Robin Claire (Story 4 of 31) "Never Alone Again"

This is the story of how Robin became a Christian and how she saw “The Glory of God“.

This may sound like the ravings of a lunatic, but she has attested to it. As I listened to her, I believe it to be the absolute truth.

First of all, I want to tell you that she has had continuous sobriety since January 1980 and that, except for the first two years when AA was her link to sanity, she owes this sobriety directly to the power she received from Christ Jesus.  So this is the story of how Robin met Him all those many years ago.

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It was February, 1982.  She had just celebrated her 2^nd year birthday being sober in AA.  Married to another recovering alcoholic, it was just after their 1^st wedding anniversary when the poop hit the fan.  She was starting to learn why so many alcoholics don’t make it.  Crazy with emotional pain both in doing the sober gig and in trying to be in a 24-hour relationship, she was being a superior failure at both.

At this point in sobriety she had come to a place where every morning she’d fall into a heap in the shower; bawling; letting the warm water wash over her for comfort.  She was crying because another eternally long day would have to be confronted – without alcohol. As time went on this was not getting better, it was getting worse, and neither AA nor her AA sponsor were able to help. She was as scared as a rabbit coming face to face with a coyote; and as lonely as if the only person on earth.

Trying to do 12^th Step work – helping other alcoholics, like the AA Big Book said – stressed her more. She’d been trying with all she had, to do the Step 2 of AA  [“Came to believe in a Power greater than ourselves”] but was having no luck at all.  The only “Power”  she could imagine was completely narcissistic.  She meant nothing to this “Higher Power”, except  to do his bidding. Only then, if he desired to, he’d keep her sober – one more day.  But she felt incapable of doing anything which might align with his agenda, and therefore was not worth keeping sober.  He ignored her pleas for help.  He was busy looking elsewhere for others who would give him what he wanted.  This Higher Power had the exact character of her earthly father.  She could not imagine any power greater than this father. His countenance was so powerful that, in fact, she has never met anyone as powerful as he on this planet.

Back to the story.

She was weeping daily in the shower; her husband and she were doing nothing but fighting.  Her future, an absolute, looming in front of her face. She was swiftly sliding down a slippery slope directly to the bottle.  Drinking terrified her.  The AA people kept saying that alcoholism progressed even though one was no longer drinking, and two years earlier she has been on her last legs already – on the edge of unemployable; drinking for oblivion.

At the end [age 25] her drinking regime consisted of: eating a very small breakfast; jogging two miles every morning; going to work; and then, tired with an empty stomach, closing the drapes, locking the door (a lot of paranoia there) and pouring down a fifth of hard liquor while rocking in a green, wooden rocking chair; and crying drunken tears over the sad, sorry life she was a prisoner of.

This went on every night.  She drank for oblivion.  She drank to commit temporary suicide – suicide without having to actually “Do the deed”.

Then her husband came down drunk.  He called from a bar drunk out of his gourd.  Sobriety’s rope was frayed to its last thin thread. Within ten minutes, she’d be gone – a gonner – drunk – turning to prostitution as the only way to pay for her needs.  Her husband had no job, and no prospects. Divorce was out of the question.  In her family, there was no such thing as divorce.

A picture appeared before her.

Ron and her, handcuffed together – forever – and him sinking to the bottom of the ocean with her in tow. 

It was beyond terror. She went to the bedroom and sat down on the bed.  Her whole body began to shake ; her mind ricocheting all over the room with craziness.  Only ten more minutes and she was going to be drunk.  Ten minutes to a horrifying future; eventually, [or quickly] leading to certain death. She sat there and shook.  No answers. No one could help.

Then she met Christ.

Out of the corner of her eye she spied a little black book laying by itself on the night-stand.  Somehow it turned her gaze. The cover read “The Soul Savers Bible”.  She picked it up.  This was so strange to see a bible there.  Neither Ron nor she ever read the bible.  She didn’t even know she had one in the house let alone that it would be pulled out as if someone had been reading it.  With shaking hands she picked it up and opened it at random.  At the top of the page it opened to – there read these words…..

“What You Must Do to be Saved”

A ripple went down her spine.  It addressed the exact picture she had of drowning and the title seemed to be saying: “We will throw you a life-preserver so that you will not drown – we will save you”.  It got her attention.  She began to read.   [Please read "The Way She was Saved"  for the exact wording]  It said;

“Read such-and-such verse.  “Can you believe this?” 

Further on in the instructions it said again:

“Read such-and-such verse.  Can you believe this?”

About how Jesus lived; died; and was resurrected to complete the work.  Then it said that if  she could believe all these things, she was to get down on her knees and ask Jesus to come into her heart.

Well, this was as far away from what she’d been taught in her childhood [and still adhered to]  as East is from West.  Jesus’ life, the healing miracles and such were all fables to be used for god-only-knows-what purpose.  And especially, this resurrection from the dead business – well that was complete hogwash.  Yet – how did this little paperback book come to be here where she so easily found it?  And how did it open directly to a page that thoroughly addressed her most pressing need?

She felt a stirring in the inner-parts of her quaking body.  “There’s got to be something going on here” she said to herself; delicate belief encased in strong suspicion.  She was beginning to believe, just a tiny bit, that maybe her earthly father might be a little off about this Jesus person.  The bottom line however, the thing driving her to open her mind to this new idea about Jesus was simply – She was in complete agony and had nothing to lose!

But her old ideas about Jesus were strong.

Then a unique idea came to her;

“Why don’t you try to throw away all your childhood ideas about Christ for just a couple of minutes.  Give Him a chance to prove Himself.”

This sounded like a doable thing.  Maybe she could abandon herself  fully  to believing everything the book said about Jesus – for just a couple of minutes.  She decided to give it a good honest try.  What did she have to lose?   She was a gonner anyway.

She was crying; shaking; but with all her might, she put aside every stitch of disbelief; forced out every suspicion and every doubt, and replaced it with the idea that the story of Christ was absolutely true just as the book portrayed Him to be.  The resurrection – that it happened exactly as described.  But she could hold off disbelief for only a couple of minutes before it would come crashing down on her again.

Like the book said to, she got down on her knees.   She said to herself: “If Jesus was resurrected that means he is alive today – and if he is alive today  then that means I can talk to him.”  This seemed  to make sense.  She began talking to the “living” Jesus.  What she said didn’t exactly follow the framework set out by the book, but it was the truth for her – in her current, pathetic position.

She said:

“Jesus, I believe you are alive today and that you can hear me talking to you”.

She began to cry.

Then she said:

“Jesus…   I believe You Jesus. I believe everything about you; all the miracles you did and that you died and came back to life again after 3 days, I believe you are alive today. Please, come into my life. I need you. I’m all messed up and I’m  so very alone. I need a friend. I really need a friend”

She was crying in utter wretchedness.

———Then the magic began.——-

All track of time was taken away.  Suddenly there was an awareness of a filmy curtain in front of her so that she could somewhat see to the other side.  She became aware of a presence that she somehow knew to be Jesus. He came out from behind the curtain and knelt in front of her so that his knees were touching hers.  He put his arms around her and held her for a time.

After a little while holding he pulled away and raised his arm.  In his hand was a long sword.  “What are you doing!!?”  She exclaimed.  Before she knew what was happening he plunged the sword into her heart.  But it didn’t hurt.  On the contrary it felt good. There was an out-pouring of love filling up her heart.  It was a “love sword”, which was used to penetrate a steel cover surrounding her heart.  Jesus needed to get through the steel so that his love could enter and so she’d believe His love for her wretchedness was real.  “Is that what love is?”  She exclaimed in wonder.  She never could have found a “loving God”….

How could she have when she’d never experienced love?

Earlier in her life she’d had a boyfriend who told her he loved her countless times –  but she could never understand him.  His love bounced off the steel.  This was how it was with all the people in her life.  Before Jesus came, there had never been love in her life; the reason why she felt so, so alone.

Then he put one arm around her shoulder and directed her to look outward.  In front of her eyes her whole life was flashed before her – including terrible and shameful things she’d done in the name of survival.  Then he said to her:

“Robin, I know everything you’ve ever done but I understand why you did these things and I want you to know ‘it’s cool’.  I understand completely why you did every one of them.  I want you to know that I love you and my love for you  is without conditions.”

Then he turned her gaze in a slightly different direction and flashed her future before her; all the bad and shameful things she was yet to do.  He said to her:

“I know that you will continue to do things that are not so good but this is cool too.  I completely understand why you will do them but it doesn’t matter – I will always love you, no matter what.”

Then he took his arm away and turned to face her with a very serious look.  He said;

“I am going to give you a companion who will be with you every moment for the rest of your life.  You will never have to be alone again.” 

She felt something come into her through the top of her head which she instantly sensed as a living being.  Later on she learned that this “being” was the Holy Spirit who to this day has never left her.

Never, since that night, has she felt the utter aloneness.

Never !

And since that night she has had a sensation of two beings living inside her one body.  Just as she’d asked him for, Jesus had given her a “friend”, and also a wise guide who speaks to her about what God wants her to know.  She has never felt that utter, utter loneliness to this day.

All the while this was happening she was aware of beings floating around the far side of the bedroom ceiling.  They were partying: singing and talking and laughing.  There was a whole bunch of them hanging around the far edge of the ceiling.

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Do you believe this “impossible” story?  I can only say that what she has told you is the God’s truth.  It happened in 1982, and it is  still as vivid to her today as though it had happened yesterday.

Also, if you have any doubts about her experience I have to tell you that she walked out of that bedroom with all the power she needed to stay sober.  She was introduced to a loving God – the only being more powerful than her earthly father.  No more narcissism; no self-centered agenda; no requirement to perform; just love, guidance and help.

If you want proof of the power she received, look at her sobriety.  AA worked for the first two years, but when she met her loving God, through Christ, she has been kept sober ever since.  Never again did she weep in the shower after that night.  I don’t say that things are perfect.  Remember – Jesus showed her that even after being saved she would go on doing things she wished she didn’t.  But she’s growing now in the love and guidance she receives from Him through the Holy Spirit.

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Robin Claire writes straight from the heart.  She is someone who came from a mentally ill, atheistic family.   All religion was a myth.  The stories she blogs about mostly catalog her journey in overcoming these challenges.  She lives in Nevada and describes herself as a ‘quirky Christian’.  (Boy, can I relate Robin!  I’m quirky too!)   You can follow her at: robinclair@wordpress.com

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Robin shares about her addictions and severe loneliness.  What an amazing testimony!  Really, a Damascus road testimony.

Have you ever been in a crowd and felt all alone?  Have you contemplated suicide?

A pastor once said, “Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.”  Why not give God a try…like Robin?  If you sincerely pray the prayer that Robin did, God will give YOU a friend too.  A guide that will always be with you….a friend called the Holy Spirit.   I have never met a person who regretted saying that prayer.  You will be better off in every way.

Thank you so much Robin for sharing your powerful story!

“I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5).