“It was right that we should make merry and be glad, for your brother was dead and is alive again, and was lost and is found.' " (Luke 15:32)

If you would like a copy of a previous month's newsletter or to read earlier installments about our fictional character, Cecil Armstrong, please ask us or visit our newsletter archives.

It is getting close to Christmas here at Shiloh. For the first time in our lives, we men at Shiloh are experiencing restoration and coming to understand the real reason for Christmas. I am so grateful that I did not die in my addiction. I am just beginning to understand the true significance of the birth of Jesus and why the angels heralded a “King is born.”  I praise God for this new revelation that Jesus came to restore me and give me an inheritance.  I do not still have the mind of a slave, but my mind has been transformed so that I truly believe I am a son of God.  In Galatians 4:7, Paul writes, “Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ”.
I frequently entertain thoughts of going home. The discomforts of community living and missing home are difficult. I struggle with feeling that this place robs me of my independence. I often get so tired of seeing the same 12 men every morning when I get up and living with everyone bustling about trying to shower, getting beds made up, and getting ready for quite time and breakfast. Please LORD let these remaining months fly by. I hate structure and guidelines!! My flesh screams out to be gratified. Can anyone relate to how I feel? Remind me that my life is not my own. I have tasted of the LORD for He is good, blessed, is the man who trusts in Him!! (Psalms 34:8). My spirit man quickly rises to a place of gratitude and praise with thanksgiving to what He has done for me and for others who trust in the LORD! I cannot deny the transformation that is taking place day by day as I allow the Holy Spirit, His rightful place in my life.

I often reflect back on the mistakes I made and how it affected not just me, but so many other people that I love. Throughout my life, I was ambitious and striving to become successful. Early in my adult life, I accomplished making good grades in high school and in college. My hard work elevated me to a place of prominence in the field of computer software. I bested most of my fellow classmates in my endeavors to become the most knowledgeable about computers. Little did I know my selfish and hard driven ambition aimed in the wrong direction had me pursuing nothing but an ever elusive brass ring.  For all my fast and hard driving, my misdirected ambitions drove me directly into disappointments, depression, and drug addiction. As my mind contrasts the tranquility and beauty of the Thanksgiving and Christmas season here at Shiloh with the ever replaying nightmarish memories of my going to motel rooms to smoke crack cocaine, I am truly broken with humility. I used to stay for days locked up in a room watching indecent movies and smoking crack.  I was addicted to the highs of the escapes from the emptiness I was feeling in my life.  The irony of it all is that I was replacing emptiness with Demons.  The drugs and awful images I was poring into my mind and spirit served as open doors for all the Demons of Hell to manifest and torment.  Not only did I not know Jesus, but I could not even begin to cry out to Him and invoke his power to drive the Demons away.  To this day, it is hard for me to comprehend how I could have gravitated so low, but I do now know that a man without a relationship with Jesus is living an empty life even if he has lots of apparent academic and material successes.  I am learning by studying about God that every man is meant to have a full life here on earth and throughout eternity.  An empty man will seek to fill his life with something, and unless he hears the truth about God, he will likely fill his life with vain and destructive pursuits of nothingness.

In our daily Bible classes, we are taught that the Word of God is the Spirit of Life. It is amazing the truth that is brought out about the heart of Father God. In the book of Luke there is a wonderful illustration of a loving Father who welcomed His son home after the young man had squandered his inheritance. Jesus describes the young man as one who “wasted his possessions with prodigal living” (In Luke 15:13). The dictionary defines prodigal as being “extravagantly wasteful, bordering on recklessness”. This illustration describes me to the tee. I cannot believe the mercy that has been shown to me about the awesome love of Father God. To think even when I was far away from Him, He was waiting for me to come home to Him (Luke 15:21). He did not give me what I deserve, which is separation from Him. But instead, He welcomed me home and gave me a bountiful inheritance. God chose Shiloh as a place of refuge for me. It is here that I have come to be restored and to experience God’s awesome display of LOVE, MERCY and GRACE.

Shiloh Ministry Team.