Re-visit: The Beauty of Beginning Again
and the spaciousness of multiple recovery pathways
Here is one of my most read articles from 2024. Let me know what you think in the comments and what resonates with you as we begin 2025.
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Recovery pathways are a varied landscape. If I close my eyes I imagine them a maze of options that zig and zag like the noodle-thin lines of roads from the 30,000 ft view of an airplane window.
My own journey has been one of traveling different roads, some dead ends, all leading me to a spacious place where I feel most free.
I’m a firm believer that if it works work it and what gets us on a pathway to recovery (or healing or whatever you’d like to call it today) may be different than what might motivate us to start or stay the course.
And that’s okay.
I believe that our differences must be celebrated.
Did you know that there are multiple pathways of recovery? I love this description from a federal agency in the U.S. called the SAMHSA:
The process of recovery is highly personal and occurs via many pathways. It may include clinical treatment, medications, faith-based approaches, peer support, family support, self-care, and other approaches. Recovery is characterized by continual growth and improvement in one’s health and wellness and managing setbacks. Because setbacks are a natural part of life, resilience becomes a key component of recovery.1
Harm reduction is also a pathway and oftentimes, sadly, a stigmatized one. I believe that when we are educated about a particular pathway, when we open our minds to learn more, we learn something new and perhaps see it in a new way. For example, I didn’t know for years that I was actually practicing harm reduction.
What recovery pathway or pathways do you most connect with today?
When some folks find out I’m a Christian, and that one of my many pathways is a spiritual one, they usually have one of three responses:
I’m so sorry.
Why?
What’s wrong with you?
Unlike other writers who talk about spiritual matters, much of my inner circle has not willingly set foot in a church in at least two decades unless it’s to head to the basement where there is a circle of chairs (get the reference?), stale coffee, and folks in or seeking recovery.
I get it.
I’ve been there, too.
And if my small church in Eastern Tennessee didn’t have a recovery ministry and doors wide open, I’m not sure that I’d be going either.
I love the way that Rev. Dr. Michael Ford puts it in a sweet little devotional called Prayers to See You Through the Day that I recently got from a dear friend:
I like the description of a Christian as someone who says, ‘Today I am beginning again.’ […] Each day we’re encouraged to set off again along a spiritual path which will never be devoid of trial or temptation. This is what conversion is all about: to begin again without fear. The Christian life can only be understood in terms of continually renewed conversion. And in this respect our lives become literally revolutionized.2
What I do know is that over the years, my relationship with faith and with God has changed, grown, and shifted. Just as the pathways of recovery that I’ve walked have changed, too. Mine has been a movement through doubt and struggles with the church and its imperfect (sometimes vulgar and worse) representatives, into a more freeing relationship with God, a local faith community, and walk with Jesus.
Compared to what my life was like twenty years ago living in active addiction, untreated and undiagnosed mental health challenges, and trauma symptoms, you may agree that something revolutionary has indeed happened.
Is happening.
Was Jesus in Recovery?
I’m not sure that I can answer that question, but I like to ask it. If for no other reason than shock value. (hehe)
I like to think if Jesus came to town today, one of the first places he’d go would be to a meeting in the downstairs church. The place where people show up broken, real, vulnerable, ready, surrendered. Perhaps that’s why I can identify with the Christian faith. Because those things that Jesus stands for: love, mercy, justice, belonging, grace—are all things that I’ve experienced in the rooms of recovery.
Want to learn more about how faith communities can support recovery communities and vice versa—or just curious about my personal recovery pathways and faith journey? Take a listen here:
Or of course, you can check out my first book, Downstairs Church: Finding Hope in the Grit of Addiction and Trauma Recovery. This is where things get really gritty.
*If you are interested, but can’t purchase one for any reason. Shoot me a message and I’ll send you a free copy.
Whatever your recovery pathway or pathways (or your loved ones’), let’s continue to celebrate the roads that lead us to places of greater healing and freedom.
A Sprinkling of Salt (from one of my recovery pathways)
Here are a few of the scripture verses that have helped me to grow and learn more about not only faith but recovery:
Psalm 68:5-6
5 A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows,
is God in his holy dwelling.
6 God sets the lonely in families,
he leads out the prisoners with singing;
2 Corinthians 5:17
If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!
Psalm 66:16
16 Come and hear, all you who fear God;
let me tell you what he has done for me
Matthew 17:20
20 Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”
2 Corinthians 12:9-10
9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
James 1:2-3
2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.
Radio, BBC. 2017. Prayers to See You through Each Day. Watkins Media Limited.