“THE OPIOID CRISIS IS THE WORST ADDICTION EPIDEMIC IN U.S. HISTORY.”

Last week the text messages began (because of my utmost love and respect for my friends, I have changed their names but not the hard facts):
 
“Continue to pray for Georgia and Amy (her granddaughter) – Amy has taken a really bad turn for the worse.”
 
                                                            “Thanks for letting us know.  We will be praying”
 
“Got call from Georgia , putting Amy on morphine to keep her comfortable until she passes (from complications of being addicted to heroin).”
 
                                                            “I knew it!  I felt it when Jo and I prayed for her this morning.  Satan won this round and it is such madness!!!”
 
“Amy just passed.”
 
                                                            “Thanks, please let us know what follows.”
 
“Will do.”
 
“Amy’s memorial service is on March 9th at … Church in … CO.  Starts at 11:00am.”
 
                                                            “Thanks, will see you there.”
 
“THE OPIOID CRISIS IS THE WORST ADDICTION EPIDEMIC IN U.S. HISTORY.”  Drug overdoses kill nearly 64,000 people per year, and the nation’s life expectancy has fallen for two years in a row.  But statistics alone can’t tell the story.  TIME MAGIZINE
 
Amy’s young 23-year-old story started out simple enough.  But life got complicated for her and her older brother when they lost their mother to cancer during their middle school years.  Her journey into the dark and deep hole of addictions started when a “friend” offered her a “free” hit of Meth, for the “fun of it”!  She knew Jesus as her Lord and Savior, none of that seemed to matter as the drugs and their cravings quickly became her “lord”!
 
Soon, and by choice, Amy’s closest “friends” were mostly addicted to something and there was little my dear friend as her Grandmother could do about it.  Treatment centers and big expenses along with re-commitments to Jesus came and went.  But when the price of getting “HIGH” on heroin costs little more than a BIG MAC at McDonalds, the cravings and addictions win 98% of the time!  I know Amy is now free from all her addictions as she is with Jesus, but her life here ended in a personal hell on earth.
 
Drugs, guns, gang-banging and lack of family structure are all a part of the magnitude of “other” issues we hear weekly from detained and incarcerated youth, God alone has the power and might to put a stop to this madness!  I find the Holy Spirit telling me today as I write this the same thing I shared with a young man Tuesday night when he said he wasn’t sure the Bible was true.  “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek.  For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, ‘The just will live by faith’.”  Romans 1:16-17 NKJV
 
There are many “WHY” questions on this earth I have no answer for, but my faith is in Jesus; the one who knows and will deliver each of us from the sins and madness of this world through simple trust in Him.  We offer Jesus and His forgiveness every week to hundreds of young troubled youth, in spite of sometimes experiencing and watching some very bitter outcomes from choices made at very young ages!
 
Your partnership gives us hope and courage to continue on.  So, for the staff and volunteers of Southern Colorado Youth for Christ, thank you for standing with us both in prayer and financial gifts in the name of Jesus!
 
Craig Rosentrater
Executive Director