Introduction
Good morning everyone. For those who don’t know me, my name is Jason Coombs and my wife Brin and I live in the Star 2nd ward. I serve on the Counsel of Gilead with the finest men and women I know. I am honored and humbled to have experienced that sacred meeting last night at the adult session of stake conference. It was the most powerful church meeting I’ve ever attended. The reason it was so powerful to me was because the speakers were so vulnerable. I know that vulnerability is the quickest way access the Atonement of Jesus Christ.
Now I’m going to get vulnerable.
Upon return from my mission, I started college, met a girl, and we were married in the temple. Like all young adults, Satan continued to pepper me on a daily basis with temptations, self-doubt, and anxiety. Without a conscious effort to fight back, I slowly moved away from the daily maintenance of my spiritual connection. Before long, I would skip church to go skiing, drink coffee occasionally, and dabble in pornography. It wasn’t long before my disobedience to the commandments waxed my heart cold and desensitized me from the Sunlight of the Spirit. As things got worse, concealing my secret life became my survival in order to keep my marriage from falling apart.
Over time new secrets piled on old secrets causing my heart to become harder. It wasn’t long that I became disinterested in temple and church attendance. Negative thoughts entered my mind like,
“Church feels like a waste of time.”, or “I would rather be skiing or home taking a nap instead of sitting here listening to these people preach” or, “I don’t belong here. Church just makes my life boring with all the rules.”
Eventually our thoughts become our words, and then they become our actions. My actions fell further and further from the principles of God and I began isolating myself from God and family so that I could live the fast, exciting life out in the world. Resentments towards the commandments, the doctrine, and leaders of the church formed in my mind.
In the summer of 2003 on a rainy night while driving to my parents for Sunday dinner, my ex-wife and I were rear ended in a car accident. I only had a small whiplash and she was unharmed. A few days later a coworker offered to take me to lunch. He seemed overly concerned about me after the accident. He asked me if I was seeing anyone for pain management. I said no and he proceeded to tell me about his doctor while pulling out a Costco sized bottle of OxyContin.
By this time, I was totally susceptible to the Destroyer’s power because I had abandoned the Holy Ghost and was navigating life without Him.
At that moment, I made a decision that I would forever regret.
He offered me a few pills and I took them. For the first time in my life I felt like every single problem vanished.
In that state of mind, I decided I would go see this doctor and get my own bottle. Besides, I had a legit injury. Within a week I was prescribed HUGE amounts of OxyContin and before I knew it, I lost all control and became hooked. Those little flaxen cords eventually turned to the chains that rapidly dragged my soul to a hell I wouldn’t wish upon my worst enemy.
The day finally arrived I could no longer hide my secret life from my wife and parents. One summer day while out mowing the lawn, an unmarked car pulled up to my house and an agent with a gun and badge handed me a manila envelop. “What’s this?” I asked. “I recommend you get an attorney. Have a nice day.” The agent said.
Inside the envelop was a long list of criminal charges—4 felonies and a misdemeanor. The coworker had lured me into Utah’s largest OxyContin Drug Ring and would be facing between 75-90 years in the Utah State Prison if convicted. I spent the next year bouncing between jail cells, rehabs, and seedy apartments. My ex-wife finally had enough and divorced me, my savings ran out, and that winter I became homeless on the Streets of Salt Lake City.
The moment I chose to be disobedient to the laws of God, I became shackled by the power of the Destroyer. Like so many who fall away from the church, I forfeited the privilege of protection and companionship of the Holy Ghost long before I fell away because I made bad “seemingly unimportant decisions”. My secrets kept me sick.
I’m often asked, Jason, what was it that changed you?
Breakthrough #1: I BROKE OUT OF MY SECRECY AND ISOLATION
While living in a jail cell, I scarcely had visitors. I think it was too painful for my parents to see me in those cold gray walls as a prisoner in a striped jumpsuit. One afternoon I heard my name called on the intercom. “Coombs. Get dressed. You have a Clergy visit.” A clergy visit? I don’t know any clergy? I wondered if maybe because I failed at Mormonism the Catholics had come to recruit me.
I got ready and walked down the hall to the visiting cell in handcuffs and ankle shackles. There behind the glass was a large man with an enormous smile. He introduced himself as Bishop Daines, my new bishop. I shook his hand by holding my hand up to the glass. With trepidation, I listened to him as he expressed his reason for being there. He said that when he was called as bishop, my name was still on his ward records, even though I had moved away years before. He said he felt prompted to visit me. Something in his voice and countenance told me that he was sincere and genuinely wanted to help me. I felt no judgment, only love.
Week after week, month after month he would come see me and we build a strong bond. I grew to trust him. I was dying inside and I needed to open up to someone. In those visits, through the Plexiglas, I confessed my deepest, darkest sins and experienced my first BIG break out of my sick isolation to my priesthood leader. Then and there, in those cinderblock cold walls, my healing began.
That was just the start. However, upon my release, I did not follow through with action and I reverted back to my old addictive behaviors.
I felt ashamed and disconnected from my Father in Heaven. How do you connect with a stranger, especially when the stranger is God?
Breakthrough # 2: I learned the difference between Conditional vs UNCONDITIONAL LOVE
After my divorce, and in the midst of the chaos of jails, rehab, and homelessness, I received some news that shook me to my core.
I was going to become a father.
qHow was I going to raise a child? I was penniless. I was a felon. I couldn’t keep myself out of jail. I had no way of supporting a baby while I was in my addictions. His birthmother and I made the most difficult decision of my life: to place him up for adoption.
When I got the text that my son Nathan was born, I dropped everything and raced to the hospital. When I arrived, I learned that Nathan wasn’t breathing on his own and that he would need to be on a machine for a few days.
I walked down to the nursery and there he was inside a special crib fighting for oxygen. My heart sank and tears rolled down my cheeks as I watched his underdeveloped lungs struggle to breathe. I couldn’t help but put the blame on myself that my drug use was the cause. My heart sank deeper in shame.
I couldn’t take the fear and pain any longer. I went down to the parking lot and pulled out a legal pad and pen and began to write my son a letter. In that letter, I expressed to him my deepest and sincerest apology. I expressed my guilt and shame for placing him for adoption and for being such a worthless example of a birthfather. I promised him that I would change and that someday I would be a man that he could be proud of. I meant every word.
For those 7 days, I was allowed to spend time with him, hold him, change his diapers, and watch him slowly gain strength while his lungs developed.
Then the day of the adoption arrived. I vividly remember the moment when I had to say goodbye and place him into the care of his new parents. This heart wrenching experience was more than I could bare, but I made Nathan a commitment that I intended to keep: I was GOING to change once and for all!
Becoming a birth father helped me somehow relate to how Heavenly Father feels when we leave his presence to come to earth knowing the trials that are ahead and the risk of losing us forever.
And watching Nathan suffer to breathe because of my actions has helped me know my Savior better because He, too, suffered and paid for my sins.
I finally understood the love my parents had for me.
I wish I could say that I kept my promises to Nathan since that day. But the monster inside me raged, and hours later, I went back to my numbing behaviors and worldly escapes.
Breakthrough #3 – The miracle of FORGIVENESS
There is one thing I know for sure about the chains of the Destroyer— they get stronger unless we turn to Christ’s healing Power.
In the winter of 2008, my drug and alcohol use launched me headlong into a drug-induced psychosis. This ultimately landed me in the hospital and then into my 5th rehab. I was done. The fun was over. LONG OVER. This was my last chance and I knew it.
I needed God’s help more than ever if I were to keep my promise to my son, Nathan. I couldn’t get over the false belief that God was extremely disappointed in me, and therefore, wouldn’t want anything to do with me. It felt like I was standing at the bottom of Mount Everest being asked to climb to the top with only a canteen and sandals. I just knew I couldn’t do it, at least by myself.
My gifted counselor could feel my struggle, so she gave me an assignment. She encouraged me to tell God EXACTLY how I was feeling toward Him.
“EXACTLY how I feel? I don’t think He is going to want to hear that.” I resisted.
She said, “Trust me. He is a BIG BOY and He can take it.”
I made the decision to try it because I knew my life depended on it.
I went upstairs into my bedroom and again pulled out a legal pad and began writing. Somehow writing allows me to be more honest with myself. Over the next few hours I wrote every feeling, struggle, resentment. I expressed my sense of abandonment by him, event to the point of blaming him for my divorce, adoption, and addictions. Although I was projecting my issues onto God, it was the most honest letter I had ever written in my life. It was brutal. It was real.
I went back downstairs to my counselor’s office with my letter in hand and said. “I did what you asked. Now what do I do?” She said, “Now I want you to find a quiet place where you can read it out loud to Him. He desperately wants to hear from you.” She sensed my trepidation and said, “remember, He is a BIG BOY and He can take it.”
Once again, I took her suggestion. I found a quiet room in the basement of the facility and I closed the door. I knelt down beside the couch, held the letter in front of me, and began reading. The words were difficult to read at first, but the more I read aloud, the easier they flowed out of me. At certain points I yelled, “Why did you let me become addicted! Why did you let me lose EVERYTHING!”
And after the poison flowed out of my mouth, the love flowed into my heart and tears dripped down my cheeks.
At that very moment, an image of Nathan fighting for oxygen appeared in my mind. Then the still small voice whispered,
“There is nothing that would stop you from loving Nathan. Now you know how much I love you.”
Have you ever cried so hard that I could hardly breathe?
At that moment, I felt a warm heavenly blanket wrap around as my Heavenly Father gave my broken soul a Father’s hug. In that unspeakably sacred moment, I felt heard. I felt understood.
As Elder Holland proclaims,
“However late you think you are, however many chances you think you have missed, however many mistakes you feel you have made or talents you think you don’t have, or however far from home and family and God you feel you have traveled, I testify that you have not traveled beyond the reach of divine love. It is not possible for you to sink lower than the infinite light of Christ’s Atonement shines.”
These were the breakthroughs that I desperately needed to transcend my addictions.
This time after treatment, I genuinely immersed into the church’s Addiction Recovery Program and Alcoholics Anonymous. I found a sponsor whom I could trust, and I walked through the 12 Steps of the Atonement. As I took each and every step, layers of pain and shame healed. Through this process, Christ didn’t just help me stay sober, but He replaced my HEART and RESTORED my soul!
I want to encourage each of you to live so that you have sensitivity to the Holy Ghost’s guidance and his protection. In these latter days, the Destroyer is hastening his work. It is time for us to rise up and fight the battle that is raging for our souls.
We are as sick as our secrets!
There is absolutely nothing to be afraid of except the secrets themselves. I invite you to enjoy the beautiful freedom that comes from brutal honesty. Trust your bishop like I did with Bishop Daines. Once the secrets are out in the light, you can begin to tap into the Sunlight of the Spirit once again and experience the authentic healing Power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. You will become free!
Testimony
All credit goes to my Heavenly Father, my Savior Jesus Christ, and the Power of the Holy Ghost. Because of them, on March 19th I will celebrate 9 years of sobriety. The Atonement of Jesus Christ has shined deep into the caverns of my soul and cleaned out my pains, sins, and shame. I have embraced the eternal Truth that the Refiner’s fire burns deep because the price of eternal progress is the pain of change.
As the Holocaust survivor, Viktor Frankl taught, “What is to give Light must endure burning.”
Because of my Redeemer, I have been abundantly blessed with a trusting and beautiful companion who encourages me to shine my Light into this dark world through vulnerability and service to others. By God’s grace, I have been given a second chance at the privilege of fatherhood to my precious two-year-old twins. And finally, I owe my Heavenly Father EVERYTHING because today I have a priceless relationship with Nathan and his parents through the gift of open adoption. Honestly, I could not have planned a better outcome for my life.
I testify that Heavenly Father’s love is unconditional and he can handle your honest feedback in the sacred conversation we call prayer. He just wants to hear from you, and me. I invite you to be fearless, honest, and real. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen