...And Then I Remembered

It was Christmas Eve, actually December 25th 1999, round 3a.m., if you want to get technical.

We were all crammed in a small old shed passing all different kinds of drugs around till we were too high to move. We just sat there staring at nothing for hours. The music was blaring yet all I heard was one big blur. I looked around at the guys focusing on each one and what they were doing. Kevin, on my right was passed out, head against the wall, dark glasses on, mouth open… looking dead. Chance, across from me, looked like he was in his own little world, nodding his head to the music, mouthing something I couldn’t make out. Then there was Mike. We called him “Nonstop”, because he never stopped using. He also had dark glasses on so you couldn’t see his eyes. He laid his head back on the wall, hitting a joint, without a care in the world.

My life hadn’t always been like this. I used to be a good Christian girl. I lived out the Bible. I knew the truth and I knew His name but when the death of my mother happened last fall, I thought God had forgotten about me. How could he have let this happen when she was the only one I had left in my life? I was placed in the care of my closest living relative, Aunt Cruella.
Well, she wasn’t really my aunt, more like a fourth cousin or something like that, and that wasn’t really her name, but she sure acted like it. I became her personal maid and the only time I wasn’t doing some kind of chore was when I was at school. So I started to skip, just to get away and do nothing, and that’s how I met the “druggies”. It all started one day when one of the guys approached me with a joint, and I was so desperate for something new and fulfilling that he talked me into it. He said it would make me happier, so I believed it.

Then before I knew it, I had moved out of Auntie Cruella’s house and was living off the streets, crashing with the boys at hotels, or somebody’s house I didn’t know. I stole from innocent people just to support my habit. And God became a faint memory. I was living in the shadow of death, taking life moment by moment.

So here I was, spending Christmas with the dead, forgetting the true meaning, and giving drugs for gifts…. What a life.

The boys and I went out that Christmas night, all tripped out on LSD, checking out all the Christmas decorations. We thought it would be awesome to see all the lights, but we were wrong. It was all just a bunch of mishmash. I was dizzy and felt sick just looking at them. Then the blowup characters started to move and I thought they were all watching me. Finally we walked by the Nativity scene, and it haunted me. I saw myself as a baby in Mary’s arms, and my eyes watered with tears, feeling the absence of my mother, and how much she cared. So I ran, as fast as I could down the street away from everybody. I don’t know how, but I sobered up quick, and just broke. I fell to my face crying, and found myself shouting to God to forgive me, and telling Him how much I missed my mom.

Afterwards I was lying on my back in the grass staring at the lights of heaven, realizing how dark my life had been without God. I’m so thankful for second chances.