By the next afternoon, Lucas and I were in the office of a counselor who suggested that I should consider attending a recovery meeting. This was gracious counselor code for you need help. I didn’t know what else to do, so I went. I wore a black MTV Punk’d t-shirt and ratty jeans and sat on the back row.

The meeting started at 5pm and everyone looked so happy. They were smiling and telling jokes and hugging. There was a lot of hugging. I don’t like hugging. As the meeting started, a person at a desk in the front of the room, who I assumed was the president, began talking. There were some readings from people in the room. And then the president said, “Is this anyone’s first time to attend a meeting?”

With a sheepish hand wave, I acknowledged that I was clearly new to this and suddenly the meeting shifted. They all started talking about how they arrived in this room. Many of the stories were not like mine. I had not been to jail.  I had not lost a job. I immediately began a mental list of all the reasons that I didn’t fit. Sure, I knew something was really wrong, but I wasn’t THIS bad. All I could think about was that I was nothing like these people. Then I went home.

The next morning, it was 10:30am and I was already losing my mind with worry about how I was going to make it through the day. So, I drove back to the meeting place. And people were there. They gave me this fat blue book and told me to read it. I got a silver token that they called a Desire Chip and with it, I said that I would try this thing called staying sober for 24 hours. But I still didn’t think that I belonged. The wildest part of these meetings was that people claimed that they had been sober for 3 months and 23 years and 1,789 days. This was insane. There is no way that any grown adult does not drink or use mind altering substances for that long, right? Whhyyyyy would you do that?

I left the porch meeting and went home. I made it 5 more hours and I wanted a drink so badly. I was a lunatic. In self-preservation, Lucas asked if I had thought about going to another meeting. Dear, Lord! I must be really sick if I needed to go back AGAIN. This time I went to a different building. The sign said it was a women’s meeting. I was still in the black dirty t-shirt and jeans. I added a black hoodie to try to hide the shaking. I walked in and in front of me stood a room of women that looked like they could have been my mom or sister or Sunday School teacher. One reminded me of my aunt that is as prim and proper as they come.

And the room was full. There were women that were smart and together. There were women that had all the things that I wanted. I’m confident that I displayed sufficient outward clues of my desperation, but they didn’t seem to care. I sat between two of the most together looking ones and I just sank into my chair. The tears started falling and they would not stop.

Everyone that talked told pieces of my story. There were moms and daughters and caregivers. There were wives and friends and so much freaking honesty. I think the topic was surrender, but honestly, I’m not sure. I remember that at some point I felt like I had something to say. At meetings, before you talk, you introduce yourself. I was not ready to admit that I was an alcoholic, so with all the courage I could muster, I said, “Hi, my name is Lacy and I am an addict.” Somehow that seemed more tolerable. Please don’t ask me to explain this. That is where my whacked out thinking had delivered me. I had come to a place that somehow being an addict was more palatable than an alcoholic. That’s the kind of logic that presents itself in active addiction.

I have no idea what all I said out loud in that first meeting. I know that I said I was a mess. I know that I said I could not care for my kids. I know that I was genuinely loved by the women in that room. I didn’t have a clue what was about to happen. I didn’t know how I was going to get through the next 2 hours, much less the next 24. But they promised me that I could do with the help of God and the program. At that point, I had tried it my way. I knew that I was failing. I had everything to lose and everything to gain. I did what they said and showed up the next day. And the next. And the next.

I was given very basic instructions in the early days.

• don’t drink
• go to meetings
• associate with sober people
• pray
• read the Big Book

For the most part, I could handle the instructions. The last was the hardest. This big blue book that they carried around was a bit much for me. They were quoting it and some pounded on their book in a very Pentecostal preacher kind of way. It freaked me out. The things that I hated about religion were represented by some of the most zealot members of this clan. But in the first week, I found myself lost in my own bad ideas, so I opened the book. And I found this passage on page 8:

One day at a time.

The sun came up. And the memories of the previous evening made clear that I had two choices. I could stay in my room and never come out or I could face up to my lies. I tried the first option for a few hours and when that did not seem like a viable long-term solution, I appeared from my room. Before I showed my face, I asked Lucas to take the kids elsewhere. I was a mom to a just turned 5 year-old and a 22 month-old. I wasn’t sure how much they understood, but I knew they knew enough to know something was wrong with mom.

By the time that I walked down the stairs, every drop of alcohol was out of my house. Well, that is the bottles that were where they were supposed to be. Lucas could read the writing on the wall. He knew from the moment he encountered my sobs in the night that drastic changes would have to be made.  It would be weeks before I confessed to and disposed of all of the hidden stashes that I held in secret, but on that day Lucas took the first step to protect me from myself.

What next? I did the only thing that a self-professed control freak knows how to do, I staged my own intervention. I called two couples that I trusted and they were at the door. I poured out my heart and mess and fears and admitted that I had no idea what to do next. There in my living room, each with questions and concerns and unknowns, I trusted them to help. I can assure you that room did not have all of the answers, and I’m so thankful that my friends and my husband did not try to fix, and instead listened and asked questions and sought wisdom from professionals.

April 1st, 2007 is a date that I will never forget. I found a bottom that day. In that place there was little hope, much fragility and a clear view of the death that was at hand. When I think about the liturgical calendar, there is nothing that depicts the journey of that day quite like Ash Wednesday. It was a day where I was staring at my own mortality. I could see the ashes of death that were surrounding my life. And on that day, I was given a gift.

It was a gift that was painful to accept and would require the shedding of ego and pride. It was a gift that would require a level of self-examination that I feared. It was a gift that I didn’t even know existed. Much like the Lenten journey to the cross, the path was filled with levels of discovery. In the midst of a bleak and dark road, there was a light. A small flicker of hope was being held for me by those around me. And it was going to be my choice to open my eyes and see it.

Lent is a season of forty days, not counting Sundays, which begins on Ash Wednesday and ends on the Saturday before Easter. The forty days of Lent symbolize the time Jesus spent in the wilderness. Lent is a time of repentance, fasting and preparation for the coming of Resurrection. It is a time of self-examination and reflection. In the early church, Lent was a time to prepare new converts for baptism. Today, Christians focus on their relationship with God, sometimes choosing to give up something or to volunteer and give of themselves for others.

Sundays in Lent are not counted in the forty days because each Sunday represents a “mini-Easter” and the solemn and reverent spirit of Lent is tempered with joyful anticipation of the Resurrection. The Church adapted the use of ashes to mark the beginning of the season of Lent, when we remember our mortality and mourn for our sins. These ashes are made from last year’s palm branches. By using palms from Palm Sunday, it is a reminder that we must not only rejoice of Jesus’ coming but also acknowledge the fact that our sin made it necessary for him to die.

The season of Lent is about going back home to a gracious and merciful God. But in order to get there, we first have to come to terms with the path that takes us back. That path is the way of repentance – the way of honestly admitting our failures and turning our lives over, completely, to the One who alone has the power to heal us.

Lent is a dedicated time of truth telling. It is a time when we rally around the truth of our humanity, the truth of our pain, the truth of our sin and the truth of God’s great promise of redemption. In the midst of looking at the pain and humanity, we are often tempted to feel hopeless. But there is actually great hope in admitting our mortality and our brokenness because then we finally lay aside our sin management program long enough to allow God to be God. 

Lent isn’t about punishing ourselves for being human. The practice of Lent is about peeling away layers of insulation and anesthesia and numbing and avoidance which keep us from the truth of God’s promises. Lent is about looking at our lives through the lens of the light of Christ.   

My Ash Wednesday was one of the worst days of my life. There was death all around. And my Lenten journey back to life was painful and filled with hourly repentance. I wasn’t looking for it, it really didn’t want it. But when I got desperate, God opened my eyes to what was standing in the way of surrender. The intent of the journey of Lent is not simply for us to remember the last days of Jesus, but rather to take us deeper into our own desire to sense of the spirit of Jesus. In my life, Lent – year, after year, after year – teaches me the ways that giving things up allows me to be prepared for the things that are truly important. 

Fat Tuesday is the traditional name for the day before Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent in the Christian churches. Fat Tuesday is more commonly known as Mardi Gras, which is simply Fat Tuesday in French. Originally known as Shrove Tuesday, Fat Tuesday is often known as Pancake Day, because people used up their dairy and eggs by making pancakes and similar pastries. Traditionally Lent was a time to fast from meat and all products produced by animals, including butter and milk.

If you have never been to Mardi Gras, it is a paarrttyyyy. It is a celebration of excess. In the celebrations of all things Mardi Gras, especially Fat Tuesday, there is no thought to moderation or control. For most, the goal of Mardi Gras is to “celebrate” with all that you have, and that was the the mission of my life in this season. I was living in very real space of excess. In my desire to find the feeling of numb, I believed wholeheartedly that if a little was good, more had to be better.

In March of 2007, I was increasingly out of control. My best decisions led me to think that no one knew I was spiraling down the drain. Sure, I had plenty of people fooled. Some even blamed my erratic behavior on things other than pills and alcohol. But much like the Mardi Gras parties that I still love to attend, there are only so many shiny beads and glitter wigs that you can wear before everyone notices that the person under the costume does not have it all together. The parades are great. The big beads are exciting. But sometimes the insanity of the party is just that…insane.

I was attending my small group crawfish boil with kids and families and boiling pots and beer. At this point, I was free from the church rules, so why not? While everyone else had one or two beers, I had a secret stash in a small cooler. In addition, unbeknownst to anyone, I had already taken pills. The mudbugs were consumed and the yard games were enjoyed, and all was great. Deep into the evening, I was in the yard and someone noticed that I was standing in a fire ant bed. I had no clue. After dusting off the ants, I was escorted to the car and I will never forget the look on Lucas’s face when he asked, “Are you drunk?”

I passed out on the way home – in my 5 year-old’s lap. I don’t remember getting from the car to the bed or the bed to the bathtub, but sometime in the middle of the night, I crawled to my bathroom. I recall crying sobs of misery and the only words that came to me were, “I love it too much.”

What in the hell was about to happen? When the light of day hit the mess that I had created, what was going to happen? I had never felt so alone and so ashamed. I didn’t know it was possible to hate myself that much. I just wanted to die. I wanted to fall asleep in that empty bathtub and never wake up. Because surely it was easier than facing the destruction that was coming when the light of day was cast on the mess that I had created.

In a year, I had quit my job, become a stay-at-home mom, made major shifts in my spiritual life, cared for a child with medical challenges and had significant changes in my friend group. To take a step back and view this with 20/20 rear facing vision, the writing on the wall was clear. Change is stressful. And then you add poor coping skills. One of the only things that can make challenges more difficult is to try and medicate your way through them.

My mind-implemented morality police gave me quite a few rules about drinking. I didn’t drink in front of teenagers. I didn’t have alcohol in my house. Even after my days on staff at churches, I had deeply held norms about my public consumption of alcohol. Looking back, these mandates were as much about cautiously approaching a substance that I knew I had a family history of abusing. The genetic component of addiction was clear in my family. While it was not a secret, it was almost a subject of generational lore. I had not seen the direct impact, but rather heard the consequences and tales from days gone by.

From the time that I took my first drink, I knew that the feeling of escape was a glorious high. As an overly religious teen, my fear and trembling pushed me far from drug experimentation. Always concerned about the approval of others, I was terrified of getting in trouble or disappointing someone I admired. These are valuable stop gaps for many teens, and I can honestly say that they saved me from many dark roads.

After my introduction to pain killers during my pregnancy, I knew of another path to escape. Suddenly, this temporary fix of all things hard was PRESCRIBED to me by a doctor. Sure, I knew that that these drugs had warnings about the harmful effects, but because they were given by my healthcare provider they seemed better, or at least safer than real drugs. After childbirth and surgery, I was given refills for pain medicines from both doctors. As those began to wane, I began to tinker with ways to find similar release points with anything I could easily get my hands on. On days when I felt particularly out of control, I would go back to the pain pills. As I began to run low on my stock of prescriptions, I began to get creative.

At the height of my insanity, I had 4 doctors that were all being used as supply agents. Sadly enough, I was a very convincing patient. I was nearing a desperation point when I discovered ways around the time release of capsules. One my doctors began to see through my antics and I felt the heat. It was at that point that I “perfected” the mix of the the pills and the alcohol. A little of this and a little of that meant that nothing was in excess. I considered this quality management.

I had a list of reasons in my mind that I needed the pills.

I was sure that the quantity that I was drinking was not problematic. Geez, all I had to do was look at a friend or neighbor to see what excess really was.

Because all of my life, I had been a high-strung, type A, full throttle gal. For the first time in my life, I was taking time to relax and unwind. This is NORMAL adult-ing, right?

The Fall of 2006 brought many changes. At The Water’s Edge was worshiping regularly on Sunday evenings and while it was such a place of comfort for me, we were about to experience our first set of growing pains. We were intrigued by a conversation to partner in helping start an extension of Ecclesia Houston, but while all of this was swirling in the air of change, there were personal undercurrents for each of us as individual leaders. In the time of my life when I was the most open to God and what I was being called to, I was also confronted with a big demon.

Authenticity. This word that we valued as a community began to haunt my soul. I longed for people to know me, but only the parts of me that were nice and neat and pretty. Developing and thriving in honest relationships with women, in particular, has always been tough for me. I’m not feel-ey. I don’t like hugs and Vera Bradley and I hate all things kitchen related. The passions and interest areas that draw many women together are not appealing to me. And then there is the drama. I cannot handle it. I don’t want to have to work at being close to people. As an introvert, I’m really quite content to be alone. But at 31, I had not yet embraced that reality.

I found myself time and time again trying to put my square non-conforming girlfriend needs into round wanna-talk-about-all-the-things relationship. And when I could not figure our how to do friendships well, I would run or combust. Either option was a safe bet. What changed in this season was that I found partnership in the shared vision and mission for the Church. It was out of the pain of past wounds that I can remember standing in a dear friend’s house one afternoon and saying the words, “I will push you away. So, please don’t let me.”

But the truth of the matter is, when you want to hide, you can…try. And I wanted to hide. In my attempt to hide, I pushed and shoved and wiggled my way to shutting out the people that were the closest to me. I had spent my life in full time ministry managing my emotions, hang-ups and issues in an attempt to create the facade of a shiny happy Jesus loving leader.

Until this point in life, I had never had a friend that could call me on my spiritual shortcomings and drive me towards my strength. And the truth was, she knew me. She knew there was more to my story in this season of life, and I can remember the day that I made the conscious decision to push her away. No one else was on to me, and I was not ready to give up this double life dance that I was leading. I disconnected. I did not fight or intercede to salvage some external factors that caused stressors on our relationship. I walked away never admitting what was really going on.

This relationship was but one example of the division and heartache and separation that exemplifies an addiction that was spiraling out of control. There are signs. There are the ways that addictions are portrayed in the movies. Then there are the insidious, many times unnoticed, and emotionally devastating components of the disease that make those around you think they are at fault. Especially when the addict is a on a cover-up mission.

When she was little bitty, my sister named my second daughter Myrtle the Turtle. It stuck. We have countless tiny turtles that were gifted to her in the early years. Ally was 6 months old when we first suspected that something was not quite right. I can remember that with AJ, every milestone check-up brought proud announcements of overachiever firsts. With Ally, things were a little different. I was determined not to compare milestones between my kiddos, but there were normal development moments and we missed them. At 6 months, it was sitting. At 9 months, it was crawling. At both 6th and 9th months, our pediatrician was cautious, but not alarmed. But by 12 months, when her attempts to crawl utilized mainly one side of her body, we had to start looking for possible solutions.

Without a doubt, she needed some physical therapy, so we began to line up options. There were also some concerns about her fine motor skills and speech, so we began working with more therapists. Our pediatrician was very quick to send us to Texas Children’s for evaluation. We saw a neurologist that began to do testing and make recommendations. The most noticeable symptom was that Ally lacked muscle control. Unlike other children her age, she could not hold her weight to stand or walk. It was decided that with therapy and leg braces that we would give her until 20 months to take a step before the testing became more invasive. They prepared us for a muscle biopsy should we reach 20 months without a step.

She went to therapy 3x a week. We experienced and did all the things they suggested. We put her in a Mother’s Day Out program to have her with kids her own age and size in hopes that they could inspire her to follow their lead. With each new manipulative step on our part to coax her to move, she developed a skill to bypass and overcome. My favorite of these was her ability to roll across the room and in her inability to stand, grasp her sister’s legs and drop her to the floor to tackle her.

Not one person, ever, has accused Ally of being lazy. She is messy. She is deliberate. She is one of the most strong-headed people I have ever known, but she is NOT lazy. She is busy. She is always on the move, and most of the time her energy is aimed for good.  From the time she was too little to know better, she has had an opinion and oh, does she like to express it. We learned this far too well in 2006.

With the 20 month mark looming, I was dreading the result. With all the therapy we could manage and many hours of working with her at home, we could not see how the process would not end without more invasive testing. But my favorite part of Ally then, is still the thing that gets me today. She never saw her deficiencies as obstacles. She saw them as opportunities to be stronger. She saw them as things she was going to have to work on. But not once in her voice or simple words did she say, “I can’t.”

She was fitted for leg braces weeks after her first birthday. She wore the braces inside her little toddler shoe for more than a year. And just when I thought that we were headed down a long road of medical uncertainly, she took a step. One step. That was all we needed for more time. So, we kept working and therapy-going and praying. We created ways to challenge her and help her gain strength. We constantly reminded her that walking and using muscles and building tone was worthy work. Benign Congenital Hypotonia. That was the diagnosis. And the easiest way to explain her condition was loose muscles. The brain and the limbs and the muscles had to coordinate and learn to control her body. So, we did all in our power to help it along.

The braces that Ally wore in her early years sit on a shelf in her room next to her medals and trophies from her sport of choice, swimming. If you had told me in 2006 that Ally would have just completed her 6th short course season of year round swimming and would become a backstroker that qualifies for state and national meets at 12, I would have told you that my beautiful and precious girl could not crawl, much less swim. May this be a lesson to us all, there are times when our gifts and skills are very turtle like. They are slow. They are deliberate. But buried in the heart of the tiniest turtle can be a fire. And when the fire is brought to life with a passion and determination, that little turtle may transform into a fierce Ally-gator.

I don’t know where this posture was introduced to us, but it was in this season that Lucas began to audibly articulate the ways that we were called to walk into each situation in our lives – church, family and all the others. He called it sitting on YES. This means that when presented with a challenge or opportunity, we begin the discussion with an attitude of how CAN we, rather than the list of reasons why we cannot. This approach is in direct contradiction to my wiring. If you ask me to do something, my immediate answer is always filtered through the lens of the cost rather the opportunities for the possible gift.

This is the first of many reasons that we are better together. I would sit around and make sarcastic quips about all the negative things and he would live boundary-less with great intentions but no time to enjoy life. But together, we are often found to be an overbooked, loving people machine of doing all the things. Most of the time this is great. Sometimes, we have to lock ourselves on a cruise ship to force ourselves to say no. But I digress…

As At The Water’s Edge began to reach in and up and around in our world, we saw new opportunities for action. I can remember countless nights that we spent rocking babies, giving bottles and dreaming of the next way we could respond to a physical, emotional or spiritual need that we had discovered. There was nothing that had the heart of our community like children. Whether it be through providing diapers or school supplies or food, we were committed to saying YES with more than just our money. Sure, we could buy some crayons and markers, but we challenged each other to be the face of the backpacks and diapers, as we looked our neighbors in the eyes. We refused to be content with tipping out hat at community service. At the heart of this church was a central call to not just “help” the neighbor but the love, and learn from, and care for and BE neighbors.

And this gets really messy. Because when you begin to look people in the eyes and listen to their stories, everything changes. When you are sitting with those that are marginalized by society, by people like me, you hear a new story. You hear the stories not as statistics or needs or even causes, but rather as Mike and Ann and Angel. Rather than news topics, the things that are tearing apart the fabric of our communities are happening in the lives of those you know. The opioid epidemic is not something that you see on 20/20, but something that you are watching your friend die from. The struggle to pay the light bill is not an annoyance, but the reality of families that live on wages that are determined by the sun or the rain or the fact that there is no gas in the car to get to a job. Coming to face the reality that children are wearing the same diaper all day because when the choice is food or Pampers, we eat, the the hardest of the hard. Once we saw these things, we could not look back.

Sure some would like to think this was because we were some liberal over the top socialwork-ey types. But I can assure you that most of us were far from it. Instead, what happened is that we discovered the world of following Jesus has no political agenda and instead has one agenda, to love. And there are days where that feels really squishy. But I think the opposite was true. Because when the reasons for ‘NO’ continued to disappear and the call to be the hope of the world came into focus, there was nothing warm and fluffy about it. This mission to change the world so that others would know the hope of Resurrection changed us. We went from meetings and budgets and all the hold outs to a beginning place that said if we have it, it is your. Our YES’s took over. And so did our excitement for the Church again.

When we finally began to wrap our minds around the fact that the church IS the living, breathing, heartbeat of God’s people, we stopped trying to do it perfectly. Instead of waiting until we had enough, or the right or even the most talented, we chose to gather on a Sunday night in a living room with a guitar and Bible. We had prayer, we had stillness and we had each other.

Within weeks, we needed more space for worship so a family that was journeying with us approached their karate instructor about the possibility of using their space. One of my favorite acts of worship was transforming the padded walls and sparing gear with fabric and candles. Somehow making a gym into a sanctuary was an offering. As we planned each week, we looked to people in our community that were speaking words of hope and truth all around. We listened for unique voices that were responding in real and radical ways to the call of Jesus in their midst. We invited friends, new friends and even strangers to share music and messages with us as we navigated the road of birthing a community on mission for Jesus.

There were two non-negotiables from the beginning. We believed that the church could change the world if we sacrificially gave of our time, talents and resources. We also knew that being the hands and feet of Christ meant being willing to get messy. To us, that meant that staying in our churchy space and inviting people into our thing was not enough. We were committed from day 1 that mission and ministry meant listening and engaging and responding to the needs of the world.

One of the first ways that we did this was through helping a neighbor. After meeting a family that had little to no financial resources, we became aware of a gap. The need for personal care items (shampoo, soap, toothbrushes) is real. Food stamps cannot help, and many items used for grooming and hygiene are the first on this list of “wants” for those struggling to make ends meet. So we started buying and setting up giveaways for these items. We would talk with families, see what they needed and help meet a need in a parking lot of the poorest zip code in our county. And we made new friends and learned of new challenges. Like the need for fresh produce. Again this is one of the more expensive items on a grocery list, so they are often cut. More than 10 years ago, from this raggamuffin gang came a vision for a monthly produce distribution that still takes place more than 120 months later. Just last Saturday, my husband and oldest daughter were passing out fresh food. And that has been a normal rhythm of faith life for my girls for more than a decade.

This image doesn’t look like much after a decade of wear and tear, but every time I look at my ankle, I see a permanent reminder of a season that changed me. This water drop represents the many ways that a dedicated group of Jesus followers changed my life forever. The ripples in the water of my life continue to make rings of inclusion and grace and forgiveness and friendship.

2006 was the year that showed me that Church was everything and yet it was nothing that I would have asked for. I didn’t want to start a church. Matter of fact, I did almost everything to get out of it. But when you begin to live out your faith l like a responsive reflex rather than a forced exercise, you make a shift. And when you see life from a  posture of humility and dependency in the face of inadequacy, God begins to gift and grace you with all you need. And what I enjoyed most in this season was a community that required me to listen and fear and drink and praise. So this became our song of hope. Thanks, David Crowder, for speaking truth and light for us At The Water’s Edge.

Come and listen, come to the water’s edge, all you who know and fear the Lord.
Come and listen, come to the water’s edge all you who are thirsty, come.

Let me tell you what He has done for me.
He has done for you,
He has done for us.

Praise our God for He is good.