God Saved Her From Herself | Previous Challenge Entry

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TITLE: God Saved Her From Herself | Previous Challenge Entry
By Pam Kumpe
04/25/05
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(This is a true story, woman's name has been changed)

Lynne attempted four suicides and with each try she recovered, unsure why God allowed her to survive, the pain and loneliness unbearable.

Her journey of addiction and suffering spanned ten years beginning in 1987 and started with that first pill: a prescribed medicine from her doctor.

She was in the middle of a divorce and raising two young children. Returning to work, surviving on less income, moving from a house to an apartment and receiving ridicule from some people at church; she believed many of them loved her husband more than her.

Feeling alienated by friends, depression quickly set in and taking tranquilizers seemed like a good idea.

Eventually, her children moved in with their father and Lynne was alone. For three years, she consumed the prescriptions, until someone introduced illegal drugs.

Using drugs was expensive, requiring two jobs and yet she attended school full time. Exhausted, she would crash for days at a time, only to take more drugs to stay awake.

This vicious cycle took its toll, and soon, she stopped caring about anything. She hated life. She often pleaded with God to let her die.

The pain, along with irrational thoughts, prompted her to overdose on pills, which landed her in the emergency room. Over the course of the next few years, she would find herself in the emergency room three times for overdosing, and each time, she would talk her way out of the drug rehabilitation program.

Calls to her mother - veiled cries for help - would go unnoticed. Boyfriends came and went; one even beat her so badly, she returned to the hospital, with internal injuries.

Deep within her being, she wanted to get her act together. So she earned her degree as a disc jockey, took a job at a radio station, and was proud of her accomplishment.

Even though she enjoyed her job, the drugs consumed her life, privately.

In the summer of June 1997 she won $5,000 in a Casino Bingo game and was determined to stop taking drugs; the money was her ticket out of this lifestyle.

But she went through every cent of the money within 30 days. With this sudden burst of action, her drug dealer couldn't keep her adequately supplied and she panicked when she realized she was running out of cash.

Driving out of town, she rented a hotel room with her last bit of money. After writing a goodbye letter to her children, she took a pair of manicure scissors and slit her wrists.

She woke up the next morning, angry she was still breathing, the blood on her bed. She dialed the front desk because she had no one else to call.

At the hospital, she spent two weeks in the psychiatric ward and for the next three months, she took the prescription given by the doctor.

And then on Thanksgiving Day, 1987, she stepped out on faith, deciding to stop taking drugs altogether.

Withdrawals, in the form of hallucinations, insomnia, and physical pain, racked her body. She couldn't eat, sleep, or shower; she couldn't even brush her teeth.

It was the worse experience of her life, and she told God, "Just let me die, this is unbearable." But by January, with the drugs gone from her body, she started having clear thoughts for the first time in years.

For ten years, her cry for help had appeared to go unanswered but time and again, God saved her from herself.

In Jeremiah 29:11 the Bible says, "I know what I'm doing. I have it all planned out -- plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for."

God has a plan for each of us; His ways surpass ours, His thoughts are higher than ours, but His love - oh the love, it is always unconditional!

With Thanksgiving in her heart, Lynne greets each day because she knows the Lord has given her – new life in Him, through Him, and by Him.

And she is not alone anymore, actually she never was…

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