This week marks the start of Celebrate Recovery as a ministry for us at Browncroft. Chances are you have seen a postcard, a video, or a bulletin announcement about it. And, chances are you probably still have some questions about it. Questions like, what is it? Is it for me? What happens? Etc. I suppose I could just tick through the particulars and encourage you to come. I don’t think I want to do that. It is so boring. So predictable and left-brain. So unlike Celebrate Recovery. Celebrate Recovery isn’t about particulars. It is about healing, so let me tell you a story of healing. . .mine.

Some of you know my story. I don’t keep it a secret. The truth is I grew up in a home that was the perfect picture of dysfunction. It should have been the perfect home. Both of my parents were educators, people devoted to nurturing others. They both professed to be believers and took my brother and me to church every time the doors were open. On Sundays and at every other church activity my family looked perfect. The rest of the time. . . not so much. I spent my childhood performing to avoid the physical and emotional wrath of my father, my teenage years performing to earn the love of my mother, and my college years performing to keep both of them from attacking me and my brother as their relationship spun out of control. Needless to say I learned that life was all about image. I learned that love was conditional. Affection was earned. Most of all, I learned that the normal emotional state of people, including God, was disappointment.

Early on I discovered that if I tried hard enough, and did well enough, I could turn disappointment into approval, and when necessary, safety. As I grew older, performance got harder. The tasks got bigger and the competition got stiff. I couldn’t always rise to the top. I couldn’t always succeed. While I didn’t have my family hovering over me, driving me on, someone worse was there. Me. Somehow I had become my own worst enemy, a slave-driver of self that was never satisfied with anything less than perfection of myself and others. I was ruthless and relentless. Only the best was good enough. The trouble was that I was straining under the load of perfection and I had left a trail of broken people behind me who had already crumpled under a load that was too heavy for anyone to bear. Finally, even I collapsed. It was three years ago this past November that I sat on a counselor’s couch and heard a single diagnosis, “burnout.” I could barely get out of bed in the morning much less function. I had effectively driven myself into the ground at a ripe old age of thirty five. With success like that, who needs failure?

I had hit bottom. I didn’t know what to do or where to turn. As I sat on that counselor’s couch I began to discover that I had an enemy and that enemy was me. The only person that could rescue me from myself was God. A counselor’s couch turned into a chair with a spiritual director, and together we began to work on what I now recognize as the first steps found in Celebrate Recovery. I had to admit that I was powerless over my compulsive behaviors of performing and image management, and that my life had become unmanageable. I had to come to believe that a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity. Only God could help. Therefore, I began the slow process of turning myself over to God to begin the process of healing what I had covered up for years. It will be three years in a month and those that know me the best will tell you that I am not the same person I was three years ago. They might tell you in their honest moments that I still have a long way to go, but they like this fellow a whole lot more than they liked the old fellow. They most certainly will tell you that they see in me that life can be different and that the power of the gospel is effective for this life and not just for the life to come.

My story is no different than the countless other stories that have and will come out of Celebrate Recovery. Life does not have to be broken. Relationships do not have to be strained. Hurts do not have to bleed forever. In Christ and through him is real healing. It starts when we admit that our lives have become unmanageable and that only God, the true power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity, health, and wholeness.

A fellow traveler,

Blake
Spiritual Formation Pastor