Let God Do The Work
When my wife passed away – leaving me with our 5- and 10-year-old daughters – I started drinking and using pain medications from my wife’s cancer treatments. I fell into full-blown addiction, so Child Protective Services took my two little girls.
I was broke, homeless and in total despair. As I wandered the streets aimlessly, God directed my path and I stumbled across Rockford Rescue Mission. A sign on the door said, “If you don’t have a friend in the world, you can find one here.”
I went through the Life Recovery Program in 2004 but didn’t finish. I left and things were going well for some time … but I forgot the Mission’s teachings and left God on the side. After a few painful years, everything was gone except my drug and alcohol addiction. I knew that I couldn’t handle life by myself, so I came back in 2020 to recommit myself to the Lord.
This is a faith-based, loving, caring program. I enjoy the structure that we get, including one-on-one Biblical guidance. The Genesis workbooks (the main curriculum in the recovery program) help correct your thinking with Scriptures and lessons for addiction recovery. We all come together as one … a big family filled with loving, caring people.
I graduated from the program this time and now am in transitional housing. I work as an intern in the Men’s Crisis Center as a peer group facilitator, helping lead a few anger management classes and sharing my story.
I freely give my time to anyone who needs it and I intend to stay here as long as I can. I’m applying to work at Rockford Rescue Mission because they saved me, so my job now is to give back and help direct somebody else … get them into the program and then let God do the work.
I am thankful the Mission saved me from self-destruction. They taught me about how Jesus loves us and gave me my life back.
Naomi’s testimony is featured in the current issue of The Rescuer.
