Bob and Karrie: On the Road to Recovery

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Bob Lepine: Bob Wood's life was a mess, and his friends knew it.  They put together an intervention to try to get him some help, and that was Step 1.

Bob Wood: After that intervention, it's still a little bit fuzzy on exactly what happened, but at some point I walked into a recovery meeting, and it was there I met a Christian man who brought me to Celebrate Recovery, and it's at Celebrate Recovery that I realized that going to meetings alone was not enough; that I needed a relationship with Jesus Christ that would transform me from the inside out.

Bob Lepine: This is FamilyLife Today for Thursday, August 31st.  Our host is the president of FamilyLife, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine.  Meeting Jesus Christ didn't just change Bob Wood's behavior, He changed his life.

 And welcome to FamilyLife Today, thanks for joining us.  Have you ever thought about the relationship between the children's nursery rhyme, "Humpty Dumpty," and the Christian life?

Dennis: Yeah, I actually have.

Bob Lepine: That's kind of interesting, isn't it?  "Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, had a great fall, and all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty together again."

Dennis: I remember Ashley, our firstborn daughter, coming home from junior high one day talking about all of her teenage peers, and she described herself as standing on top of the wall with all of her peers pulling at her, trying to get her to fall off and to break.  And, you know, if the peers aren't successful, there's plenty of choices we make as individuals to add plenty of cracks in the fall.

Bob Lepine: And it's true that it may be that all the king's horses and all the king's men can't put you back together again, but the King …

Dennis: … the King can.

Bob Lepine: The King can put you back together.

Dennis: And the King has some methods of putting us back together.  He uses other people to do that, and we have a couple of – well, a couple who are a King's man and a King's woman – Bob and Karrie Wood join us again on FamilyLife Today.  Welcome back.

Karrie: Thank you, I'm glad to be here.

Bob Wood: Thank you, it's good to be with you.

Dennis: You never thought of yourselves as being those who put Humpty Dumpty back together again, did you, through your ministry, Celebrate Recovery?

Karrie: I'll never look at that nursery rhyme the same again.

Bob Wood: That may become our new standard.

Bob Lepine: There we go.

Dennis: Well, you know, someone described us in a poem, I forget the name of the poem, but what Jesus Christ does is He takes the broken pieces, and He uses gold.  He uses gold to cement the pieces back together, and so when the sun shines, you see the points where it's been broken, but there is a reflection.

Karrie: Amen.

Dennis: There's a brilliance there, and that's what Christ does when He redeems our lives.

Bob Lepine: And you guys have experienced that in your own lives.  In fact, it was through the ministry of Celebrate Recovery, which is a ministry that's taking place in thousands of churches all across the country, but you were out at Saddleback Church in California in a Celebrate Recovery group when God started putting those pieces back together in your lives and today you are helping to keep that going in other's lives as you lead a Celebrate Recovery movement in a local church in Little Rock and in other churches around the state of Arkansas.  You both came from very broken backgrounds, and you met when you showed up together at Celebrate Recovery, didn't you?

Karrie: Yes, we did.

Bob Lepine: Do you remember that first night when you looked across the room and there was Bob?

Karrie: Actually, it was looking across a picnic bench at our Celebrate Recovery barbecue.

Bob Lepine: Yeah?  Tell me about it.

Karrie: Well, both Bob and I had been in recovery for about a year and a half, almost two years, and both of us had grown quite a lot in our walk with Christ.  I want to make sure everyone knows that.  But before our meetings, we always have a mealtime to fellowship and get together, and there was this very handsome, long-haired gentleman with these bright blue eyes cooking hamburgers and hot dogs, and I thought ..

Dennis: That, I assume, was Bob, not another guy.

Karrie: It definitely was Bob.

Dennis: His hair is not too long right now, though.

Karrie: And I saw those baby blues, and I knew he was the one for me, and it just kind of took off from there.

Dennis: Now, Karrie, in case our listeners weren't with us earlier, share with them why you were in Celebrate Recovery.

Karrie: I was in Celebrate Recovery, or am still in Celebrate Recovery, because of a background of physical, sexual, emotional abuse and an eating disorder, and came to a complete crash in my life and God led me to this ministry to keep me together and make me whole again.

Bob Lepine: And, Bob, you were there because you'd had a background of sexual sin, of drug and alcohol use.  You were using crystal meth pretty much every day at the time that things started crashing down for you.  And you talk about having been in recovery for a year and a half, two years, at this point, what does that mean?  Does that mean you're getting better?  Does that mean you're fine?  Does that mean you've stopped sinful patterns but now you're dealing with it?  What's that mean?

Karrie: Well, for me, it meant that I was learning to now do it God's way instead of my way, but He also wants me to deal with those defects of my character and to learn more about Him and to go through this process of what I call sanctification.

Dennis: And so it was in the midst of that process of sanctification that ol' Mr. Blue Eyes here laid his peepers on you, and you said, "He's the one for me."  What did you think, Bob?

Bob Wood: When I first saw her I thought, "There's no way that she would go out with a guy like me."  I couldn't imagine being with a woman so beautiful and so sweet and so kind.

Bob Lepine: Was it at that same barbecue that you noticed her?

Bob Wood: That's when I kind of started getting an eye for her but not to the point where I would actually pursue her because I had made so many bad choices in the past, I didn't want to allow my emotions to dictate the relationships I was going to have.

Bob Lepine: How long had you been in Celebrate Recovery at this point?

Bob Wood: It had been about a year and a half, two years.  We both came in around the same time but didn't notice each other when we first started.

Bob Lepine: And how did you get there?  Because your parents had come to you with an intervention.  They had tried to press the issue in your life and say, "You are headed down a path of destruction."  You had wadded up the paper that they had written down their intervention notes on, and you'd thrown it in their face, and you'd walked out.  What happened from that moment until you wound up at Saddleback Church learning about Jesus and recovery?

Bob Wood: After that intervention, it's still a little bit fuzzy on exactly what happened, but at some point, several days later, I walked into a recovery meeting, and it was there I met a Christian man who brought me to Celebrate Recovery.  And it's at Celebrate Recovery that I realized that going to meetings alone was not enough; that I needed a relationship with Jesus Christ that would transform me from the inside out.

Bob Lepine: When you say it's a little fuzzy, I've heard alcoholics talk about a lost weekend.  Did that intervention experience with your parents, do you think that led you to some binging that just left you without memory for what happened over those days?

Bob Wood: I think it left me continuing in my addiction, but I think in the process those words sank in, and the heart that they shared it with me sank in, and I couldn't deny anymore their love for me, and I finally realized that my life was out of control, and that moment of clarity gave me just enough willingness to drag myself to a meeting for the first time.

Dennis: And when you gave your life to Christ, describe that moment.

Bob Wood: I can still see it as if it was yesterday.  I asked a gentleman in the recovery meeting that I was with if he would describe to me what it meant to have a relationship with this God that we were talking about, and he took me for about three hours through the Scriptures and described "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth."  I never heard that before, and then brought me to the cross and what Jesus Christ did for me by dying on the cross for all the stuff that I had done to my family, all the stuff I had done to myself, all the stuff that I had done to others.  And if I wanted a relationship with Him, all I had to do was ask Him into my life.

Dennis: And at that point, was your faith in Christ translated into an experience that marked you?  Or was there just a confirmation that His peace, that you knew you'd been forgiven and that you were now a new creature in Christ?

Bob Wood: I felt that peace.  I knew something different happened that day; something in me was different that day, and I knew my life was changed.

Dennis: What was the big tipoff in the days that followed that Jesus Christ now resided in you?

Bob Wood: I think the first was having a hunger and thirst for God's Word and having a desire to get to know Him better through His Word; the desire to continue on in the recovery process; the desire to go to church.  I never wanted to go to church ever.

Dennis: And be around those people.

Bob Wood: And be around those people in church.  And I finally began seeing that a relationship with Christ was so different than anything I ever thought it was, and joining recovery and getting involved in the recovery groups I was at was a whole course direction in my life.  One of the things that they told me when I got there was I had to change my people, places, and playthings.  I had to begin doing things differently.  Everything had to change in my life, not just some things.

Dennis: And you began with people.

Bob Wood: Exactly.

Dennis: That's what Celebrate Recovery is all about.  It's people being accountable and people telling their story with other people and getting honest about their struggles and their weaknesses and where they're failing.

Bob Wood: I felt like, for the first time, that I belonged with a group of people.  I didn't need to impress them; I didn't need to please them in any way.  All I had to do was show up and be me, and they would love me and accept me exactly where I was at.

Bob Lepine: Did your meth use taper off?  Did it just kind of wane over the next several weeks or months?

Bob Wood: My meth use stopped immediately after my experience with Jesus Christ.  I still had an urge or a craving to use drugs even after that experience with Jesus Christ.

Dennis: Yeah, because you'd been using drugs for how long?

Bob Wood: Ten years.

Dennis: Almost every day.

Bob Wood: Almost every day.

Bob Lepine: So patterns were still there, desires, the physical urges were still there, but you now had the strength and the resources to be able to turn away from those things.

Bob Wood: Right.  By getting connected with a group of people that could encourage me, that could support me, that understood what it was like to feel what I was feeling gave me the strength that I needed to continue on and not turn back.

Bob Lepine: So clean and sober for how long now?

Bob Wood: It will be 12 years this Saturday.

Dennis: That's cool, that really is cool.

Bob Lepine: Karrie, when we last heard from you, you had just shown up at Celebrate Recovery and had come to faith in Christ.  What did recovery look like for you in those first few months of the process?

Karrie: Those first few months were very scary for me, because going to Celebrate Recovery was realizing that my life might change, and it did, praise God.  But living life the same way scared me even more, so I joined Celebrate Recovery.  And during those first few months, I started to realize what true unconditional love was all about, and I knew that stemmed from my relationship with Jesus Christ.  But what was amazing is he used the people in my life to show me His love.  He gave me a body of people that could support me and understand and who have been down that path with me and take me by the hand and walk through this path with me.

 And I had mentioned earlier in my story that I had made a vow to myself that each time I was hurt so deeply, I would never allow myself to be hurt that deeply again.  What is amazing was during those first couple of months, that vow started to crack because I had a Savior in my life that showed me that I could trust Him, and that it wasn't as necessary to hold onto it so deeply.  And through recovery that vow cracked completely, and I know only God could have done that for me. 

 So it was a slow process of learning to trust, to be open, to disclose, and to allow others to love me and trust them.

Dennis: And one man you did allow to take your hand and let you in was ol' Blue Eyes down here.

Bob Lepine: I was thinking about ol' Blue Eyes.

Dennis: How did you finally ask her out, because you were thinking about how you could – she wouldn't give you the time of day, but you finally risked it and asked her out.

Bob Wood: We actually had a mutual friend that gave me her phone number and told me that she was interested in me.  I'll never forget how I felt.  I felt like I was in high school again and nervous and not sure what to do and finally called her and invited her to a party that we were going to go to, a Labor Day party with a bunch of recovery friends.  So we were in our safe environment in beginning this process of dating together.

Bob Lepine: But didn't the process of dating scare both of you a little bit?

Karrie: It did for me because before I came into recovery, I vowed I was never going to get married again, because I had actually, even as a little girl, seen divorce so much, I told myself I would never get divorced and having had a divorce in my life I felt very defeated.  And I thought, "You know, I'm never going to get divorced again."  I became content with myself, me and God were one, and I wasn't expecting this blue-eyed gentleman over here to come into my life.  And so when he did, I was excited, but then it dawned on me that he was in recovery for alcoholism, and recovery had taught me to look for patterns.  And so what I did was, I continued to pray about it.  I went to all of my support, I went to my pastor, I told him the situation, and the last person I went to, her name was Lisa, and I had shared with her that I had feelings for this gentleman in recovery, but I really needed to know everything about him.  Were there any ghosts in his closet?  Was he a good man?  I drilled her with many, many questions, and before I even had a chance to finish, she said, "Oh, my gosh, I wish I had thought of this before.  You would be perfect for each other." 

 And she ran off that next day and told him I liked him, and it went from there.  But, yeah, I was nervous, but I was excited because I knew that we both had recovery and God was leading it.

Dennis: So I want to know how did you ask her to marry you?

Bob Wood: This is quite a story.  There's a cross in La Jolla, California, that stands about 30 feet tall on top of a hill with a 360-degree view, and I found out about this place through a conversation I overhead somebody talking about.  So I went down there at 3:00 in the morning so I could watch the sun rise and check out the view.  I realized that was exactly where God wanted us to be engaged.  I woke her up, 3:00 in the morning, went over to her apartment, had her throw on some clothes, we went and picked up some doughnut holes and coffee and just drove.  She had no idea where we were going or what we were going to do.

 And as I was driving down there, we hit a fog bank, as is common in the San Diego area, and I thought that was going to ruin the moment.  And I started praying, and I just asked God, "Would you please give me a clearing so that we can take in Your incredible view," and right as I said, "Amen," the fog stopped, and we rose above it and had a perfect 360-degree view as the sunrise came up over the mountains in the distance and glistened with gold and purple, and I asked her to be my wife that day.

Karrie: Now, we have to understand, though, especially with ladies, is I must have loved him to have him wake me up that early in the morning …

Bob Lepine: … throw on some clothes …

Dennis: … and to trust him.

Karrie: And to trust him and, keep in mind that when women are meant to be – or thinking they're going to be engaged, they're usually dressed up and looking their best and, no, I had my hair pulled up in a ponytail and a raggedy old sweatshirt with stains …

Bob Lepine: … no makeup.

Karrie: I was just a mess, and I was not prepared for that.  So I was definitely a surprised woman.

Bob Lepine: You thought it was just going to be doughnut holes and coffee?

Karrie: Doughnut holes and coffee, and we were going somewhere, I didn't know where.  But I saw him get very distressed as we were going along, and I was very concerned about why.  But then when we passed the clouds, he seemed to happy, and when we got there, we had sat at the base of the cross, and he said, "You know, I just want to read some Scriptures to you," and I said, "Okay."  Because we had prayed a lot together up to this point, and so he started sharing some really amazing Scriptures about how God had changed us, and we were new people, and how God intended for man and woman to be together, and all those romantic Scriptures.

Dennis: Were you thinking it was – here it's coming?

Karrie: Well, at first I was thinking, "That's awfully sweet."  And then when he asked me to move to the bench on this cliff, I thought, "Hm, something must be up."  And he said, "Well, let's pray some more."  I said, "Okay."  I'm thinking he's very spiritual today.  He really wanted to do a lot of praying.  Well, during that prayer time, he went even further, and I sense, all of a sudden, he wasn't sitting next to me, and I looked down, and he was kneeling in this big, huge mud puddle, just weeping, with this ring in front of me.  And I knew, at that moment, he was a man I had never, ever thought God would give me.  He is an absolute blessing.  And what was amazing about him for me is that he has taught me what a godly man is all about.  God has used him in that way.

Dennis: You know, I think the great story we've heard from both of you is that God can, indeed, take Humpty Dumpty, who has fallen off the wall, and the King can put the pieces back together again, and he can take two broken vessels and turn them into one, and turn them into one for His glory, because that's what you're doing by using your failure, your weakness – drugs, alcohol, eating disorders – and you've turned that into now a ministry, Celebrate Recovery. 

 And I think many of our listeners have gained hope and help and healing from listening to your story.  But I hope they'll take it one step further.  I really hope that there will be at least 100 listeners in churches all across the country who will join arms with Celebrate Recovery and start one of these accountability groups that fellowships around the living Lord Jesus Christ and around authentic relationships where people get real about their own lives and about their own mistakes, and they find that hope and that healing and that help that you all found.

Karrie: And what these churches need to know as well is there are thousands of women just like me, when I first started 12 years ago, that are broken and lost and have no hope and unless these churches open up their doors and make it a safe place for people like me to come to, they're going to continue to live their life without purpose – because the man and the woman that you see here today, were not the same woman and man 12 years ago.

Dennis: Mm-hm.

Bob Lepine: That's one of the things that you've seen and experienced in Celebrate Recovery.  It's a powerful evangelistic outreach – folks who aren't normally coming to church are hearing about Celebrate Recovery groups on Friday night or Tuesday night or whenever they're being held, and they're showing up for that, and they're meeting Christ.  I mean, that's your story, and that's the story that you've seen repeated hundreds of times, and I know the ministry of Celebrate Recovery has seen it over and over again. 

 We've got a link on our website at FamilyLife.com to the Celebrate Recovery site, and if folks want more information about Dennis's challenge – if you want to be one of those churches to start this ministry, go to our website, FamilyLife.com.  In the middle of the home page you'lll see a button that says, "Go," and if you click on that button, it will take you right to a page where you can find the link to the Celebrate Recovery website.  You can find resources that are available from us here at FamilyLife.  We have mentioned this week a book by our friend, John Vawter called "Hit by a Ton of Bricks," that is a collection of stories from families where drug and alcohol dependency was something that came into the family, into the marriage, or with one of the children, and this book not only tells the stories of how these families have handled it but offers practical counsel on what a family can do if this has become a part of your story.

 Again, our website is FamilyLife.com, click the "Go" button in the middle of the screen.  That will take you to the page where there's more information about John Vawter's book, about the ministry of Celebrate Recovery, other resources available from us here at FamilyLife.  There are links to articles on our website as well.  You can also call 1-800-FLTODAY if you'd prefer.  That's 1-800-358-6329, and someone on our team can let you know how you can get some of these resources sent out to you or help point you in the right direction to get help for what you're going through in your marriage and in your family.

 This is the last day of August.  It's the last day of our fiscal year here at FamilyLife.  You know, I heard that term for years and didn't know what they meant – "fiscal year" – and it just occurs to me some of our listeners may not know what a fiscal year is.  We start our accounting year, we close our books on August 31st for this fiscal year, and we start a brand-new fiscal year tomorrow.  And, as it turns out for us this fiscal year, we're about to close our books, and it looks like we may be down as much as 18 percent from where we had hoped to be when we closed our books.  That has us re-evaluating some of our ministry opportunities for the months ahead with some of our existing ministries.  We're having to look hard at whether we can continue to stay on all of the radio stations we're on currently.  We're having to look at new ministry projects, some existing projects, and decide are we going to have to set some things aside for a while or bring to a stop some of our current ministries.

 And so for the last few weeks we've been letting our listeners know about this predicament we're in, and we have asked you to consider making a fiscal year-end donation to the ministry of FamilyLife Today.  I know most of you don't think about August 31st as being the year-end of anything, but it is a fiscal year-end for us, and many of you have responded, and we appreciate that.  Today being the last day of our fiscal year, we wanted to make one final appeal and ask if you might either go online or call 1-800-FLTODAY to make a donation the ministry of FamilyLife Today. 

Our website address is FamilyLife.com and, again, the phone number is 1-800-FLTODAY.  We would appreciate you giving that prayerful consideration.  We hope to hear from you, and we'll keep you posted on where things end up, and if we're going to have to make any significant changes here in the weeks ahead.  But for the meantime, we appreciate you giving this prayerful consideration and if you can make a donation to help us out, we appreciate hearing from you, and we want to say thanks in advance for your financial support.

Well, tomorrow we are going to be back to talk with our friend, Bebo Norman.  For those of you who don't know Bebo, he's a Christian musician, a singer/songwriter who has a brand-new CD coming out, and who was recently married after being single for a number of years.  We're going to talk about life and love and relationships and music and all of that tomorrow.  I hope you can be with us for that.

I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, and our entire broadcast production team.  On behalf of our host, Dennis Rainey, I'm Bob Lepine.  We'll see you back tomorrow for another edition of FamilyLife Today.

FamilyLife Today is a production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas, a ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ.

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