From Addiction to the Altar: How God Rebuilt My Life

"I want to tell you about the night I stopped running." Funke's voice is steady now, but it wasn't always. For twelve years, addiction governed her days — through a university degree she barely finished, jobs she lost, and relationships that collapsed under the weight of secrets.

"My mother never stopped praying. I would come home at 3 a.m. and find her on her knees by the armchair, Bible open to Psalm 40. I hated it then. I understand it now — she was digging a pit for God to pull me out of, one prayer at a time."

The night everything changed

"It wasn't dramatic on the outside. A friend invited me to a revival meeting and I went mostly to quiet her. But when the preacher read 'He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay' (Psalm 40:2), I started weeping and couldn't stop. That was the Holy Spirit. I gave my life to Christ that night, and He took what rehab never could — the craving and the shame together."

If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. — 2 Corinthians 5:17

Eight years sober, Funke now leads a recovery fellowship at her church. "People ask if I regret the wasted years. I tell them: nothing is wasted that God redeems. My pit has become my pulpit." If you are where she was, hear her closing words: "Come home. The Father has been watching the road longer than you know."