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(This blog is one I wrote a couple of months ago for Extreme Love Ministries and I am re-posting it here)
I have shared my testimony here before of how God set me free from a 15-year addiction to crack cocaine. For the benefit of those who are reading it for the first time, I now have almost 10 years clean and I was blessed to have a book published on freedom from addiction in 2010 called “Walk it Out”. So far with the help of Patricia King Ministries and XP Missions, we have been able to get over 7,000 of these books into prisons all over the United States and the prison letters keep pouring in every week requesting more books and sharing how it has helped them find freedom inside of the prison walls.
I am still so humbled that God chose me to write this book and that it was actually published so soon after He set me free from my own chains of addiction! To be used in this way to help set other captives free means that everything myself and my family went through for all of those years wasn’t for nothing. Romans 8:28 says, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.”
A couple of weeks ago, I was given the opportunity to actually go inside a jail to minister for the very first time. It was a very different feeling walking in there as someone bringing hope rather than walking in with chains on my hands and feet with my head hung down in shame. When I first walked in, I could feel the oppression so thick I felt like I couldn’t breathe! I prayed for God to please help me or I wouldn’t be able to speak to the women. The Holy Spirit washed over me and I cried a little bit and it lifted quickly, praise God!
I shared my testimony in 5 women’s dorms that day, back to back. I told them how I had been arrested over 50 times; in and out of jail and prison over and over again for 15 years. I had been saved as a child so I knew the Lord. I would run to Him for comfort in jail but then run back to drugs as soon as I got out because I would never surrender 100% to God. I was always holding something back. Some little sin I thought I could get by with. Old friends, sex, cigarettes, whatever it was, it was separating me from God and keeping Him from setting me free. It was keeping me from “walking out” my deliverance!
I told them that once I finally got clean in 2008 and started spending time in God’s presence each day, renewing my mind, reading the Word, feeding my spirit with all things new and good and full of life, that I was crying out for the addicts still suffering. I asked God what I could do for them and He told me to write down everything I was learning that was bringing me freedom and deliverance. He said to write it down into a devotional and I will help you get this to the ones you know and love and to many more!
That day in all 5 of those women’s dorms, I looked at them with tears in my eyes and I told them, I wrote this for you! I didn’t want to leave you behind so I wrote this as a map for you to follow me out of here because God has something better for you! And they all just cried with me. It was amazing and beautiful. I am crying again as I write this. I know that was the first of many times that I will go into the jails and prisons to share my story of hope with others.
And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony…- Revelation 12:11
I just got a letter in the mail today saying that “Walk it Out Ministries” is officially approved as a non-profit ministry in the state of Texas! I am excited to see what the Lord will do in this next season of my life with this prison ministry.
If you or someone you love is suffering from any type of addiction, there is always hope! Never, never, never give up!! All it takes is 100% surrender and God can then supernaturally set anyone free from any type of bondage. We have to then “walk out” our deliverance by spending time with God each day in His Word, prayer, worship and applying godly principles and commandments in our everyday lives.
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. ~2 Corinthians 3:17
Written by: Ginger Brown Originally Published on: 5/15/18