Focus on the Family Magazine - August/September 2023

COMMITMENT / COUPLES
Meeting baby sister, 1990
Christmas, 1991
CANDID PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE GREGG FAMILY
skills—like learning how to call 9-1-1
and how to navigate to the nearby grocery
store. I also kept up the act of
recognizing friends and neighbors.
Worn thin by the ruse, and by the hectic
life of a young family, I always felt
apprehensive. Dev continued to pray
for my memories to return, but I eventually
stopped asking God for healing.
So when a friend suggested taking
the edge off my anxiety with a glass of
wine, I reasoned that it couldn’t hurt.
Surrender
What began as one glass of wine with
dinner led to regularly slipping into the
kitchen at night after Dev had gone to
sleep to open a fresh bottle. In a cruel
twist of irony, I drank to forget what
I couldn’t remember. Soon a vicious
cycle of regrets and resolutions left me
feeling convicted and ashamed.
One cool December evening in our
backyard, after seven years of trying
to numb the pain, I felt God’s voice
speaking gently to my heart, affirming
His love and asking me to trust Him.
Opening the Bible I’d gotten from
my mom years ago, I read a passage
she had underlined and dated: “Trust
in the Lord with all your heart, and
do not lean on your own understanding.
In all your ways acknowledge
him, and he will make straight your
paths” (Proverbs 3:5-6). When I had
left for college, I’d sensed God speaking
through those words, inviting me
to trust Him with my life. And on that
December evening more than two
decades later, I knew God was speaking
to me again, calling me to place my
trust in Him.
It was a different kind of trust this
time. I knew that God was asking me to
surrender both my hope for recovering
lost memories and the alcohol I was
using to soothe my aching heart. That
night, I began to really trust God again.
And He’s given me the strength and
resolve to live a life of recovery. Last
year, I picked up my 25-year sobriety
chip.
I still worked to bring memories to
the surface—looking through photo
albums, sifting through old boxes of
memorabilia in the attic—but the
memories never came. And even
though I grew to love Dev and the
kids and settled into a life of marriage
and motherhood, I hadn’t admitted
to anyone close to me that my memory
of those lost years never returned.
It wasn’t until I sought to quit drinking
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AUG / SEP 2023 FOCUS ON THE FAMILY CANADA 33