Tag Archives: recovery

My kids & myself

What are you most proud of in your life?

When my kids were young, between 14 and 10, I became seriously ill with depression after the divorce of their father and me. I soon after became addicted to drugs and ended up in prison. Their father drank a lot but provided a safe home for them to grow up in and they are young adults now that don’t use drugs, they are all in good jobs. They work hard and now that I’ve been out of prison for 4 years, drug free, we have reconciled. I am proud of them. I am proud of myself. I do however, give God the glory and chose to stay humble because life is hard and I’ve been known to make bad choices so my pride must always stay in check lest I fall.

Forgetting

Don’t look back, forget it

Let go, let it go and

Don’t look back

Look ahead. That’s all new

Press on, strive for it. Reach

Focus on now, not then

Don’t try to remember, remember when?

That’s been done, it’s over. Finished

This is now. Right now. To begin

Let’s begin Let’s all breathe. Breathe in. Breathe out. Now stop. It’s gone. It’s over. Don’t take it back. Forget it …….. stay forgetting

Thirsty Thursday

In your thirst for knowledge, be sure not to drown in all the information. …

Ecclesiastes 12:12 KJV: And further, by these, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh.

K.I.S.S. Keep It Simple Stupid

rehab

So many theories, so many opinions

John 14:6 ... “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” King James ..

So many religions, so many people trying this and that. It is so simple. Jesus. He is the answer.

John 4:13-14
Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.”


Matthew 5:6
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

Isaiah 44:3  For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour out my Spirit on your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants.

John 7:37  Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink.

Do not let me mislead you, there are many more scriptures on thirsting for the Jesus, these are just a few. If you want to know, ask, if you are seeking you will find but seek you must. The answers are there. You do not have to ask someone, ask God. Then open up the living Word! I pray you are blessed and that the burning quest for knowledge you are searching for be found in the Lord!

Tasteful Tuesday

Taste and see that the Lord is good

Isaiah 30:20  New International Version
Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them.

In my life I have tasted much adversity and drank deep from the cup of affliction but God has never left me. He uses this diet to strengthen us. To test and prove our faith. The deeper I drank the deeper my roots. I know from my times in adversity that I can do all things through Christ. While in prison He ministered love on me even in the harshest of environments. I never went without coffee and sugar, which is like gold in prison. I had so many moments that were very personal and too surreal to not be my Lord. He loves us. If you look for Him, you will find Him. 

Ekekiel 2:8   But you, son of man, listen to what I say to you. Do not rebel like that rebellious people; open your mouth and eat what I give you.”

The words I have eaten have often been hard and bitter, as I digest the truth and my flesh is told no. But oh the truth. The truth does set us free! It it a hard thing to do, the taming of the tongue, or flesh. But if we obey these truths we will find peace and freedom.

People Places & Things

Come Out From Among Them

I am a recovering addict. The first thing you do when you quit or stop using, is decide to change. You start thinking about it, unless of course the law gets you and you are forced to stop. Or it kills you.

They say the second thing you need to do is change your “people, places and things” Stop hanging with your old friends, then you stop going to the places you used to go to to use or buy, then you stop the things. The things is a much broader statement, it literally means change EVERYTHING!!!

While in prison I read :

11 Corinthians 6:17 " Come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Do not ouch what is unclean, and I will receive you"

I think its pretty cool that when you are using, you say your not clean and if you are not using you say you are clean. Just an interesting thought. So I am going to share some scriptures the Lord gave me while in prison that I still use today to light the path I walk. These are also scriptures people can use when dealing with family members that are actively using. We are called to be separate. To be different. To not follow the crowd. I hope these bless you and minister to you as they do me.

Psalm 45:10 'Listen O  daughter, Consider and incline your ear; Forget your own people also, and your fathers house'

Genesis 12:1-3  'Now the Lord had said to Abram: Get out of your country, from your family and from your fathers house, To a land I will show you. I will make you a great nation, I will bless you and make your name great; And you shall be a blessing. I will bless those that bless you and I will curse those that curse you'

Isaiah 52:11,12  'Depart! Depart! Go out from there! Touch no unclean thing, go out from the midst of her, be clean you who bear the vessel of the Lord'

1 Corinthians 15:33  'Do not be deceived, evil company corrupts good habits.' 

Revelations 18:4  'Come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins and lest you receive of her plagues.'

Numbers 33:55-56  “‘But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land, those you allow to remain will become barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides. They will give you trouble in the land where you will live. And then I will do to you what I plan to do to them.’”

Joshua 23:11-13  Be very careful, therefore, to love the Lord your God. For if you turn back and cling to the remnant of these nations remaining among you wand make marriages with them, so that you associate with them and they with you,  know for certain that the Lord your God will no longer drive out these nations before you, but they shall be a snare and a trap for you, a whip on your sides and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from off this good ground that the Lord your God has given you.

I want to give the meaning as to my understanding of these scriptures. I get most of my understanding in the next scripture that I believe says it all. 

2 Corinthians 6:14   Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?

 In the Bible, the word yoke was used to imply slavery, servitude or influence in family relationships and religious ones.

I love that so much of what we think is our knowledge actually was written for us so long ago. The Word is the best blueprint, the best guideline we can use to live today! It is relevant, it is alive it is the book I go by. Each problem I face I can reach for my Bible and find an answer. Seek and ye shall find! I hope you enjoy my prison journal. There is more of it coming!

Today, I am choosing to like myself.

Austin Texas

This is where I follow scripture and as in Jeremiah 30:2 “I am the Lord, I am the God of Israel, I say :Write in a book all the words I have spoken to you”

December 30, 2021

After fourth grade my parents put me in home school…..we had moved out to the country to have our horses with us on a farm. I had no friends, as I got older my social skills were lacking. I was naive and extremely vulnerable. I was desperately lonely and in need of Jesus.

“Before we make friends with anyone else, we must first make friends with ourselves”

Eleanor Roosevelt

I had a difficult time making friends as a young girl. I was home schooled in the late eighties and we just didn’t have the resources we have now. That and my already insecure feelings, when I met a girl and tried to become friends I didn’t have the ability to really maintain friendships. Moving forward….

My first experience with God was when I was ten years old. I was in my room reading the Bible and Psalms 23 jumped out of the page and came alive to me. God was my Shepherd, He personally led me to still waters and His staff and rod protected me! I broke down into tears. He became my friend that day. I wasn’t alone. I was loved!

That moment sustained me through my early years but Satan attacked me through sexual, verbal and physical abuse. Like many girls and boys who endure silently the hole abuse digs into your heart and mind I began to act out. I didn’t act out really so much as I began to act in. The voices in my head telling me I was guilty. I was wrong. In a self loathing mental break I gave up my beloved horses. I believe my divorce and eventual break in my relationship with my kids was the same reaction to the shame I felt. I separated myself from anything beautiful in my life. In my teens I threw away my trophies from horse shows in a rage of self hatred and shame.

I was caught with drugs in 2018 and sentenced to prison time, I sat down and finally had to listen to what God had to say to me.

“Our prisons and our jails are now our mental health institutions.“

Hillary Clinton

Continue reading “Today, I am choosing to like myself.”

Broken

The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.

Ernest Hemingway


I believe in that quote. I am stronger today in my broken places but it took 7 years and a two year stint in prison to heal that brokenness but it certainly did. I think. I was married 16 years and had three beautiful children. My marriage was a happy one until one day it wasn’t. I sank into a depression.Actually I have struggled with severe depression all my life.

Let me backtrack a little. When I say I sank one day, I think that is not quite true. I was a lonely little girl that grew up with horses and alcoholic father. After fourth grade I was home schooled. I grew up often times scared of the outbursts of a dry drunk father. That is what my mother called him. To this day I don’t totally understand the meaning. I just know I was alone and scared and as I understand the meaning, broken.

I will post this and update it as I can. I brings up a lot of pain and I have begun to see perhaps my brokenness is has not healed and mended as much as I thought.

update: I think this will be as broken piece of written material as I have ever written. Bare with me please. I must sort through my broken thoughts, delicately, to reach my broken heart and then I can brokenly talk, or write about it.

So I was homeschooled at fifth grade and let loose into the countryside astride a horse. I had the grandest time riding. I let my imagination fly as fast as I let my horse gallop. I was anybody and anyone I wanted. I learned to do tricks, riding backwards, spinning in my saddle at a gallop. I had read that Native American riders would tie a knot into their horses manes and then loop their arms through it to appear as if the horse had no rider and then attack the settlers from under the horses neck. So I attempted the same. Horses became my friends. At one time I had four of my own. I can’t say I did any schooling. I did however have a very quick memory recall so once I read something I retained it so it looked like I was doing my work but my math was terrible. You can say I have fourth grade education. Because that was the last full year of school I ever did.

The other side of my growing up was my father was abusive towards my mother. I was the youngest of five kids. At the age of thirteen or fourteen my dad began introducing me as his girlfriend. I was shocked and felt utterly disgusting when I noticed the leers of the men he had introduced me. It wasn’t until I was divorced and in therapy I understood why I felt so gross and throughout my teens and young adulthood I would shave my head and do anything to NOT have my father call me beautiful.

Fast forward….why digress and talk about what fucked me up. Let me finish with the fact that I choose to forgive my abusers. I am not ready to talk about it. I am however ready to move on and sometimes that means you stop thinking about it. You focus on here and now, the present. I survived, I am overcoming and I am not being hurt anymore, in fact the only time I hurt now, is when I let them, in my memories. We can choose our thoughts. We can stop thinking about one thing and rethink upon positive. Stay positive. I am broken. In places. I am healed and healing some of my broken places and in those places I am stronger, wiser and that is what I will end this on.