From Addiction to Salvation: A Testimony of God’s Grace

Apologia Utah

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So my name is Janice. I am originally from Sedona, Arizona. My childhood growing up was traumatic.

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Very broken. I love my parents dearly and I'll circle back to that later in my testimony but at the time they were not present and, you know, there was abuse.

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And a lot of that came from my own parents, you know, broken childhoods, right?

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At the age of 14, I was on my own. At the age of 15,

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I was working two part‑time jobs. And about four months before I turned 16,

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I was raped one night by a couple different individuals, which kind of led into a spiral of addiction at a very young age.

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Trying all kinds of different amounts of drugs, heavy alcohol abuse.

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When I was 16, I met a 32‑year‑old man. I was supposed to clean his home.

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And through a series of events, he ended up taking advantage of me and we got married.

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I got pregnant. When I was 20, I left that marriage.

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And then just from there, it was, you know, one bad relationship after another, one abusive relationship after another, spiraling farther into addiction.

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And then when I was 22, I met someone, got into a relationship with them, got pregnant shortly after having my second daughter and had an abortion.

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When I did that, when I murdered the child that God had fearfully and wonderfully made in my womb, that really sealed my addiction to pain medications.

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And then I ended up in a relationship with a married man that had been married for 12 years.

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And horrifically and sadly, we just demolished that marriage and his family.

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And then I lost everything. By God's grace, I mean, he stripped everything from me.

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And, you know, I have regrets over my sin, but I don't have regrets over him, you know, wrecking every false idol that I had exalted, every, you know, desire and obsession that I had that I was trying to fill this void in my heart that he created that was meant to be occupied by him.

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So he took it all away. For seven years, I was pretty much caged up in a room living with this man.

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And then one day I'm standing out in the kitchen and throughout my whole life,

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I had been a professing Christian. I would be what today I would call the holiday

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Christian that went to church on Christmas and Easter, said that I knew

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Christ, believed that I had punched my ticket, said the magic prayer. And then throughout that experience, always praying, giving thanks for my food, you know, but never going to him with my sin and not truly knowing who

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Christ was. So one night I'm standing in the kitchen and I'm praying, giving thanks for my food as I always did.

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And I hear the Lord tell me, you'll thank me for your food, but you won't come to me with your sin.

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And the weight of those words, I was crushed.

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Like, I knew that there was something very different about this experience versus all the prior experiences of praying and, you know, giving thanks for my food, right?

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Like, I knew that I was hearing the voice of God and he didn't want to hear me say, you know, thank you for this food.

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I went back to the room completely crushed over that, but I didn't repent that night.

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It was about a week later. I had a terrifying dream. So I'm standing in outer darkness and I'm standing before a mirror and sickeningly admiring my reflection in the mirror.

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Just total vanity, right? Just evil. And as I'm admiring my own reflection,

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I see this worm come out of my face and it goes back in. And then

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I see another worm come out the other side of my face and go back in. And I'm like terrified and I'm trying with all of my strength and all of my might.

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And it's so excruciatingly painful trying to reach my hand up to this worm to pull it out of my face.

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And I do this a couple of times. I get them out and I'm crying. I'm sobbing.

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It's so much pain. And then I see the head of a snake come out of the right side of my jaw.

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And I grab the head to pull the snake out of my jaw and the head breaks off. And I hear the

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Lord tell me, you can leave the body of the snake and live for a little while, but ultimately you will die.

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Or you can trust me and I will cut it out and it won't hurt. And in that moment when he said that to me,

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I looked behind me and the man that I was in a relationship with at that time was standing behind me.

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I know now in my walk with Christ that what I believe God was referencing to in that moment was a dead relationship, right?

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A relationship that wasn't going anywhere. It was killing me. I was driving deeper into my addiction, taking more drugs.

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I mean, to the point where they were giving me Narcan to take home, worried about me dying in my sleep.

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It was just a horrendous existence to be in. That dream drove me to my knees and then the

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Holy Spirit drove me to scripture. And I remember going to Matthew 4 and 5 and reading through that and then

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Christ saying, if you are not more righteous than the Pharisees and scribes, then by no means will you enter the kingdom of heaven.

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And I knew without knowing scripture that the Pharisees and scribes were evil. Christ was constantly rebuking them for their false religion, their religion of works, right?

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But for me it was like I don't even have the outward appearance of righteous works.

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You know, I truly am dead in my sins and trespasses without hope.

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And so I just cried out to God and He saved me. So after God saved me, I was so hungry for His word.

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I couldn't get enough of it. You know, what really crushed me about my false profession prior to Him saving me was that I didn't even realize who

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Christ was. You know, it's crucial that we understand the deity of Christ, that He is both fully

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God and fully man. That when Christ says to the Pharisees and scribes, in the scriptures you seek life, but it is they that point to me.

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And then He also says, you know, Abraham longed to see my day. He did and he was glad. And He also says, at no time has any man seen nor heard the

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Father, not even His form. He's pointing to Himself pre -incarnate in the

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Old Testament. It is Christ breaking bread with Abraham under the tree.

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It is Christ giving Moses His perfect law. And this still gives me goosebumps today, knowing that Christ was on Mount Sinai, giving

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Moses His law, knowing that man wouldn't abide by it, but also knowing that He was going to condescend into His own creation to live that perfect and righteous life according to the law that He gave, and then to be our perfect propitiation.

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That to me was just gutting. And so I just fell in love with the

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Lord. I, you know, wanted to know my Creator and my

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Redeemer, you know, that the one that Paul says all things were created by Him, for Him, and through Him, and without Him was nothing made, including myself.

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And from there, the Lord just started to convict me over my sin. My addiction to pain medications was the first one.

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Second to that was my relationship with the gentleman that I was with at the time. We slowly started to separate more and more.

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I started reading Scripture more and more, longing and pleading with the

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Lord to deliver me from this addiction. I didn't want it anymore, but my body was so dependent on it at that point that I couldn't just give it up.

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But I was looking for that moment where Christ would tell me, take up your bed and walk.

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You know, I thought that the Lord was going to deliver me through a miracle like that. But that's not how things went.

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It was actually so much more beautiful than that. So for two years, the

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Lord just kept pouring into me, and I was just digging into His Word more and more.

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And finally, we got to the point where I realized the only alternative for to get off of these pain medications was to check into detox and go through the medically assisted route.

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And I did that. And I remember the first group meeting there,

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I had my head hanging down and I was crying. For whatever reason, I felt abandoned. I was so stuck on that, you know, take up your bed and walk, that miracle of deliverance, that I wasn't willing to be open to God's willingness.

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And so that first meeting, I had my head hanging and praying, and I told the

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Lord, I feel like you've abandoned me. I don't understand. I don't want to be here. I want to be free from this addiction.

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And I started listening. The Lord gave me the ears to hear all of these broken people around me and what was going on in their lives, right?

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And also, He gave me the ears to hear the person that was leading this group, who was a

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Buddhist. And the mantra that He was giving them, it was like a system of works.

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I'm like, you're trying to take them out of one form of enslavement and put them into another.

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Like, this is hopeless. And that gave me a desire, a hunger to share the gospel with these people.

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Funny story in all of this, I had transportation provided for me with this detox program.

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They would pick me up every morning and take me, and then they would pick me up from the detox center and take me back home.

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They were always on time in the morning to get me to detox, but at the end of the meetings, sometimes they were up to two hours late.

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And I remember at first being frustrated, but what I would do is I would stand outside of the detox center and I would just have these one -on -one conversations, sharing the gospel, who

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Christ is, that there's freedom in Him. He can deliver you from this. You know, put your trust in Him.

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He's your creator. Like, I mean, when God says that He saves to the utter most and that He will hold you up with His righteous right arm and that He will make straight your ways and level your paths, the fires will not consume you, the waters will not overwhelm you.

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And then when He says that for my name's sake, I will do this. I mean, that's so key. For His name's sake,

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He will do this. You can believe in that promise of hope and freedom from your sin and your addiction.

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And you know, I would also explain too, because these poor people lived day to day.

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Yes, they were coming to detox, but sometimes people wouldn't return because they overdosed. You know, it wasn't uncommon for people to die in a setting like that.

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When you go that long without drugs and then you consume what you were taking before you started detox, it's not uncommon.

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And so I just felt this like real need to tell them, because I didn't know if this was going to be the last time that I saw them, that look, death is a destiny that we all have.

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We all are going to die. This is not permanent. And when you die, you are either going to be justified in Christ or you are going to be condemned.

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Today is the day of salvation. Repent and believe. And so that's what I did just day in and day out outside of this detox center.

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And I even had some opportunities with the leader of the group one -on -one where, you know, he would get into his philosophy of Buddhism and I would tell him, you know, your

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Buddha is no different than Nebo and Isaiah. You know, you are bowing down to an idol and you are enslaving people.

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You're not helping them. We had an hour every Monday for personal sharing time.

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And mine was always to read scripture. And I loved the book of Isaiah. I mean, that was like my go -to place in sharing with this group during my time.

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So about two months after being at this detox, things were coming to an end and the

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Lord was preparing to move me on. And I read scripture and this gentleman looked at me and he said, the leader of the group, he said,

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I don't want you reading from the Bible anymore. You're more than welcome to share what the

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Bible says but in your own words. And I told him, you know, sir, I can't do that. God's word is infallible and I'm a fallible human being.

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I don't want to paraphrase something incorrectly. If I'm going to share this, I need to, you know, share it straight from God's word.

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I mean, that's what God compels me and convicts me to do. And he told me, well, you're not welcome to do that here anymore.

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And that day my ride showed up on time and it never showed up late again.

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And it was like the Lord told me to shake the dust from my feet and move on.

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And so I did. You know, I had been going to apology at that point for about a year and a half and I had amazing pastors and amazing body that came around me and just loved me, supported me, encouraged me, prayed for me, you know, kept pointing me back to Christ.

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I started with nothing but a mattress on a wood floor, very little clothes.

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I had my 1990 Toyota Camry car. I was, to get back on my feet,

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I got back into the restaurant business as a hostess for a little while.

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That and doing DoorDash and just really with very little, but I had everything because I had

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Christ. You know, he was so faithful to provide and he kept instilling in me not to despise small beginnings.

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You know, he redeems all things. He restores all things. And I can tell you, you know, fast forward six years.

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Yes, he does. I've seen this in so many respects. One being my parents.

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My mom was in the LDS church. And when the

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Lord saved me, I felt compelled to share the gospel with her and pray for her over the phone.

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And incredibly, she would sit there and she would actually listen to me pray for her salvation.

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You know, I would say to the Lord, you know, my mom doesn't know you and I pray for a new heart.

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God, I pray that you would convict her. I pray that you would give her the eyes to see and the ears to hear the truth.

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And she was so accommodating to those conversations.

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I would take this prayer request to the body and ask them, you know, please pray for my mom.

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You know, I want her to come out of this. And that right there, you know, when I talk about restoration,

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I won't get into specifics with my parents from my childhood and the things that happened because I look at it on this side of the cross as both of them are redeemed.

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Both of them are in Christ. And for me to even talk about that is laying false accusation because God has wiped their sins as far east from west as he has myself.

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He remembers them no more. So how can I? I can't keep an account of those things. But it is important to say that it was hard because it's glorious to then say both of them are redeemed and in Christ.

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I've seen my mom saved. My dad who was an alcoholic is now sober in Christ, loves the

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Lord. You know, his faith is firm. Even to things like, you know, being raped at the age of 15, seeing the sweetness of God saving my parents,

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I long for my former abusers to be saved. There's nothing more profound than a sinner who has abused an image bearer of God or even murdered an image bearer of God like myself, the child that was in my womb, and see

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God convict them of their sin and to take their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh, to put his spirit within them and to cause them to observe his laws and statutes, to change our very nature.

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So, you know, even with things like that, I have complete healing and I rejoice in the fact that God has saved me.

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And I pray that if the men that have hurt me in the past don't know the

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Lord now, that they would come to a saving faith. For one, that's where true healing for the victim is.

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But also too, that is where repentance from continuing to harm other image bearers stops.

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You know, Christ says to love thy neighbor. You know, love God and love thy neighbor. The whole of the law is hanging on that, right?

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And when you know Christ and you know the abuse that he went through on the cross and hearing him cry out as he's dying,

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Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.

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Who am I to say that someone that has abused me or harmed me shouldn't be forgiven?

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I would hope that all those that I have abused and hurt, that God would save them so that they could forgive me, you know, as Christ forgave me, so they could have that healing.

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You know, and also too, seeing God's sovereignty and mercy and grace, knowing that he knew us before the foundation of the world.

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So, scripture tells us that, you know, we were children of wrath, right?

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We were children of Adam and then God gave us a new heart, a new nature, and now we're children of God.

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At the same time, scripture also tells us that God knew us before the foundation of the world, that we were predestined to know him.

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In that, looking back all these years later, over all the moments where God has preserved my life, you know, one of them being when

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I was four years old. One night I woke up in the middle of the night and I rolled over and I saw this man laying in my bed on his stomach with his hand or his face in his hands, and something told me to get up and walk out, and so I slowly got up and I like slid off the bed, and as I'm walking down my hallway to get to my bedroom door,

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I hear this voice, who I now attribute to the Lord, tell me, don't look back.

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So, I didn't. I just walked straight forward. I walked to my parents' room and the bedroom door was locked, and I hear the same voice tell me, lay down and go to sleep.

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Inwardly, I was terrified, but at the same time, this voice had an authority to it that just gave me such a sense of peace that I was obedient to it, and I laid down and I went to sleep.

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What's interesting about that is that if you walk out my bedroom door, the condo that we lived in at the time, the way the shadows casted off the furniture into the living room, me laying down in front of my parents' bedroom door was the perfect place to hide.

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If you had walked out my bedroom and looked into the living room, you wouldn't have seen me, and I remember the next morning, my mom opening the door and looking down and asking, what are you doing?

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In that moment, I couldn't articulate to her, being a four -year -old, what had happened.

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I went in my room and I looked and all of my bedding had been pulled off, the mattress had been pulled off, and my

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Arcadia door was open. That's when I told my parents what had happened, because even at being four,

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I knew I was able to understand that the person that had been laying in my bed was looking for me.

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Had the Lord not sovereignly and graciously and mercifully come in and saved me that night, if He had not put

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His saving love over me, predestined me to know

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Him, I may not be sitting here today. I may not have made it past the age of four. I remember telling my parents and talking to my dad about this a couple of years ago.

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He told me, he's like, yeah, you know, that happened, and I remember your mom calling me and me coming home from work and walking into your room and being alarmed, like not understanding, you know, how a four -year -old could pull all the bedding off and the mattress off.

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He's like, I remember that specifically, the mattress being pulled off your bed, and after that,

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I locked your Arcadia door. So, like, even in those instances,

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I think, wow, you know, truly when God says, you know,

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I have called you by name, you are mine. It's true. For the unbeliever,

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I would say this, you know, Romans 1, Paul tells us that God has made

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Himself known, and we suppress the truth in unrighteousness because we love our sin, and we hate

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God. You know, Romans 1 to Romans 3 is an indictment of all mankind, and in that state, and I've seen this a lot in various interactions with people over the years since the

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Lord has saved me, where, you know, people think that they just need to get these areas of their lives in order before, you know, turning to Christ.

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Really what that boils down to is going back to what Paul says, it is a hatred for God and a love of your sin, and sin brings forth death.

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That is the only destination that you're going to end up in if you continue to lust after and chase that sin.

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It will profit you nothing. Not only that, but in chasing these idols, really what you're doing is this trying to stuff temporary pleasures in a gaping hole in your heart that God created to occupy.

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That is His seat. That is His throne.

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He is your creator. He doesn't ask you to worship Him. He commands you because He is worthy of it.

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The only way that you can conquer sin and the only way that you can get out of various forms of addiction, whether it be drugs or pornography or money or possessions, is

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God's saving work in you. You know, that's the life of a

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Christian. When we talk about sanctification and dying to self, first it's being given that regenerate heart to know

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Him, right? Having the eyes to see and the ears to hear finally the good news of the gospel that, you know,

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Christ condescended into His own creation to live the perfect and righteous life that you and I never will.

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Whether you're a believer or an unbeliever, you will never live the perfect and righteous life.

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You need Christ's perfect works to cover you. You need His perfect propitiation.

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That is the only way to overcome sin, and God is faithful.

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You know, when we are regenerate and born again, we're not born perfect. It's a lifelong battle with sin and sanctification, but the difference for a

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Christian versus a non -believer is that God is faithful, and He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion for His namesake, for His glory.

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There's hope in putting these things to death. There's hope for recovery. For the believer who is struggling, what

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I would say is believing what God says. Again, I can't emphasize this enough.

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For His namesake, He who began a good work in you, the author and finisher of your faith will bring it to completion.

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Keep crying out. Keep asking. Keep going to His word. You know, surround yourself with fellow believers that will point you to Christ, pray for you, you know, encourage you, spur on your faith.

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There's hope. It is a lifelong process. Me sitting here today, you know, eight years from when

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God saved me, I still struggle, and you know, oftentimes, I feel like an infant.

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You know, like I'm still on milk. I'm not eating meat yet, and I'm like, Lord, you know, what is going on?

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Why am I still struggling with this? You know, Father, forgive me. I'm, you know, so sorry. You know, it's painful, but then

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God is gracious in sometimes stopping us and causing us to look backwards.

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If we end up in those moments too much, then we're saying that God isn't keeping His word to complete the work that He started in us, and so sometimes

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God is gracious in saying, wait a minute, where were you eight years ago? And then when you look back at that, it's like reigniting that passion for your first love, and that's how gracious God is.

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So is the life of a Christian and the walk of sanctification intense? Yes, absolutely, but God is faithful, and He's steadfast, and He keeps

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His promises, and I would say, adding to that scripture that I draw on a lot, this is what brings me home again from the book of Isaiah, where He says, but now thus says the

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Lord, He who created you, O Jacob, He who formed you, O Israel, fear not, for I have redeemed you.

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I have called you by name. You are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you.

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When you walk through fire, you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you, for I am the

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Lord, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I give

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Egypt as your ransom, Cush and Seba in exchange for you, because you are precious in my eyes and honored, and I love you.

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I give men in return for you, peoples in exchange for your life. Fear not, for I am with you.

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I will bring your offspring from the east, and from the west, I will gather you.

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I will say to the north, give up, and to the south, do not withhold. Bring my sons from afar, and my daughters from the end of the earth, everyone who is called by my name, whom