Today is Sunday, June 28, 2026; it’s exactly 7 days before my birthday. I’m sitting in the patio viewing area of Parkcrest Church for the 9 am Sunday service. My kids and I have taken to sitting right outside the sanctuary when we run a little late for service.
It’s nice sitting here under what looks like a big ficus tree. The patio has a sail shade across the area, hung right under the tree. It covered the glare of the morning sun. I feel a slight cold breeze on my face, and I’m grateful to be alive and happy I made it to church this morning for early service. I’ve been waking up to pray during the 4th watch of the night, and on Sunday mornings it’s always tempting to go back to sleep around 6:45 am when I should just stay up to get ready for Sunday service.
This morning, when I walked through the church’s welcome area (coffee, tea, blueberry-glazed donuts, oh my!), I noticed the Celebrate Recovery (CR) tent was raised. The CR info table was staffed by 2 ministry leaders, Gary and his wife Teresa. They happen to be the two mentors that were there for me at the start of my sobriety journey. They taught, walked, and “did” life with me during a time that can’t be walked and journeyed alone—a time of willing transparency and accountability.
Pastor Anthony, who was always dropping gems, was preaching that day. He was in week 11 and was wrapping up the series “Who do you say I am? A theology of identity”
The sub-topic was called “My Story: The Identity that Christ Redeems.”
He starts: “Beneath every identity we’ve talked about in this series, there’s something even deeper. There’s a story. And every single one of us has a story. Your story is a collection of your design; your decisions, your desires, your dreams, your wounds, your wins, your losses, your regrets, your survival, your suffering, your success, your hope.
Your story includes what God created; what sin distorted; what others did to you and for you; and what you did and what you’ve overcome.
Your story matters; your story is real, but it was never meant to define you
Your story was meant to reveal God’s grace through you”
He begins to unpack the story in John chapter 5 about the healing of the lame man in Bethesda. My ears instantly perk up; I was reminded of my first day at Celebrate Recovery.
God knows I’m a hard learner when it comes to change and introspection. He drops gems of wisdom when He knows I am still and attentive enough to pay attention. Unexpectedly, and often completely by surprise, I catch them. He reveals morsels of truth and confirmations. Amusingly, I feel God likes me to pause and think, “what a coinkidink!”
Pastor Anthony reads:
Now there is in Jerusalem, by the Sheep Gate, a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades. In these lay a multitude of invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.” Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked.
Jesus asked the lame man, “Do you want to be healed?” or “Do you want to get well?” This was the same question Gary quoted as he preached the CR lesson the very first night I was catapulted and landed at my first Celebrate Recovery meeting.
Gary, who is, coincidentally, the same guy sitting under the CR tent with Teresa at this very moment, is just a stone’s throw away from where I am sitting under the tree. I’m thinking, God sure knows how He made me; if this moment isn’t a visual cue of Yo! you should probably pay attention! Turn to your neighbor, ’cause God’s about to tell you somethin’. Then, I don’t know what is”
After I attended my first CR meeting, I got home and took out my journal. I wrote: “When Jesus saw me lying there, He knew that I had already been lying there a long time. And He asked me, “Do-you-want-to-get-well?”
In my mind I picture Jesus squatting right in front of me as I sat there until we were at eye level. This is the best position to take when talking to and teaching a toddler or young child. He held both of my arms gently but firmly, looked me in the eye, and asked, “Do-you-want-to-get-well?”
That night almost 3 years ago, I finally lifted my eyes to meet His, and I answered, “Yes! I do want to get well!”
As Pastor Anthony continued to break down the message. I kept hearing him say, “38 years.” For 38 years, this man was lame and couldn’t walk.
What I wrote down in my lesson notes from CR was that the man was sitting there for a very LONG time. The 38-year detail totally escaped me. I just now realized this as I looked up 5 bible translations of the same story: the ESV, NIV, NASB, Lexham English Bible, and even The Message showed that the man had been lame for 38 years.
Never, in all the times I’ve read this same verse, have I noticed the 38-year part. I even wrote a blog about my first night at CR, and goodness knows how many times I read this story while I was writing it.
Not noticing what seems to be a minor detail happens to me while studying scripture. I could read a verse and even claim it for years, and one day read it again and see another truth in it, as if I’m reading it for the very first time. I ask myself/God in wonder, “Was this here this whole time?”
Pastor Anthony continues, “38 years he was lame, crippled. His sickness became his identity; his story became his label. Your story is real, but it does not define you”
It dawned on me that I made myself cripple by the very crutch I chose to help me walk through my pain.
I self-medicated as if I could heal myself.
He kept mentioning 38 years to elaborate that this wasn’t just a bad week, that it wasn’t just a bad season the lame man was going through; it was a lifetime.
For 38 years, this man lived with limitations,
As I took notes on the lesson, I kept hearing him reiterate, thirty-eight years.
I looked at the date I wrote down at the top of the page of my notebook this morning and felt my eyebrows curiously furrowing. It’s 7 days before my birthday. I remember reluctantly going to my first CR meeting 5 days after my birthday 3 years ago…
Even though I try not to mess with my phone at church, I grab it and pull up my blog post titled “My first day at Celebrate Recovery.” It was dated July 10, 2023.
Today is June 26, 2026, and that was July 10, 2023
There were 3 years in between, and I’m hearing the same question of Jesus, “Do you want to get well?”
Coincidence?
In the background of my multi-tasking brain, I vaguely hear Pastor Anthony’s voice from the monitor say, “Thirty-eight years, it’s not just a season, it’s a lifetime!”
I felt my furrowed eyebrow turn comically into a raised one. My heart started dancing in my chest a bit. Could it be? But it couldn’t be? I shake my head, “Nah, what are the odds?”
I subtract 3 years from today, 2026. 2023. The year I first went to CR.
I calculated the year I would have turned 18. I remember having my birthday party a week before my 18th birthday. I clearly and actively asked friends to make sure someone brought weed to my party. I wanted to get high.
This was the year, as an “adult,” I subconsciously started using Marijuana as a crutch so that I didn’t have to deal with past trauma. I didn’t want to unpack the dark things that were good and dead, buried, and almost forgotten. It was the Eighties; Who wanted to go to therapy? I was a latchkey kid. Self-reliant. I was taught to repress, so I learned to survive. I was trained to suck it up! Keep Secrets, Safeguard the Family!
Denial became my shield. I mastered the skill of just gliding through the dark and keeping it moving.
As I sat under the ficus tree, I continued doing the math:
I figured out what year I turned 18. I subtracted that year from the year I heard Jesus say, “Do you want to get healed?” at that first CR meeting.
As I stared at my phone calculator, I was still thinking, “Nah, it won’t be… this feels too much of a setup to be real.” Slightly agape and with an eyebrow still raised, I typed in the numbers and pressed the equals button. Sure enough, the difference between the year I first attended CR and the year the first time I picked up a crutch to help me walk through the pain in my life was: Voila! Thirty-eight years!
Lately I’ve been seeking God diligently for every A-HAH moment. I pray for the Spirit of God to speak to me. Stupefied, I say to myself, “This is crazy; you literally can’t make this “ish” up!” (As part of my “If then” and “Therefore” years, I’m now trying not to use foul language; this is confession #808 – and it sure is hard!)
I’m like, “Really, Lord? I find out today that the length of time between the year I first smoked and the first year I became sober was 38 years.” THIRTY-EIGHT-YEARS?
As Pastor Anthony said, it was not just a season; it was a lifetime!
I spent a lifetime of believing in Jesus but not fully following Him. I was too attached to my mat. I would pick it up, walk, and attempt to follow Him for a while and then put my mat down again. In my mind I would see Jesus turn, and hear Him say, “Why do you call me Lord, Lord and not do what I say?” (These are the scariest red letters in the Bible.) Then I’d pick up my mat again and start the 38-year cycle of following Jesus, only to sit it out. Until I FINALLY hear Him ask;
“You’ve been doing this a long time, do you want to get well?”
For me, it was always easy to believe in Jesus; that part was a no-brainer. To me, His existence was axiomatic. This gentle, loving, sacrificial, humble, and mighty God. His presence is evident everywhere. His love and kindness touched me even as a child. Especially when things that were happening to me didn’t make sense. When life wasn’t fair- heck, when life was downright cruel- I somehow still felt His reassuring presence that would never leave me. In Him, I found peace that didn’t make any sense. I found a hope I couldn’t fully understand.
As an adult, however, I realized Jesus didn’t call me just to believe. He didn’t just say, “Believe Me.” He said, “Follow Me.” But following Jesus was a whole other story. I had the many, many bags I was used to carrying. Bags that were locked with useless and harmful things that I couldn’t put down. I was a hoarder of hurts and bad memories I never wanted to look at again. I didn’t want them; they were useless and harmful, but it was a collection I couldn’t get rid of.
And of course I had my trusted old mat, which I carried around and could sit on whenever I wanted to feel nothing. It’s like a false security blanket that I would put over my head to cloud my mind when I wanted to escape. It was a familiar spot, so conveniently available when I didn’t want to move but at the same time, run away. But as Bob Marley sings, “You can’t run away from yourself.”
When I got sober, I realized sobriety – being awake and alert and trusting Him was just a first step in following Jesus. Today my everyday waking goal is to follow my Rabbi so close that “I am covered by the dust of His sandals.” I want to step right behind Him so that when He stops and turns, I picture myself literally running into Him. This is not an easy task because a lifetime habit of going my own way is very hard to break. I am easily distracted. I look around and can quickly lose sight of Him. Following Jesus is a daily and very intentional journey.
Being a Jesus Follower is choosing to look at the darkness inside me without fear. It’s about trusting that He will hold me in His hand and always walk me through to the other side.
Following Jesus means giving Him the key to unlock my many bags of memories I’ve buried so deep I’ve almost forgotten they were there.
Following Jesus means using self-control to give up self-control. It’s letting Him lead me. Not my way but His way. More of Him, less of me. And in this lifetime, could it even be possible? All of Him and none of me!
Following Jesus comes with all the “If then” and “Therefores” of the scripture lessons. Taking the “If thens” seriously is an awakening. It’s a commitment that I was finally ready to be made new. I was finally ready to get up and be made well.
For 38 years I made my bed, and laid in it. Then Jesus said, “Get up! Take up your bed and walk”
I was lame for 38 years.
This is just one of the “stories” in my life that Jesus has redeemed. One of the tales that my kids would’ve called “Mom Lore” stories or experiences I share with them from my past (circa the before-they-were-born era)
One of the many stories of the times He’s made me well. I have many tales in which Jesus showed up and rescued me from dark deeds I was subjected to. Stories of when He would come to get me, even as I myself chose a darkened path He never meant for me to walk through. He shone a light in every dark cave I couldn’t find my way out of.
Where shall I go from your Spirit?
Psalm 139:7-12
Or where shall I flee from your presence?
8 If I ascend to heaven, You are there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, You are there!
9 If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
10 even there Your hand shall lead me,
and Your right hand shall hold me.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light about me be night,”
12 even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is bright as the day,
for darkness is as light with you.
Jesus, my Rabbi, my Friend and Redeemer. Yahweh, the Holy God who was there with me at every turn, at every dead end; who turned to me and asked, “Are you ready now? “Do you want to get well?”
I’m not at the end of my story. As I number my days, I strengthen my resolve to confess my struggles and bear witness to God’s deliverance and goodness. To find the resolve to dig up “Memory Blanks” and Mom lore that instantly trigger me into a panic desire to look around for that trusty old mat and lay down again. Silent. Sitting, immovable and unable to get up on my own. But I’ve learned to put on God’s armor, to stay alert, ready, and self-controlled enough to be obedient with trust and be still enough to let Him fight for me.
As I continue my healing journey and, with the gift of free will He gave me, I place my trust in God. I trust Him to shine His light in the dark corners of my heart, mind, and soul.
In this season of following my Rabbi, I hear Him say,
“As for you. Go! And declare the kingdom of God”
For what good is a witness that doesn’t show up?
And in this shadowy world, I thank Him daily and declare this truth:
By day the Lord commands his steadfast love,
Psalm 42:8 English Standard Version
and at night his song is with me,
a prayer to the God of my life.
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