FREEDOM IS WAITING

Addiction doesn’t destroy freedom itself. It destroys your ability to seek it. 

Freedom is waiting. It’s right there, just outside your grasp. It’s patient. Addiction isn’t.

Addiction’s about control. 

It feeds on doubt, insecurity, and weakness. Addiction convinces you that you’re not strong enough to cope without it. That you need the escape it provides. 

Its power is fear.

Addiction lives in your mind, feeding off the constant noise. The voices you hear that convince you that you’re not enough. That you don’t belong. You’re too broken, too misunderstood, too lost ever to be found. 

None of that is real. But addiction is an accomplished liar.

You believe the lies. 

If you didn’t, you’d make a different choice. You wouldn’t need the escape addiction provides. Instead, you’d choose freedom. 

You have to want to change. You have to use your pain as fuel to make a better life for yourself.

— Anthony Hopkins

We don’t consciously choose to destroy ourselves. 

No, we do that unconsciously. The minute life gets too real, we run. We reach for the bottle, the pills, whatever we can get our hands on that lets us escape. 

We crave the numbness. In the numbness, we’re not responsible. We don’t have to face the darkness. We can simply submit to it. Allow it to carry us away from all the things we’re too afraid to face in the light.

And it works. Until the next time. 

Sometimes you can only find heaven by backing away from hell.

— Carrie Fisher

There will always be a next time. 

That’s the cycle. Instead of jumping off the rollercoaster, we crave the highs only to sink into the lows over and over again. 

It never stops. Not until we make a different choice or lose the battle altogether. 

One of those choices leads to freedom. The other destroys our choice forever.

I lived on that rollercoaster for over three decades. 

What changed? It got all too real. My family intervened, not willing to let me go. They didn’t care that I’d already given up. They begged me to get help. 

I did. For them. Halfheartedly and convinced I’d fail no matter what, I entered the Orlando Recovery Center on March 22, 2018.

My husband drove me. He took me inside. Waited until I’d been admitted. Hugged me. Told me he loved me. Then he was gone.

I was alone.

That first night was hell. They took everything. My phone, my control, my comfort zone. Gone.

I was given a room. Stark and white. A single bed. They returned my suitcase after going through it. 

My husband had given me three books: The Bible, Jesus is Calling, and The Power of Now.

In the darkness of the night, I wept.

I was so scared. Everything was unfamiliar. I was exposed and vulnerable. I hated it.

The voices were too loud. The reality of my situation, way too real. I couldn’t leave. There was no one to lash out at. No one to blame.

I was alone with myself. The very place I never wanted to be.

I opened the Bible. Flipped the pages like I was shuffling a deck of cards, until it lay open on the bed. I ran my finger up and down the page, not seeing the words, until I stopped on a single verse.

I read it. And I laughed. Exodus 14:14, “The Lord will fight for you, you need only to be still.”

Why would God ever fight for me?

I didn’t deserve His mercy. I’d screwed up too many times. I knew right from wrong. I’d sinned anyway. In my mind, that made me unworthy. Would God even listen to me now?

Just because I’d finally hit bottom didn’t mean I deserved His compassion. 

The Lord will fight for you.

The words were blurry, but I could still make them out. 

I’ll never know what actually compelled me to kneel. I don’t need to. 

I’ll never know what made me pray in that moment, when I’d shunned prayer for so long. I don’t need to know that either.

I prayed. At first, kneeling. Then, lying curled in a ball on the cold floor. I stayed there all night.

On that floor. In that stark white room. Nothing but the Bible, my tears, and the growing certainty that this was it. This was my last chance.

I had no more fight. None. But the Lord did.

In the stillness of that first night, God waited. 

But I had to choose Him. 

I  had to choose the freedom He offered. 

I had to choose Him, though I felt unworthy. 

Choose Him, though I had sinned. 

I had to choose His help despite my shame. 

Choose to let Him fight for me because I had no fight left.

I had to choose.

I had to let go of it all.

And I had to mean it.

I entered recovery for my family. But it didn’t take long for me to realize that why I’d come didn’t matter. I was there. I could waste the chance or I could do the work. Not for them but for me. From the very first night I knew that without God, I’d never make it. I had to accept that right up front. Because, there was no way around only through.

— Jennifer Fenwick

That’s surrender.

It’s the hardest and the easiest thing I’ve ever done.

It was both the end and the beginning.

I awoke the next morning still on that floor. I was exhausted but got up anyway, showered, and dressed. Opened the door of my room and, with the Bible clutched to my chest, wearing the words, “The Lord will fight for you,” like a shield, walked into a brand new day. 

I could no longer fight. But the Lord could.

I had chosen.

Almost eight years later, He fights for me still.

Freedom is waiting. 

But you have to choose it.

You have to choose Him.

God is a mighty warrior. Stronger than your addiction. Stronger than your fear. He’s stronger than the lies and the enemy standing between you and His grace.

The second you choose freedom, God will fight for you.

Have faith and be still.

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THE POWER OF REDEMPTION 

In the darkness, I reached out,

and called You by NAME,

You didn’t forsake me,

in an instant, You came,

to lift me from the shadows,

that strangled my soul,

to save me from the torment,

of the desolate cold.

You filled me with Your SPIRIT,

and offered Your PEACE.

Granting the MERCY,

that set my soul FREE.

SALVATION came quickly,

lighting the way,

out of the darkness,

to a brilliant NEW DAY.

There on my knees,

my life was REBORN.

My soul found its COMFORT,

though weary and worn.

You met me in the shadows,

without question, You reached,

pulling me out of

the waters so deep.

You calmed all my fears,

increasing my FAITH,

filling my soul with

Your unending GRACE.

There’s no greater LOVE,

than the LOVE of the CROSS,

that welcomes the sinner,

making room for the lost.

My seat at the table,

was already won,

through the power of REDEMPTION,

offered me by Your SON.

No greater FREEDOM,

Will I ever know,

than the FREEDOM my SAVIOR’S

SACRIFICE has bestowed,

on a sinner unworthy,

as undeserving as I,

by His DEATH I’ve been given,

the gift of NEW LIFE.

Through His RESURRECTION,

my chains are undone,

defeated by the PROMISE

of YOUR KINGDOM to come.

AMEN.

JN Fenwick (© 2025)

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JN Fenwick/mothjournal14 ©2025 | All rights reserved. | I DO NOT WALK THIS RECOVERY JOURNEY ALONE.