Melting

Fifteen years ago, in an effort to stop the pain of debilitating migraines, I went to a neurologist who had a stellar reputation in town for being able to treat chronic pain.  I sat in her office and described my pain and the effect it was having on my life.  She laid her hand on mine, looked me in the eyes, and told me that she could cure my migraines.  I sat there and began to cry, imagining what a life without pain would look like.  She handed me several prescriptions and told me that if I was still in pain in a few days to call her.  I was stunned and asked her, “Do you really think that after all of these years, my migraines will be gone within days?”  She answered me with confidence:  “Absolutely.  You just haven’t found the right combination of medications yet.”

I walked out of her office with a stack of prescriptions and a heart full of hope.  As Monty and I went to the pharmacy and filled my prescriptions, I kept hearing those words: “within days.”  After all those years of pain so severe that I couldn’t function, I was going to be pain-free within days—cured, in fact.  By the time we got home with a whole bag full of medications from the pharmacy, I had a very bad migraine.  So I took the drug that the neurologist had told me would take care of the worst pain—fentanyl.  It came in little sugary lollipops that tasted like a slightly bitter raspberry.  I put one in my mouth, laid down on the couch, and waited.  As the medication melted into my mouth, my pain melted, too.  It didn’t go away, but it floated off into a cloud so soft and so comfortable that I no longer cared about pain.

Within days, I was completely addicted to that feeling.  And I spent the next ten years doing everything I could to keep it.  Hour after hour, day after day, month after month, year after year, I used those fentanyl lollipops.  And day after day, more of me melted away right along with the lollipops.  When I finally weaned myself off the fentanyl, I felt like I imagined a comatose person would feel when they woke up.  I looked around at what was left of my life—my relationships were nonexistent.  I hadn’t read a book or written in years because my brain was so numb.  Monty, though he had stood by me and tried to get me help, looked at me differently.  Ten years had passed, and I realized that as those drugs had melted in my mouth, pieces of me had melted, too.  I had no idea who I was anymore and no idea how to reclaim who I had been.

When I started my recovery journey, I didn’t know what to expect.  All I knew is that if I ever wanted to have some semblance of a life again, I was going to have to begin the battle of my life.  My life at that time was like a 10,000 piece jigsaw puzzle that someone had dumped on the floor and then spread out all over the place.  If I looked closely at the puzzle, I could see tiny pieces of myself.  Pieces of a life I had forgotten how to live.  How would I even begin to put that puzzle together?  At a table in the basement of an old building, my recovery group showed me how.  I learned that I couldn’t reclaim the life I used to have because it was gone.  I was going to have to build an entirely new life for myself.  Slowly but surely, I began.  I started to gather up those puzzle pieces and asked God to put them together in a way that made sense.

I felt such regret for the ten years I had wasted—an entire decade of my life had melted away, along with the drugs.  But God has redeemed those years.  He has put me back together and filled my life with people and things that matter to me.  And He has showed me a way to make my mess my message.  So I ask you—with so much compassion—are you letting your life melt away?  Are you letting a person or a substance or your own thoughts and habits erode pieces of your heart and soul?  What are you tolerating in your life that robs you of the person God created you to be?  I know what it’s like to slowly watch yourself melt—to waste your life bit by bit until one day you wake up and realize that slowly, day by day, you allowed the very essence of yourself to be erased.

Henry David Thoreau wrote, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”  I did—for ten years.  Are you living a life that looks good to other people, but deep down, you know it’s stripping you of who you are and taking pieces of you every day?  That’s the very definition of a life of desperation.  You may not notice it on a daily basis; like me, it may take you a while to wake up and realize that you’re wasting your life.  And life is so easily wasted.  It goes by so quickly.

My message that I gleaned from my mess?  Don’t waste your life.  Don’t let the dailiness of a life you’re barely tolerating erase who you are.  You don’t have to settle for a mediocre, desperate existence.  If God could take the puzzle pieces of my life that were in such a shambles and put them together in a way that formed a beautiful if unexpected scene, imagine what He can do for you.  You don’t have to waste ten years of your life waiting for that beauty.  You can start today, right where you are, and begin your own journey of recovery from the things or people in your life that are stealing bigger and bigger pieces of who you are.

John 10:10 says, “The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy.  My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.”  The choice is yours—a wasted life, or a rich and satisfying life?  I can promise you that once you choose to live the life God wants for you, your life will begin to change.  And before long, you’ll start to see those puzzle pieces coming together to form a beautiful picture that is uniquely yours.  Don’t waste ten years, like I did.  Don’t waste one more minute.  God has so much more for you than you can see right now.  Take His hand, trust Him to make a message out of your mess, and move forward into the life He created for you.  As we say at the end of every recovery meeting, you’re worth it.

For my response, click here.