Michael Liimatta's Spiritual Journey

[img_assist|nid=73251|title=Michael Liimatta|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=78|height=100]I grew up in an alcoholic family. Both my father and my mother came from alcoholic homes, too. Because I grew up in such a very chaotic home, I was running the streets from an early age. My first drinking experience was when I was just twelve years old. I was "turned on" to pot at age fourteen, and went to jail twice for selling marijuana, hashish, and LSD, before I was eighteen years old.

In 1974, my life began to unravel. God used "the law" to get my attention. It looked like I would be "busted" for selling drugs for a third time. The fear of a long prison sentence finally brought me to the end of myself. I became so desperate that I started listening to those "Jesus freak" friends of mine. Anybody remember Jesus freaks? They were former hippies who came to know Christ. As far as I was concerned, they were really kind of spooky people who floated around and were all "smiley" and they weren't doing any dope. Although I could not figure out what they had in their lives, I just knew I needed it, too.

In 1974, I visited a friend I had known in the "drug scene" who had become saved. He was living in a Christian "commune" in Chicago called Jesus People USA. While there, he explained how I could know Christ, myself. I had a tremendous spiritual experience when I prayed with him to surrender my life to the Lord. Yet, once I returned to my home in Upper Michigan, I struggled for a year and a half to quit using drugs.

Much of the problem had to do with the fact that I still lived with my family. Still, God was not done with me. I struggled throughout my first year of college to stay sober with a few periods of success. Then, while working for the summer at a state park, I backslid entirely and spent a month or so in a chemical "haze". The weekend before my second year of college, I was "partying" with some friends from the park. After a day of drinking and pot smoking we went to a tavern to hear a popular rock band.

It was there that I had a true "prodigal son" experience. Sovereignly, the Lord spoke to my heart. I "came to my senses" as I looked around this crowded tavern and realized I was holding on to the very lifestyle from which Christ had died to free me. I rushed out of the place in tears. At that very moment God lifted from me the compulsion to drink and use drugs.

Finally, as I began my second year of college I made some vital friendships with some sincere and committed Christians. With God's help and theirs, I began to live for the Lord. I went on to study for the ministry, got involved with working for God, and even started a licensed alcohol and drug treatment center, before I really got into recovery myself.

Looking back on all this, I can honestly say that my spiritual journey of recovery had two very distinct phases. The first phase was my initial surrender of my life to Christ. Tentative though it was, this was really the beginning of my journey into recovery. This eventually led to getting chemicals finally out of my life. So, I began to grow in the Lord and walk with Him. But, stopping drinking and living sober are two very different things. Quitting the active use of alcohol and drugs was easy compared to the past twenty years of trying to live a sober and satisfying life.

When I was married, in 1984, the second phase of my journey began. Through my attempts to live in a committed and growing relationship with my wife, I would discover many unresolved issues in my life and in inner "woundedness" that were the consequences of growing up in an alcoholic family.

While she never became an active user of drugs or alcohol herself, my wife, Carmen, also grew up in a troubled family. When we were married she had been a Christian for over five years, having come to the Lord in college through the ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ. Still, we came together as two people from very sick homes with no resources within ourselves to really form an intimate, honest relationship that would result in a God-honoring marriage. I wasn't prepared by my family of origin be a husband, to be a father, to be a godly man.

About a year and a half into our marriage, my wife had a miscarriage. It was the most intense emotional experience that we ever had as a couple. I hadn't had a drink for about eight years. I was an ordained minister and was supposed to know about dealing with crises. As Christians, we felt we were supposed to know what to do with grief, anger, and other feelings we were experiencing. Instead, it drove us apart and made us feel cut off from other people, as well.

It was really a very frustrating and sad time. Our problem was simply that we lacked the inner resources to deal with our feelings and our relationship in a healthy way. But it was about that time that we had some friends who knew us quite well and said, "Hey, you folks, we think you really need to look at your lives." We came to understand that, as adult children of alcoholics, we had a many issues from our family background that we would have to overcome. So, we became involved with family therapy and counseling. I thank God for giving us the grace to "stuff" our pride and get the help that we needed.

For over ten years I served as founding director of a residential treatment program committed to services that were both therapeutically and Biblically sound. One of the interesting ironies of all this is the fact the building out of which this residential treatment program operated housed a tavern for almost eighty years. As a matter of fact, it was the very same tavern where I had my "prodigal son" experience in 1975!

I have spent the past tweny plus years as an educator, working in the field of addiction and recovery and with Christian organizations that help the homeless who are addicts and alcoholics. From 1990 to 2007 I served as Director of Education for the Association of Gospel Rescue Missions, an association of over 300 missions that help the homeless and addicted.  I am now director of City Vision College which trains people to work with the homeless and addicted online.

With God's help, and involvement with support groups and counseling, I am experiencing a quality of life and relationships that I had never dreamed was possible.

Hear Michael's Testimony "Unshackled" Radio Drama courtesy of Pacific Garden Mission