From Teenage Drug Addict into the Arms of God

I was addicted to drugs at a young age. The first time I ever got drunk was when I was 13, and it was all downhill from there.

By 14 I was a regular stoner and smoked a few packs of cigarettes a week. 14 was also the age that I first did coke. It probably wasn’t a surprise to anyone I knew that I ended up pregnant at 15 and a half, a mom at 16.

If only my addiction had stopped there. But it didn’t.

My ex and I would do coke and party all weekend, then fight as he tried to find a job all week. When my daughter was about 10 months old, I moved out and back in with my mom and met a new guy. Not a better guy, just a new one.

This guy introduced me to meth, which was to become my BFF for the next 3 years. It was during this time that I did some of the most depraved, wicked things you could think of. Luckily I didn’t drag my precious daughter through the fire with me-my mom took care of her during this lowest of all lows in my life.

But the meth. It consumed my soul. It owned me. I was a slave to the drug. A willing victim to it’s power over my life. There is so much I could write about this time of my life, a whole books worth, and maybe someday I will.

For this post though, I want to focus on how God led me and protected me, even when I was running as fast as I could away from Him.

There were many times during those spun out years that I found myself in some extremely dangerous situations with some really bad people.

In one particular instance, I found myself driving off from a friends house with a guy I had just met 5 minutes ago to go get high. (Unfortunately, this wasn’t a rare occurrence.) Later, when I wanted to go home, he decided to drive in the opposite direction, up a lonely mountain road. He kept driving until well after dark when he pulled over and stopped the car. I immediately knew something was up and wanted to run, but there were no houses nearby and no streetlights. Plus I had no idea where we were. I watched out the rearview mirror as I saw his shadowy figure grab something out of the back of the truck and come around to my side. I looked down and grabbed the only thing I saw, a big Mag Lite flashlight and shone it right in his face as he opened my door. I don’t know whether I startled him or whether something else changed his mind, because he started making these weird bull sounds and walked back around the truck and we drove off. Instead of driving me back home though, he took me to some little trailer on someone’s property where I sat in the corner with that flashlight watching him pace back and forth. He occasionally ran his foot across the floor like a bull getting ready to charge and making weird animal sounds. He finally passed out and I ran out of there and somehow found a ride back home. I later found out that he was mentally unstable (you think!) and dangerous.

Another time, a so-called friend had ditched me at a strangers house to go off with some guy, and instead of staying there I took off walking in the middle of the night. I ended up at some gas station about 30 minutes from home. After sitting there for quite a while, a guy in one of those old hippy vans pulled up and asked if I wanted a ride. I took it, he ended up taking me straight where I needed to go, and he was so sweet-he even had a dog. I don’t remember what we talked about because I had my guard up. I can tell you that he must have been Heaven sent because even now when I think about it I feel very peaceful, like I was definitely safe.

In the interest of keeping this blog post fairly short, those are the only 2 instances I will write about, but there are at least 10 more I can recall off the top of my head. Instances where something really bad should have happened to me and was going to-but for some reason or other it didn’t. And also instances where the right person came along at the right time and helped me out.

I don’t believe in luck-I truly believe and know in my heart that it was God looking out for me, even when I wanted nothing to do with Him. My life could have turned out so very differently, and I have heard many horror stories of girls going missing or being killed in the exact same circumstances I found myself in time and time again. The only explanation is God. He was waiting for me to come to Him, and sheltering me from the worst until I got there.

In Susan B. Mead’s book, “Dance With Jesus,” she talks about a little girl who claims to have seen revelations from Heaven and paints marvelous paintings. She quotes the girl as saying,

“Sometimes we meet certain angels that appear like humans, and we don’t know it. Many of us have been saved from many accidents, and we don’t know it either.”

And the Bible says in Hebrews 13:3- “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” (KJV)

I don’t know why God chose to protect me during those years, especially when so many people perish or never get away from the drugs. I do know that if I had died in that time, Heaven would not have been my destination. I am so grateful He brought me through those times and into His arms.

You might find me linked up to some of these blogs.