Misery Released

Testimony of Maggie Eliot

At age fourteen Maggie began to go to parties and smoke pot because it seemed like the cool thing to do.  Her drug addiction grew from weekend events to several days per week which included doing drugs during school and soccer practice.  Her parents explored everything from a psychologist, to playing more sports, to grounding her and even switching her to a private school.  She had convinced herself that her parents were trying to ruin her life.

The party was over by the end of her senior year when she was expelled from private school for doing drugs.  She missed her senior trip with friends and lost her opportunity to attend college.  Then came blackouts, drug binges and friends who were no longer able to hang out with her.  As a matter of fact, they did not want to be around her.

This was the beginning of several drug treatment programs, but even when she was going through them she couldn’t get her mind off drugs.

Maggie recalls a time when she was lying on the cement floor of a detoxification facility.  She looked around and all she could feel was loneliness and the misery that she had made for herself.  By this time of her life there was no one to rescue her or help pick up the pieces that came through self-destruction.

After being introduced to a Narcotics Anonymous sponsor she learned about Teen Challenge.  When she arrived at Teen Challenge she was still addicted to drugs, distraught, empty and loaded down with misery.  While at Teen Challenge she learned that God had a real plan for her.  She writes, “I am graduating from Teen Challenge this month and in my time here I have come to know Jesus as my Lord and Savior.  He has taken away my sins and hard heart and given me hope and a promise for my future.  He has also done amazing restoration work in my family.”

What the world calls a disease the Bible calls sin.  When a person quits listening to those in the world and agrees with God there is real hope.  I John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”

Maggie and her parents first chose the world’s way of overcoming the sinful nature that lies in the heart of all of mankind.  Thus misery was her bed partner as she lay  on that cement floor of a detoxification facility. Anything done apart from God’s Word and Christ in the center is bound to leave one empty and in misery within their spiritual heart.

By God’s grace, Maggie was sent to a place that shared about the power of knowing Jesus Christ as both Savior and Lord.  She became His disciple.  Jesus says, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples.  Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:32)  Through Jesus being Savior and Lord, Maggie has been released from her misery, freed from drugs and delivered out of a lifestyle  of destruction.  Soon she will be attending college and continuing on in God’s purpose for her.

You, too, can be released from that which will eventually bring misery by simply surrendering to Jesus Christ.