When Lynna’s six-year-old nephew died in a dirt bike accident, her heart was broken, but she didn’t process her own grief. Instead, she turned her full attention to comforting others. “My sister was devastated,” she says. “I was taking care of everybody else and I forgot to take care of me.”
She began getting terrible headaches and took a Vicodin from an old prescription bottle in the medicine cabinet. “It helped me deal with my emotional pain,” she says. “After that, when anything bad would happen in my life, I ran for the drugs to help me hide.”
For nearly 30 years, Lynna struggled with her addiction, getting clean and relapsing—a “vicious circle” which destroyed her relationships, cost her jobs, and claimed her sense of self-worth.
She’d been caring for her mother for three years when she relapsed the last time. “I confessed to my mom and sister, and they kicked me out,” she says. “This time, not only did I hit rock bottom, but I got buried in the rocks.”
Friends from church had told Lynna good things about our New Life Program and she decided it was for her. Through our Bible studies, chapel and Christian counseling, her relationship with the Lord has flourished. “He’s filled me with His love and teachings,” she says. “I’ve never had a relationship with Jesus like I have today and I’m getting closer and closer to Him.”
Through Christ-centered grief and forgiveness classes, Lynna has healed emotionally, as well. “I was in a deep, dark hole. I felt like I was nothing,” she says. “God pulled me right out of that hole.”
Lynna has graduated the program, is reunited with her family in Nevada and is very involved with her church. “God made a way for me to start all over at 58 and I’m feeling blessed,” she says. “I want to give back.”
She’s a woman with a heart of gratitude for friends like you who have made her journey possible. Thank you for your continued generosity.
To read our Fall 2018 issue of A New Dawn, click here.
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