Day 76

Day 76
INTERVENTION
“They came up to Jesus and saw the madman sitting there wearing decent clothes and making sense, no longer a walking madhouse of a man”. (Mark 5:15, Message)
Occasionally I watch Interventions on television. Having walked through drug addiction with our son, I desire to see each one who comes to the time of intervention accept the freedom offered from the grips of drugs and alcohol. It seems we are seeing more and more families affected by this plague.
The other night a young man on the program, we will call Eric, was addicted to crystal meth. At age eight he had lost his Dad his to drugs by suicide and he did not have the chance to work through his grief. So, at an early age he began experimenting with drugs to deal with his own grief and loss. He had turned into a bitter young man, often angry and disrespectful to his family.
It made me think of the demoniac that Jesus delivered from the legions raging in him. What a different picture of this young man after he chose to receive deliverance from the drugs. He came back home clothed differently and in his right mind, with a whole different attitude and presentation. There was no mention of anything spiritual having taken place, but it was obviously deliverance. The influence of the drugs that Satan had enticed him with had totally changed his demeanor. He was blind to their effects it had on his life and that of his family. He thought the drugs were helping him to escape, but they were taking him further into darkness.
His mother had given up her life and her opportunities to work through her grief while enabling her son in his drug addiction. It was killing her, but she could not see a way out, no light at the end of the tunnel. Each day became just another pain filled day spent just getting through.
This story has a happy ending as the son chose to go to rehab and the family received counseling. There was a three month separation period in which each member received instruction in ways to progress towards healthy boundaries with each other.
I believe many are in that cycle of grief without any peace, joy, or hope that anything will or can ever change. Oftentimes instead of dealing with the issues at hand we stick our heads in the sand and believe it is too hard to do the work needed to walk our journey in a healthy way. It may be too painful to confront the reasons that have us where we are. It is easier to sweep it all under the rug, pretending its not happening.
It all made me rethink some ways in my own life that I am not setting healthy boundaries. I think I might need a review in that area, how about you. Will you set in motion a plan to learn how to set those healthy boundaries? We are never too old to learn new approaches or methods for our own recovery. After all, God does not only want our prodigals to be free but us as well. Are you willing to do the work it will take?