody makes mistakes.

Look in the Bible. David slept with a married women then had her husband put into the front lines and abandoned so that he would die. Peter denied Christ 3 times. Paul wrote over half of the New Testament, and in Romans 7 he said that he wanted to do good things, but found himself not doing them. Instead, he found himself doing evil things that he didn't want to do.

So when someone messes up, what should we do? Should we humiliate them, or abandon them? Should we avoid them and talk poorly about them? Should we pray for them and offer our support? I would advise the latter. We should pray for them, and if it does not jeopardize us we should be there for them, also. I have told friends that I could not meet them at their house where I knew they were using, but that if they wanted to meet me at an NA meeting I would talk to them after it. Be safe, but be supportive!!

When someone has a relapse, I always remember the saying but for the grace of God, there go I. I could just as easily have suffered the same fate if not for God's mercy. I need to appreciate what I have and remember that God loves us all, even the sinner. 1 Timothy 1:15 reminds us that Christ came into the world to save sinners. We all have the ability to sin, to mess up, to relapse. So how do we protect ourselves from a relapse?

It requires a mentor/sponsor, accountability partners, working the 12 steps/living Biblically and actually applying them in our lives. We need to avoid places, people and situations that are dangerous. We need to read the Bible, truly study it and apply it. We also need to pray constantly. 1 Thessalonians 5:17 says that we are to "pray without ceasing." We should always be in contact with God. Why is this important?

Phillipians 4:13 says, "I can do all things through He who strengthens me." Without Christ I was weak and a servant of Satan. With Christ I have overcame my addictions and have been able to share my faith, hope and recovery with others. That has been done, not by forgetting the Devil is there, but instead doing everything that I can to keep him at bay.

So I hope that my friends and associates who go to North Point are not shattered by the latest development there. Instead I hope that it reminds them how easy it can be to make mistakes. Hopefully they will focus more on their relationship with Christ and what they can do to make that relationship stronger.

When my sponsor relapsed, it did several things to me. First, it reminded me how strong addiction and by proxy Satan are. Second, it made me remember that my addiction doesn't take a day off, and neither should my recovery. I have to daily do things to build my sobriety and my relationship with Christ. That is because I know that Satan is using new tricks every day to get back into my life. As long as I stay prepared and vigilant, he will fail.

After my sponsor relapsed I was there for him with prayer and encouragement to help him back up. We talked daily and met at meetings several times a week. He had done so much for me, and I was blessed to be able to repay a small part of what he had done for me back to him. I am sure people feel the same way about Tommy. He has helped thousands. I hope that everyone remembers all that he and his family have  done for them and that prayer and support rains down upon Tommy, his family and the North Point Community.

The Beast in the Back of My Head, pt 1

I have a beast in the back of my head. Sometimes I call it sin, usually I call it my addiction but I always refer to it as Satan when I put a person to it. You see, the beast in the back of my head came into my life with barely a whimper. For my first sin it was stealing a toy I really liked from my neighbor when I was 4. Actually it was probably lying to my parents when I was 3. At the time not that big of a deal as I cannot even remember it. For my addiction it was taking that first hit off of a joint when I was in 7th grade. Honestly when it comes to my addiction it was probably taking that first drag off of a cigarette when I was in 5th grade. I can remember that one.

Little did I know the sins that would follow and where they would lead me. If I only could have been shown the depths my addiction would take me to and actually believed it would happen, I might never have smoked that first cigarette. Strike that, I probably would have. After all, I was warned about where it would lead in some cheesy way or another several times in school. The problem was that I never heard it from someone who had been through it that I could relate to. And I never dreamed how big that beast would grow to.

That beast started out as a pup in the back of my head. It was something that made me feel a little better, and when I would pet it or pay it some attention it would purr at me. There was a little chemical release in my head that would occur, and I enjoyed the way that felt. I went from being abused at a young age feeling like I fit in no where to having friends. I went from being shy and introverted to being a brash, outspoken extrovert. I went from being depressed and hating life to being happy and loving life.

If it would have stopped there, it would have been great. I would use or "liberate" things I liked that were of no real value on rare occasions and I would feel better. But, the pup that I was feeding continued to grow. As he grew, things in my life got worse. My addiction grew too. I no longer used for the chemical release, but now I was compelled to use because my body had became dependent on nicotine. That pup grew into a beast without me realizing it had changed. I still saw it as it once was, cute and harmless. The people in my life who cared about me saw it as it truly had become, dangerous and spiraling more and more out of control.

Nicotine was no longer enough, so I tried marijuana and would occasionally do a line of cocaine. I could rationalize my use. Marijuana was from the ground, all natural. So was the beer that I would drink at keg parties, and it was legal. I may have been doing a line of cocaine on occasion, but I was not smoking it and was not shooting it up.

I tell you what, that beast in the back of my head was cunning. It would always tell me what I wanted to hear and make me feel how I wanted to feel. Soon, I was introduced to methamphetamine. From the moment I tried meth, my life was over. I would only do it on occasion, but I was compelled to do it more and more frequently. Soon, my body was dependent on methamphetamine. I was no longer compelled to do it. Meth was now demanded by my brain. Keep me numb and keep the chemicals coming if you want to be happy, and who doesn't want to be happy.

I was hooked, and suddenly just doing lines or smoking it in a bubble was not enough. I was shooting up. Once I shot up, I realized how much better that was. Suddenly, if I could put it in a needle I was putting it in my blood stream. That pup that was once so cute was now the beast that is currently in my head. And that beast will never go away, that beast is in the back of my head forever.

This Ain't No Game Living Free #3 A Blog by Scott

What happens when we go where we are not welcome? Simply put we are asked in no uncertain terms to leave.  It becomes evident when we have strayed from our fenced in lives and head into territory that is claimed by Satan himself that he will pay attention and rise up against us.  The last several weeks have been the hardest but most rewarding of my life.  Starting Living Free at our church during the training process basically felt at times like a social club of sorts.  Yes we all had a common mission and goal to serve but the truth is during our training period we were serving ourselves. Its not that its bad to focus inward before you minister outward but it just doesn’t feel real.  Brothers and Sisters it got real today. 

My family almost died tonight coming home from Living Free.  I was so excited to talk about my group and how we were connecting as a family.  I was so passionate in telling everyone in the car that my group is awesome and I know God is doing amazing things.  That is when "It" happened my little car encountered a turn that I was not ready for because I was on cloud 9 and not paying attention.  I went through a ditch hit a pole kept going did a hairpin turn in a field with weeds not less than 8 feet high came back out the same ditch and back onto the road.  IT DID NO DAMAGE.  I had a trunk full of food and supplies from group IT DID NOT SPILL OR UPSET ANYTHING.  God completely protected us from harm. We sat in shock and after investigating this miracle we as a family gave God  a prayer of thanksgiving.  To him be all Glory for this Miracle.

This “Ain’t no game” and I see now two things.

 #1- People are praying for us and God is protecting us

 #2- God is bigger and has more power than Satan and HE is protecting us. 

We in the ministry of helping others should never forget that this is WAR and we the people who chose to fight this “Holy War” will NOT QUIT, NOT SURRENDER, AND NOT LAY DOWN.  We are going to take back souls from Satan and they will impact their own lives, their family legacy, and their worlds. 

It is an honor to serve God in Living Free and I know we are protected and we will take back what Satan is trying so desperately to steal. 

“Gods Got this”

Love and Respect

Scott