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Nailing It To The Cross
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Nailing It To A Cross
I smiled as I heard laughter at the campsite next to me. Two children were playing catch with their father. I saw them later at the beach. I noticed the father carefully watching them swimming.
I met their mother in the camp bathroom. The showers were pay showers. “Do you have a quarter I can borrow?” she asked. I laughed. I certainly had plenty of quarters. As I gave her a quarter, I told Twilene that I was traveling across America and writing the spiritual stories of Americans.
“You must write my story,” Twilene insisted. “God has turned our lives around.” She proceeded with her story. “My husband Mike and I were not Christians. We were addicted to drugs and alcohol. We both still worked but spent our evenings and weekends partying.” She stopped for a minute to give her young daughter one of my quarters.
“When Peter was born, we knew something had to change. We would lay in bed talking with him in between us. We even talked about God. We would vow that this was the last day we would live like this. We wanted to change for Peter’s sake. The next morning our life would begin again. Now matter how hard we tried, we could not change our lives.”
No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. Matthew 6:24 NIV
“We desperately loved Peter. We had so much fun with him. His laughter would light up an entire room.” 1994 began as a difficult year for Mike and Twilene. Twilene's mother died suddenly. Twilene used alcohol to cope. “I could not imagine my life without her,” Twilene told me. “She was my lifeline to a good and decent life that I had abandoned. I felt such guilt that I had worried her. I wallowed in my grief.”
Months went by and Twilene sunk deeper and deeper into addiction and depression. “Some friends invited us to go on a camping trip. I didn’t want to go but Mike thought it would be good for me.”
Mike and his friend decided to go white water rafting. “Come with us,” Mike pleaded. “It’s a calm river. It will do you good.”
“You have been drinking,” Twilene commented. “I don’t feel safe. Besides, I don’t want to go.”
Mike grew angry. “Fine! You can stay here feeling sorry for yourself but Peter is coming with me.”
Twilene felt a knot in her stomach. “Don’t take Peter,” she begged. “You have been drinking.”
Mike ignored her. “I haven't had that much to drink. Besides, it was only beer and the river is calm. I will be right with him.”
“Put on his coat,” Twilene suggested. “It’s cold.” Mike did as she asked. “Remember to put a life jacket on him,” she begged.
“They were gone so long. I became terrified. I realized that I should have gone. I fretted and paced as I waited. Suddenly I saw Mike coming up to the campsite alone. 'Where is Peter?' I screamed.”
The river had not been calm. Peter had fallen out of the boat. He had simply slipped off the side and disappeared. It took them 5 hours to find his small body. Bruises on his legs indicated that he got tangled in rocks. He was still wearing his little coat when they found him. He was not wearing a life jacket.
“It was too much. I lost my ability to function. I stopped going to work. My drinking grew worse. Mike was lost in his own grief and could not help me. We both blamed him. Mike spent his days at work and his evenings in bars.”
“There was a man that lived in our neighborhood. He was always talking about God. Mike and I made fun of him and thought he was a little crazy. After we lost Peter, this man was kind to us. He even brought me a “red-letter edition” of the Bible.”
One day, out of desperation, Twilene began to read her Bible. “The words of Jesus were in red. I wanted to believe I would see Peter again. I read about heaven. I felt so guilty about not taking care of Peter. I read about forgiveness. I decided that I wanted the Hope I was reading about.”
“I fell to my knees and sobbed. I poured out my guilt. I poured out my anger at Mike. I asked Jesus to come into my life.” God entered her life that day. He gave her the blessed peace of His grace. “How good He is. How loved I felt. Not only did He forgive me, He has no memory of my mistakes.”
"For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more." Heb 8:12 NIV
“I knew that if God forgave me, I had to forgive Mike. I knew because I read it in the Bible, in red.”
"And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins." Mark 11:25 NIV
“I asked God to help me forgive Mike and to love him again. When Mike came home that day, he was greeted by love. How he needed that love. It took him a month to surrender to it. He saw the change in my life. He was haunted by his grief and guilt. He could not forgive himself. Finally, out of desperation, Mike surrendered to God’s peace. He confessed his mistakes and asked Jesus into his life.”
“God immediately took our need for drugs and alcohol away. Neither of us have had either since we accepted Christ. We knew that God wanted to use us. We asked what He wanted us to do.”
God led them to the local Salvation Army Church. He uses their past to help people trapped by the same addictions as those that had trapped them. “We have to listen to the voice of God everyday. Satan would love to pull us back into the guilt and shame. We do not accept it. We have to pray without ceasing. We carry such scars. We were afraid to have more children. We wondered if we could be good parents. We realized that with the help of Christ, we could do anything.”
God has blessed them with the two sweet children I had watched playing ball with Mike. “Going camping again was terrifying. We had to trust God with our memories. He might not remember our past but we did. We don’t make much money and camping is the only way we can take a family vacation. God told us to relax and enjoy it. We pray during every camping trip. We pray when we go out in a boat. We pray when our children are swimming, laughing, or running. We thank God continually for the joy in our lives.”
For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Colossians 1:13-14 NIV
As Twilene told her story, tears were rolling down her face. Her son ran into the bathroom and smiled. “Mommy must be talking about my brother again. Losing him broke her heart. Alcohol is the devil’s drink and drugs are the devil’s food,” he reported before running off to play.
Twilene ended her story by saying, “It has not always been easy. There are scars. Mike will always be nervous when he sees our children swimming. We have to trust God and live our lives. We depend on Him minute by minute. We talk to Him all day long. We ask Him about everything. We were like little children that had to learn to walk. He is faithful.”
"I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth. These are the things I will do;" Isaiah 42:16 NIV
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