EP 3 Family Comes Together to Help Son Overcome Heroin Addiction - Lori Voth

After a decade of gathering women together for prayer, we are inspired to bring our words of encouragement to you. This is iRefresh. Welcome to iRefresh, where we empower ordinary women to do extraordinary things through the power of prayer and encouragement. And I am excited for us to have an opportunity to have time with Lori of Oath, who we've actually have gone way back many, many years with her youngest and my oldest son in school together. But, you know, it's interesting how a lot of time has passed through that. And I can't wait for us to explore a lot of fun things together. So to begin, I think it would be fun for us, we love to do a little Q&A to get to know Lori on just a lighthearted way. So here we go. What's your favorite ice cream? Anything vanilla with caramel in it. Right now my favorite is the So brand. It's a caramel, cashew, something. I'm going to have to try that one. That sounds good. All right. What's the best compliment you can recall receiving? that I remind people of my mother. Very nice. All right, do you prefer texting or FaceTime? Depends on the person. Oh, that's a good one, I like that. I'm sorry. That's really good, row row. Okay, do you watch Hulu or prefer Netflix? Probably more Hulu. Okay. Alright, me too. Alright. Do you have a pet? No. Okay. Wisdom. I found leftovers with my dogs while I was gone for the day. Hallelujah. If your kids could say something about mom, what do you think that they would like to do? Say something funny or very warm and fuzzy about you? what they would say, one or the other? Would they say something warm and fuzzy or something funny? Oh goodness. Of course it might have been... They've got plenty of funny stories I'm sure, the older I get especially, but it would probably more, I bet it would probably be more warm and fuzzy that they feel at home with me. I'm a nurturer. Well okay, so that's the great thing about, Lori has four kids and so you have So we have Jacob, who is 31, and he's married to Abby. We have Hannah, who is 29, married to Mark, and they have two children, Daisy and Anderson. And Jacob and Abby, she's pregnant with their first due in May. And then we have Caleb, who is 26, and Cody, who is 23 this month. Wow. Okay. So did you hear that? And there was the first two are married. Yes. First two are married. So you get to be a grandmother. Isn't that great? I'm Doll. My grandma name is Doll. D-O-L-L. Really? And my husband's grandpa name is Duke. So we're Duke and Doll. That is clever, I've never heard that before. Oh wow. Duke was formed because Jeff is a huge John Wayne fan. And so the kids would always be like, dad's gotta be Duke when he's a grandpa. And my name we didn't really know, and when Daisy was born, Hannah and I were trying to figure out, and one day, honestly, Daisy, when it sounded like doll, we were trying to get her to say lolly. but it came out doll. So Hannah goes, mom, what about doll? I said, I love it. So Duke and doll. That is sweet. Very fun. Very fun. Wonderful family. One thing is great too about Lori too, is having the four kids that you have done life in the church, from moving your family even, and ministering in multiple different churches, and transitioning to multicultural churches. And, I mean, you've had a lot of different adventures. And today I thought it would be just great for me just to open it up for you of, like, things that are on your heart that... you feel like there would be a real inspiration of what you've walked through. I mean you've walked through a lot of different things in your life, but what really resonates in you now that you would love just to share? Well, I say that part of my, what I call my or our story, my husband and I came to ORU, met at ORU, we were, for anybody that's familiar with Oral Roberts University, we were on Brother Sister Wing and so met that way. Liked each other pretty soon. Kind of knew, you know, that we would eventually get married. So we did. And we, I'm from a small town in Oklahoma, kind of a Mayberry town, kind of an all-American town, raised in a family. I'm in the middle of five, so I was number three. In a great family, great community. Grew up in just a smaller church, but very close-knit. And as I have... reflected on my life over the last few years really. You know as you get older you reflect and things come together a little better. You see God pulling, you see God's pieces of your puzzle. When you've gone through a little bit. Yeah, when you've gone. On the other side. Yeah, we're in our 50s now. But I never lacked for love growing up. Like I, my husband says you had a Mayberry type experience and Life was great. I had loving parents and grandparents and, like I said, great church community. And then Jeff and I got married, and honestly, my greatest dream was to be a wife and mom someday. And so we got married, and he was immediately in ministry, graduated with a pastoral degree. And so we went straight into youth ministry. So I've known nothing other than church ministry my entire adulthood life, Jeff and I. And, you know, so four years after marriage, we start our family with Jacob being the first. And motherhood came very natural for me. And I don't know how else to say that other than it just did. But I was like that as a young girl, babysitting, you know, so being around children and mothering. So that was your calling. It was my calling. So, you know, we had wonderful, I don't have... And I'm not being Pollyanna. I didn't have, I don't have the real hard times, infant, toddler, you know, growing up. We just didn't have that with any four of ours. It was, and you can ask our children, a peaceful home. It was, It was a good home. We had great family time around. Family dinners were very important for us, and Jeff and I stood for that in the midst of having four kids very active in school. But we stood for our family. To this day, our children said that we didn't put ministry before our family. We were very busy. but it was God, our family, and then the ministry. That is such a key thing, because I know when I even worked at ORU, is looking through the preacher kids that would come in through there as some that were more balanced, because they had that priority, knowing that they're parents. Then you saw the differences of parents that you engaged with their kids, and yet you... You did that with your kids, which was a great foundation for them to know that they were a priority. I didn't have difficult times as a mom. I just didn't. But then our oldest, we have found out now, we didn't know it at the time, but about his junior year of high school. And our kids were in Christian school. He started teaching. being curious is the way he puts it, his own testimony. He said, I got curious what was on the other side. And we saw some signs of rebellion, but we had been youth pastors for 15 years, so we were always the ones telling parents, oh, they're going through a little bit of rebellion stage. Keep praying, keep loving them, you know, they'll come out of it. And so honestly, we kind of thought that a little bit. So we felt like we were dealing with it well. He graduated, went to the same school, ORU, that we did. By the December, by that semester, things were not good there. He had gotten involved in the wrong crowd. And disappointing, I hate to say it, but there's those in our Christian environments. Definitely. And he actually... Got kicked out. I mean, they met with us, which was hard for both of us. It had been such a great experience. My husband, in his years, was head RA. I mean, knew everybody that type, and it was humiliating, disappointing, shocking. I was in denial. I was in denial. And that started our family, and I say our family because it was a family journey, on about a 10 year journey with our oldest son. Eventually he got into heroin and became a heroin addict. And it was out there picking the wrong people and the curiosity came out of- He just, you know, he said, mom and dad, I started minimal and had no idea. He said, I never planned. He said, I just, his very words, I wanted to see what it was like on the other side. And I think he thought it would just be four moments. Right. He later learned that his personality is an addictive person, like addictions can be, you know, he can jump. And he hadn't seen that before, nor had we. And it's interesting because Jacob was our one. On Friday nights, we really stood, even after football games or whatever we might be involved in, we had family nights on Friday nights. And it was always pizza and then whatever. Even if the kids had something to do, then we would come back and maybe watch a movie or we would postpone it to Sunday night or something. But family nights were huge. And Jacob was the one that really stood. would remind us, even in his high school years, we're not gonna be able to have family night tonight, can we do it tomorrow night then? So that was really interesting, that through his journey, the sins and the choices and the destruction that the enemy was really working hard to accomplish was pulling Jacob from the family, which if you ask him today was the hardest, he said at moments of just knowing knowing what it was doing. But that, as I said, our family just went on this journey, and it wasn't a journey we chose. It's not like an adventure. That had to be difficult even for the rest of the siblings. It was horrible. If they were unaware of what was going on, of maybe a shock. I don't know if they had disbelief as well. I think we all had disbelief and denial, and it kind of goes back to this... Jeff and I, as I said, we were squeaky clean. We had no point of reference. Never had tried, I think I had had one sip of alcohol you know, in my whole life. Jeff too, no drugs whatsoever. Sure. No promiscuity, nothing. And so here we're like. Like how did that door open somehow? How did that, and then, so then you start as parents. What did we do wrong? What did we do? Beating ourselves. I get it. Beating ourselves, like, what did we allow in that we didn't see? What did we do? Should we, for me, being a nurturer, and if you follow all those profile personality, mine's always the same, the nurturer, the melancholy, you know, that. But for me, it was, I didn't love him enough. What can I do to show him that we love him enough? I mean, it was constantly, if you'd ask my kids, that was a question. So were you condemning yourself? I was, I think. I think I was falling into this, yeah, I was falling into that, and then to depression. I never felt unloved. I never felt, I never questioned. So you're very secure because you had that. I was secure in who I was. I was peaceful. I was the peacemaker. I couldn't do any of those things with Jacob. Like I, I couldn't love him enough. I couldn't, you know, I was trying to hold the home together still. And honestly, our three other children were amazing in it all. seeing what it was doing to me, seeing what it was doing to Jeff, but we know they were, they were going through stuff too, but even their prayers, I mean, there would be times that them, mom and dad, we just got to pray right now for Jacob, you know, and we never lost contact with him. This is what is, we are so thankful for. We always kept a cell phone. For him. We always paid for it. Which there was turmoil about that. My husband didn't always want to. I'll just be honest. You know, he was like, he has got to learn. But I said, please, please, can we just pay for the cell phone? And that would help us know where he was. And Jacob always kept in contact with us. Now, but he roamed. I mean, he... To this day, I don't always know where he was, and that's okay. I'm okay with it now because we're on the other side. It's a redemption story. Right. Thank Jesus. Yeah. Thank you, God. But our other children honestly did really, really well, but it was horrible. It was horrible still to go through, but it affected our marriage. I mean, Jeff and I loved each other. Right. We did not have baggage. We didn't have, we were just a normal couple, but we loved Jesus and that's what kept us. I mean, we, cause we had to fight for our marriage. Our marriage got attacked through this journey because we didn't agree on things and how to handle things. And for the most part before that, we agreed on parenting. You know, we agreed on, like I said, we were intentional, but that, rose up and it became our biggest challenge then. And so the enemy's plan was to divide us. We had never thought about divorce and we thought about divorce. Just because we were weary, we were both hurting. You know, we were both hurting so bad. We were seeing what drugs and alcohol was doing to our firstborn, firstborn son, you know, for Jeff being a man of God and a pastor and starting a men's ministry that he had started outside of the church. It was so obvious what the enemy was trying to do and just taunting us. I know at that point in my life, I had never understood, and I don't like to give the enemy credit. I really do. Or to give him recognition any more than he needs. But the recognition that he does need, and I'm pretty passionate about this now, is he is wicked. He is evil. He's only for destroying. Right. And deception. That's right. And I saw him as clear as I can without meeting him face to face, which, thank God, I will never do. But... Right. I was in a battle and I am so thankful that God just didn't leave me alone. Even though I've never felt so lonely in my life ever. And I had a good family, had great kids. I had a great husband. I had great friends, but I was so lonely and I cried out to God like, God, how can you do this? I'm so lonely. I've never done anything wrong. And I know that sounds so religious and so ugly, honestly, like, No one deserves it, but I would be like, I didn't do anything. You know, why is this happening? And I learned the voice of God clearer, heard it clearer. Lori, I know, but trust me. Just trust me. Lean in, and I know you're lonely. I mean, it was whispers. Lori, I know you're lonely, but it's me and you right now. I don't think I've ever been a selfish person, but the selfishness of like, yeah. I am so lonely. God, what is in, and I actually, actually ask this question a lot. God, what is in this for me other than just heartache? After door, you know, an open door and rejection and heartache, I'd never felt rejected before. I'd never felt unloved. But I felt every, I feel like all those bad emotions you could ever feel and they were hitting all at the same time. But I grew closer to God than I ever think I would have. I had, I was desperate for him and I was raised in a great home, great church, had a great family, all of that again. I was desperate for him, and he met me. And through that... So that was a valley that actually helped to maybe... for you to bring you back into a place where you would begin to then maybe see God had to take care of things within yourself to strengthen you and your family. Yeah, he did. It was when I like to say different things. Like it was when Carrie Jobe and that worship was just beginning. I listened every day to her. It was CD at that time. So CDs on repeat. I had never been one to watch Christian television, um, but I did. Because I'd get the kids off to school and Jeff would be off to work and I was left. And I filled our home with worship music and just teaching that I thought I knew, but it had never sunk in. Like it wasn't down deep in my soul to help sustain me for even still what was ahead. Because the cloud and the darkness still did not lift. Like the journey was still on. We still probably had four more years or five years of the journey. Yeah. of our son's journey, which involved all of us. But I met God so real. Part of that journey then began that I had to wrestle with the enemy in that there would be times in the middle of the night that I would be awakened with this evil laugh in my head. I could hear it laughing and taunting me saying, I've got him. He's mine. And I knew what the enemy... You know, I knew what he was taught. He was Jacob. Right. And I would wake up and just start praying. And I was never one. I'm one. I can sleep anywhere. You can have lights on. If I'm tired, I can go to sleep. And I never wrestled with not sleeping through the night. But that started. So he was robbing me of my sleep. But God had... already built in me what to do with that. So I would just get up quietly. I didn't need to wake anybody else up because this was my battle. I mean, it was our family battle, but the Lord was saying, here's your job. And so I would pray, I would rebuke, I would do everything I knew how. Then after a period of time, there was one morning and then it started being that way that when I awakened, Without me even knowing it, I was quoting Psalm 23, the Lord is my shepherd. I did not wake up and purposely start doing that. Jeff said that I woke up one morning through quite a while of wrestling night times. And he knew I would tell him the next morning, yeah, I wrestled again tonight. Did you not hear? I would tell him, did you hear that? I said, Jeff, it's an evil laugh. Like it's a taunting. It's evil. But God called you into intercession. Yeah. And Jeff goes, I didn't hear it. And he goes, and Jeff would always remind me, Lori, I've covered our home. I've anointed our home with oil. There are not, he can't enter our home. And I said, I realize that, but he's taunting me, you know, but I know what to do. But you took your authority. I took my authority. And then there was this. Turmoil, you know, we were still on the journey. I'm just, I'm given that point of reference that we were still on this journey, but I all of a sudden just would wake up and Jeff then would have to wait, Lori. And I would be sitting up in bed or fully awake. And it was always Psalm 23. It was the Lord is my shepherd. I shall not walk. And so that's become a very favorite of mine. And how many of us raised in, you know, in church or in a Christian home, that's a very common, that's right. It's honestly one I took for granted. I mean, we could quote it. But now it became life. Oh, it became life. And then I started reading all the different translations and, you know, have favorites and all that. But anyway, so that became so evident. And to this day really is. And to this day, like when I hear bad things that other people are going through and honestly... I get contacted now. Will you walk with me through this? Or will you pray? I do not take prayer lightly. I don't just say, yeah, I'll pray. This is what God has asked me to do. When you tell someone you're praying, pray. Keep your word. And if you don't, if you're not going to, don't tell them you're going to. Because sometimes those people are relying. There were some... I was relying on people to pray for us. I mean, Jeff and I needed it desperately. There was just a few people that we let in, to our marriage struggles and to our family struggles. We were very protected and guarded, honestly, which I would still recommend because we didn't want anyone to have pity for us. We did not want people to be around us. And I know well-intentioned people at times, but words like this is what I learned also. I don't know how you, I don't know how you're surviving. Or it doesn't do you even for my marriage, people would say, Oh, if my husband would have said we're moving, I wouldn't have moved. I would have just said, no, that did not help my anxiety. It didn't help my depression. It didn't help my marriage. And these were, these were well-meaning people, well-meaning Christian people. And so the Lord just awakened in me and brought to my attention our words. And also who to surround ourselves with. For those that are going to believe the same way you're going to believe and stand for. So for us, we were standing for our marriage to survive this. And to come out stronger. And then for our son to come back home to the family. But more importantly, to come into a relationship with Jesus that we've really realized he had never had. You know, like he was right. And that's what Jacob, I mean, that's part of his. He said, I met Jesus for the first time, like real, real. Now, he had been baptized and all of that and had asked Jesus into his heart. But we all have to some point in our life. You have to own it yourself. We have to own it, not just because mom and dad raised us or because our home was like that or because we went to a good church. At some point, it has to be real. And you never know as a parent when that's going to be real to yours. But that connection. kept increasing in me. I know I'm jumping here a little bit, but that kept increasing me because the battle kept waging, and it actually got harder. Like, the battle became more and more real. Even, I know for time I want to be sensitive, but our son Flatline was found in the parking lot of Woodland Hills Mall, and the last number on his phone was his sister's, and so a person contacted that number. And so our journey got... It got hard. It was the night before Easter that this all happened. We're a pastor's family. My husband has to have Easter. The biggest day, you know. For us, Christmas and Easter. And here we were in an emergency room the night before. And it was this, again, how have we gotten here? Jacob was, he came back. I mean, he was fine sitting up on a bed and he told, we walked in the room and he said, mom and dad, I'm sorry, you don't have to be here. He said, no, we're here. You know, and he had, what had happened, he had got into a bad, heroin feed that had gotten into Tulsa an hour earlier. The doctor told us, she said, I think you've had the same feed that I just pronounced a young man dead an hour earlier. So, you know, we're facing that. And again, you look at us and you look at our family and honestly, Cheryl, even as I tell you this story, sometimes it's like, we lived that. We were squeaky clean on American. But it goes back to what you said though, is that the, The enemy does play dirty. And I think that when we are more aware of it, that we have an awareness, and that's where God was preparing you and building you up in his word, surrounding yourself with worship, surrounding your people that would pray for you, like they would legitimately be on their knees praying for you. That is the most important thing that we can do for one another. One is keeping our word and not being quick to just say, well, I'll pray for you. You know the person who says, I'm going to pray for you, when you know, like, I really do know that they mean it. And I can count on that. You know, that's really partly, too, about what I Refresh is about. Our heart is to pray and to walk alongside you. And to know that, you know, Lori had a journey that some of you have had all facets. You could probably say within any part of her storyline, I've gone through that. Or I'm in the middle of it. I'm faced with anxiety or alone, am I alone or I, why me God? Why us? We did everything right. Um, this doesn't, this doesn't make sense, but you know, um, doesn't always have to make sense. But we also know that with God's word, everything we walk through, it is God is always trying to woo us to himself, even to the point that you would open up and, and see a message that God allowed you to see, to encourage you. I am with you. And that's the thing is that God is present with us no matter what we're walking through, if we will just be intentional. And that's one thing I like that you've been talking about is being intentional with everything you did with your family because really it prepared you. It did. I mean, it may have been, it may have gone bad not just for one child, but it could have. the whole family and could have been divided, you know, but yet God is faithful to be present even through every one of those struggles. And I don't know, I think in closing, if you would have something that you want to, you know, cap, like what you would say to those that might be listening that have gone through that, what would you want to share with them? Well, I want to share that it really is true. The scripture really is true that we wrestle not against flesh and blood. We live in a spiritual world it's spiritual life. We are spiritual beating beings. We're sons and daughters of him. And if we can fully as fully as we can as humans, we're humans. We're not him. I'm not God. Thank God. I'm not God. But if we can fully recognize and that, that we're spiritual beings and the authority of, You know, he talks about in his word, he doesn't just give us authority. He gives us his authority. That's good. He gives us his peace. It's not just here. I'm going to give you some peace here. I'm going to give you some authority. It's his. It says that every time I give you my peace, I give you my authority. There's something that if we can understand that to the best that we can in the situation we're in, but to grow in that. then we feel, even during the hard times, actually it's more than a feeling, then we can take on the belief like, God, I don't know how we're going to make it through this, but I do know that you are faithful, you are good, you will walk through us with this. And if we can just stay like, okay, Jesus, Jesus, I got to stay focused on you. And then my husband has said this so many times, and it's so true, if we lose hope, we lose everything. Mm-hmm. And our hope is in Jesus Christ. If we put our hope in a situation, if we put it in our spouse if we're married, if we put it in our children. Yes. If we put it in things, no, our hope is in Christ. So it's our focus. It's our intentionality. Right. And it is recognizing only to give the enemy the recognition of what he is about. Right. And it's really simple. He's about destruction. Right. He's about deception. If we recognize that and we know who God is... we will fully then know we win. And we keep pressing through. I don't know how long you have to press through. I would have never thought 10 years. Never. We just kept thinking with each time, okay, he's at his rock bottom. Yes. And he wasn't. It's amazing. And then he finally was, and our family gets to tell of the great story now. I do want to say in closing, mine and Jeff's marriage is... better than, honestly, I think of Ephesians 3.20. It talks about exceedingly above what we even asked for. That is the Savior who died for our sins, that our prayers, He is waiting to do exceedingly beyond what we even asked for. So for my marriage, it's, you know, like, I thought I loved my husband. I love him more and more. We grew so deep in this dark, dark journey. I'm so glad we didn't give up, even though it would have been easy at the moment to give up. But we would have been missing out on what we have now for our family and our children. Our children are our best friends. We hang out with them. Even though Jacob and Abby live in Michigan, we talk so often and we talk to a person that has been redeemed and transformed. He's not the same man. He is... changed. And that's the miracle. He's made new. That's the miracle of our God. And that's what I'm so grateful for the testimony because that's what each one of us need. We need hope. When you hear what God has done in someone else's life, you're like, he says he's no respecter of persons. And he has walked through every part of it for each family member to give each of us hope. You know, they have a church here, if you're in the Tulsa area, and it's called Church 3434. And that's just because it's the address. 3434 South Garnett, but church3434.org is our website. And then also the men's ministry. Yeah, so my husband is the director and founder of cavetime.org. And it's specifically, it's to kindle fire in the hearts of men and to... challenge and encourage men to stand up and be a wall in the covering that God designed them to be from the very first man, Adam. So there's a lot of great resources for you to go to and check out. And we would love it if you would subscribe to our podcast and if you would give us a thumbs up on the Facebook so that you can hear more amazing stories. about incredible stories like Lori's, then we would love to even hear about your journeys, that maybe you have something that would really resonate and you would like to hear more or testify, like, I went through something very much like Lori's. Let's hear from you. And until then, go change your world.