What happens when our life stories don’t have a happy ending?
We all love the story of the person who overcomes some great life challenge. You know the triumphant and heroic accounts shared of people, who crashed and burned, only to rise up and soar to new heights. We applaud and cheer these people for their happy ending, don’t we? But, what about those among us, who stumble, fall, crawl, fall, drag themselves along, and then fall all over again? Where is their happy ending?
We all want to be viewed as a success and to have a life that others can admire and emulate, but what about those who never soar with the eagles?
In the world of counseling and recovery there are endless stories of busted, broken, and bruised people who struggle their whole lives with recovery. Too often their lives don’t have the “Happily Ever After” ending. Sadly, we don’t always recover from illnesses or addictions. I want to share the story of some of these people. Not to highlight their failure, but to highlight God’s tender mercy!
**These are NOT the stories of clients. Those are confidential. These are stories of friends who gave me permission to share. I have still changed their names for the sake of privacy.
Kerry’s Story
In high school, Kerry was the life of the party. His good looks and charming personality made him a hit with everyone. His father passed away when he was a teen and his mother passed away when he was in college. The inheritance left to Kerry was substantial. Yet, by his mid-twenties he had nothing to show for it. He’d squandered it on drinking, gambling, women, and drugs.
In his thirties he answered the personal ad of a single mom with three kids. They were smitten and soon became a family of five. Kerry continued his “life of the party” antics, this time with three young sets of eyes as audience. The amount of alcohol and drugs began altering his mental capacities and he lashed out in angry abuse on the children. After a decade of these happenings, the woman filed a restraining order and divorced Kerry.
He spent the next decade hopping from city to city, job to job, couch to couch. He eventually ended up back in his hometown, living with a widowed aunt because she’s the only one who’d still answer his calls. Her loving influence led him to church where he met Christ, surrendered his heart, and was baptized. He even rebuilt some form of a relationship with his former stepdaughter.
Six months later, Kerry’s aunt died and he found himself out on the streets. Homeless for about a year, using drugs and drinking whenever he could get money for it, he was able to enter a halfway house and find work.
Two years later he got the diagnosis: his liver was diseased and he had one year to live if he would cease drinking. He chose not to stop and died within three months. His once thrilling party became a lonely death. He had no funeral and had no burial. All that remains of this once strong, charismatic man is an urn of ashes stored in his sister’s house.
What happened? At one point he had sobered up and accepted the grace and salvation of Christ. How can one run arms wide open back into the darkness? How can one sink in an ocean of grace, just to wash up dry on a deserted island? The answer is simple: it happens. I know this is not the deep, theologically inspired answer you were hoping for. Life isn’t that black and white, and many broken hearts are wallowing in the gray. The heart, at times, maybe surrendered to Christ, but the flesh is still broken. Free will remains and so does temptation.
Jay’s Story
Jay grew up with divorced parents, a life his own kids would follow later. Despite his humble beginnings, he was determined to be a success. After doing contract work for a while, Jay took a big step and opened his own roofing business. He even gave it a catchy biblical name to remind himself where his success comes from. Jay’s business grew and grew, and he was able to provide well for his wife and daughter. However, as time passed, the pressure of running such a booming business took its toll, and Jay lost sight of the “straight and narrow.” A colleague introduced him to crack cocaine, and Jay began his long running love affair with the drug.
As he abused the drug, he lost thousands of dollars, began womanizing, and eventually lost his marriage. Recognizing the mess he had caused, Jay decided to sober up. He soon began dating another woman and found himself a father again, this time to a son. Sobered by a second chance, he pledged to do better. He worked to restore a cordial relationship with his ex-wife in light of the daughter they shared. He picked back up his roofing business and again, worked tooth and nail to build a thriving, profitable company.
After a year or so, he once again crumbled under the pressures of his job, and turned to the warm embrace of the crack cocaine high. His son’s wife kicked him out, and Jay found himself living in his mom’s apartment. Estranged from two women he loved and two children, Jay hit a low. Jay disappeared to a hotel where he stayed for about a week, binging on alcohol and crack.
One day, he heard a knock on his hotel door and when he opened it, a friend and former coworker was there. Without saying a word, the friend hit Jay upside the head, told him to pack his things, and the friend drove him straight to rehab. Rehab was a place Jay would be in and out of repeatedly.
Flash forward about 8 years. Jay had lost his license to DUI’s, spent time in jail for driving while impaired, had multiple bouts with crack, and decided enough was enough. He found a local church and vowed to do whatever was needed to stay clean. He was befriended by Christian men who loved him. He joined a Celebrate Recovery Program where he found accountability. And he committed himself to following Christ. He later met a lovely teacher, fell in love, got married, and they adopted a child. Jay then made attempt number three at his roofing business. This time he felt stronger, more grounded, supported by family.
For three years he has been clean and has run an increasingly successful company. It seemed his past was finally that, the past. Recently, there was even an article published in Jay’s local newspaper on how he overcame his addictions to build a solid business. The article cheered how Jay’s roofing company had recently won the bid to replace the roof on the rehab facility Jay had once been a patient in. It was a “coming full circle” happily ever after story.
But sometimes that’s not life. Jay fell right back into his same ol’ pattern. Stressed and tired, he ran not into Christ’s comforting arms, but instead into the familiar…substance. Jay disappears for days at a time, leaving his family and friends to search hotel after hotel looking for him. Jay’s wife is exhausted from all of the lies, from carrying the weight of the family, from worrying about her husband’s well being, from trying to keep the family financially afloat, from protecting her husband’s reputation with everyone they know, and from going through this same pattern over and over again. Meanwhile, Jay skips church in fear of facing friends. He juggles guilt, shame, and his longing for crack.
What will happen to Jay next? We don’t know. Between past relapses he’d humbly return to the church body and welcome the outpouring of grace from the wide-open arms of Christ. This time, he remains in hiding. The grace is still waiting there though; it always is. Jay cannot outrun or “out-sin” grace. He cannot fall down so many times that God will not pick him up again. But it’s up to Jay as to whether he will let God.
Are you thoroughly saddened? Upset with the anti-triumphant stories? Wishing I’d do a quick “where are they now?” feature and tell you they lived happily ever after? Well, in a way, I can – Both Kerry and Jay did met Christ during their lives. Grace is not a free pass to dive into sin; rather it’s a daily choice for all of us, to surrender our lives as a living sacrifice, by allowing Christ to live his life in and through us. Sadly, as long as we live in this world none of us are ever fully able to overcome the shortcomings of our flesh. I don’t care how good you think you’re doing, it’s always a question of the area, and degree of our struggle.
Though Kerry’s body lost the fight, and we don’t know what the future holds for Jay, we don’t know the ending of his story (which ironically never ends). In the end, their sin-ridden, alcohol and drug-infested bodies, just like any of ours, are shed. From ash to ash, dust to dust. But their souls find eternal peace in the presence of Christ. Failure and unhappy endings are no more. Darkness, shame, and loneliness are non-existent. The only grip on Jay and Kerry is that of Christ’s, gentle, loving hand.
And while we struggle to swallow this truth, it is truth indeed.
No matter the failures of this life, our forever success is secured in Christ Jesus. For it’s through Him we find perfection. Not through any attempts of our own doing. So if you’ve have failed or are failing, count yourself lucky to be able to turn your failures over to the author and perfecter.
If you’re struggling and want to break the pattern, reach out. Contact me at MendedLife.com.
-Joel Walton