When I was a little girl, I was the baby of the family for five years before my little brother was born. I had (in descending order), my big sister, my big brother and my next to oldest sister. My eldest sister was pretty much our mother hen. She took care of us and helped us so much. My next eldest sister was a little upset that I had come along and upset her applecart of being baby. While I didn’t understand it at the time, I do now!
In between, there was my big brother, George. I thought the sun raised and set with him. In good part because my parents definitely thought higher of their sons than daughters. Again, a sign of the times and of their cultures.
To me, it seemed there wasn’t anything that he couldn’t do. He probably hated the idea of his five year younger sister trailing after him but he took it in good stead. He watched out for me, kept my sister from terrorizing me too much, and let me watch while he performed miracles of magic. He was Superman in my eyes.
He was able to draw Snoopy and the rest of the Peanuts characters for me to color. He played baseball and could run fast as the wind – or so it seemed to me. I remember watching him and think how wonderful life was when he was around.
He was a good brother. He was so good looking and smart and kind. He was all of those things until he fell into the abyss of drugs.
Back in the 1960’s and 1970’s, the drug culture was just revving up. It was cool to break the law and smoke weed and worse.
I never got involved in it because I saw what it did to my siblings who, sadly, each in turn got involved. While my eldest sister was only more slightly into drugs (just a short time in high school then she became a very serious and involved mother to three darling boys), it was her then-husband who ramped my brother’s already out of control drug use to much worse drugs, including heroin. My sister had to live for years with the calamity of what drugs and alcoholism can do to someone you love and the destruction it brings to the whole family.
My next eldest sister got involved with pills though she used marijuana, too. She took uppers to lose weight and downers to be able to sleep. The thing was, she was a tiny thing to begin with and didn’t need to lose weight. She had sweet round apple cheeks on her cute face and she could not see beyond them. I’m sure there were those in her life who made her feel bad about herself back then. I know that it was true in the future and that it would have an effect on her that would last her whole lifetime.
While she quit taking the illegal drugs once she became a Christian in the early 1970s, she took multiple prescriptions for a wide variety of medical issues including depression for many years. Those medicines took a toll on her and her body and she died way too young.
Still, it was my big brother who fell into the darkness that drugs create. He went from a loving and caring person to someone who would use and abuse anyone at anytime. My mother never saw it in him though perhaps because he was excellent at manipulating her. She had her own set of troubling issues and was not above using him when it suited her as well. I know now that it was the drugs that obscured his thinking and controlled his actions but for me, at the time, he went from a loving brother to a monster – someone who scared me and threatened me in ways I had not experienced before.
It was a blessing from God that I never not get involved with drugs. It would have been so easy. In fact, staying clean was really difficult and unpopular. Everyone was turning on and tuning in and I walked to a different drummers beat.
Oh, boy, was I ever proud of myself. All I know is that I could see the loss of control and the darkness that emerged when others took drugs. I read about what drugs did to your mind and I was convinced that I would never want to cloud or damage my intellect with chemicals. I thought way too highly of myself but it did keep me clean. For that, I am grateful though I’ve learned that whatever I thought I knew, I didn’t really know much at all.
But the illegal drugs… Because of the experience of my siblings, I was like a hawk when it came to my children. I convinced myself that if I could monitor them constantly, I could keep them falling down the rabbit hole. I would point out the risks of drugs and what it meant for the future for those involved but I wish I had stressed this more and had a slightly lighter rein in policy.
I had four nephews and four nieces and while I’m not sure about the others, definitely two of my nephews got involved with illegal drugs as well. One was able to pull himself out of it (with the help of Jesus); the other was not able to do so.
Turns out that I did a pretty good job of it with my children until my son became ill with leukemia at age 17. I ended up spending much of the next 18 months with him in the hospital before he passed away – not from the leukemia but from a yeast infection in his brain. But, perhaps, that is a different tale for a different time.
My youngest daughter was only 13 at that time. Without the constant monitoring and because I was mostly monitoring and not teaching the dangers, she started to get involved with others who took drugs. Her friends who were not involved backed off from her company and she was left with only the known bad kids to hang around with.
Once I was home after my son passed away, I could see that she was in emotional trouble. She told us what had happened and that she didn’t want to be associated with the bad kids any more. We were able to get her into a private Christian school (but perhaps from the frying pan into the fryer there for other reasons) and she was able to recoup and get her life back on track without the stigma of being one of the group that took drugs.
I worry about kids today. The gateway drug for years as been marijuana. As more and more states are legalizing its use, the gateway drug(s) get ever more dangerous. I won’t debate whether marijuana should be legalized, that’s not my decision. I know that kids push the envelope and if that envelope is further down the road at the beginning, they will meet it and push it ever further.
It makes me sad to think of the dangers our children face today. I know that it was bad when I was young. That my daughters had it even worse than I. I can’t fathom what my grandchildren will look at and consider acceptable as far as risks and dangers are concerned.
I do know that the only answer that will solve the problems of today is to be found in the sacrificial offering that Jesus made on the cross for us. He took all of our sins and placed them on his own head. God the Father is holy and true and cannot have sin in his presence. So God himself had to come up with an answer to what would have been unsolvable for mankind alone.
The problem is that we humans are mired in sin. We are born into it and each of us embrace a sinful life at one point or other. We are all guilty and deserve to be eternally separated from God with the spirit within us dead. God loved us so much, he was unwilling to let that happen. So, he sent his Son. Jesus was born among us and was raised and tempted just as we are. He was able to turn away from sin and live the life that God asks us to live.
He became the perfect sacrifice. If you ever study Judaism, you will find that the religion has many types of sacrificial offerings detailed. They were forerunners of an ultimate sacrifice. When Jesus came to this earth, his sacrifice, the ultimate one, forever took the place of all of those other offerings.
His perfection was traded for our imperfection. His whole spirit and communion with God was traded for our dead one. His life given in exchange for our eternal life.
What kind of man would trade so much for such a group of sinners? Only one and he is God.
If you are living with drugs in your life, whether you take them yourself or those who are close to you do so, God loves you. He sees beyond the trappings of our lives and sees you as you are and where you are. He knows what you are going through. He saw you when he sent his Son. Jesus was looking at you when he offered up his life to give you eternal life.
You can be set free. Accept the gift of life that Jesus is offering to you. That’s all you have to do. Then ask him to help you. Ask him to get you away from the culture and the life that is dragging you down to the pit.
I can’t promise rainbows and lollipops but I know that Jesus will step in and help. But it all starts with you. Today is the day. Yesterday is past and tomorrow is not promised. Choose hope instead of sorrow. Choose an unclouded mind instead of a life of slavery to a drug. Choose life instead of death.
It’s your decision and yours alone.
1 John 4:9-10 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.