March 2. Jeffrey Fidler. Jeffrey had been a construction worker. He had been a husband, and he had been a father. Enter heroin.
Exit hope.
Until this date in 1995, when God showed up. Here’s today’s story.
Shame can cripple a man; embrace the truth and break free.
Jeff was a man who loved his family, but drug addiction gripped him, and heroin had become his true love. The sun rose and set on getting his fix. Even his kids, four and two at the time, couldn’t compete with the allure of heroin.
One winter night—it had been two weeks since he had seen his children; his mother had been caring for them—Jeff walked through his mother’s front door.
Dirty, dressed in rags, with scraggly hair down to his waist, he knelt in front of his son, who was watching television.
“Hey, buddy!” Jeff said. “I missed you! Did you miss me?”
The little boy ignored him and kept his eyes glued to the TV screen.
“I’m gonna pick you up this weekend, and we’re gonna go to the park, OK, bud?”
His son nodded, but never looked in his father’s direction. The little boy had heard this before. When it came to his dad, promises were made to be broken.
“I mean it this time, OK? I love you buddy.”
Silence.
Broken, Jeff kissed his young son’s forehead and quietly left. He was losing everyone and everything that was important to him, and he didn’t know how to fix it. A dozen stints in rehab hadn’t helped him. He was thinking about suicide.
Feeling disgusted with himself, Jeff punched the front door of his dimly lit apartment. He went to the basement and started lifting weights. With a fury.
Lifting weights had always been his refuge, his chance to think, but this time he was pushing himself to the limit, not because he wanted to bulk up, but to punish himself.
“I deserve pain!” he growled.
As his muscles burned, and sweat dripped into his eyes, he heard a voice: “Worship me.”
Jeff lowered the weights onto the weight bench and looked around the dingy basement. Was he losing it? “Who’s there?” he shouted.
No answer.
Jeff looked around the basement.
“Worship me.” It was louder this time.
Then overwhelming peace washed over Jeff. Something was pulling him. He fell on his knees, then all the way down, his face to the floor. Bathed in peace. Healing peace.
“Worship me!”
In that moment, Jeff knew God was speaking to him. Tears turned to sobs. Jeff lay on the floor and cried out, “Help me, God! Save me!”
Hours passed.
When Jeff got up, his knees ached and were covered in dirt. But something was … different. He was … new.
He knew he was done with drugs, and he had an overwhelming desire to pick up a Bible and learn about the Lord.
He remembered his grandmother. Her years of prayers. She had prayed that her entire family would come to know Jesus.
Jeff had heard about Jesus all his life, and had rejected Him. Jeff had assumed that God was so disgusted with him that it wasn’t worth asking Him for help.
Until now.
Today, Jeff knows that no one is beyond redemption, and God offers it to anyone who needs it.
In his bedroom, Jeff leaned back in his chair and reached for his well-worn Bible. Seated in the armchair near the window sat a fellow construction worker.
He had gotten injured on the job and had become addicted to opioids. His wife took the children and left him, and he feared he was about to be unemployed. He knew he needed help, he told Jeff, but he was too ashamed to admit he was an addict.
“Dude—” Jeff said, pausing. He paged through the Word until he found an appropriate verse. Reaching over to place a hand on his co-worker’s shoulder, Jeff said, “I get it. But God doesn’t see you as an addict, and He can take your shame away. Listen to this …”
“As Scripture says, ‘Anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame.’ For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, ‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved’” (Romans 10:11-13 NIV).
If the weight of your past still causes you shame, confront the shame with the truth of God’s Word and be set free. Shame can cripple a man; embrace the truth and break free.
Based on a talk with Jeffrey Fidler, 2019.
Story read by Nathan Walker