VOICES IN MY SHOWER
Valerie Rae Hanneman
February 16, 2008
Romans 8: 38-39 (NIV) “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
I stood in the shower about 14 years ago, my body and my spirit trembling. It wasn’t the water’s temperature that chilled me. My body was trembling because I was in that in-between place that druggies have where yesterday’s drugs have worn off and today’s drugs have not yet been taken. My spirit was trembling because that voice that I hated to hear was talking to me again. Back in those days I thought the voice was my conscience. I refused to even think that it might be Father-God calling out to His wayward daughter. The voice was talking hard to me, talking about things I did not want to hear. Is this what I really wanted from life? Drug induced highs when I felt like I could conquer the world followed by the downturns of uncontrollable guilt and pain. The constant scrabbling for money and connections to get that next bag of white death, the pain I was causing my children and my mom? Where would I be in ten years? Still an addict? Would I even be alive? And the hardest question of all – the one caused my brain to yell “SHUT UP! I don’t want to hear you!” every time this question popped into my head - If I died from the drugs, what was I going to say to God when I stood in front of Him?
To the world I was spouting off a bunch of belief-garbage. The traditional God – He wasn’t real – the god that was real to me was Mother Earth, she lived within us and was the spirit of life. And a bunch of other blah-blah, blah-blah. I was very modern and new age with what I told the world I believed. But I was lying to everybody. Inside of me – you know – that part I kept telling to shut-up – knew the truth. I had accepted Christ when I was twelve during VBS at the Baptist Church across the street. Up until I was 25 I had lived within that faith. I may have been lying to the world, I may have been refusing to acknowledge my Father’s voice, but deep down inside of me where the Truth lives, I knew. And so I trembled at the thought of continuing the nightmare my life was, I trembled at what was going to happen when the drugs finally killed me and I stood before the very God I denied.
I often wondered, in the solitude of my showers, if I had really accepted Christ at 12. How could a Christian live the life I was living? If I showed up in front of God with the stench of drugs on my skin – would He remember me? Or would He say for me to depart from Him, He never knew me?
Throughout this time, I may have doubted my salvation but I did not doubt that if I was saved, being a drug addict would not deny me heaven. I had been in church for thirteen years, I had even gone to one year of Bible College and I understood that salvation is a gift from God. The Word of God says that it is by grace that we are saved and this is not from ourselves it is a gift of God, not of works least any of us should boast. I knew that because there was nothing I could do to earn this gift from God, there was nothing I could do to lose the gift. I may have questioned the actuality of my salvation, but I never doubted that if I were saved, I would always be saved.
It was within just a few months of the voice appearing in my head that I was forced to decide between life and death. My choice was clear – get off the drugs and live or stay on the drugs and die. I chose to live. I cannot describe the hell of going cold turkey – but I made it. I stayed alive. Two years after I got clean I found Fresno First Baptist. A few weeks after that, again in the solitude of my shower, I acknowledged that the Voice who had been speaking to me years ago was indeed God, and I asked Him, “Am I Yours? Can I come back to You?” Then came His quiet still voice of assurance, “You are my child and you always will be. Come home, I have been waiting for you.”
When I think of my relationship with Father I think of the parable of the lost son. The son left his father, hurting his father dreadfully when he said in effect that his father was dead to him. But nowhere in the parable did the father disown his son, or say that his son was dead to him. Instead, the father’s eyes constantly searched the horizon, waiting for his child to come to his senses and come home. And when the son finally came home the father’s joy could not be contained.
I turned my back on Father in anger and told Him that He was dead to me. I lived like it too. But Father God never disowned me. In the depths of my filth I was still His child. He tugged at my heart, spoke to me in the silence of my head and did everything He could to get me to come to my senses and come home. And when I finally did, His joy could not be contained.
This verse from Romans is my life verse. I cling to this promise through thick and thin. In it Paul lists everything he can think of that could separate us from God and then states that nothing in all of creation can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus.
Sometimes satan, that great liar, is going to whisper in our heads making us question if this gift is really a gift, or does it come with strings attached. He is going to make us wonder if we can do something to lose our salvation, or if we ever really were saved. When he whispers tell him to shut up and then listen to the Voice of Truth that is deep within us. Know that we are God’s children and just as our children can be secure in our mortal love, we can be secure in His immortal love.
What can separate us from God’s love? Nothing. We are His.
Father God, Thank You for Your gift of eternal life. I am not worthy to be called Your child, but You have made me Your child based on Your love and not on me.
Contact Valerie or sign up for the e-Ministry of FFBC at Valerie@fresnofirst.org