Hello Friends,
Part 2 of my story...
I wish I could tell you that is where our story ends happily. But, if you're reading this, you aren't unfamiliar with how addiction ravages until almost nothing is left. My daughter would go back and forth in her recovery until the word would ultimately demonstrate the swept empty house taking 7 worse demons over and over. She has experienced near death, loss of children, and destruction of monumental amounts. During this period, she married a man from a powerful family of crime and birthed two children. I felt this man was the one causing my daughter not to receive sobriety and freedom and I hated him. I wanted her away from him and I wasn't above anything to see to it that happened. Yes, the woman who experienced the love of God had no love for this man. It wasn't until my husband moved to Florida to establish a place for us to relocate that I found myself with more problems than I could handle. Lacie was staying with me to help me take care of her son and the one rule I had was that her husband could not come on my property, But the water heater stopped working the day my husband moved. We had to call her husband. His name is Raymond. He came and fixed the water heater, and I paid him. Then, a tree fell in my back yard, and he came and cut it up and hauled it off. Then, wasps built several nests in all my shrubs and the kids were getting stung and he came and burned them out. I began to see the heart of this man and saw into the window of his soul. He was born into crime, but his heart was so tender and so beautiful. The Lord opened my eyes and gave me the love HE had for Raymond, and I couldn't do enough for him. I wanted him to stay with us. I wanted to help him in every way possible. Four months later, at a revival he and Lacie attended with his uncle, he grabbed my daughter's hand and ran to the alter and gave his life to the Lord. LOVE. Is there anything better than LOVE? Doesn't the word say, " And now these three remain, faith, hope and love, but the greatest of these is love. How had I missed it? LOVE is the third weapon. All those years, now 11 in this fight for her life, I had only loved her and no one else, but God loved Raymond and Lacie.
Now, wouldn't that be a great ending? It would, but it wasn't. Being saved is such a great miracle for the weary soul, but the mind seems to lag behind in addiction. Lacie and Raymond stayed in church for about 6 months and the life they had seemed to be getting better and better and for the first time in years, Raymond was working and doing better than he had for most of his life. I'm not sure when it happened or how, but the enemy launched again, and the addiction seemed to grasp Lacie harder than it ever had. I had been raising her oldest son, Ethan since he was 3 months old, and I had shielded him from the worst of the ugliness, but this little guy only wanted his mommy. I think that's all these kids ever want. They want the mommy to play with and to hold them and tell them it's going to be alright. This particular Christmas season evening, Ethan had in his little heart to see his mommy. We were driving home from Beckley, and he had talked to her earlier where she promised to come see him. He was crying in the back seat and began yelling at me that I was making him late to see her, but I knew she wasn't coming. I was angry, not at his little heart, but at her, at drugs, at God, at everything! I was just so angry at the trick of me thinking it was over when they got saved. And before I could stop myself, I was yelling at him. I told him to forget she ever existed and to just forget ever seeing her again. That she wasn't ever coming back and just get over it. I was immediately regretful when I looked into the rear-view mirror to see the heartbreak on his face. I had protected him his whole life and in 2 sentences, I broke his heart worse than she ever did. And, in the quiet moment, I remembered something I had read that morning from Steve Shultz in the Elijah list on thanksgiving. He gave a testimony from a Christmas many years ago when he had fallen into poverty and had nothing to buy gifts with, pay bills or buy any groceries. He walked outside with an empty wallet and held it up to heaven and just as the word says to be thankful in all things, he began to thank God for this empty wallet and for all the situations he found himself in. He was afraid to say it in front of his wife which was why he was outside. He proclaimed only thanksgiving. So, as strange as it sounded to me, I began thanking God for this addiction and for the addict my daughter had become. I thanked him angrily at first, but as I continued, I really meant it. I thanked him with a gracious thanksgiving and the tears of thanksgiving poured down my cheeks. And then I felt it. Something broke. When I got in the house, my husband could see something on me. I told him it broke. I didn't know how or why, but it broke. I had found my fourth weapon. Thanksgiving. It was more powerful than the others. It was the final blow.
Eight months later, my daughter was delivered of the addiction that plagued her for 13 years. Her husband and she began living a life of freedom. That was seven years ago when she got up and walked away from all she had been and was redeemed and restored as though it had never happened. Today, she works as a top stylist in our city at the finest salon in our med spa at Bella West called Roots on Main. She had always wanted to be a cosmetologist and uses her craft to minister to girls like her coming out of addiction to help them fall in love with the person in the mirror and overcome the shame that has been a noose around their necks. Her reward is the smile when they see the transformation she provides. My daughter loves the Lord and is quicker than me to speak the word, worship, love and be thankful. To God be the glory, great things he has done.
Laura Norman, Mountain Momma
Part 2 of my story...
I wish I could tell you that is where our story ends happily. But, if you're reading this, you aren't unfamiliar with how addiction ravages until almost nothing is left. My daughter would go back and forth in her recovery until the word would ultimately demonstrate the swept empty house taking 7 worse demons over and over. She has experienced near death, loss of children, and destruction of monumental amounts. During this period, she married a man from a powerful family of crime and birthed two children. I felt this man was the one causing my daughter not to receive sobriety and freedom and I hated him. I wanted her away from him and I wasn't above anything to see to it that happened. Yes, the woman who experienced the love of God had no love for this man. It wasn't until my husband moved to Florida to establish a place for us to relocate that I found myself with more problems than I could handle. Lacie was staying with me to help me take care of her son and the one rule I had was that her husband could not come on my property, But the water heater stopped working the day my husband moved. We had to call her husband. His name is Raymond. He came and fixed the water heater, and I paid him. Then, a tree fell in my back yard, and he came and cut it up and hauled it off. Then, wasps built several nests in all my shrubs and the kids were getting stung and he came and burned them out. I began to see the heart of this man and saw into the window of his soul. He was born into crime, but his heart was so tender and so beautiful. The Lord opened my eyes and gave me the love HE had for Raymond, and I couldn't do enough for him. I wanted him to stay with us. I wanted to help him in every way possible. Four months later, at a revival he and Lacie attended with his uncle, he grabbed my daughter's hand and ran to the alter and gave his life to the Lord. LOVE. Is there anything better than LOVE? Doesn't the word say, " And now these three remain, faith, hope and love, but the greatest of these is love. How had I missed it? LOVE is the third weapon. All those years, now 11 in this fight for her life, I had only loved her and no one else, but God loved Raymond and Lacie.
Now, wouldn't that be a great ending? It would, but it wasn't. Being saved is such a great miracle for the weary soul, but the mind seems to lag behind in addiction. Lacie and Raymond stayed in church for about 6 months and the life they had seemed to be getting better and better and for the first time in years, Raymond was working and doing better than he had for most of his life. I'm not sure when it happened or how, but the enemy launched again, and the addiction seemed to grasp Lacie harder than it ever had. I had been raising her oldest son, Ethan since he was 3 months old, and I had shielded him from the worst of the ugliness, but this little guy only wanted his mommy. I think that's all these kids ever want. They want the mommy to play with and to hold them and tell them it's going to be alright. This particular Christmas season evening, Ethan had in his little heart to see his mommy. We were driving home from Beckley, and he had talked to her earlier where she promised to come see him. He was crying in the back seat and began yelling at me that I was making him late to see her, but I knew she wasn't coming. I was angry, not at his little heart, but at her, at drugs, at God, at everything! I was just so angry at the trick of me thinking it was over when they got saved. And before I could stop myself, I was yelling at him. I told him to forget she ever existed and to just forget ever seeing her again. That she wasn't ever coming back and just get over it. I was immediately regretful when I looked into the rear-view mirror to see the heartbreak on his face. I had protected him his whole life and in 2 sentences, I broke his heart worse than she ever did. And, in the quiet moment, I remembered something I had read that morning from Steve Shultz in the Elijah list on thanksgiving. He gave a testimony from a Christmas many years ago when he had fallen into poverty and had nothing to buy gifts with, pay bills or buy any groceries. He walked outside with an empty wallet and held it up to heaven and just as the word says to be thankful in all things, he began to thank God for this empty wallet and for all the situations he found himself in. He was afraid to say it in front of his wife which was why he was outside. He proclaimed only thanksgiving. So, as strange as it sounded to me, I began thanking God for this addiction and for the addict my daughter had become. I thanked him angrily at first, but as I continued, I really meant it. I thanked him with a gracious thanksgiving and the tears of thanksgiving poured down my cheeks. And then I felt it. Something broke. When I got in the house, my husband could see something on me. I told him it broke. I didn't know how or why, but it broke. I had found my fourth weapon. Thanksgiving. It was more powerful than the others. It was the final blow.
Eight months later, my daughter was delivered of the addiction that plagued her for 13 years. Her husband and she began living a life of freedom. That was seven years ago when she got up and walked away from all she had been and was redeemed and restored as though it had never happened. Today, she works as a top stylist in our city at the finest salon in our med spa at Bella West called Roots on Main. She had always wanted to be a cosmetologist and uses her craft to minister to girls like her coming out of addiction to help them fall in love with the person in the mirror and overcome the shame that has been a noose around their necks. Her reward is the smile when they see the transformation she provides. My daughter loves the Lord and is quicker than me to speak the word, worship, love and be thankful. To God be the glory, great things he has done.
Laura Norman, Mountain Momma