Grace Revealed: Finding God's Strength In Any Crisisናሙና

America’s Opioid Crisis: Pray for and Trust in God’s Grace

You Are Not Alone

Every day in America, approximately 91 people die of an opioid overdose. According to the Centers for Disease Control, from 2000 to 2015 more than half a million Americans died of drug overdoses, and opioids account for most of those deaths. This epidemic is so serious that President Trump has declared it a national emergency.

Kia’s Story

Like many people who become addicted to drugs, Kia Waller of New Castle, Pennsylvania says her addiction started with Percocet painkillers. A pain-clinic doctor prescribed it for her after she was in an automobile accident. Then she tried just about every other drug and became, in her words, “a garbage can.” Long-term treatment in an in-patient recovery program finally ended her 10-year addiction.

Throughout her addiction, she lost everything, including her family’s trust. Her husband, in exasperation, expelled her from their home.

In her story, Kia writes that on her last night of using drugs she sat alone in a filthy, roach-infested, vacant home. She knew she had to surrender her addiction to God. She writes, “I got down on my knees and raised my hands. I was wailing, sobbing, and crying out loud for God to please help me. I prayed, ‘I don’t care what, and I don’t care how, but please help me, God. I can’t do this anymore.’”

Returning God’s Grace

Kia describes how a treatment program combined with her faith led her out of the cycle of addiction. Now she is returning God’s grace to others by serving as a Certified Recovery Specialist and is a full-time manager of a women’s sober living house in Ohio. She has regained her family’s trust and is living at home with her husband and children again.

You can be an instrument of the healing process by proclaiming the Great News that God’s grace can conquer any addiction and allowing people to rebuild their lives. Cry out to the Lord for yourself or others who find themselves in the potential death spiral of opioid addiction.

A Bible Verse

Isaiah 54:17 is one verse that empowers Kia with renewed resolve.