I Am a Drug Addicted Prostitute

Today we were riding in the car to town, and my 17-year-old son heard a song on our local soft-rock radio station and turned it up.  (Yes, gasp all you like, but there is only so much KLOVE repetitiveness this person can take.  In fact, given their playlist, it would seem there are only five Christian songs written each year, and the 35 that have been recorded in the past seven years will take us well on into the next millennium.)  As usual, I digress...  The song he cranked is called “The A Team” by Ed Sheeran - you’ve probably heard it, unless of course you’ve been locked in a padded room with only KLOVE as your "positive, encouraging" companion.  Austin said, “I kind of like this song for some reason.”  As we listened to the lyrics a little bit I said, “I think this is about a drug addicted prostitute.”  He agreed.  I got to thinking about that saying, “There but for the grace of God go I.”  People don’t say it much anymore, but I think it should go back into circulation.

I had a striking thought during that ride:  I am a drug addicted prostitute.  I know the sins of which I’m capable.  I know that I am easily addicted to things.  I don’t gamble or take illicit drugs - not because I don’t want to do those things or because I’ve reached some sort of morally superior Christian high ground.  I don’t do those things because I know that if I did do those things, I wouldn’t stop doing those things...maybe until I was broke or dead or both.  The only difference between me and a prostitute who shoots meth are two things:  financial security and Jesus.  I don’t say either of those things flippantly - as if I deserve them.  God knows better than anyone that I don’t.  God provides the Holy Spirit to help me restrain my ugly flesh - the flesh being that which wants so desperately to do and say all the despicable things that pop into my mind.

Drug Addict Me

I can’t remember a time when I didn’t like the feeling of anesthesia.  From early recollections of nitrous at the dentist, to a tonsillectomy, to my recent neck surgery... counting backward from 100 and only getting to 98 before being lulled into a peaceful slumber - not a care in the world - is one of the best feelings I can imagine.  I’d gladly endure an IV (which I really hate) or two for that kind of effortless relaxation.  The last time I was under anesthesia (December 2013) I remember being in the recovery room and feeling like I couldn’t breathe.  The nurse kept saying, “Breathe... BREATHE... BREATHE!!”  Her voice getting more urgent with each plea.  I could hear her voice, and I obviously eventually managed to take a breath, but I had no fear of not breathing.  As I stabilized and was sent out of recovery, the nurse said, “That girl is hilarious.  She kept saying, ‘Thank you, substitute autonomic nervous system,' ” every time I told her to breathe.”  I actually liked the feeling of not feeling able to take my next breath.  I still do.  

I have been struggling with a prescription drug dependency since my first back injury in 2010, and it doesn’t get easier.  I say dependency, because, by God’s grace, I can go without prescription drugs when absolutely necessary, but I don’t want to go without them.  I choose not to go without them most of the time.  Chronic pain is something I’ve lived with as long as I can remember.  Consequently, getting the relief that I can get with an occasional prescription opiate is indescribably difficult to give up to God.  I don’t want you to offer suggestions.  This isn’t a cry for help.  Man-made fixes aren’t a cure for a heart that wants what it wants.  In time, like everything else, God always asks of me what He wants, and what He wants is any "fix" - any “thing” - that I depend on more than I depend on Him.  Then He enables me to give it back to Him moment-by-gut-wrenching-moment.

I remember going to a divorce recovery group once and hearing a lady who was a new Christian say, “I was told before I came to Christ that I should come as I am - sin and all, and that God didn’t ask me to change to come to Him.  Then, as soon as I became a Christian, I was immediately told all the things I needed to change.  They had no idea all the things God had already changed in me since the Holy Spirit began to work in my life.  I had quit a lifetime of swearing, drinking, and carousing.  Yet all people could talk about was my smoking... of all things.  I am confident God will take that too - in His timing.”  

I hear all of you people who think you’re open minded saying, “Those Christians! (Or those other Christians) They’re so judgmental!  What a bunch of hypocritical bigoted jerks.”  FLAG... yes you - 50 pew penalty for being a hypocrite yourself.  You just judged a bunch of Christians as hypocrites.   We are all judging every day of our lives.  It’s called decision making - exercising good judgment or bad judgment.  You must judge in order to survive.  The trick is not to make up your mind about a person and decide whether or not he or she is good or bad - according to your self-righteous, unbending standards.  You are your own little god, you know, and you want to be everyone else’s.  Do you like to judge others for being judgmental?  Stop it.  It’s ironic, and it’s annoying.

People are crippled by various enslaving lusts.  The only difference between a Christian and a non-Christian is that we have a “crutch”, as Jesse Ventura once said.  Our crutch is an "Old Rugged Cross" - blood-stained and beautiful.  We don’t always use our crutch.  There are many times we think we can get along without it, and we try - only to fall and make ourselves ridiculous to people - as though we don’t know how crippled we really are.  Sometime we don’t.  When we do use our crutch, however, we are capable of things which we were never capable (nor even desirous) of in our pre-crutch days.

Prostitute Me

I have long prostituted myself for much less than a few dollars.  I’ve prostituted myself for something so counterfeit that it isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on - the approval of others.  I have pushed myself far beyond what I should in many circumstances, and I am often undone by my desires to make others like me.  I have done (and am likely to do again) things of which I am thoroughly ashamed in exchange for counterfeit love and support.

You shouldn’t like me.  Truth be told, if we knew what was in one another’s minds, the human race would have died out a long time ago.  We would never have tolerated each other.  I am not often stunned by the ugly in humanity.  I am often stunned by the good.  Those are the things that make me cry.

Jeremiah 17:9 says what we all know to be true about ourselves, “The heart is deceitful above all else and desperately wicked.  Who can understand it?”

Paul acknowledges this truth in Romans 7 when he laments about his own struggle against the wickedness of his heart:  “O wretched man that I am!  Who will deliver me from this body of death?”  

Philippians 2:13 was an encouragement to the people of Philippi as it is for us who recognize our need for a crutch: “...for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.”

I once heard it said that, “The worst thing a person could say is true about me is nothing compared to the worst thing I know to be true about me."  This is me saying that I won’t forget that I am a drug-addicted prostitute, but God has made me His daughter, and He daily works to weed out the ugliness that enslaves me and causes me to try to enslave others. His kind of grace is worth any sacrifice I might be called to make. 

I’m a drug-addicted prostitute.  What are you?  If you have the grace to admit who you are outside of God’s goodness bestowed on you, consider putting it in writing - comment on this blog or just write it on a post-it and keep it somewhere close.