As the steel doors all slid and closed behind me (a sound we never forget), my heart started to pound. I was going to a place known as “the Cove”. Now I had heard good things and bad things about this place, but either way I knew I had a new opportunity to start over…. and if I just focused on the invisible, meaning God, the Spirit, and the Christ, that I would be led to exactly where I needed to be, to do what it was I needed to do.
As I have told many people since that turning point of my life, there will come a time that you will be so tired, broken, mentally and spiritually exhausted that you will do whatever it takes to not have things be the same way that they are. And with that, it means you are willing to go to any lengths, take any suggestion no matter how corny, ridiculous, or doubtful it feels. You’ll reach a spot in your life where no matter what, anything is better than the life that you’ve been living
As we pulled out of the jail’s garage a wave of anxiety with a mix of Peace hit me. With every mile that passed between the jail and my addiction and this new beginning I felt a very bizarre and surreal serenity wash over me.
When we got to the Cove, I noticed that it was surrounded by trees and birds, deer, greenery, and flowers. Another thing I noticed was that there were people who I knew were just like me, and for the first time in a long time I saw people like me clear-eyed, smiling, and laughing amongst themselves. I hoped that that clear eyed recovering addict would soon be me. As I was processed into the intake department, that is where I found out that my length of stay was going to be anywhere between 28 and 90 days! I was so headstrong on that because I wanted to get to the Living and Liberty house and I really hoped that it was only going to be 28 days. The realization sunk in though that no matter what, that kind of decision really wasn’t up to me….it was up to God
However long it took was going to be on His time and in my best interest.
Now it wasn’t until I hit the intake department that I was able to check in a duffel bag of my “belongings” of which (I remember that bag of blessings well. It was a nice brown luggage bag with teal circles on it and it even had a handle with wheels). As I opened the bag I was so excited; I was like a little girl on Christmas! Even though what treasures were held inside we’re just some everyday clothing and hygiene products, boy did they all smell so good! As a woman who was homeless and in and out of jail, it felt so good to know that I was soon going to smell good like that. Once all my belongings were checked in and accounted for, I was taken to the house that I was going to stay in. This house was called YSF. The girls told me that it stood for “Young, Sober and Free.” It wouldn’t be long before I’d change that acronym to “Yahweh, Spirit and Faith.”