Anthony had just quit another low-paying job. No matter how hard he worked, he never earned enough to make ends meet. Most days, life felt pretty hopeless. He’d wake up, go to work, then go to bed. But there was no meaning in it — no greater purpose. “I felt empty and a void inside. I didn’t have any friends, and I was becoming very isolated,” he recalls.
Somewhere deep inside, Anthony knew there was more than this. And he felt a hunger — a spiritual hunger — to live for something larger than this present moment. “I got another job and continued to chase after money, but there was no fulfillment there. I wanted to find my purpose,” Anthony shares. To fill the void, Anthony would experiment with drugs or drink. But that didn’t take away the emptiness.
Sinking down
Anthony found himself sinking down further into solitude and sadness. “I was becoming very distant and very cold. It wasn’t healthy,” he reveals.
Having reached rock bottom, Anthony moved out of the house he was living in and began sleeping in his car. Somehow, this time alone gave him a chance to reflect: “I had a son when I was 24 years old, and I had no relationship with him. I wanted to be a different person. I needed an opportunity for recovery.”
Peace at the Mission
Anthony realized he was desperate for help, so he turned to Seattle’s Union Gospel Mission. “It seemed like the time to get closer to the Lord and also get emotional healing to better my relationship with my son,” he explains. The peace he immediately felt upon entering our men’s recovery program confirmed it. At first, Anthony found it hard to open up to his counselors and others in the program. But as he began learning to trust, he started sharing things he had never talked about before. “Being vulnerable and transparent and really letting the Lord do a deep work in me was huge,” he says.
Healing in forgiveness
As Anthony began forgiving those who had hurt him, including his own father, he started to see a change. “Now, I’m spending more time with my family, and I think they see a difference too,” shares Anthony. “I’m getting to see my son on a regular basis, and that’s deeply fulfilling in a way that I didn’t realize.”
Finding identity in Christ
Most of all, Anthony is experiencing inner healing through God’s unconditional love, learning more about his identity in Christ, and finding satisfaction through Jesus. “My relationship with God is number one because everything stems from that,” Anthony concludes. “I appreciate everything that God is doing in my life, in this whole process of emotional healing.”
