I got this from Steph's blog called the The Red Clay Diaries. I really like her last paragraph. You can click on the title to link to the original posting...
I’ve just read news that is heartbreaking to consider. A song called “Healer”, which has swept the Internet and been picked up by Hillsong, and was sung at my church only two weeks ago, was written by a man who claimed to be suffering from terminal cancer. But he has recently admitted that he does not have cancer at all, and the song was based on a lie. I’ll link to the story at the end of this post. But first, I have a story of my own.
[This story is true, but some details have been changed to protect the subject's identity.]
A few years ago, a close friend of mine got baptized in front of the entire congregation. She’d been growing in a renewed faith for awhile, and she felt it was time to make a public statement. All of her friends and family celebrated her public profession of faith that day. I remember what I prayed for her: that God would use her in new and amazing ways in her future.
This friend was asked to apprentice as a small group leader and gladly accepted. She faithfully attended the training and worked to develop her leadership ability. Everyone believed that she would be an excellent small-group leader. I rejoiced in what seemed to be an answer to my prayer for God to use her.
But right before she started her new group, many circumstances conspired to reveal to those closest to her that she was struggling with a serious addiction. It turned out that she’d been addicted for her entire adult life, and no one around her knew. Obviously, she’d been deceiving a lot of people. And we had to deal with the truth that she’d been living a double life.
This woman’s friends and family were crushed. But she immediately acknowledged the seriousness of her actions. She took some steps that she’d never taken before. She went into counseling and threw herself into 12-step programs, attending a group every night of the week.
Her husband, the only other person who had known about the addiction, almost took the kids and left. The pattern of lies and exposure and renewed promises to stop had taken a huge toll on him. In the end, he decided to stay, go into his own 12-step group for loved-ones of addicts, and see how the rehabilitation went.
Since that revelation, my friend has fought for her life, her marriage, and her family. We have watched her get sober, relapse, recommit, and finally achieve a lasting sobriety. She would tell you that her sobriety is a daily thing, and that what ultimately keeps her sober is the knowledge that she would lose everything that matters to her if she goes back to her old life.
I believe her recovery is real. She has made her life an open book. She is different from the person I knew before. She continues to be involved in 12-step ministry, but now she’s also a leader and sponsor for others facing the same addiction.
Not long after my friend’s battle began, I remembered her baptism, and my prayer that God would use her. I felt like I’d been duped. I simply couldn’t reconcile the apparently-sincere person in the water one summer morning with the woman in crisis only a few months later. I concluded that her baptism had been just one more act of deception.
I held that belief for quite awhile. But one day, months after she’d begun leading and serving in her recovery group, I had an epiphany. First, I realized that God WAS using her. Not only through service in a small group, but also through how far she had traveled in her recovery.
My second realization was more surprising. I began to believe that her baptism had been sincere. Before she went under the water, she had proclaimed that through this baptism she was taking a new step of surrender to God. As I said, after the scandal, I’d considered that a flat-out lie. Now, I wondered if it was the opening of the door that allowed God to begin his current work in her.
I doubt she believed that the house of cards she had constructed would fall as a result of her baptism, because if she had I suspect she might not have gone through with it. But I do believe she sincerely wanted to follow God. So she might not have known HOW God was going to receive her offer of her heart, but I believe she acted on the knowledge and faith that she had at the time.
My friend and her family have since moved away from here. We keep in touch, though. And God continues to use her in recovery ministries.
Now back to today’s news about the writer of “Healer,” Michael Guglielmucci. Of course, I only know what I’ve read about his situation HERE. But I wonder what will happen if he does get the help he needs. Will we look at his song, written with apparent deception, and see it the way I now see my friend’s baptism?
I think I tend to put God in a box. I believe he’s not able to use the words or actions of a sinner. But if I spend any time thinking about it, I remember that, oh yeah, I’M a sinner. And MY evil actions and thoughts and intentions are just as horrible as my friend’s or Guglielmucci’s.
I hope the song “Healer” doesn’t fade away. I hope churches continue to use it in worship, because I do believe it’s anointed. My prayer is that a few years from now, we’ll see Michael singing it on the stage again, testifying to an even greater healing.
