The Healing Marathon

From the perspective of a daughter of an alcoholic

This year I was baptized as a follower of God. Before that, I was a fan. I knew about Jesus and wanted to believe he was real, but hadn’t fully accepted Him because my dad’s sin, his family’s sin & my own sin resulting from their sin weighed too heavily in my heart. Satan had his grip on me until I finally understood the concept of Free Will. I’ve been reading to my kids from the Jesus storybook Bible every night with a mission…that they can hear and feel the Love of Jesus in the stories that I read and the actions i show them by trying my hardest to love them like Jesus calls me to love them.

I knew the moment I started teaching my kids about the Bible and the Gospel, hard questions would arise. I have the most inquisitive brain that was flooded with deep questions as a child. Those questions often went unanswered because I didn’t have access to the information or didn’t feel safe in asking them. This is where my thirst for knowledge was born…an insatiable thirst for understanding was encoded into my DNA at an early age. Because I still had unanswered questions about God & the Bible that dated back to childhood, I approached teaching my kids about God & the Bible through the eyes of a child. I had to learn the Bible on the simplest of terms…through the eyes of Abigail, the inquisitive, anxious little girl from years gone by. The innocent little girl, who just needed to believe in something bigger than herself and her circumstances. When I approached the Bible in this way, through the eyes & heart of my inner child, a child of God, that’s when God really spoke to me. He helped me mature spiritually beyond that scared little girl into a confident woman who loves Jesus & loves telling her kids about Jesus. I posited reading the Bible to the boys would stir up tough questions, like, “why do good things happen to bad people” vice versa, “why do people die” and “what is hell”. I wanted to be able to answer the questions with conviction! This is where my relationship with getting deep with God started. I had to finally ask the hard questions to God that I had been to scared to ask Him for fear of the answers. I had to understand with certainty in my heart what I believe to be the TRUTH so the roots of Smith, Shawn and Parker are planted in TRUTH.

So, I started getting deep with God where any good story begins…at the beginning. And the first question that came to mind was…WHY FREE WILL? In the beginning God created the most beautiful things…animals, the flowers, the sunset, the ocean & the most beautiful thing of all…humans. He first created Adam & Eve because he wanted to enjoy these amazing pieces of artwork with someone. He loved Adam & Eve unconditionally, with an unfailing, unapologetic, eternal love because they were PART of Him. I very much understand why God felt this way about Adam & Eve because It’s the same love I have for Smith, Shawn & Parker. God gave Adam & Eve free will so that they could CHOOSE to Love God – unconditionally, like he loved Him. If he MADE them love Him…then that is conditional and it’s not the same kind of Love. God knew that. God knew true JOY, PEACE and WHOLENESS is only experienced with UNCONDITIONAL love. So, hence FREE WILL! God simply wanted to share UNCONDITIONAL love with his children and knew he could only do that by giving his children Free Will.

Why did Sin enter the world? God told Adam and Eve they could eat freely from all of the trees in the garden, except one. Then, Satan enters the scene as a serpent. Into the Garden with Adam & Eve he goes. He slithers in there with a cockiness and swagger. Satan was angry, jealous, egotistical and wanted to foil God’s happiness & His perfect creations. He planted doubt, fear and mistrust in Adam & Eve.

He said to them…

“I mean, if God loved you soooooo much & unconditionally, he would let you eat that! He wouldn’t deprive you. He wouldn’t give you a “condition” to his Love and tell you not to eat something so delicious. He wouldn’t tell you no. He would let you do whatever you want.”

But God never told Adam & Eve he wouldn’t love them if they ate from the tree. He simply asked them not to eat from it to help them learn self control, humility and appreciation for what was already there. Adam & Eve put their trust & faith in something other than God and ate the fruit. He got them to focus on the one they couldn’t eat from. God didn’t want to “deprive” his children. He wanted Adam & Eve to be thankful for all that they had and not distracted by what they felt like they were lacking, just as this is wish for us!

I used to struggle with this concept of free will in a GIGANTIC, larger than life way!!! Being the child of an abusive alcoholic – Satan entered my life through my dad pretty early. You see…the impact Satan had on my life was THROUGH my dad early on. Just like Jesus can speak THROUGH people, so can Satan. And what comes through you must also come out of you. So the doubt, the fear, the anger, the hurt, the feeling undeserving, unimportant and invisible all had to leave before I could really receive the power of God’s unconditional WHOLLY and really understand why God gave Adam & Eve Free Will!

I now know I was a victim of HORRIFIC circumstances…NOT DESERVED consequences from God, my Father. God did cry with me. He was angry this was happening. How could God “allow” for this to happen to me? Why wouldn’t he stop it? Why wouldn’t he stop my dad from drinking, or beating on me or my mom?

Why did I struggle to understand this concept until now? Because I was too scared of what I might read. I didn’t dig deep in the actual scripture. I just went by what I had been told or what I thought I knew – but not about what I had actually read and prayed about. I was too scared of what I was going to find out that it kept me from knowing the beautiful truth.

I know many people struggle with this concept. They ask why would a loving God create free will which is the reason for sin? The reason for trauma? The reason for hate? Unfortunately, sin is the dark side of free will. And we would never experience unconditional love or true peace without Free Will. Sin is the side of free will Satan is cheering for. Sin is the part of free will that is the cause of so many horrific circumstances in our history and in our present day world. And these horrific circumstances are not “willed us” on by God. He is sad with you. He is sitting with you in your pain. He is crying with you. He is there to console you. He does not want you to suffer. God knows it is his “fault” these things are happening, because he made Humans with free will. Rest assured, God knows he is the reason for Free Will but he did not make a mistake in creating us. He knows the very thing that brings us so much joy…is the very thing that also brings us so much pain. When we rejoice, so does Jesus. When we cry, so does Jesus. He is our Father and wants the same things for His Children that we do for ours. And we know our kids will suffer. We know hardships will arise. We can’t protect them from everything. Neither can God because he can’t stop free will.

What is free will to me, Abigail Ashley Sweeney, sinner and child of God? Free Will is the reason i am able to accept and experience the same peace and agape love God promises us!

Find the truth and encouragement in this…God is running THE HEALING MARATHON with you because he too believes #nobodyrunsalone. You just have to look for Him, listen to Him, and talk to Him while you are running. He is your training partner for life, but if you don’t look for Him or talk to Him, you will most likely miss Him. He’s just like the air we breathe, vital for life but impossible to see with our human eyes.