Ode To A Heroine Addict

This past week I had an incredible opportunity to join Pastor Marty and Ronda in speaking to a group of students at Anderson Seminary in Indiana.  The classroom experience was fun but what really made the trip for me was getting in touch with my roots.  My grandparents attended this same college in the 1930’s and I found their freshman yearbook pictures (just a side note, my grandmother turned 99 this year).  Anderson is also where I began school.  Lynhurst Elementary School is where I attended Kindergarten and 1rst grade.  I was able to find the old house where we lived and I was flooded with memories from when I was 5 and 6 years old. 

In the early ‘70’s, my dad was traveling a lot speaking at conferences and camp meetings.  He was on TV a number of times and was working in both prisons and corporate offices sharing the testimony of what God had done in his life and assisting others on their road to recovery.  Looking back only about 10 years previous to these days in Indiana, my dad was still on heroine in New York.  He was addicted, violent, angry, and had served 2 jail sentences.  This was before meeting Christ in his mid-twenties in the mid 60’s.   In the early 70’s he had started a rehab center in Miami, Florida (F.Y.I.- there are a few drugs in Miami). We then moved to Anderson. Here he was a dad of three and having a profound impact on this blue-collar city.  Dad wasn’t perfect. He was still working through some of the ghosts of his past. 

We only lived in Anderson for about two years before moving to Blacksburg, Virginia. where my brother, sister, and I spent the rest of our childhood.  We made the move for stability for the family and because he didn’t want to be an absentee dad. What is amazing to me is that in going back to Anderson 35 years later, I still found a number of people who remember dad and the work he did in that short time.  This challenged me to ask two questions:

1-    What am I doing in life that is going to have a long-term effect on people?

2-    What am I doing with the testimony of what God has done in my life? 

Thanks dad for being a role model to me and so many other people.