Nobody would open their door to me. Not my family. Not my friends.
I grew up in Conway, Missouri, on a farm with my mom, my dad, and my two older brothers. We had go karts, mini bikes, and the freedom that came with growing up in the country. I had everything I needed.
My parents got divorced when I was about ten. Dad moved to Springfield, and the rest of us moved to Lebanon. We didn’t see him much after that. There were a couple of times he was supposed to come get us.
When I graduated high school, I moved to Springfield, got my own place, and started college at Ozarks Tech. Somewhere in there, my oldest brother reached out to Dad. We found out he was running his own business. All three of us boys ended up reconnecting with him and working together at his marketing company.
I was only a semester away from finishing my degree, but the money was good. I dropped out of college and went to work for my dad full time.
It didn’t take long before I started my own advertising business. I started making more money than I was ready to handle.
I had a good run for about five years. I bought a house and a new car. I became a dad. I thought I was good.
A little alcohol or a little weed wasn’t a big deal back in high school. I’d tried meth a time or two. It was around, and if somebody had it at a party, I might do it. But I never chased it.
Until I did.
I still ran my business. I still paid the bills. I still had a house and a family. And I was using meth almost every day. But everything was working.
Until it wasn’t.
I started doing whatever I had to do to stay high. I lied. I stole. I cheated people, even my own family.
Getting arrested bothered me at first. After a while, it was just part of life. One day, the feds kicked in the door. My daughter was home. She was six.
She didn’t deserve that. She didn’t deserve people kicking in her door because of the things her parents were doing. So I left.
I thought if I was gone, at least she wouldn’t have to live through that anymore. But she was still there. I didn’t rescue her from anything. I just abandoned the situation.
I ended up in drug court. I ran. When they caught me, I was high. I went to prison on a 120 day program. I had burned enough bridges that my family wouldn’t let me come home, so when I got out, I was released in Kansas City.
I found a job in marketing. I worked long enough to get my first check and rode a Greyhound back to Springfield. Nobody would open their door to me. Not my family. Not my friends. The only place I could go was a trap house.
I picked up more charges. I knew where I was headed. I left the trap house and started walking toward a homeless shelter, Victory Mission.
Somewhere on that walk, I started talking to God.
Church hadn’t really been part of my life. I knew there was a God, but I didn’t really know Him. I just knew I couldn’t do this anymore. I said, “What I’m doing is not working. I need you, Lord.” I didn’t even really know who I was talking to.
I didn’t have anything but the clothes on my back. When I got to Victory, they opened the door. That was my first taste of Jesus’s love for me.
I started going to Freeway Ministries on Saturday nights for clothes and a meal. That’s where I heard the gospel in a way that finally sank in.
On October 11, 2014, I went to the altar. I had already surrendered on that walk to Victory. I just finally knew who I had been talking to. I kept going to Freeway. I started going to church and learning what it meant to follow Jesus. For the first time, my life was actually changing.
Becoming a Christian didn’t erase everything I’d done before that. I still had charges waiting for me. I went back to prison for another year. This time, I went with the Lord.
When I got out, my family could see something was different. This time they left the door open for me to come home. I came back to Springfield, found a job, and started rebuilding my life.
My pastor told me Victory Mission was hiring. I wanted the job, but I looked at what it paid and I just couldn’t make the numbers work. Six months later, the position was still open. I thought, okay, maybe there’s a reason this is still here.
I spent some time with the Lord. I felt like God was laying it on my heart to serve men who were where I had been. I prayed about it and decided if this was where He wanted me, I had to trust Him to make it work. I took the job.
That was seven years ago.
I started at the front desk, and that’s still where I spend most of my time. I work with men who are coming in off the streets, coming out of addiction, or just trying to get their feet back under them. I can look at them and say, “I came in through these doors just like you did.” I know what it feels like to have nowhere else to go. I know what it feels like to think you’ve burned every bridge behind you.
I’m the encourager. I tell them, “You can do this. Keep going. Don’t quit. It gets easier.”
And it does.
Easier doesn’t mean easy. You still have to do the work. Sometimes that means doing some of the hardest things you’ll ever do.
For me, that meant coming to terms with the things I had done. I had abandoned my daughter. Now I had to sit across from her and own that.
We sat down at a barbecue restaurant in Springfield. I apologized. I told her I had messed up. I had been selfish. It was one of the hardest conversations I’ve ever had.
But God had been working in her life, too. After high school, she had come to know the Lord for herself. She had her own faith. She didn’t have to, but she chose to forgive me. Today, she’s a big part of my life.
For a long time, I thought I needed more. More money. More drugs. More for me. Now I know that true joy comes from serving others. We don’t have to, we get to.
One of these guys gets his driver’s license or gets a job, and it’s the best. You can’t manufacture that feeling. You can’t buy it.
But they have to want it. Recovery isn’t for everybody. You can’t force somebody into it. I know. People tried with me.
Prison didn’t change me. Drug court didn’t change me.
Jesus did.
Getting clean meant leaving that old life behind. My faith gave me a whole new way to live.
That’s why I always say, don’t stop at recovery when Jesus is handing out resurrection.
Michael Nelson
Victory Mission
Springfield, Missouri
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