Post by mommadee48 on Apr 30, 2021 6:09:23 GMT -5
FATHER JEHOVAH GOD PLACE THIS TRUE STORY in my heart to SHARE.
" A WRETCH LIKE ME" (After years of drug abuse, I finally got sober. I had no idea what God had in store for me".
I flopped onto my bed, exhausted. It was late, so late my teenagers were asleep. I'd put in extra hours working for a friend's online gift shop. Thanksgiving was a few weeks away, and holiday orders were already already piling up for the 2019 season. I was a single mother working two other jobs- maintenance at a community college, house cleaner-to support my family and launch my own addiction recovery program for women. All my hard work would pay off in the end, I was sure, but...LORD, I am tired.
I clicked open the Facebook app on my cell phone, hoping to scroll through smiling pictures of friends and family for a quick pick-me-up. But the first thing that popped up was a post- "My dad needs a new kidney"-from April Potter Holleman, the sister of my good high school friend Misti, who had died in 2011. Their father, Terrell Potter, now retired, had been an officer in our town's police department.
Before I could finish reading the post, a fully formed sentence appeared in my mind. (you have this man's kidney). I shot bolt upright. " God," I said, trying not to let my voice break, " I don't have time for this". "HOLY SPIRIT, have mercy"! I was pushing 40 with two teenagers to raise. I was caring for 92 women in addiction recovery, up to my neck in good works. I didn't have the energy to add another person to my roster.
Besides, who would want a kidney from a recovering addict, someone who'd abused her body the way I had? Certainly not an upstanding man of God like Mr. Potter. I didn't know him well, but I remembered from hanging out with his daughter that he lived a Christ-centered life. The kind I was striving for.
I got hooked on prescription opioids in 2007. I had a nice house then and a good job as an electrician at a mobile home plant. Though he and I were divorced, the kids' father was in their lives, and I was grateful for that after growing up without a dad. Then I had six operations to remove cancerous cells from my ovaries. A doctor wrote scrips for my post-surgical pain. Finally I had to have a hysterectomy.
That surgery left me reeling. My hope of having more children someday was gone. I'd lost something so foundational to my sense of worth and womanhood. I felt like damaged goods. When the doctor stopped writing scrips, I bought pills from people at work, then from dealers on the street. The next thing I knew, I was shooting OxyContin-a faster, more intense high than taking pills.
I spiraled fast. I lost my job, my car, my friends. Were my kids fed? Did they get to day care or school? I didn't care. About them. About anything. Except getting high.
During the years that followed, the one constant, if you could call it that, was the town police department. I was arrested for the first time in 2007 for possession of a controlled substance, then another 15 times over the next five years. "You're trying to ruin my life," I'd scream when an officer booked me. " You want to get me in trouble."
In 2009, I was arrested for possession of stolen property and fraudulent credit card use. I recognized the officer. Terrell Potter. I'd been to his house, eaten at his table, laughed with his daughter. It didn't matter. At that moment, I hated him. "You're a bunch of pigs", I snarled, getting cuffed against the cruiser. "I'm not hurting anyone!"
"Watch your head," he replied quietly, ducking me into the back seat. "We're just doing our job, Jocelynn."
I was a repeat offender, a junkie. Most cops spoke to me with contempt, treated me as if I were worthless. Not Terrell Potter, even after arresting me several times. He always treated me with respect. He would ask about my mom and my children. When through the haze of addiction, I could see something different in his eyes- different not only from the other officers but also from how most people looked at me. There was a kindness. Compassion. Hope. Hope that I didn't have. As if he was somehow able to look past the unkempt hair and dirty clothes, the physical wreck of the addict, to the suffering human being inside. Someone who could still be saved.
By November 2012, I'd lost my house and moved in with my ex-husband. We were watching the local news one night when my face popped up with "Alabama's Most Wanted" in big letters underneath. I'd made the paper plenty of times, but somehow seeing myself on TV jolted me. "Is that for your speeding tickets, Mama?" my daughter asked.
THAT'S IT, I thought, I'm done living like this. I don't want to lie to my kids anymore.
I turned myself in the next morning. The children were better off with my ex and my mom. I hadn't been much of a mother.
I thought I would be sent straight to rehab. Instead I was sentenced to serve six long months in Franklin County Jail. What a place to detox.
Sometimes a woman from the jail ministry, Miss Cooper, would come talk to the female inmates. "Our bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit, " she'd say. " Corinthians reminds us to glorify God with our bodies and treat them with care."
" A WRETCH LIKE ME" (After years of drug abuse, I finally got sober. I had no idea what God had in store for me".
I flopped onto my bed, exhausted. It was late, so late my teenagers were asleep. I'd put in extra hours working for a friend's online gift shop. Thanksgiving was a few weeks away, and holiday orders were already already piling up for the 2019 season. I was a single mother working two other jobs- maintenance at a community college, house cleaner-to support my family and launch my own addiction recovery program for women. All my hard work would pay off in the end, I was sure, but...LORD, I am tired.
I clicked open the Facebook app on my cell phone, hoping to scroll through smiling pictures of friends and family for a quick pick-me-up. But the first thing that popped up was a post- "My dad needs a new kidney"-from April Potter Holleman, the sister of my good high school friend Misti, who had died in 2011. Their father, Terrell Potter, now retired, had been an officer in our town's police department.
Before I could finish reading the post, a fully formed sentence appeared in my mind. (you have this man's kidney). I shot bolt upright. " God," I said, trying not to let my voice break, " I don't have time for this". "HOLY SPIRIT, have mercy"! I was pushing 40 with two teenagers to raise. I was caring for 92 women in addiction recovery, up to my neck in good works. I didn't have the energy to add another person to my roster.
Besides, who would want a kidney from a recovering addict, someone who'd abused her body the way I had? Certainly not an upstanding man of God like Mr. Potter. I didn't know him well, but I remembered from hanging out with his daughter that he lived a Christ-centered life. The kind I was striving for.
I got hooked on prescription opioids in 2007. I had a nice house then and a good job as an electrician at a mobile home plant. Though he and I were divorced, the kids' father was in their lives, and I was grateful for that after growing up without a dad. Then I had six operations to remove cancerous cells from my ovaries. A doctor wrote scrips for my post-surgical pain. Finally I had to have a hysterectomy.
That surgery left me reeling. My hope of having more children someday was gone. I'd lost something so foundational to my sense of worth and womanhood. I felt like damaged goods. When the doctor stopped writing scrips, I bought pills from people at work, then from dealers on the street. The next thing I knew, I was shooting OxyContin-a faster, more intense high than taking pills.
I spiraled fast. I lost my job, my car, my friends. Were my kids fed? Did they get to day care or school? I didn't care. About them. About anything. Except getting high.
During the years that followed, the one constant, if you could call it that, was the town police department. I was arrested for the first time in 2007 for possession of a controlled substance, then another 15 times over the next five years. "You're trying to ruin my life," I'd scream when an officer booked me. " You want to get me in trouble."
In 2009, I was arrested for possession of stolen property and fraudulent credit card use. I recognized the officer. Terrell Potter. I'd been to his house, eaten at his table, laughed with his daughter. It didn't matter. At that moment, I hated him. "You're a bunch of pigs", I snarled, getting cuffed against the cruiser. "I'm not hurting anyone!"
"Watch your head," he replied quietly, ducking me into the back seat. "We're just doing our job, Jocelynn."
I was a repeat offender, a junkie. Most cops spoke to me with contempt, treated me as if I were worthless. Not Terrell Potter, even after arresting me several times. He always treated me with respect. He would ask about my mom and my children. When through the haze of addiction, I could see something different in his eyes- different not only from the other officers but also from how most people looked at me. There was a kindness. Compassion. Hope. Hope that I didn't have. As if he was somehow able to look past the unkempt hair and dirty clothes, the physical wreck of the addict, to the suffering human being inside. Someone who could still be saved.
By November 2012, I'd lost my house and moved in with my ex-husband. We were watching the local news one night when my face popped up with "Alabama's Most Wanted" in big letters underneath. I'd made the paper plenty of times, but somehow seeing myself on TV jolted me. "Is that for your speeding tickets, Mama?" my daughter asked.
THAT'S IT, I thought, I'm done living like this. I don't want to lie to my kids anymore.
I turned myself in the next morning. The children were better off with my ex and my mom. I hadn't been much of a mother.
I thought I would be sent straight to rehab. Instead I was sentenced to serve six long months in Franklin County Jail. What a place to detox.
Sometimes a woman from the jail ministry, Miss Cooper, would come talk to the female inmates. "Our bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit, " she'd say. " Corinthians reminds us to glorify God with our bodies and treat them with care."