Let me share something with you: when I tried to fill my life with booze, sex, sports, and anything loud and distracting, I became more and more lonely. I really did. Looking back I could literally feel this gaping hole growing and enveloping all of who I was. I wanted peace, but all I got was angst. I became angry, alone, I lusted for more and more and more, and I was never satisfied. My life became empty, bereft of meaning and purpose. I thought the only thing left for me to do was to remain a lonely drunk. Then, out of nowhere, I saw God in the sky. I saw him in the northern lights. Not just ideologically, like "wow, nature must be made by something greater," but literally. Out of the blue, the Northern lights began to form a bunch of eyes -- in all sorts of dazzling colours. Then the eyes disappeared and an image of Mary holding the infant Jesus faded into the sky -- outlined by the Northern Lights! Then they disappeared, and an image of a dove was painted onto the sky with the Northern Lights. Soon, that image faded away, and the Northern Lights returned to their original colour and position in the sky -- the northern part (go figure!). Six months later, He spoke to me. I heard a voice inside of me, that was not my own, tell me that it loved me. The voice came from an image, a copy of a painting that some poor Polish nun composed -- a depiction of a vision that she saw, a vision of Jesus Christ.
What was significant about that voice was that it seemed to drown out every other noise that I had tried to fill my mind with. It penetrated my psyche, my intellect, and my loneliness. It offered me a choice: to "pick up my cross" and follow Christ, or not, and it was as if every single event in my life led me up to that choice. When I was confronted with it, I had a very lucid experience of viewing my entire life, and seeing it culminate to that very moment -- the moment of being confronted by Love. I said "yes," and At that moment my thirst was quenched and my longing was satisfied. That gaping hole was filled. I was filled. I wasn't empty any longer, and I knew that I had to strive to encounter Jesus Christ more intimately.
After, things weren't all that rosy. Although I had experienced many amazing supernatural things, I had to deal with the mess that was me. It was almost as if I experienced a type of detox from all the booze, sex, sports, and noise that I tried to fill that void with. It wasn't easy, and in many ways I am still experiencing that difficult and often confusing withdrawal.
I think that is what an addiction is like. It starts with a pain, a longing, and a thirst for happiness, a want to feel cool and to belong. We see on TV that sex satisfies those wants, that alcohol can make us forget, make us belong. Or if only we were rich, then we could have freedom, then we could buy anything we wanted, go anywhere and do anything -- then we would be happy. If monetary comfort, alcohol, and casual sex make us so happy, then why are we never satisfied? Addictions. They lead us away from genuine satisfaction:
If we want genuine satisfaction, then we need to hand Him not only a piece of who we are, but every fibre of our being. We need to give Him our hearts.
"Our Hearts are restless until they rest in you." - St. Augustine of Hippo
