I’ve heard it said that three out of four children of alcoholic parents will, in turn, abuse alcohol themselves. As a child, my step-father* was alcoholic and quite abusive in different ways. We lived in a mobile home in southern Louisiana at the time and life was hard. Work was tough to come by for him so the comforts of money were elusive for our family. When it was found, payday checks were often spent in the bar while my sister and I would wait in the truck. Eventually the pressures of life, poor choices, and the effects of alcoholism turned our home into a scary place.
But, God intervened.
He came alongside my mother in the form of a friend who helped her with the courage to get us out of that environment for the sake of health & safety. She turned her heart over to Christ and pursued a new life in Him. Which, then, led me to do the same at 11 years old.
As I look back on my life and reflect on the above statistic, I find myself thankful for the powerful work of Christ. Because of His intervention, I am not who I would’ve been had He not entered into our hearts.
The power of the life-giving presence that I have experienced from His Spirit is expressed in Romans 8:11, my life verse: “And if the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.”
Hearing the stories of the guys of Minnesota Teen Challenge today in church reminds me of how truly thankful I am for the work of Christ in my life…grateful for the life I never lived.
* I’ve had three fathers: My birth father till I was about 2; My 1st step-father, the one I speak of in this post, till I was 11; My 2nd step-father (the one I call my “Dad”) from when I was 13 till the present.
