January 28, 2002

TEXAS BAPTIST CHILDREN'S HOME:
Solving a God problem
___By Ken Camp
___Texas Baptist Communications
___AUSTIN--Sarah* has what she calls a "God problem." Abuse and addiction have left her struggling to accept the idea of an all-powerful, loving heavenly Father.
___Not that she has any trouble believing in hell. At age 32, she feels like she has spent most of her life there.
___But thanks to the ministry of Texas Baptist Children's Home and Family Services, Sarah for the first time sees a way out of despair and chemical dependency. And she wants to learn what it means to be a responsible mother to the unborn child she is carrying.
___"I know this is my last chance," she said. "I don't want to lose any more children."
___Sarah grew up around Houston in a home filled with extreme physical abuse, alcoholism and drug addiction.
___By age 13, she was living on her own, using drugs and alcohol. Within three years, she had moved on to intravenous drug use. Soon she became a prostitute on the streets of east Austin to support her habit.
___She has been gang raped, beaten and kidnapped. She has had two abortions and one miscarriage, and she lost custody of two children she carried full term.
___Three months ago, she discovered she was four months pregnant again. She had been using crack cocaine, IV cocaine and alcohol heavily throughout the first trimester. But miraculously, all of the tests run to date indicate the baby is healthy.
___She was bitten by a Brown Recluse spider, but she was so high on drugs that she didn't know it and nearly lost her hand to the resulting staph infection. She needed help, and she realized her "friends" on the streets of east Austin couldn't provide it. She called the one stable Christian family she knew who might care about her.
___"I took a chance on my daughter's grandparents," she recalled. The couple had adopted her first child, and she had established limited contact with them during a 14-month period of sobriety that ended a couple of years ago with a relapse back into cocaine use.
___The family made a few contacts and put Sarah in touch with Texas Baptist Children's Home and Family Services in Round Rock. The institution is one of four child and family service agencies affiliated with the Baptist General Convention of Texas.
___When she was asked about the possibility of moving into agency's new Family Care cottage, at first she was uneasy. She explained that she had lost what little faith she ever had in God, and she was not sure she could fit into a religious environment.
___"I told them about my God problem. I didn't know if I could go, since it's a religious organization and all," she said. "They told me that believing in God was not a condition of me being there."
___Susan Lee, supervisor of the Family Care program, said she and her staff accept people wherever they are in their spiritual understanding and seek to be the presence of Christ for them.
___"Our job is to hold out God as a loving, responsive Savior, knowing people struggle with experiencing the spiritual when they haven't seen anyone in the flesh acting in the biblical imperative," Lee said. "When they see God in the flesh working, they can believe."
___In mid-November, Sarah moved into a newly furnished Family Care cottage. Her case manager, supervisor and counseling team met with her to work out a recovery schedule. They made arrangements for medical care, secured clothing for her and helped her make connections with the Texas Work Force, Texas Recovery Center and Department of Human Services.
___After a series of operations on her hand, she was transferred to an Austin-area substance abuse treatment facility. Once she completes the three-month recovery program and gives birth to her baby, she and the child will return to the Family Care cottage.
___"I'm in a 12-step recovery program every day. Right now, I'm just focusing on staying sober and having a healthy baby," she said. "This is my last chance. And my baby deserves a chance."
___Sarah has acknowledged she still has a long way to go in terms of learning how to "do relationships" in a healthy way, how to stay clean and sober, and how to relate to a God she does not understand.
___While she still wrestles with the image of an almighty heavenly Father, as part of her 12-step program she has come to recognize a "Higher Power"--the "Good Spirit" she has sensed working in the lives of people who have helped her.
___"Something out there wanted me to be alive, or I wouldn't still be here," Sarah acknowledged.
___She has told that to Susan Lee on more than one occasion. And Lee has responded, "I contend that 'something' is a 'Someone.'"
___ Sarah is used to represent the name of this client, who cannot be identified by her real name
___

Get printer-friendly version of this story


Send this story to a friend

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Texas Baptist churches, in the BGCT, the Southern Baptist Convention ( SBC ) and around the world.

---

Contents/ Masthead / Why We're Here / Links / Archive / E-mail us/ SUBSCRIBE!/ Signup for FirstLook