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I pulled this memory from another platform of mine. I wrote it following a sermon Pastor Brady preached on 'Washing Feet' (serving) and one of his points being "your testimony is your towel." The day after his sermon, the picture below popped up in my Facebook memories. It was one of those Holy Spirit moments, where you're trying to ignore the nudge because sharing the parts of your testimony that you had omitted is hard. Obviouslyyyyy, that's why I omitted them in the first place. ha. Being vulnerable isn't always easy. Opening yourself up for judgement and rejection isn't always easy. But I'm learning, nothing about your calling is easy. And when your called, you know its not an option nor a suggestion, it is a command.

Numbing it all was temporary and the way I've learned to lean on Jesus is eternal.

November will make 18 months sober.

April 2023 I prayed a very specific prayer that I heard a former alcoholic say she prayed to stop drinking. And no, for those of us that have spent the years on and off in AA and NA, not the serenity prayer.  And no, I didn't actually think it would work the exact moment the words rolled off my tongue.

Since I was 15 years old, (15, y'all ) I've never been an entire year sober. The longest I had ever been was the 8-ish months through my pregnancies, because... well, you usually don't find out until about 5/6 weeks into the pregnancy, so please believe I was drinking the first several weeks, and within weeks of the boys being born- I was drinking again.

For a lot of those 21 years of drinking, I convinced everyone around me that I had it under control, when I was 100% being controlled by alcohol. Scarier than being an alcoholic, is being a functioning one. One that no one suspected for the most part, the people closest to me didn't have a clue, I could work without error, I could take care of my babies, and drive a car effortlessly.

I've battled crippling anxiety most of my life. I've spent a lot my life 100% high strung, over the top, and alcohol would bring me, to what I assumed, normal people's baseline was. It would make me calm, patient, social, rational, contrary to what we think alcohol would do. So there it was, my crutch, my medicine, my solution. But everything that is up, must come down and eventually the bottom of a to full bucket cannot bear the weight and falls out.

You start to notice when you wake up in the morning, you're shaking, you can't write well and you drop things. At first, you ignore it, until you realize that as soon as you drink, those things subside- you're able to fill your body's physical need with alcohol. At some point it turns from you having it under control to alcohol controlling you. Your body can no longer physically function properly without it. So the drinks start earlier and earlier with each passing year, and tolerance grows higher and higher in those years too.

You can't ask for help, or you'll be labeled as a bad mom and often times risk losing your kids. But everyday when you look in the mirror, you already feel like a failing mother, that's one day away from losing control and losing your kids. Just have a drink and those fears fade. That's another day's problem.

And then one day, it is that day's problem. For those of you that don't know, now you will. In 2017, I attempted suicide, and alcohol amongst other things, would be my partner in crime. While the enemy, was speaking lies of 'there is no other way,' and 'your kids will be better off without you anyways,' alcohol was speaking lies of 'you've got the guts to do it, you can do it' and 'I'll help you follow through' and I believed them both. You'd think waking up in a hospital bed several days later, realizing you just lost everything, would be enough to never look back. But it wasn't, I just didn't look at it long enough to get through all the hoops with the court system and get my kids back. I had 90 days to prove to a judge and complete all the things... and I did. July 19 2017 - Nov 13 2017, were the longest weeks of my life.

But court was settled, my kids were back, normalcy would follow too. Then came my 30th birthday. Nov 30 2017, alcohol came and so did I, and that was that. A bitter sweet re-unite I suppose. I had been sober for 4 months. I got this. I, in-fact, did not have this. I'll just drink the weekends when the kids go to their dads. The physical shakes and stuff were gone now, that's really why I started to lose control in the first place. I just won't let it get there... only 4 days out of the month, is good, right? I can enjoy those 4 days, and the other 26- I'll do this sober. Wrong, all wrong. Lies, all lies.

You wanna know why? Because alcohol had been and would always be a crutch, medicine, and/or solution to any and every problem I had. Because I never learned to work through anything without it. I hadn't fully learned to lean on Jesus instead of worldly resources, and this life would come with more troubles, heart aches, and challenges as the years passed by.

I watched my dad struggle with being an alcoholic my entire life. The battle was fierce, some seasons he lost and some he won, but he remained in that war zone until his death bed. He would get a DUI, lose everything, live with me, have a giant Health scare. Repeat. Scared enough to get sober, and then slowly start losing the battle again. DUI, lose everything, come live with me, health scare. Repeat. And again. And again. He never stopped battling it though. He never gave up trying to win that battle.

Though a righteous man fall 7 times, he will rise again - Psalm 24:16.

His dad battled the same, as did his grandpa, and great grandpa, and their grandpa- generationally as far back as we can see. I don't know why I felt the need to dance with that devil, that I may have a different relationship with it. While the enemy will never have the power nor authority over your future, he relies heavily and remains hopeful on history repeating itself. Oddly, after my dad died, the first 6 weeks or so- I refused to touch a drop of alcohol. I was terrified with my mental state at the time where that might lead to and fearing it would take the lead in running me right back to a similar place I was, in 2017. But once I did finally drink and I felt the pain subside for even a moment, the chase began.

I do have a different outcome than the generations prior to me. While alcohol may have invaded 21 years of my life. It won't enter another year of it.

In April of 2023, I prayed specifically the following, "Lord, please remove my desire to drink alcohol." Followed with some more conversational pieces between him and I. Here is the crazy part, I don't even know the exact date, because I didn't realize it would happen the way it did. I had prayed a lot of times throughout my life to quit drinking. While the drought may have came for a few days, maybe a week or so, it never remained much longer. All I do know is, we took Peyton and some friends on a spring break trip the last week in March of 2023 and I drank. A lot. the week we came back, at some point I prayed while sitting in a green chair at the head of my kitchen table, closest to the mirror.

I didn't realize what just took place. A a week or so later I went to refrigerator and all of the alcohol we brought back from the Spring break trip, caught my eye. It was all there. Every bit of it. It had been over a week and I hadn't had a drink and I didn't even realize it, until that very moment. If you knew me, you knew alcohol never stayed in the refrigerator because we would drink it and replace it, daily. Literally daily.

Fast forward, today I still no longer have the desire to drink on the daily. However, life hit me pretty hard several months ago [yeah, it's a story for another day] But all of the sudden emotions were starting to consume me, and the thoughts (the lies) started popping up periodically. But they never got very far. Those are some thoughts I've learned to not play with and

immediately take captive and make obedient to Christ - 2 Corinthians 10:5.

Jesus loves you and I'm trying!

Jennifer #sittingwithsinners