A message from a Pastor I have met
Recently, I visited a half-way house (a rehabilitaion and after-care centre for ex-drug addicts who have been released from prison). The Executive Director (E.D) was an ex drug addict too about 30 years old. He had been imprisoned in a prison cell before and he had been trapped and tortured before in his own mental trap.
There is a saying: “We are our own worst enemies.”
The E.D is a pastor now, actively being involved in spreading awareness of drug-taking and collaborating with Asian countries such as India, Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesian and so on.
It was not his history that inspired me. It was how he sees himself and what he is doing now is. He proudly remarked he felt no fear to announce to the world that he was a junkie. He felt no shame for being imprisoned before. He felt that it was because of what he has gone through, God (He is a Catholic) has put him through all these tests so that he can now save the other brothers (the ex drug offenders)
What I have learnt: Everyone of us has challenge. There is no shame in being who we are as we are all unique. If others want to laugh; let them be. For we are who we are and we can still be who we are.
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