A Wretch Like Me?

After years of drug abuse, I finally got sober. I had no idea what God had in store for me

- JOCELYNN JAMES EDMONDS

I flopped onto my bed, exhausted. It was late, so late my teenagers were asleep. I’d put in extra hours working for a friend’s online gift shop. Thanksgiving was a few weeks away, and holiday orders were already piling up for the 2019 season. I was a single mother working two other jobs—maintenance at a community college, house cleaner—to support my family and launch my own addiction recovery program for women. All my hard work would pay off in the end, I was sure, but…Lord, I am tired.

I clicked open the Facebook app on my cell phone, hoping to scroll through smiling pictures of friends and family for a quick pick-me-up. But the first thing that popped up was a post—“My dad needs a new kidney”—from April Potter Holleman, the sister of my good high school friend Misti, who had died in 2011. Their father, Terrell Potter, now retired, had been an officer in our town’s police department.

Before I could finish reading the post, a fully formed sentence appeared in my mind. You have this man’s kidney.

I shot bolt upright. “God,” I said, trying not to let my voice break, “I don’t have time for this.”

Holy Spirit, have mercy! I was pushing 40 with two teenagers to raise. I was caring for 92 women in addiction recovery, up to my neck in good works. I didn’t have the energy to add another person to my roster.

Besides, who would want a kidney from a recovering addict, someone who’d abused her body the way I had? Certainly not an upstanding man of God like Mr. Potter. I didn’t know him well, but I remembered from hanging out with his daughter that he lived a Christ-centered life.