One of the things I’ve noted about working with recovery is the process of one’s awakening to their need for taking steps. We often call it: peeling the onion. Last night I took a chip for 14 years of working with Celebrate Recovery for my own personal recovery. I told the group that I came to CR to overcome a pornography addiction. I’d never thought of myself as having an addictive personality, but this one had gripped me. After my first year I had told our leadership team I’d have to resign from leading. I was a failure in that the addiction was worse. Spending a year of raw confession and admission only increased the desire and I was helpless to overcome it. It was then that our other ministry leader told me I wasn’t quitting. Instead, I was to go forward the next week and take a chip. I was trying to address the wrong thing. I wanted to quit using porn when I was denying the depth of hurt from all the years of abuse I had kept walled away. She said I needed to go back to counseling and address what I still hadn’t. So, I took a chip the following week for a year of “not giving up” and switched my focus. It was then I started what became 3 years of therapy and counseling addressing the demons of abuse. CR became the support I needed as I weekly went to the therapy sessions which peeled an onion much larger than any onion I’d ever grown in my garden! I also shed many tears in the peeling process!

Today I see so many men stuck as I was after that first year. One gentleman wanted to talk last night afterward CR ended. He has been coming to CR for 4 years and is finishing the Mending the Soul class we do on Sundays. He is stuck (as I had found myself). This morning he is calling the counselor I now recommend who is truly great in this area of need. I rejoice in my heart knowing another child of God is taking a huge risk (another step), but the next best one. God is truly at work!