MIKE | As long as Jesus has got a hand in it, anything is possible
“Just say no? Sometimes it’s hard to say no, especially when you’re an addict.
Mike
We were doing methamphetamines, me and my wife. I have a family: my two girls and Michael.
We knew other people that were involved in the same stuff but they had their lights shut off. They had two kids taken away. I said, ‘we’re not bad. We haven’t had that done to us.’
We used to smoke pot at first and it would be like, ‘lay back, kick back’. And then you go to speed and it’s a whole different crowd. It’s a vicious crowd. It’s a vicious drug. It’s different.
I’m just using, I’m using, using. And later on it was meth. We used a lot of meth.
My wife, she wanted to and then I didn’t want to quit. And then a little while went by and I wanted to quit and she didn’t want to quit.
Finally, Cindy was this lady who worked at The Salvation Army. She was coming through the neighborhood picking up the kids.
We went down there and checked it out and she says, ‘we need a couple volunteers.’ So I raised my hand.
That’s where God started to work on me. I washed dishes and I sweated and there was water all over me. And it was a good feeling: I was doing something good. And then after that, we did it as a family. It just gave me that self-worth.
Then the next question was, ‘do you want to come to Bible study?’ We looked at each other like, ‘boring!’ They said, ‘just come. if you don’t like it you don’t have to come back.’
So we came and they were talking about reconciliation and we gave ourselves to the Lord. It was cleansing. God just took it and we felt free. We felt free.”
Salvation Army Major Mario Reyes “Many people in the church are not used to people in recovery and we don’t know how to approach them. We need to learn how to be open to them and not be so standoffish because if we don’t welcome them in, where will they go?”
Mike
“Like I tell every guy that comes in out of addiction, ‘we love you. God loves you. Seriously, in my heart I pray for you every day. All you guys.’
As long as Jesus has got a hand in it, anything is possible. I should know that. I should know that of all.”
If you want to volunteer with The Salvation Army and help families like Mike’s please visit our volunteer registration site.
If you want to know more about how your gifts of gently-used items help The Salvation Army’s drug and alcohol rehabilitation centers, please visit us at www.satruck.org