Redemption & Recovery

Tag: family

  • How I Got Started with Celebrate Recovery

    How I Got Started with Celebrate Recovery

    Hello my beautiful peoples! ✨

    In February 2022, my toxic and abusive ten-year relationship with He Who Shall Not Be Named finally ended. I left our shared apartment and moved into my sister’s house after a physical altercation. In this case, I was the aggressor. Towards the end of our relationship, I had no respect for him and just wanted him out of my apartment and life. He moved in with me because he had been living on his uncle’s bedroom floor and begged me for help.

    Two years before that, we had been engaged to be married, but five days before our wedding, he decided to text all his exes, telling them that he was soon to be married and would officially be off the market. One particular ex was invited for wine. As if that wasn’t enough, he also tried to start a business with her. That’s when I lost it—I trashed our Miami loft and was physically escorted out by Miami police. Letting him back into my life and helping him was the biggest mistake of my life. But when you’re codependent and don’t know you’re codependent, you make dumb decisions that serve others instead of looking out for yourself.

    When I moved in with my sister, I knew I needed to make serious changes. Ten years of on-and-off with this man wasn’t getting me anywhere. The longer I was with him, the further he took me from God. He believed in spirituality, God, and Buddhist principles, but he didn’t walk the talk. His beliefs were all about his desires, money, and ego, with spirituality sprinkled in at his convenience. I think at some point, that way of thinking rubbed off on me, and I lost my way.

    Living at my sister’s gave me the opportunity to be less than ten minutes away from a church with four services. There was no excuse not to go. So, I invited my sister to join me at my first service. It had been a while since I had gone to a big church. I wasn’t much for worship; in fact, many times, I’d be the one coming in a bit late—just in time for the pastor’s message.

    During one particular message, the pastor talked about how coming on the weekends was just part of the big picture. He urged us to get out of the outskirts and stop being spectators, emphasizing that small groups are what truly connect us to the congregation. His words convicted my heart, and I felt nudged by God to sign up for a group.

    As I looked through the groups, there was only one that aligned with my interests and schedule—The Journey Begins. It was a twelve-step study group meant to address hurts, hang-ups, and habits. At first, I didn’t want to choose that group because I didn’t think I needed it. I’m not a drug addict or alcoholic, I thought. My sister was in recovery and attended AA, so I had a preconceived notion about what a recovery program looked like. I wrestled with myself about signing up for the study, but ultimately, I decided to be obedient. (Celebrate Recovery Principle 3: Consciously choose to commit all my life and will to Christ’s care and control. – Matthew 5:5)

    Normally, most people attend Celebrate Recovery before signing up for a step study, but as in the true Maritza way, I did it backward. It wasn’t until I attended my study group that someone invited me to come and attend Celebrate Recovery. The first thing that came to my mind was, UGH—two days? Both two hours long? 🙄Here I was signing up for one day, and now God was turning it into two days and four hours a week. Definitely not what I signed up for! But I had committed to being obedient to God. (“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.” – Proverbs 3:5)

    I remember feeling awkward walking into Celebrate Recovery. Walking in was like admitting I had a problem to a bunch of strangers. Thankfully, they had greeters at the doors who helped me find my way. Newcomers 101 gave me an overall understanding of how Celebrate Recovery worked. They explained that the first hour consists of worship followed by either a lesson or a testimony. The second hour consists of small groups where men and women separate and then break off into smaller groups—A-Z for hurts, hang-ups, and habits, or chemical dependency groups.

    I chose the A-Z group, where I met women who dealt with childhood trauma, codependency, anger issues, trust issues, and much more. Three years later, I love my Celebrate Recovery family. I used to feel like an outsider at church, the black sheep filled with issues, until I found the rest of the black sheep at Celebrate Recovery. I loved being in a place where people were okay admitting they needed help and actually wanted help.

    I love the sisterhood that grew over time by being vulnerable and honest about the decisions I’ve made in my life. I felt safe, seen, and heard. People didn’t judge me for my past but encouraged my growth. Celebrate Recovery changed my life for the better. (“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” – 2 Corinthians 5:17)

    Celebrate Recovery is more than just about chemical dependency. It helps with fear, guilt, shame, unforgiveness, pride, anger, rage, sex addiction, abuse, people-pleasing, control, abandonment—just to name a few. It provides tools to process your hurts that have turned into hang-ups and gives you healthy, God-loving habits to deal with this crazy world and everything that comes with it. (Celebrate Recovery Step 1: We admitted we were powerless over our addictions and compulsive behaviors and that our lives had become unmanageable. – Romans 7:18)

    ✨ Tune in next time to learn what I learned from Lesson 1: Denial. ✨

    With love and grace,
    Your Sista Ritza ✨

    🙏 Thank you in advance for liking and sharing this blog post. The more people that get to read, the more people we can help. My intention is to help others through sharing my experiences. 🙌

  • Making Peace with My Parents

    Making Peace with My Parents

    When I first began my journey to come closer to God, I didn’t want to rely on any of the information I had learned about Him from my family or the world. I wanted to learn who God was on my own terms. Coming from a Catholic background, God was about punishment and sin. My family had all different beliefs about God—from Catholicism to Santería to New Age philosophy—and who can forget my grandma with her horoscopes. It caused so much confusion, and I didn’t want to lean on the knowledge I had been given by my upbringing or culture.

    So, I prayed. I asked God to erase all the false information I had learned and to help me know Him. As I meditated on this prayer, something unexpected happened—the Ten Commandments came to mind. I had to look them up because I didn’t know them offhand. As I went down the list, one commandment stopped me in my tracks:

    Honor your father and mother.

    Honor my what?! I was flabbergasted. I looked up at the sky and thought, Why, God? Why would You make me do this?

    A Broken Family

    Up until that moment, my relationship with my parents was contentious at best. I barely had a relationship with either of them.

    When I was twelve, my parents went through a nasty divorce filled with hate, betrayal, and bitterness. According to my dad, my mom was unfaithful and chose “the streets” over her family. My dad won full custody of my younger sister and me. I can only assume it was because my mom didn’t have the means to care for us—or maybe it was my dad’s way of spiting her. Either way, after my mom left, we weren’t allowed to speak with her. And when we did, it was for awkward, brief visits to Baskin-Robbins before heading straight back to my dad’s house.

    I had to be careful what I said to my mom for fear of my dad’s reaction. Looking back, I don’t remember much about my relationship with her in my younger years. I was a daddy’s girl, and my memories of my mom were distant—her beauty, her stylish outfits, her dancing, her smoking. But love? Affection? I couldn’t recall many moments of that.

    Between the ages of 12 to 18, my mom and I barely had a relationship. I felt abandoned and bitter that I wasn’t allowed to miss her or want her in my life. Angry because I thought she didn’t want me in hers.

    The Burden of My Father’s Love

    At the beginning of my parents’ divorce, my dad was wrecked by the breakdown of our family. Worse, he was enraged by my mom’s betrayal, and it felt like he used my sister and me as pawns to hurt her. He brainwashed us into believing she was the enemy.

    I remember asking him once, Where’s Mom? His response? He almost threw me out because he thought my question meant I was choosing her over him. Mind you I was twelve.

    That’s when my codependency was born. I felt like I had to keep my dad happy, to be the “good girl”, to think the way he wanted me to think—so he wouldn’t turn on me like he had on my mom.

    At 16, my younger sister got pregnant. My dad was so angry that she had to emancipate herself just to have control over her life. In his rage, he completely ignored her.

    At 17, my dad caught me with a boy in my room. He was so furious that he stopped speaking to me and refused to attend my high school graduation. That crushed me. I had done everything I could to make him happy, but the one time I disappointed him, he shut me out completely. I didn’t even walk in my cap and gown because I thought, What’s the point?

    At 18, I moved out. I couldn’t live my life obeying my dad’s controlling rules. It was his way or the highway—so I chose the highway.

    Wrestling with God’s Command

    Honoring my parents seemed impossible. I was angry. I was bitter.

    Why couldn’t I have normal parents?
    Why did God give me parents who I couldn’t trust to love me and not leave me?

    As I wrestled with these questions, I looked at my own children. I realized that one day, they might be angry with me. They might not understand the decisions I made. They might struggle to love me, too.

    That thought softened my heart.

    The Healing Begins

    Step 5 We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being, the exact nature of our hurts, hang-ups and habits.

    Step 5 gave me the chance to confess my burdens—the ones I had carried for years. It forced me to open my heart to feelings I had buried and denied.

    Through prayer, I learned to pray for my parents. In time, I learned to forgive them. Jesus’ words became my mantra:

    “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” – Luke 23:34

    This helped me see my parents through a different lens—not as villains, but as broken people who made mistakes, just like me.

    A Work in Progress

    I can’t say that my relationship with my parents is fully healed. I still struggle to trust their words and actions. But I no longer hold resentment in my heart.

    Now, I actively work on showing them compassion and building a relationship with them.

    More importantly, this journey has helped me build a solid relationship with my own children—one based on honesty, respect, and unconditional love.

    If you’ve ever struggled with forgiving your parents, I want you to know you’re not alone. Healing takes time, but with God, nothing is impossible.

    Next week, I’ll share more about how Celebrate Recovery helped me work through my anger and embrace true freedom. Stay tuned! 💜

    With love & grace,
    Your Sista Ritza ✨

    🙏 Thank you in advance for liking and sharing this blog post. The more people that get to read, the more people we can help. My intention is to help others through sharing my experiences. 🙌