A Whisper In The Wind

Today while I was at work, I heard the sweet small sound of music in the distance. I was walking back into our building when I heard this, and it caused me to pause for a moment. While I stood there and listened to the music it was waxing and waning, sometimes strong and sometimes weak. You see it took me a moment to realize it, but the wind was carrying it to my ears. When the wind picked up, so did that sweet small melody. Now after a few gusts I put together the tune that rang, and old but remarkably familiar one. The sound of old church bells playing at twelve o’clock. I had not heard these bells since I was a child.

I remained a minute or two past my allotted lunch break just so I could reminisce in the memories this old tune carried. I could feel the playground beneath my feat as I went back to fifth grade recess. The sun on my face as I rode my bike over to grandmas for a day of play. I even felt a twinge of emotion as I looked back and knew those moments were frozen there in their own time forever. I could only access them through moments like these. Through memories like these.

After my moment of nostalgia, I proceeded with the business in my day. This spot in time I couldn’t shake, however. I thought of the times then and compared them to the times of now. The good and the bad rolled into one package that was my past and no one else’s. It is filled with victories and defeats, laughter and tears. There was just so much packed in the sound of those bells. Each ring sparked a revived emotion or thought. Each whisper the wind brought was louder at that moment than anything else around me.

When I entered recovery for my pornography addiction, I had no idea the journey I was about to embark on. The memories I hadn’t thought of in years, the people I had harmed, the countless bad decisions I had made. It was hard to hear any music at all, let alone sweet music. In this walk, whether this is your first article or your hundredth, at any given time something in our world might remind you of a million different memories. A million different emotions. The amazing part is that there will be good times filled in these moments. The unfortunate part is that there will also be regrets that can and will follow at these times.

As a slave to addiction, they can be crushing blows that bring us to our knees. The shame and guilt will roll us up in a blanket and throw us down into a river of emotion. Raging and relentless. But in the freedom of recovery, the positive will heavily outshine the negative. We may pause, for just a few seconds, on the negative. But repentance and acceptance of our past will grab us by the hand and drag us continually into God’s grace. He will lead us to the still waters of peace and love.

Our journeys are all different and all the same, parallel lives moving at different paces. It is important to look to God in all of this. When our recovery is empowered by his love there is no memory or thought, especially about our past, that can take us down into the deep waters.

When I think about those bells, I don’t think about how many of those years were underlined with my addiction, I think about how many years God kept me despite of what I was. Despite the countless decisions I made that should have destroyed me. If you are here, please know that you are loved, no power or principality can overtake you when God is in your corner.

Gaven F.

A grateful believer in Jesus Christ.