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I noticed that a lot of people click on my blog because they’re spiritually seeking, and not just interested in addiction and relationship issues. So I thought I’d post a little bit about my story.
I came from a pretty secular background. My parents are not Christians, though my mum is a bit New-Agey. My dad is not interested at all, really. I always had a vague belief in God, though at times I’d have called myself agnostic.
My interest in God was really triggered when I read a book called, ‘Women who love too much’ by Robin Norwood. This book is about women who are always in negative relationships where they are hurt. I think the back of the book says something like, ‘if being in love means being in pain, this book is for you’. But the key as relates to this post was a short comment in the book, that those who recover from this kind of problem nearly always had a spiritual aspect to their life.
So I started searching. I read books on buddhism, for example those written by the Dalai Lama. I read the Koran. I read vague books about spirituality from a New Age perspective, like the Celestine Prophecy. I read the New Testament. The latter is what really interested me – the person of Jesus. But I didn’t like what I thought I knew about Christianity.
I started attending a local church which was quite liberal. I started to read books by liberal Christians. there was just something about Jesus that drew me to him, and a sense of God’s presence in church meetings. Gradually, my interest in and commitment to Jesus won over my prejudice about the church, and now I’d call myself a Christian. It was a long slow process though. I’m very grateful for God’s love in my life and how much I have been made emotionally and spiritually richer through my faith.
I think being religious brings loads of advantages to people who are doing the 12 steps. There is a concept of who God is, rather than just who you think God is. There are clear guidelines about what and how you should love. There is structure and direction. Most of all, for me, there is Jesus, and my living relationship with Him. I know it’s unfashionable to be Christian, but I’d really suggest that people explore it rather than go on the negative stuff that can come out of churches sometimes. It’s been a real blessing to me.
I love Tenth Avenue North. Their lyrics are really deep and help me connect to God when I’m feeling pain. I particularly love this one, which has a beautiful video too:
If the embed isn’t working try http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J95rAr0gOFU
I used to assess my worth on the basis of how loved I had been by the people in my life. Sadly, that was often not very much. I felt unloved by most of the people in my life – I felt that they often just weren’t very interested in me. Later I learned that often I kept people at a distance – and I also often tried to get love from people who were incapable of giving it. But that understanding came a lot later, after I had found the Love I’d been looking for all my life.
What transformed me in recovery was accepting that God loved me. This is a love that I can choose to accept or not. But it’s different from the love that human beings can bring. It’s not because of what I can do, or the good things I have done. It’s just love. And the flip side of that is more amazing – even though I’ve done bad things in my life, and even though often my motives are bad and I get things wrong, God loves me. He even took the consequences of my bad actions onto himself, in the person of Jesus. Jesus loves me, and will love me.
I love this song from JJ Heller…
I used to really struggle with doubt. When I started thinking seriously about spiritual things, I found it really hard to believe that there was more than just the material world, the atoms, organisms, planets and galaxies that are visible to the eye. That’s how we’re usually brought up in the West, to just believe in what we can see.
I believe there is a much more important dimension of experience though – the heart. Some people would call it the soul, or the instinct, the psyche, or even just the emotions. It’s our experience and our being – much more than what words are travelling around in our minds and what we see and touch. It’s our heart that knows truth when we find it, and our heart that also hides the truth, when we don’t want to accept it.
If you’re struggling with doubt about God or a Higher Power, I thought I’d share some things that helped me. The first is the testimony of near death experiences. Howard Storm’s was the most powerful in his book, ‘My descent into death; and the message of love that brought me back’. His website is at www.howardstorm.com.
I also read the Bible a lot, particularly the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John (you can get them online at http://www.biblegateway.com). A book by Brian McLaren helped me to understand something of God’s intentions for the earth, called the Secret Message of Jesus. CS Lewis’s Mere Christianity is pretty good.
When I was going through a lot of pain, reading stories of people who had walked a painful path was really helpful. Corrie Ten Boom’s story of surviving a concentration camp was massively inspiring, ‘The Hiding Place’. Other inspiring stories included those of Nicky Cruz and Jackie Pullinger.
I also found listening to Christian music really helpful, including Iona’s ‘Journey into the Morn’, a generic album of praise and worship songs, Jennifer Knapp, and other God-focused music.
At the start, I did read lots of books about other faiths too, but Christianity felt and fitted the best, I just found Jesus so compelling and healing.
There’s a good book which is more recent called ‘The Reason for God’ by Timothy Keller, which I’d highly recommend.
Most of all, what I found to be true, was ‘seek, and ye shall find’.
Finding the Way 