Let Go and Let God – Jayne describes the day she let God into her life

In 2006 and I was living in Sherborne, Dorset. I had a massive drug problem and was an alcoholic.  I’d recently been to see a doctor who had given me what he probably thought was good advice. What was that silly doctor on about, stupid man, saying that if I don’t stop drinking and taking drugs I’ll be dead in 12 months? Who does he think he is?

Then it hit me, who can I turn to?  I had no mum or family for support and help; my mum died a long time ago, when I was 14. That’s when I started drinking and smoking weed. Throughout the years it just got worse. I needed my drink and drugs to hide the pain. I had given up my children because of my addictions. I was not a fit mother. The pain of losing my children was worse than that of losing my mother.

All I felt was darkness.  I was lonely, lost and living in the depths of hell. I felt I was chained to a life that wasn’t a life, just an existence, living from drink to drink, but I couldn’t break free.  I was doing things that anyone hates doing. Stealing, lying, cheating, anything to get the money for the next drink or hit! I would plead  – please someone get me out of this hell I’m living in – but I didn’t know who I was praying to.  I just felt I was talking to the ceiling. I had no heart, no emotion, no tears, Just a gaping hole inside that had never been filled.

In March 2006 I was looking in the local paper and there was this little ad, ‘Let go & Let God’. That’s all it said. ‘What’s that about’, I thought? Well if I’m going to die I may as well try and get into heaven. So that Sunday I went to the local Baptist church. The following Sunday I went again. That’s when God spoke to me, ‘My child.’ That was enough to send me running out in floods of tears. Someone came out and prayed with me, and I came to the Lord. Things looked so different, so bright. Pastor Jonathan, talked to me about how God will help me with my addictions all I had to do was pray. So I did, I prayed with all that I had in me. But underneath I felt that I wasn’t worthy of God’s help, I’m such a bad person I don’t deserve his help.

A few days later I decided to try AA. I stood up from talking to them on the phone. As I walked across the room, I just stood for a moment; it was like someone dragging all the darkness, evil, and pain out of me through my shoulders, like I was being lifted up by them. I turned to John (now my husband) and said ‘John the Lord has healed me’. He looked at me and said, ‘I know I saw it happen’. GOD HAD HEALED.ME in an instant. All of my addictions that had ruled my life for nearly 30 years had gone in a split second. I just went into my bedroom and fell to my knees sobbing, ‘Oh Lord what have I done to deserve such a blessing. Thank you my King. From now on I will do my very best to do your bidding’. Today I am still trying my very best to do just that. But I still mess up sometimes but now I know that God loves me even if I fail.  He has filled the emptiness inside me.