Goodbye Vanessa.

Today we laid you in your final resting place. We said our goodbyes and sent you off with the warmest of farewells. I didn't know you that well but I have to say, you made quite an impact on me for how little we knew of each other. You were beautiful in every way. I so admired you. I know you were strong but what grieves my heart is the amount of pain you carried with you every day. I suppose what I really need to say to you is just how sad I am that you had to experience that pain in your life. I hurt for you. I'm sad that your life had to end so soon before you were really able to resolve that pain and enjoy your life. I'm sad that your pain was so bad that you had no choice but to seek relief from it. I'm so sorry that your relief is what took your life, even when you didn't mean for it to.

I'm so heartbroken. I wish I could tell you just how wonderful of a person you are and how I and so many others respected and looked up to you. I want to tell you just how much losing you pains me; you have no idea what you meant to me. I hope you can see it through clearer eyes now. I wish you could see and feel the love for you that exists in the hearts of those who mourn over you now.

You're gone sweet girl, but you'll never be forgotten. In what little contact we've had with each other, you've impacted my life and the lives of my friends in a very positive and very permanent way. So I only have one more thing to say: thank you for being a part of my life. I am so much better for having known you. It has been my honor and privilege. Now the Lord has received you with open and welcoming arms. You hurt no more, and you're joyfully singing and dancing in the presence of our Loving Creator.

Changing My Skin

So often I hear addicts and alcoholics explain why they drink or use as feeling “uncomfortable in their own skin.” I think for me and probably for a lot of us. The word “uncomfortable” might be a bit of an understatement. I know in my own life there were times where being in my own skin was more excruciatingly painful.

We want to get out of that pain any way possible. Those of us new in recovery know that so much better than anyone else. We so long for the release of that pain that we think…just one more time, just today I don’t want to feel it.

We base a lot of our feelings about ourselves on what we think others think of us. We get those ideas from our experiences growing up and we formulate patterns of how we think the world works. If our experiences are unpleasant, than we learn to expect pain and we live in fear.

When I came into recovery, I hated everything about myself. My experiences told me that I was no good, that I was useless, even evil. I was suicidal and was hospitalized for it. I didn’t believe that I was any good or that I ever would be. In treatment, I threw out everything I ever believed about myself, my relationships, and my religion. I decided that if I was going to believe anything about anything, it was going to be what I knew to be true, not taking someone else’s word for it.

I journaled every day, many times a day. I carried my notebook everywhere I went and I wrote down every unpleasant feeling I had. I went back to my bedroom at night and I thought long and hard about why I felt the unpleasant feelings. I journaled more. I prayed to God and read the Bible to find out if I was going to believe it or not. And when I read the Bible through unbiased eyes, I read about a God of love.

God wasn’t angry at me and he wasn’t punishing me. He has a very specific purpose for me in my life – the same purpose he has for all of us – to have a loving relationship with Him. God gave us a desire for a relationship with him and relationships with others. That’s it. God is love and he created this world to love. We need love. We need to feel the high of love, laughter, and strong, intimate relationships. We aren’t bad people, we’ve just been misinformed. The comfort of getting high and the pseudo relationships we form with using buddies is just a poor substitute for the desire for love and relationships that God instilled in us when he created us.

I am mourning the loss of my friend Vanessa. I’ve been so heartbroken. I wish I could have told her what a wonderful person she was and how I respected her. I wish there was some way for me to convey to her just how much loss I would have felt if she were suddenly not here anymore. I wish somehow she would have been able to understand how much love people felt for her as we do in this room right now.

And so I can’t think of a better opportunity to tell everyone that I love you, I respect you, and I know that each and every one of you are wonderful people. If you don’t feel that way about yourself right now think of how we’re all mourning for Vanessa right now. We loved her! And no one else is any different. Keep making friends and building relationships. And know this always, God created you and he loves you. He values and cherishes you, and he wants the best for you. Don’t take my word for it though, dig in and find out who God is for yourself. I promise you will come to love who you are in the process.