“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30
Let’s talk about the hand of God. When you think about the hand of God, what is the first thing that comes to mind? We may first think about what He gives, how He provides, how He moves obstacles for us. For me, it reminds me of all the things God is willing to receive from us. I grew up with trauma being a regular occurrence, and it was crippling. When I was at the lowest time in my life, I turned to alcohol to numb the pain from the worst trauma I had recently experienced. I wasn’t drinking to party; I was drinking in attempts to just not think, to stop or slow down the anguish, to stop panic attacks. My mind was tormented with fear, suicidal ideations, flashbacks, intrusive thoughts, and wondering how this happened. My life as I knew it was over; I was a shattered shell of a woman and mother. I had been a fighter all my life and made it through so much, but this time I had no fight left in me. I prayed everyday asking the Lord for help to cope with this crisis. The Lord revealed to me that what I was going through was spiritual, and that I needed to deal with it spiritually. I rebuked the suicidal thoughts and told them to leave me in Jesus Name, and they immediately left. I started begging God to take the desire and addiction to alcohol away.
God had supernaturally taken the desire for other addictions away throughout my life, so I knew He could and would. This time was different, every time I sat on my bed with a bottle of rum in my hand just wanting to numb the ravaging pain away, I would pray. Lord, please take the desire to drink away from me, I don’t want it. The Lord would show me an image of His open hand toward me, palm up, like He was willing to receive it if I was willing to give it to Him. No, Lord, please take it from me, then He would show me his open hand again and impress on me that this time I had to GIVE it to Him. I didn’t think I could put this in His hand on my own; I knew if I was willing to give it to Him that He would help me, but I just couldn’t give it to Him. I was stuck, fearful of how I would be able to manage this pain without alcohol. The alcohol was NOT helping; it rather held me captive in my body while my mind ran every scenario, every fear, everything that I could have done differently, and every way that I failed. I felt like I was stuck in a prison cell with little hope, but the Lord kept showing me that the prison door was open, and I could walk out if I wanted to.
I didn’t want to have to do the work myself; I wanted the Lord to do the work for me. My daily prayers begging God for help went on for months. I knew what I had to do yet questioned my ability. God was showing His willingness to take it IF I was willing to give it to Him; God obviously knew I had the ability. I wish I could say that the battle was easy once I gave it to Him; it was not. I had a lot of spiritual warfare to battle after that, learning how to make healthy choices in my mind and body, and learning to lean on the Lord for strength and guidance every step of the way.
Learning how to live life without substances to cope was a great challenge for me as my earliest addiction started at age 9. I learned, grew, and matured my ability to feel the feelings and not run from them. God offered me His open hand, and I took Him up on His offer; God knew that if I expected Him to do the work for me every time that I would not learn and grow the ability to do it for myself. August 2026 will be 9 years sober for me, because I chose to put it in His hand. May He do the same for you in whatever He is leading you to put in His hand. God bless you.
We would like to thank Leah Montez for writing this post.
Women's Ministry 