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May 2 – Redeemed Past · The Daily Ripples Podcast

• 0:01
  Welcome back to the Daily Ripples podcast.
• 0:04
  I am Pastor Mike, and as promised yesterday, I do still have with me Steffani and Memphis
• 0:10
  today, and those who are in the Memphis, Tennessee area, I'm sure if you're in Rooms of Recovery,
• 0:16
  you may know some of these voices and first names that you're hearing on here today.
• 0:20
  But I'm going to have our buddy Memphis kick us off by reading our Daily Ripple for today,
• 0:26
  May the 2nd, titled Redeemed Past.
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  The stone, the past can feel like a weight, but in God's hands it becomes a tool.
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  What once brought pain can become a source of wisdom and hope for others.
• 0:41
  Ripple 1. Practical.
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  Today I will not hide from my past or be defined by it.
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  I will see it as something that can be used for good.
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  When the opportunity comes, I will share honestly in a way that helps, not harms.
• 0:56
  Ripple 2. Spiritual.
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  The Father does not waste what we have lived through.
• 1:01
  As I follow Christ, the Holy Spirit redeems even the darkest chapters and turns them into light for others.
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  Over time, what once felt like a burden becomes a testimony of grace.
• 1:13
  Steffani, do you have any initial thoughts on our Daily Ripple for today?
• 1:17
  You like how I did that, just threw it right at you off the bat?
• 1:22
  Actually, yes.
• 1:23
  What comes to mind for me is the meanings of AA.
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  When I get to share my experience, strength, and hope, I get the opportunity to tell another person about the hardships that I have gone through, the foibles and hiccups in the past.
• 1:49
  it lets them know that they aren't the only ones in this world having these types of problems.
• 1:56
  Specifically, and I harken back to Corey.
• 2:00
  Thank you, Corey.
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  Page 157 in the big books of Alcoholics Anonymous.
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  In the middle of the page, it says,
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  For an hour, the two friends told him about their drinking experiences over and over.
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  He would say, hey, that's me.
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  That's me.
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  I drink like that.
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  So if I hadn't had the experience of my life, gone through the steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, and share my experience, strength, and hope with another individual or a group at a meeting, then there's no correlation.
• 2:34
  There's no hope for that person that they may be able to recover.
• 2:40
  And I like how you brought in those recovery words, you know, experience, strength, and hope, because that's exactly what's going on, you know, with this ripple and what it's talking about.
• 2:50
  You know, our past experiences and surviving those, recovering from those, give us the strength today to face, you know, the trouble that we have.
• 3:00
  And when we share those stories with another person, that's what gives somebody who is still struggling the hope, you know, because, and that's really what it's all about.
• 3:07
  That's why, you know, a recovery program is so powerful, because it's one person sharing with another where they have found hope.
• 3:15
  And again, you know, I go back to, you know, I wish the church was more like that, where people can more freely share, you know, their source of hope and strength that they have with others, you know, based on their past and being honest about things that they've gone through and where they've seen, you know, God at work in their lives already, because that is a source of hope for people who are still struggling.
• 3:35
  I still receive hope today from people that have gone through and survived and recovered from things in life, not even alcohol or substance abuse, but just recovered from, you know, traumatic experiences or relationship issues or, you know, things of that nature in life.
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  And I'll give an example.
• 3:55
  In recent years, you know, I've had a lot of struggles with feeling as though I was disconnected from, you know, some of my own children.
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  And it was while they were in their teenage years, you know, and they were girls.
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  So, you know, teenage girls are not something to be trifled with.
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  And it was extremely difficult, you know, during that time and during that season, feeling as
• 4:18
  though there was a constant kind of disconnect.
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  And people around me who had been through that were constantly saying, oh, don't worry,
• 4:25
  you know, they'll grow out of it.
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  They'll mature.
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  You know, they're still growing and maturing.
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  And fast forward to today where I have a much better relationship.
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  It's not perfect yet.
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  There's still some work of reconciliation being done.
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  But I know today that if I, you know, call my daughters, that they're actually going to
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  answer the phone, you know, and I couldn't have said that two or three years ago.
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  And so I'm seeing the truth.
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  What I'm experiencing right now is the manifestation of the hope that I got from others who had gone
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  through it.
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  So they shared with me their experiences, which gave me hope that the problem that I was in
• 4:58
  today would not be the problem that I'm in forever.
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  And that has proved to be true.
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  And whatever example you can give in life, I've seen that time and time again.
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  But anyway, Memphis, have you experienced anything like that or got anything similar that you have been through?
• 5:17
  You know, it just made me think of, you know, different times.
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  You know, of course, early on, a lot of us, when we get there, you know, you don't feel like that you have anything to offer.
• 5:32
  And then, you know, you think more about that, you know, when you're sitting there in those rooms of AA and you hear others and it gives you hope.
• 5:41
  I don't know that you immediately think that that's what it's doing.
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  But if you stay around long enough, you start realizing that that is the word to reference.
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  But, and I remember at different times where I would think that nobody was, you know, I didn't have anything that was valuable to another person.
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  And I had someone take me to the side and he goes, you just need to be right where you're at.
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  Because right where you're at and right with what you're sharing, there is someone most likely in that room that needs to hear just that.
• 6:18
  And so it, you know, it gave value to my past, you know, and it wasn't at that point just a negative that it could become a tool, that it could be something that could be of value to another person.
• 6:38
  So it made it a little, you know, because I went through stages with this, you know, there was a point that, you know, that I would share some of the things that were pretty bad in my past.
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  almost with a badge of honor, you know what I mean?
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  Because I was a pretty sick person.
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  And that has evolved over my time, you know, in this program.
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  And as I've developed a relationship with my power, you know, those shares sound a lot different today.
• 7:03
  Yeah.
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  You know, it's no longer my story.
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  It's God's story.
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  And I think it's no longer just my past, but it's His tool that I get to articulate for Him.
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  So that's what it makes me think about, you know, for me is, you know, I am just His tool.
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  Don't you think, too, that we are all broken people in one way or another?
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  You know, God is perfect.
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  We are not.
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  And for any situation that we may be struggling in with life, be it drugs and alcohol, be it, you know, failing marriage, gambling, addiction, overeating, scrolling too much.
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  You know, if we honestly want a change in our life and we ask God to help, the teacher appears at some point.
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  The person that's going to give us that experience, strength, and hope will be there.
• 8:08
  Well, and I was just thinking, you know, especially, you know, Memphis, when you were sharing about just the truth of what you're saying, you know, just the growth that you in particular have had, you know, in the recovery rooms, because I've been watching it.
• 8:22
  And for anyone who may not know, I don't mind sharing, you know, that for the past, gosh, probably six months or so, I've been Memphis's sponsor.
• 8:31
  And so, and it's a little different, you know, when you're later in recovery sponsoring somebody,
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  because it's not, you know, many times the sponsee has already worked through, you know,
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  the 12 steps to a certain extent. And so it becomes just more a matter of the joint,
• 8:45
  you know, accountability, you know, working through life together. But as you were talking
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  about the nature of your shares, especially about your past experience, you know, changed over time.
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  What I started thinking of was, yeah, because man, it's been probably at least a year or more
• 8:59
  since I heard you share in a meeting about going that year without a shower, you know.
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  We've got to bring that.
• 9:06
  Yeah, you'll have to bring that back into your story at some point,
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  because, I mean, you've got a good story, you know.
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  But all of this discussion reminds me of one of the more famous, you know,
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  verses in Scripture is Romans 8, 28.
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  And that's the one that says that we know that in all things,
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  God works for the good of those who love Him,
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  who have been called according to His purpose.
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  And, you know, the important thing about that is that it's not saying that God thinks that
• 9:32
  everything that we experience is good, but it says that God works everything toward good.
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  So for me, I needed those experiences and those hard knocks for me to even grow faith,
• 9:45
  to recover from my alcoholism, to turn into a decent human being to the extent that I am today.
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  You know, I needed that past.
• 9:53
  I needed the bad things in my past and in my story to mold me into a better version of who I am today.
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  And from a theological perspective, I mean, that's what we call God's grace, you know, working in us and through us, you know, through the Holy Spirit to form us more into that perfect image of God that humanity was originally designed to be.
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  But we got away from based upon our, you know, sin, mistakes, things of that nature.
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  But and I'll never be perfect again.
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  And I'll never be, at least in this life, never be fully formed in the image of God.
• 10:26
  But I definitely reflect that much closer today than I did 13 years ago.
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  And I think that we could all say the same about our own lives and the past.
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  Because God does use our past and our history to allow us to help others.
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  So that seems like a pretty good space to stop for today's episode.
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  And again, I appreciate both Steffani and Memphis being here with me today.
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  And Memphis, if you would close us out with our prayer for today.
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  Father, redeem every part of my past.
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  Through your spirit, use what I have lived through to bring hope and life to others.
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  And help me walk forward in the light of your son.
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  Amen.