Celebrate Recovery® at CRBC

My name is Steve and I am a believer in Jesus Christ who struggles with anxiety and codependency among other things.  I was a happy child growing up and my parents took good care of me.  We took family vacations every year and we went to church as a family every week.  Apart from our time at church on Sundays, there was very little mention of God during the week. 

Everything about life seemed right until my teenage years.  As a high school student, I was occasionally picked on because I didn’t look cool, act cool, or talk cool.  I didn’t have cool friends either.  Basically, I was not cool. 

When I started dating in high school and college I began to associate love with pain.  My whole identity became wrapped up in my relationships.  I lived with a great deal of self-hatred and I changed many things about myself in an attempt to please others.  Put simply, the people around me became my higher power. 

After college, my life took a turn for the worse.  I remember it vividly.  One day while at work I thought to myself, “What if I can’t make my friends laugh anymore?”  I kept running this question over and over in my head and it wasn’t long until my days were filed with anxiety.  I began fearing social situations because I was so concerned with what I was going to say.   

Put simply, I was miserable.  I wanted to hide from myself, but there was nowhere to hide.  I was scared of the world and I had never felt more alone in my entire life.  I felt that nobody understood me.  This destructive thought pattern continued throughout my twenties.

In 2005 I began attending Calvary Road Baptist Church with my girlfriend at the time.  I was especially drawn to Pastor Dave’s sermons.  His “invitations” were an emotional time for me and often brought me to tears.  Finally, after months of wanting to step forward during an invitation to receive Christ, I finally did so on June 5, 2005.  I remember feeling a burden lifted from my shoulders and I accepted Jesus as my personal savior at age 29.  I was told that to grow as a Christian I should begin praying and reading the bible.  I remember thinking that I had no interest in either, but I went home and fell in love with God’s Word almost immediately.  My prayer life developed over time as well.

The last two and half years have been an amazing time in my life.  God began bringing about changes in my life and changing me almost immediately.  I had been listening to angry and aggressive music since I was a teenager, but shortly after receiving Christ I remember feeling convicted whenever I would listen to that type of music.  I quickly went out and bought some music produced by Christian artists to replace my old collection.    By God’s grace, I have also been able to stop some other extremely destructive and selfish habits in my life. 

Shortly after becoming a Christian I attended my first Celebrate Recovery meeting at this church.  I made some friends quickly, but my biggest struggle continued to be with anxiety.  I prayed for healing, but it wasn’t coming fast enough.  I continued attending Celebrate Recovery meetings, studying God’s Word and praying.  Were it not for our Celebrate Recovery leader, George, repeatedly saying, “Don’t quit before your miracle happens,” I may have quit.  I also felt like I was one big disappointment to God.  I knew that as a Christian I was supposed to have “joy” and “peace”, but I couldn’t understand why I continued to struggle.   

A time eventually came in early 2007, however, when God showed me that, although I was spending a lot of time in His Word, I was not applying what I was reading.  It was in the application of His Word that God would begin to deliver me from my fears and anxieties. 
The first verse I memorized was Philippians 4: 6-7 which says “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything through prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”  I have begun using the weapons of praise, prayer, and God’s Word when engaging in spiritual warfare and God is slowly delivering me from my fears.  I realize now that I have the power to choose faith-filled thoughts right out of the bible.

Thanks to God my life is so different today.  The scripture 2 Corinthians 5:17 comes to mind, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ he is a new creation, old things have passed away behold all things have become new.”  Put simply, I have been reborn.  I am not perfect, but I have found myself sinning less and my relationships with others are now blossoming.  Faith, hope, and love are my core values and my goals in life are to walk daily with God and become more like my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  Thank you for letting me share my story with you.