Podcast

Addiction and Trusting the God Who Heals. Dawn Ward

​[00:00:00]

Welcome to the Unshakable Hope podcast, where real life intersects redeeming love. I’m Kelly Hall, and this is where we wrestle through faith questions such as, how do I trust God’s heart when his ways and delays are breaking mind? We’ll hear from people just like you and me who have experienced God’s faithfulness when life didn’t unfold as they expected my prayers, that God would renew our hope and his word and his love through these conversations.

Kelly: hey guys. I am so glad you’re here. My guest story today is such a powerful picture of our God who is always on a rescue mission. I pray this story will infuse hope and faith into wounded hearts and all of us, but particularly those whose stories have been affected by heartache and fear through addiction.[00:01:00]

Kelly: Dawn’s entire story has been shaped by addictions of loved ones starting in her childhood later affecting two of her children and then even her husband, you’ll hear of his miraculous story about three quarters of the way through this conversation, Dawn shares how God healed her from constantly trying to control every situation and even healed the guilt and shame she carried. I’m so inspired by her deep trust in God through some very hard surrenders and the beautiful ways God made himself known to her as healer, helper, and deliverer. Dawn has so much wisdom and experience, her book will be drawing from, it’s titled From Guilt to Grace, hope, and Healing for Christian Moms of Addicted Children. I’ll tell you a little bit more about Dawn. She’s the founder of the Faith to Flourish Ministry, which equips women to live transformed lives. Through Biblical teaching and mentoring, she also offers support and encouragement to women with addicted loved ones. She’s married to Steve [00:02:00] and she’s mom to three adult children. So Dawn, welcome to the show. I’m so grateful you’re here.

Thank you so much

Dawn: for having me. I look forward to our time together.

Kelly: Me too. Well, I’m so thankful we were able to get together. We had to cancel. You’ve had a lot of life going on, so the Lord has opened up some space for us.

Kelly: I’m wondering if there’s anything about yourself that you would like to add to your bio.

Dawn: Well, a little side note I do have a ministry for women who struggle with addicted loved ones and supporting them, and also a bible teaching ministry.

Dawn: But that was not my career. My career for the last over 25 years has been a medical aesthetician and I did skincare in plastic surgery and dermatology, and that really through that. Long period of time of spending time with women, I got to know them. I got to hear their hearts, and so many were came from different faiths, different backgrounds, different beliefs, different.

Dawn: Financial situations. Some were single, some [00:03:00] were married. But it gave me such an appreciation for the heart of moms, wives, daughters, sisters, and it helped me to see really how the Lord sees each person and how much he loves each person. And so I’m really grateful for that time. I had a hand injury, a subsequent surgery, and I was retired a few years.

Dawn: Earlier than I expected because of it, but it just made room for this opportunity for me to finish writing my book and to just see where God’s gonna take me next. So that’s a little bit of a side story on me.

Kelly: Well, I love that. You have a heart for women because you know a lot of their struggles and you know the depths of Yeah.

Kelly: Where those struggles can take them. Mm-hmm. I’m wondering if you could describe how addiction became a part of your story to share with us whatever you’d like.

Dawn: Okay, great. I have to really go back to my childhood. think as a young child, I started realizing something wasn’t right in my home, and it was that my dad would drink and when he drank, he was angry.

Dawn: He didn’t hit [00:04:00] anybody, but he just yelled and. It was just very toxic environment. And as a young child, I could remember even a few years old just being really afraid and, and again, I don’t think it was ever that I was afraid for physical safety. It was just my dad was a very loud man. He was a fireman.

Dawn: He had was a veteran. He was such a public servant. He would give us the shirt off our back, anyone the shirt off his back. And. If it was the last shirt he owned, very generous, very kind. But he, when he wasn’t at the fire department, he would start drinking beer, and it seemed like he would drink it early and it would go so long.

Dawn: And as I grew up, I realized that really my dad didn’t have an off switch. He would drink until basically he passed out most times. And also his brothers, my uncles also drank, and they were three of them were firemen , but they got happy and they joked around and everything.

Dawn: And so here I’m really kind of confused, like, I didn’t understand [00:05:00] any of this. And, and even as I got a little bit older, I didn’t understand like terms like alcoholic were used back then. And to me that was always that image of like a guy on skid row with an empty bottle that. You know, stupor, that kind of a thing.

Dawn: I didn’t think of it as somebody functioning and because my dad would black out, there would often be times that he would deny what happened, so that caused more confusion as a child. But the biggest lie I was exposed to was that it was my fault and my siblings fault that my dad drank. That always seemed to be something.

Dawn: You kids fight, you kids don’t get your homework done. You don’t get to keep the house clean. Your mother’s always nagging me, you drive me to drink. For whatever reason that really hit my soul, my personality. I was the first born and I took that on as real and as truth. And so when I was about four years old, the Lord reached down.

Dawn: I wasn’t raised in a Christian home. I sure my mother took me to church on holidays occasionally, but I wasn’t [00:06:00] raised in a Christian environment. And so one day when I was about four years old, I remember the Lord, I was hiding ’cause my parents were fighting. And the Lord reached down to me and he said, take my hand and don’t ever let go ’cause you’re gonna need me for this life.

Dawn: I didn’t really know that was I Jesus. I knew Jesus loves me. This I know for the Bible tells me so. But I knew somehow God was speaking to me. And it was something that I did hold onto him and you know, I mentioned that I discipled myself because like I didn’t know what I didn’t know, right?

Dawn: But the Lord was just faithful throughout my lifetime. When I would start to kind of veer off and stray away or whatever, he’d always pull me back in. And because my love for him and his love for me, and so. As my parents eventually got to the place where they did divorce and I was old. I was older by then.

Dawn: I think by the time they divorced, I was almost 18. By then, I was rationally understanding what was going on and that while my dad was holding down work and very financially stable and all of that, that the family [00:07:00] life. Was what was taking the hit because of what he did and you know, because of what he was struggling with.

Dawn: And I say what he did because he also did leave my mom for another woman. And so that was part of the reason too. And so because of that, you know, I started looking at things differently. Like, okay, this isn’t all about me. This isn’t all my fault. You know, it’s not all about the grades I get and if I have the house clean and all these things.

Dawn: The problem was much bigger and, but I still was young and still trying to figure it out. So all I knew was that I wanted to make sure my children didn’t drink. After seeing it, being around it, being around my dad’s friends and things like this, I really said, this is a big problem for a lot of people and, and in my family, I, I didn’t know much about is it genetic?

Dawn: Is it passed down? Is it generational? Is it, I I didn’t know any of that. You know who even knew any of that stuff 40 plus years ago? Mm-hmm. And so I wanted to just guard my children from that. When I started having children of my own, I think I parented out of a [00:08:00] position of fear that I was afraid that would happen to them.

Dawn: Even though I was a Christian and my husband was a Christian, everything I did as far as parenting was this hypervigilant way of protecting and warning. And everything was like, don’t cross the streets. You might get run over by a car. Instead of, I’m mommy. Mommy says, don’t cross the street without holding her hand.

Dawn: Everything was that caveat of, you know, you might get hurt, you might get killed, and all of that. So my mind thought that way instead of just expecting obedience. It was obedience. So you won’t get hurt, obedience, so you’ll stay safe. Obedience. So you won’t use drugs and. I did not realize any of that back then.

Dawn: My oldest son is 38 now, so it’s a lot of years of parenting for me and a lot of years of healing. For me to recognize what it was that was that motivating emotion, I. That was driving me in my parenting. So I talked to them all the time about alcohol ’cause that’s what I understood.

Dawn: I’d never been around drugs. I didn’t understand drugs. I [00:09:00] hadn’t seen drugs. It wasn’t even on my radar to look for drugs other than just say no. You know, kind of that Nancy Reagan campaign back in the day of just saying no to drugs. Right. I didn’t really know much about them.

Dawn: I would teach my children. I have two boys and a girl. She’s my youngest and. You know, just be careful with alcohol, where it’s concerned. Our family, has a lot of problems with that. We don’t understand all of the neurobiology, pathology, also the spiritual side of things.

Dawn: We’re just, we don’t understand all of that. And it’s just better for you kids to be really careful with it. So when my middle son was 17, he was in his senior year of high school, I noticed a decline. In his appearance, his grades, his attitude. I think I caught him smoking and I, I was like, what is going on with this kid?

Dawn: I would never smelled alcohol on his breath. If anything, I think he, I, I might’ve suspected there might’ve been some marijuana involved, but he didn’t really even smell like that. [00:10:00] And so I was having a hard time even when I would in interrogate him, figuring out what was going on with him he had always had a desire to go to college.

Dawn: He’d always played sports. He’d been in Christian school up till his senior high school, and so he had a lot of Christian friends and, but those all kind of shifted too. And he, he was playing in, you know, a band in school, but then they started a garage band and you know, that’s probably where I was a little naive too, in thinking, well, the parents are home with the kids.

Dawn: Little did I know, the parents are like letting ’em be out there in the garage, hanging out, banging away on the drums and guitars. And they’re out there smoking pot and stuff. So what happened was I would interrogate him and wouldn’t really get anywhere, didn’t even know there was such a thing as you could go buy a drug test at the drug store.

Dawn: I thought I’m gonna have to take him to the doctor and have the doctor run some sort of pathology on him because I don’t know what’s going on, but he’s not himself. And that just [00:11:00] really, you know, kind of where I was at and because , that would not be the kid I would’ve thought would’ve done this anyway.

Dawn: If anything, I would’ve thought I would’ve had problems with his older brother and he was already in college and I really felt like we dodged that bullet. And so this particular son, I had never acted out, he’d never done any of those things, so it really wasn’t on my radar. So one day he did come home and he asked to speak to my husband.

Dawn: He went upstairs and he told his dad, I’m, I’m using something and I don’t know what it is and I dunno how to get off of it. They told me it was marijuana. But I can’t get off of it. I can’t stop using it and neither can my friend and so at that point we didn’t even know what we were dealing with.

Dawn: So when we went and took him to get medical, you know, assistance to see what was going on, we got word back in the toxicology report that Black tar Heroin was in that. And that’s a highly addictive substance that they were smoking. And so hear him never having any exposure to drugs at all.

Dawn: And I’m not, I’m not excusing it. He shouldn’t [00:12:00] even touch marijuana, but the kids, that’s kind of a gateway drug for kids. And now that it’s legalized everywhere, I have my own opinion about that. That’s not a good thing, but. It’s kind of a gateway drug and a lot of kids, that’s where they stop and a lot of kids keep going.

Dawn: And the predators that are selling these addictive substances on the streets full well know that it doesn’t take these kids very long to get addicted to these substances. And so that was in there. And so that’s where the actual detox back then was probably only a few days. We did it medically supervised, and then he started getting, you know, therapy and counseling and the different things.

Dawn: He was only 17 and so, and he asked for help and so his story was such that he realized he was hanging out with the wrong crowd. He kind of worked through some of his things, but he did have some hiccups, you know, he did have some relapses and we just really all decided. After he graduated that the best thing was [00:13:00] for him to go outta town and, and to move outta town and get some extra faith-based Christian support.

Dawn: He was at that time not even using, but just to make sure he didn’t fall back into that, he actually became a mental health counselor became a, like addiction. He worked in an addiction treatment center and he did that for a few years and ultimately he did decide to finish his college degree and, and he’s been doing really well now for probably.

Dawn: All about 18, 19 years.

Oh, that’s

Dawn: awesome. He was, yeah, he was only 17 and he’s 36 now. And so as we got kind of over that, and remember now he’s living in another state, so we’re driving back and forth to show our support. We’re doing things to help him get back on his feet, making sure he’s playing by all the rules, staying accountable, doing all of that, and finally feeling like we’re settling into our routine.

Dawn: And his older brother at that point had a surgery for what we found out. At that point, he’d been struggling with a health problem. For his entire life that no one could figure out.

Oh my [00:14:00]

Dawn: goodness. It, and it turned out it was a congenital birth defect. He had a hypotensive sphincter and they actually had to wrap his stomach around his esophagus, but it took till he was 25 for the doctors in another state to figure out the problem and do this really radical surgery.

Dawn: Well, that was right at the time when Big Pharma was saying that the pain medications were not addictive. Mm-hmm. And he was drinking liquid. You know, Vicodin and Percocets and whatever it was they were giving him. And for quite a while, because it was a good month or so that he was just only on a liquid diet, then he was just on a very soft diet and, and it took a while to get him back to where he could eat normally, where that esophagus was stretched enough and just a lot of pain that came with it.

Dawn: But the side note is that I think he’d always struggled with mental health issues like depression, anxiety. I do believe that some of this chronic pain that he lived with growing up and you know, like throwing up and [00:15:00] things that were giving him problems that just he had no control over, caused him so much anxiety.

Dawn: I. Almost to the point of phobia where he would almost get agoraphobic like he would never eat if you took a girlfriend out on a date or anything for fear that that would happen. And so this, when these drugs hit his system, it was like mother’s milk. He felt relaxed, he felt pain free, his mental, his mind rested, and it was just such a good drug for him.

Kelly: And yeah, probably for the first time in his life, he had relief that he didn’t even know he needed.

Dawn: So where my other one really just didn’t want anything to do with this. He has not taken another opiate. I think even with surgery, he, he’s been able to avoid it and just go with other types of pain relief and, and all of that.

Dawn: This particular son really liked it and wanted, and, and felt so much he said, I, I feel normal. But you know, the problem gets escalated very quickly. And then going to mental health professionals [00:16:00] like psychiatrists who are there to help them, they should not be prescribing other. Addictive substances along with knowing their history of addiction.

Dawn: So they were prescribing things like benzodiazepines, which are those Xanax and those Valiums and things. Come to find out, those are some very difficult drugs to get off of and stay off of. They tend to be amnesiacs. It a lot happens where they’re operating almost. Normally and then don’t remember any of it.

Dawn: And so this really brought him much lower and became a more chronic problem. And where we had more of what I would say is that traditional struggle that families deal with where there in and out of relapse, in and out of sobriety, in and out of treatment, in and out of programs, doing well for a while in our case jail.

Dawn: Mental health breakdowns, suicide attempts, DUIs. Rollover, car accidents he [00:17:00] should not have walked away from. And just all of that came with it. Hmm. And, and my son is, was an adult when this happened and he, whereas my other son was a minor, I protect his story a little bit more. This son has, you know, throughout this journey over the last 13, 14 years, 15 years now, he’s had his own podcast where he’s discussed.

Dawn: With other people in recovery, what they’ve gone through and all of that. And so his story I’m able to share a lot more of and to be able to talk to parents about understanding all those things that can happen and that emotional rollercoaster that we go on. And in my case, by the time it hit sun number two.

Dawn: I had already felt bad enough for the first one for and more blaming myself with guilt for like, not catching it sooner. I kind of realize now it hadn’t gone on that long before we found out, so I had caught it. I just didn’t know what I caught. Yeah, that’s what I encourage parents, sometimes you just don’t [00:18:00] know what you know, give yourself a break.

Dawn: Right. , But by the time of number two, I was like, mom, any kind of get outta jail free card I had. No, that at this point it’s on me. Everything from my childhood, any of those things that I was healed from, that I bel, you know, that God had shown me and revealed to me at this point that one ginormous lie, that it’s all your fault.

Dawn: This should never have happened. If you were doing the J, your job as a mom, not working full time, whatever it was, keeping a better eye on ’em, whatever it was, all of it hit me. Okay. Just like a tsunami.

Hmm.

Dawn: That was, that was when I took the, until then I was doing triage, you know, but at that point just triaging the situation.

Dawn: But at that point I was now living with, you know, this, this situation where our family was in on life preservers, you know, like we were in ICU, like we were in critical condition. And, and that was when, for me, I really came to that [00:19:00] place of brokenness.

Kelly: Yeah. I remember one time just saying to the Lord, everyone in my family is in crisis in some form or another,

Kelly: and I know that’s what you were feeling like. Like God has just left us. We have been abandoned. What is going on? And with the additional whys that you were living with, that was so incredibly painful. Now there’s a lot more to the story. There’s a lot more good. But I do wanna say this too. It just breaks my heart.

Right.

Kelly: All that your older son went through,

Dawn: We’ve had numerous relapses since then, and I say numerous because it, it appears to me that he tends to maybe even have like a cyclical depressive disorder or perhaps seasonal depression, that type of thing, because it seems like it does happen in the winter.

Mm-hmm. And

Dawn: then some other time it may happen another six months. Or a little bit longer, six to nine months, and then it might happen again. And so he seems to get about six to nine [00:20:00] months of sobriety before something happens. It is very cyclical for us. It seems as though he’s starting to figure that out and working on those skills to help him handle that better.

Mm-hmm.

Dawn: But you know, it, it’s really kind of a, a journey of acceptance as far as realizing, wow, we, this one. You know, barring a miracle and God really doing an intervention in him, it’s, it’s a long journey. This one’s a long wearing journey for us. ’cause people will often ask me like, you know, do you, you seem like you have it all together.

Dawn: And I’m like, no. You know, my son was living with us up until a few months ago and one morning I caught him and I had to have him leave the house. And he did go back into a treatment program and he did, you know, get himself sober and Will hopefully, he’ll do all the things he needs to do , to walk that path, but the journey is not for us, a one and done journey by any means.

Kelly: Well, and, and that’s one of the reasons I wanted to have you on the show because I love having people on whose [00:21:00] stories are not resolved or wrapped up with a pretty red bow. And because you have learned how to rely on the Lord in ways, in deep ways, I. In transformative ways. And so we’re also gonna talk about your husband and what happened there in a little bit.

Kelly: But first I’d like to just take a moment and talk about how you got from a place of guilt and self blame that was so paralyzing for you. The, the sorrow you felt for your sons was just paralyzing almost, but you. But the Lord met you in that place and brought transformation over a period of time, so can you talk to us about that?

Dawn: Yes. You know, , it really did take , a conversation from my husband. Even though I was working, I was going to work in a very professional field. I had to be on my best all the time. You know, plastic surgery and dermatology. You just gotta be on your game. And I was doing lasers and chemical pills and all this.

Dawn: So I put so much focus into my work and I felt like I was doing [00:22:00] okay because I was functioning by all outward appearances. And a little side note is that my daughter is 33. She still lives with us. She’s on the autism spectrum, so she’s this little silent sufferer, but because she’s quiet and all of this, I’m not even really.

Dawn: Dealing with her stuff, I’m protective of her. I won’t let ’em live in the house with her in active addiction and all of that. But but you know, there was a lot of balls that, that I was trying to keep in the air. And because those balls appeared to be where they needed to be, I didn’t realize what was going on with me.

Dawn: What happened when I look back now is I realize the stress and what it can put on parents and on mothers, especially wives, whoever’s going through this and trying to help someone who’s self-destructing, is that your brain can get very, I. Stressed out and your brain, it could take a lot of toll on your whole body.

Dawn: Your adrenal, your cortisol, past traumas have a lot to do with how you react to things and respond to things. And [00:23:00] what happens is it can only deal with so much and that does not have anything to do with your faith. And often people think, well, if I have faith and I’m trusting God, I won’t feel this way.

Dawn: But it’s his powers made perfect in our weakness. Yeah. And, and so we often have to understand that I’m weak because I need to rely on Jesus in this, in this area of weakness in my body, my emotion, my mental strength. I have to rely on him to help me because I cannot do this on my own. And so, as I worked, I, as I look back now, I realize that 24 7, I was hearing a record or a radio playing in the back of my brain.

Dawn: It was almost like I heard it in my ear, but it was in my head. You have to fix your son, you have to save your son, you have to fix your son, you have to save your son. It was in my brain. It wasn’t just, you know, spiritual warfare or anything like that. Somehow my brain had couldn’t turn it off and it was [00:24:00] this force that was.

Dawn: Compelling me to constantly, when I wasn’t working, researching better treatment centers, should I send him to Costa Rica? Should I send him to Mexico? What should I do to save him? I, I cannot accept that he could die. And these drugs have progressed and now we know that people who were using heroin are now using fentanyl.

Dawn: And fentanyl is much more deadly and much more potent. And so as these fears would start to compound, I. One day my husband said to me, Dawn, you’re gonna worry yourself to death.

Mm-hmm. He

Dawn: just saw me just driven, you know, up all night and looking for help. And I said, you know what? You’re right. You can put that on my tombstone.

Dawn: She worried herself to death. I actually saw a big gray tube. Stone and, and I heard the Lord say to me, no, I wanted to say she trusted God. I’m gonna make sure that gets put on. My headstone or what earn or whatever I end up in because the Lord said, I want you to [00:25:00] say it, you trusted God. And I remembered that conversation, him and I had when I was four years old about holding onto his hand and never letting go.

Dawn: And, but I didn’t know what it looked like, you know, I thought I trusted him.

Kelly: Right, right. That’s such a beautiful picture. I love that. As a child, Jesus came to you and, and invited you in that way. So tender. It’s so personal. And so he was doing it again. He was, he was,

Dawn: I’m holding your hand. Come on. Yeah. He really was.

Dawn: And he was letting me know that I had kind of, you know, put him in the back of the, the backseat of the car and said, come on, Jesus. Come along for the ride. And forgot that his place is the driver’s seat and I’m just supposed to crawl up in his lap. And if any of us, if ever sat in our dad’s lap when they drove a big farm truck or something, ’cause I was, you know, I was from a farm community that was always so fun.

Dawn: And you felt so safe and it, and it, it felt like anything that you were, you know, no matter what happened, you’d be safe. And so I thought about that kind of a mental picture and with Jesus, you know, is that he’s not asking [00:26:00] me to even drive the car. He’s asking me to let him do it, and I’ve gotta get my hand off the steering wheel.

Dawn: And what I was doing is reaching over and grabbing that steering wheel, like, oh no, Jesus, we’re gonna go right. We’re not gonna go left. And, and all of that was going on. And in that moment I said, okay, well then if I’m gonna agree to trust you, I said, I’ve trusted you. You’re telling me I really haven’t.

Dawn: What does that look like? And the first thing for me was literally, it just popped right into my head. Google helped for moms of children who struggle with addiction for Christian moms. Of children who struggle with addiction. I didn’t find a lot of Christian per se, you know, directed help. I, I found moms groups and things like that, and it wasn’t like I had never gone to a 12 step.

Dawn: Meeting or that I hadn’t gone to celebrate Recovery. And it seemed as though back then they focused more on the person struggling with the addiction than the person struggling as their care, their caregiver, their supporter, and, and so I would [00:27:00] get pearls from these, these things, but I often ended up leaving so depressed and feeling like all I had heard was such hopeless stories.

Right,

Dawn: and that wasn’t good for a head that was saying, you have to fix your son. You have to fix your son. That wasn’t good for

me

Dawn: I needed to find that person or people that could say to me, Hey, there’s hope and trust in Jesus because he loves your child more than you do. , And that type of a thing. And just to really nurture me spiritually and to help me . See the forest through the trees, you know, because I was just so overwhelmed,

Kelly: right?

Kelly: And more than that, he was inviting you into surrender. Dawn, give me this story. I am your keeper. You don’t have to keep yourself. I’m the one who’s gonna transform this. You are not. You can’t do it. Let go, let go. Trust me. And so I know he brought, he was just continually inviting you into surrender.

Kelly: Let go. Let go of your perfectionist fix tendencies and your controlling [00:28:00] tendencies. Let me take over. That’s one of the things that looks like is just letting go and believing. You can say, when it says in the Bible, trust in the Lord with all your heart. Mm-hmm. Lean on your own, understanding that it’s really an invitation to peace and hope and surrender.

Kelly: ’cause God has good plans and he loves us and our children more than we can imagine. , I love the chapter where you talked about the fact that we can let go of these labels because God’s restoring the truth about who you really are.

Kelly: You’re a masterpiece. You’re designed by God to do good works that he chose ahead of time, and so a lot of the transformation occurred within you as he invited you into the truth of your identity and helped you to let go of. Hypervigilance where you’re just constantly on edge trying to say, I gotta stop this, I gotta prevent this.

Kelly: I have to protect this. And he helped you learn to trust him and surrender to him in that place.

Dawn: He really did the, when I first Googled, you know, [00:29:00] help for Christian moms, I did find a, a woman and her story, and she didn’t really, her book wasn’t. Directed to Christian women, but she herself was a Christian and there were a couple Bible verses and things like that in there.

Dawn: And through a series of events, we happened to connect with each other and be talking and. And what I told her I was doing with the book was that I kept going through it and answering the questions. The work, it was a workbook, but the, I was using it like a bible study. Every single question that didn’t even have a Bible verse attached, the Lord was taking me to his word.

Mm-hmm. And,

Dawn: and I, and I went through it like three different times. I had scriptures and every single space in this book, and it was all just like, this book here, you know, it was all dogeared with all the, the Post-its and all of that. And. So we got to talking and she was laughing about it. And over time what that led to was her and I wrote a Christian version A, a faith-based version of that book.

Dawn: But in the process I started to [00:30:00] see that there were so many things out there that were kind of like lies that were told to us in the addiction community and not, and I not even blaming them, people don’t know what they don’t know if they do not have Jesus Christ. Who is the truth?

Mm-hmm. It’s

Dawn: really easy for things that are meant to be, to help us to end up actually causing us more harm, more guilt, more shame because of the wording, because of the mindset and all of that.

Dawn: And for me, that was where the Lord started showing me. Like all these rules, all these steps, all these different things are not freeing to you. My word is freeing to you. If I, if you’re gonna walk hand in hand with me like I asked you to since you were a little girl, that’s gonna mean you’re not always gonna know the next step.

Dawn: You’re not always gonna know the next place I call you, the next thing I tell you to do. And I don’t want you to lock yourself into, like use these things as helpful tools in a tool bag, but don’t live by them. And [00:31:00] growing up in the environment I grew up in with rules and all of these things that was.

Dawn: For me, a step of faith. That was a step of trusting God to say, oh, I can’t just pick up one book. And do A, B, and C and everything’s gonna be okay.

Kelly: Right, right.

Dawn: That that’s a big faith step. A big faith step and, and one of the things in the 12 step community, it’s kind of out there and everybody says it all the time, is you didn’t cause it.

Dawn: You can’t control it and you can’t cure it. And that was a little mantra that helped me a lot in the letting go process. Of what things can I control? That serenity prayer of, you know, of, of accepting the things that I can’t control, but having the courage, you know, to, to make the changes that he’s asking me to make.

Dawn: And so while those weren’t in the forefront of my mind, it was that direction of saying like, Dawn, just every day, look at what you can’t control and surrender that to Jesus. And then the things that he’s asking you to actually engage in things that you can control.

Dawn: Trusting him, faith [00:32:00] steps that he’s asking of me, letting go, what does that look like? That was a huge deep dive for me to learn how to disengage from the day-to-day drama without detaching and just wanting nothing to do with my child at all.

Kelly: Mm.

Dawn: Because Jesus knew how to. Everything Jesus did, we can learn from.

Dawn: He knew how to go into a very difficult situation, when to step out of it. He knew how to reach out to with compassion. He knew how to correct sin, and then he knew how to pull himself away and go get rest and go stay with hi, go be with his father or get sleep or get nourishment. He knew what, he knew how to do that, and he taught us such a well-balanced life by observing his life.

Kelly: Absolutely.

Dawn: Yeah, and that helped me a lot too, was like dawn. You’re never gonna be Jesus. He’s God. And you’re never gonna do everything perfectly, but you can. We are to follow the master, the [00:33:00] teacher, and follow and to make disciples of men means to actually, to imitate the teacher that Jesus wants us to imitate what we see in him and these things that he did that we would also do.

Dawn: And that became, for me, more of my focus of how would Jesus. Want me to handle this situation? How would Jesus handle this situation?

Mm-hmm.

Dawn: Well, if he could just put his arm on me, like when I was four years old and say, Dawn, this is what I want you to do, what would that look like? So for me, it really became a journey of tuning into that voice.

Dawn: Of the, that still small voice of the Holy Spirit, trusting when I felt peace in my gut and I was making a decision based on faith over fear and anxiety. Learning to wait and hold space for the Holy Spirit to speak to me, to say, your kid’s calling up, it’s an emergency. I’ve gotta have all this money.

Dawn: There’s all this crisis going on, and I’m reacting out of that. Flight. Flight or fear, I mean flight. Flight or [00:34:00] flee, or I am sitting in a place of faith and waiting and trusting and saying, Jesus, is this really life and death, or is this something I can sit on and wait till I hear from you? And so those were some of the things that I learned in this process of what trust looked like and how to live that out.

Kelly: Hmm, those. Those are very good. Very good. It made me think of one Peter five where it talks about casting your cares on the Lord. I mean, it’s just like this hurling thing. And you can do that in a crisis. You can just say, I need help. Help. And just throw it at him. And you also have to quell the temptation.

Kelly: To start researching and fix it. And that’s so often been my temptation with girls that have some mental health issues or Lyme disease issues where we could have gone to 5,000 doctors and had 10,000 treatments and they’ve had so much medical trauma. I really had to look to the Lord and say, this is a situation.

Kelly: This, this is so big, I don’t know what to [00:35:00] do. And I love that prayer from Second Chronicles 20, like this vast army is coming at them in verse 12 and. The king pray. We don’t know what to do. We have no way to defeat this inner enemy, but you do so. We look to you. We look to you. Amen.

Dawn: That was, that really was a life preserving chapter second Chronicles 20 for me.

Kelly: Me too.

Dawn: It has been so huge for me. I like the life preserver idea. Yeah, he had some big problems that King Jehosaphat, so I’m like all, all of these armies are coming at him, so I’m like, I think you got me handled God. Yeah. The way he delivered those people was pretty amazing.

Kelly: Amazing. But so many times these crises can feel exactly like that.

Kelly: This vast insurmountable undefeatable army is coming at us and we’ve got no way out and don’t know what to do. No. One of the beautiful scriptures, I’m gonna add this, and then I’d like for you to tell your husband’s story. Okay. Is when you were just overwhelmed with the grief of your son’s suffering and it was paralyzing, and I know what that feels [00:36:00] like.

Kelly: You talk about a verse in Matthew 10, and I’m just gonna read it , which just captures the tender heart of our God. It’s a beautiful picture of Jesus. It says two sparrows. Are sold for a penny, yet not one will fall to the ground outside of your father’s care. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered.

Kelly: So don’t be afraid you’re worth more than many sparrows. Yes,

Dawn: When I got that, you know, when I got that Jesus not only saw me, but he saw my son and how much love he has for him and. For all those, for the different people in my life that I was travailing over, that I was worrying over. And when I finally grasped that, I understood that I could feel grief for.

Dawn: The challenges my son was facing. He’s a brilliant man. He is kind, he’s sweet. He’s a hard worker for the most part. I see he constantly growing and [00:37:00] getting and figuring this out and getting stronger. But when I would see this and I would just be so sad and I would think, what, you know, this is so, this has so many consequences too.

Dawn: And every time this happens, it has more consequences. And I just see it and I’m like, Lord, you know, even just providing for his needs and just his, his bills and his food and all the different things and all the questions parents deal with, with trying to take care of somebody and help, but not help too much and not enable, and all of that and all that confusion and just grief for his future, you know, just for like opportunity lost and all of that.

Dawn: And then when that verse gave me so much comfort. Because it did help me to, to know that, you know, God is perfect and he’s a perfectly heav, a perfect heavenly Father, and you know, his little birds are falling from the nest and they’re, and, his little sheep are going astray and all these things are going on and he cares.

Dawn: It hurts him when his children are suffering and maybe making life destructive [00:38:00] choices or trapped in behaviors and addictions and things like that.

Dawn: And, in some cases they don’t survive. Or some days, or in some cases, their life doesn’t turn out. Like we had hoped, or God had hoped for them, but he cares deeply. And so that verse really speaks to me too.

Kelly: Mm-hmm. Well, I love the sovereignty of God that he sees all of our days laid out before him.

Kelly: He is outside of time. He is always wooing us to himself, speaking to us like he did for you as a young child and drawing us to himself and providing rescue for our soul healing. And there is not, not a moment is lost to him. Not a tear falls without him seeing it. And his heart for rescuing is so much more immense and powerful and able and capable than we can imagine.

Kelly: And so the thing that helps me so much is just to focus on the bigness of my God’s heart and that there are rescues happening behind the scenes Yes. That I have no idea about. Mm-hmm. [00:39:00] And so that is just a beautiful picture. And I know that our, our children, our loved ones, are never so far gone that the outstretched arm of God cannot reach ’em, cannot.

Kelly: Save them. Doesn’t matter where they are geographically or where they are in their hard stories, his arm is there and he is on the move on their behalf. Amen.

Dawn: As far as my husband goes a little bit of backstory there is that he’s had. He had a car accident and it led to multiple back and neck surgeries and ultimately he’s, he’s had five fusions, a couple of shoulder surgeries, just different things.

Dawn: And so he became a chronic pain patient also and was always taking pain meds and all of this not having. He, he always functioned well. He didn’t seem to have the addictive side of the personality that it just like take ’em all in one day. You know, he, but he was getting to that point where he was completely dependent on them.

Dawn: And so, of course now I’m trying to not only hide, I’m trying to hide these pain pills from [00:40:00] my son. And that’s a whole nother story, but it’s amazing how clever they are at, at finding these things. And I’m just like, there’s the enemy, you know, just like, Hey, go into that room over there. Your mother’s got that thing hidden over there.

Dawn: I mean, it, it just like supernatural for them to figure out where these things are at. And I’m like, that’s coming , from the enemy and just wanting to destroy them, that they can, that they could be so resourceful at obtaining these medications and these drugs and things like that. And so with my husband, we would often keep him locked up.

Dawn: There was things that we would do to so that he could take them regularly and that we wouldn’t find things missing. But over time I started noticing that he also was really running out of his prescriptions too soon. Dealing with a lot of pain. We couldn’t go on a vacation if he ran out of him. We were having to head home.

Dawn: And we got him some help. We got him off the pain meds, tell he needed another surgery, and then I policed the pain meds after surgery and did all of that. And so when the time came that [00:41:00] I found out that he was using.

Dawn: Them again. And I did not know. In other words, I did not know that he, there was nothing, that there wasn’t a surgery that had kept him on them. That one came completely out of the blue that he was using these drugs. I knew he needed another surgery and I knew he was in pain, but I did not know he’d gone back to getting them and abusing them.

Dawn: And one day the Lord revealed to me, and when the Lord does speak to me, it’s really kind of some peculiar things he’ll say, like, go into his closet like I’d be asking for. Maybe months, what’s going on? Something’s not right. And I’d be like, what’s going on financially, something’s not right with our money.

Dawn: There was things like that, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. And when the Lord finally decided to reveal it, he’d be like, well go into his closet in that coat that he never wears. That’s plaid. And look in the pocket and it will, and you’ll find out. And and it was like so specific that there was no way I could have thought about it.

Right? It

Dawn: was just like a God thing. And so then I would go and I would, I’d find gambling receipts, that type of a thing. And. So this time that this [00:42:00] happened the second time where I had no idea that this had all started happening again and all of that, I just was like, get out. Like get out. He had actually gone to also illegal drugs.

Dawn: I. He was also smoking what was on the street because he couldn’t get the prescriptions anymore. And so, and taking pills off the street and stuff like that. And that, that just hit me like right, like a boulder between my eyes because it was like, my gosh, you know, your daughter lives here. How could you get to this point?

Dawn: What is going on? This is surreal. You gotta go figure this out. And he did, he went , and he actually went to Arizona where you live. He went to where my son was living at the time. And you know, saw a doctor there. Didn’t have to go into any kind of a treatment or anything like that, but

Dawn: While I was here and I was just like figuring out like, I’m probably gonna divorce this man. I don’t even know anymore this, I can’t live this way. This is just too dangerous. I’ve had drug dealers out in front of my house , and they’ll come a calling and it puts people at risk.

Dawn: And I want parents to [00:43:00] know, like, do not be naive. Don’t think your little Johnny isn’t mingling with dangerous people if they’re using illegal drugs. Right. I remember the Lord saying to me, you know, in James it said to go and ask if you need to be healed to go and ask the elders for prayer and that your sins will be forgiven.

Dawn: And so I remember calling him and saying, the Lord told me to tell you to go to a church and ask the elders for prayer. I didn’t know what church I, because I even butted in. I said, God, what church should he go to?

Dawn: And the Lord says, I’m not concerned about that, just a Bible believing church, you know, and that’s it. My husband doesn’t even remember that conversation with me. He said that God told him to do it. And so he went to my son’s church and went forward and asked the pastor for prayer, and the pastor directed him to the elders that were at the side praying, a husband and wife team.

Dawn: And he waited because somebody in in front of him needed long prayer. And my son was trying to get him to go have lunch, and he’s like, no, I’m not leaving. I’m [00:44:00] supposed to stay here and receive prayer. And of course he just didn’t even. Go up there for anything like confession. He went up there saying, my life is miserable.

Dawn: I’m in so much pain. My pain’s a 10 out of 10. Which it was, it was unbelievable pain, I feel for people who suffer with chronic pain and severe pain, nerve pain and things. , And so he just was like, I started using drugs and pain pills and they, I couldn’t keep up with it and I’m a mess. And they didn’t even ask for much detail and he didn’t give him much detail.

Dawn: But as they started to pray for him, he. Felt like God, like Jesus held onto him and he said he heard Jesus say in his ear, I forgive you, and immediately all of his sin passed before him and so that was the thing in my husband’s case, and my husband’s such a good person. I’m like, well, that probably took about five seconds because he’s such a good person and he is so kind and he thinks of everyone else.

Dawn: First, and [00:45:00] he’s never ever like nagged me or picked at me or complained to me or anything. I do all those things, but he doesn’t do any of those things. So it was all really about hi, his relationship with God. Yes, lying. Yes. Being deceitful. Yes. Not trusting God, not being honest with his wife, those things.

Dawn: But more than anything, when I ask him what it was, he’s like, I think it was really an inner heart surgery that was going on for him.

Dawn: But what I noticed immediately was a hunger for God’s word that he hadn’t had. We’ve been married coming up on 45 years, and I’d never seen that kind of hunger.

Dawn: I was always like, why don’t you pray with me? Why don’t we read the word together? Why don’t we you nah, nah, nah, , and it was just. That completely, that switch just went off , and he became so hungry for the word of God and so passionate about the Lord and can’t even talk about the experience. Even to this day, which is probably four years later, without crying.

Dawn: Mm-hmm. Because of what Jesus did in him, and he’s like I was one way, [00:46:00] and then I became another way.

Dawn: And we had that real supernatural experience of life change for him. And even though he is, had to have surgeries since then, he’s, it’s never been anything. Even if he’s had to take them just for the seven days, he just gets off of them and goes right back to. Ibuprofen and those things and, and so for me, it’s not a matter.

Dawn: People say, how do you trust it? But I said, because I can see the fruit of his love for Jesus, and this is between him and Jesus.

Kelly: Mm-hmm.

Dawn: It’s between him and Jesus and that, and that gave me a lot of hope for how God works in everyone’s life. It may look different for each person, but that’s that love that he has for them, that he’s gonna meet them right at that place of brokenness.

Dawn: So that he can restore them.

Kelly: Hmm. Wow. That’s amazing. I love how the Lord transformed him. I love the ways God has transformed you. Yes. I think that’s one of the first things God does. He transforms us by [00:47:00] stepping deep into our mess and holding our hand as he allows us to take a closer look at our own soul and leads us into soul healing out of the wilderness of brokenness.

Kelly: And, so many places where we are relying on coping mechanisms rather than on the Lord, and that’s the most beautiful transformation that occurs. One of the things it feels like sometimes is heart surgery. It feels like a soul surgery. He is after our kids’ hearts, our loved one’s hearts. And I know he is continuing to pursue your son’s heart.

Dawn: Yes, and I always tell the moms, you know, I do have an online Facebook group. There’s about 4,000 moms there, and so we support each other. Christian moms of addicted children, and I always say Mamas pray for their salvation before you pray for their sobriety.

Kelly: Hmm. Often

Dawn: they think the other way around, let’s get ’em sober and cleaned up. But he, but Jesus can speak to their heart to that deep area that even if their mind is blitzed and fried and all of that, he knows how to get [00:48:00] in there and get into that deep area of their heart and speak to them. And so my encouragement is always to do that.

Dawn: And also that letting go thing that’s, you know, it’s not a one and done. It’s a daily sacrifice.

Kelly: Yeah. I.

Dawn: That I’ve been crucified with Christ. I no longer live, but he lives in me. You know, the life that I live now is that I live it through him and through faith, and the one who died and gave himself for me.

Dawn: And so it’s this constant crucifying of our flesh. And I think about that with the story of Abraham and Isaac. We often look at that and we think, well, what was he doing? Like how could Abraham take his son up there? And even when his son questioned him all like, where’s the. Where’s the sacrifice? And God and Abraham was like, well, God will, you know, he’ll supply the sacrifice and going all the way up there and getting ready to raise, the knife to, to kill his son, but knowing that this was the son that God promised.

Dawn: Him you know, he was gonna be the father of many [00:49:00] nations his descendants were gonna be too many to number like the sands of the sea. And so he knows this promise that God has given him and yet he’s going through the process of obedience and laying his son down. And so there’s always that possibility, you’ll get that phone call.

Dawn: There’s always that possibility that you know your child. As much prayer that you pour out, feeling like you’ve done all the things right. And you still could get that knock on the door. I think that part of surrender that was the hardest for me. It wasn’t one and done, it happened. The, the Lord takes me through it often, but that process of trusting him and trusting him with my child’s life, but holding onto the promises, I believe that he has my child at the same time

mm-hmm.

Dawn: Is really faith. It can feel a little convoluted, it can feel a little confusing, but it’s, it’s one of those things where. Jesus. You know, Jesus was like, Abba, if there is a possibility that this cup can pass from me, please [00:50:00] take it from me. But nevertheless, not my will, but thy will be done.

Dawn: And I think the Lord’s prayer is so significant for us. As we daily lay down our children and as we lay down our own lives and place them at the feet of Jesus, that we place them at the feet of, a dear father who loves us and cares about us and everything he’s doing in us is for our good.

Dawn: And we can’t understand that. We can often don’t wrap our mind around that when bad things are happening. But we don’t see the whole picture. And I, and that’s where I had to stop being a Jacob and a doubter and wrestling with him and just needing to have the answer and having it now and needing to have the blessing and having it now, and just learning to wait and rest in him.

Kelly: Absolutely. Yeah. That’s a good word. That’s a good word for anyone who is listening. Thank you. Well, Dawn, I’m wondering if you could just let people know where they can get in touch with you.

Dawn: Sure I do have a webpage, the faith to flourish.com and I also teach bible [00:51:00] studies and try to just encourage women of faith no matter what they’re going through.

Dawn: So there’s a blog on there. There’s some information for the women who have loved ones that are addicted to find some more support on there. And then I’m on the social media sites under the faith to Flourish or Dawn r Ward. And then for moms who maybe are looking for a support group, our group is a little bit different than other groups that are on there.

Dawn: When the Lord had me start that group he really wanted me to focus on praying for our children, encouraging the moms, and glorifying him. So within that. Within our group, that’s what we do. We just pray for each other, encourage each other, offer each other hope. We’re just trying to nurture and take care of each other and encourage each other in our faith and in our walk with the Lord.

Kelly: Well Dawn, thank you so much for the gift of your time today. This was beautiful and encouraging and I’ll continue to lift up your family

Kelly: thank you so much for having me.

If you were encouraged in your faith today, it’d be great if you’d help get the word out by [00:52:00] subscribing, sharing with a friend, or leaving a review. I’d love to hear from you. You can reach out through my website, kelly hall.org and pick up some free resources while you’re there. Thanks for listening to the Unshakeable Hope podcast.