This fiery sunrise photo was taken Christmas morning. The inset photo was taken the morning of January 5th. The pier leading out to the famous Cement Ship in Aptos was gone in an instant from our last storm.
The loss I felt looking at this sight felt huge with the weight of what it represented for me.
Stability gone.
Wiped out. That is what addiction does to families.
As sad as it was to see half of the pier missing, perhaps it took a “storm” in my own life to clear out the broken and decayed parts. In the wake of our addiction, we leave damage behind—in the form of broken relationships with all those we claim to love. We had become “hard to love” in our broken state. People didn’t know how to deal with our chaos and instability. WE didn’t know how to deal with our own addiction and behaviors—so the storm raged on.
The illusion of what we thought was working (because we didn’t know another way) gets ripped away when the final destructive wave of bad behavior hits us. Breaking the old brittle piers away. We are stripped bare.
When that happened for me, I had to surrender to the myth of “having it all together” that I had created, and face the truth—that I was powerless and my life had become unmanageable. Time to try something different. New behaviors.
The good news is that my foundation was still there on which to rebuild. God was my anchor. When I finally surrendered, I was able to ask God for help. Then, ask people for help. To begin the process of building something entirely new that was more beautiful and functional than the previous structure.
The rebuild process of recovery is long and continuous. Step by step. The waves of life keep coming, but the foundation keeps getting stronger. The incremental steps become monumental moving forward.
It’s never too late to rebuild.
Start today.
You won’t regret it.
“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”
Matthew 7:24-27
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