I Was Free – Don + Sally
DON: I had a complicated relationship with my family, especially my father, growing up. After I left home, after high school – I had a void in my life, an emptiness. I started college but then quit. I went to work for a year. I went back to college. Then went to the Navy. All that time, I was just searching for an answer. I felt loneliness, that same void in my heart. I turned to drinking, alcohol, and drugs, I just couldn’t find an answer, and that continued in the Navy.
One day, I was stationed in Philadelphia, and as I was walking down the street, I heard a street witness across the street. I felt the Holy Spirit – I didn’t know it was the Holy Spirit at the time – but I felt this urge. I had to go across the street. I was with another sailor at the time and I turned to him and said, “I have to go across the street and listen to this guy. I don’t know why.” I went across the street, listened to him for a while, got down on my knees, prayed, and accepted the Lord that day. Immediately, when I got up, I realized I was changed. I felt complete peace and joy in my heart.
I felt complete peace and joy in my heart.
We were out that day aiming to go out and drink. Instead, I turned around and went back to the barracks. I just completely stopped drinking that day. I had no desire for alcohol or drugs. It was a total joy and peace that I had never experienced before. That void was gone and I was filled with His love.
SALLY: I always wanted to try and please not only God, but everybody around me, and control my life. I was a worrier for years, even after being saved. When I was 14, my dad died and I started really searching for the truth of, “God, are you real?” I was brought up in a Presbyterian church where I slept through the sermons on Daddy’s lap. At that point, I started going around to other churches and hearing the truth of the Gospel. In community college, I was in a Bible club and really learned more about God and found that that’s what I was missing. And a friend there said to me, “Now you are a Christian.” It was like that veil was torn away from my heart and mind. I understood and my faith became real. And yeah, there was no turning back. I was getting into the Bible at that point.
DON: The most impactful thing in my life, other than accepting Christ, was starting to attend Celebrate Recovery. Actually, when we joined First Naples, I didn’t have the peace and joy that I once had. Over time, I developed stress from work and family and my anger and anxieties came back.
I joined Men’s Ministry on Wednesday nights and one week I heard Pastor Steve speak on prayer and devotion. He had his devotional Bible and said that he and his wife prayed every morning. I suddenly felt this conviction that I wasn’t doing that; I had fallen away and I didn’t have that peace and joy anymore. Again, the Holy Spirit touched me and I started tearing up. I could feel his love for me. He said it was okay, He loved me, and I could have that peace and joy again. That evening, I went home and told my wife what the message was about. Pastor Steve has mentioned the Celebrate Recovery class and I wanted to go. I needed to get better. We started going together starting that next week.
SALLY: We had some rough years when we first came down to Florida in 2016. We moved down here from New York State where I lived my whole life, so it was a big shock (although a warm one!) I felt broken for many reasons. Our marriage was pretty broken after almost 40 years. When we began Celebrate Recovery, we just found a home and support. We found a family. We were given tools to help us succeed and recover, to deal with those issues in our lives; those hang-ups, those faults, the denial of sin. It really made such an impact on my life to stand up in front of my CR family and give a testimony of what God had done and how he had taken my fears and worries. I could surrender that to Him. Satan had no more hold on my life. I was free.
I was free.
DON: Along with my anger and anxiety, I had lost three close people in my life before coming down here to Naples. I lost my best friend, my mother-in-law, and then finally my mother. When I first started going to Celebrate Recovery, it was from grief. When I first got there I said, “I’m here because of my mom. I just lost her a year ago. And I’m having a really hard time. I’m blaming God for that.” I resented God. I stopped praying. I stopped reading the Bible. Also in my anger, I was taking it out on everyone else – our marriage was rocky at that point in time. I needed to express my grief, but I also realized that I had to start talking about my anger and anxiety. I was trying hard to overcome those things on my own, but with the tools we learned at Celebrate Recovery, I gave those things over to the Lord and found victory over those things. My encouragement is: if you have hurts, habits, or hang-ups, don’t hide them. Seek somebody out and get the help you need. I was sitting in a pew, hiding behind a smile, living a double life. I could have road rage and cut somebody off, yelling at them, and then pull into the church and sit in the pew and listen to the sermon. Celebrate Recovery is one of those places where you can go and find a safe haven, talk about issues in your life, and be transparent with other men and women.
SALLY: I think that people generally think that Celebrate Recovery is a Christian AA, but we have many more people that don’t have addictions, but they have these hang-ups and deep hurts in their lives that need to be healed. After the first night that we attended, I think we came home and talked for two or three hours with such transparency. We don’t hide anything from each other now, like we did before. I feel like I got my husband back.
DON: I sat down with Sally, shortly after I started the class, and apologized and asked for forgiveness for the way my anger, anxiety, and bad habits were affecting our marriage. And I said to her, I said, I asked for forgiveness and said, I want to be transparent.
SALLY: He said, “If you want to know anything in my life, just ask me, and I will tell you.” And it has refreshed our lives together, our marriage, and now we’re closer than we’ve ever been. We’ve been married for 44 years, and it’s totally changed our life. That’s not to say there are issues or there aren’t problems, but now we know how to deal with them. We have tools for success.
DON: It was just a normal night that I was going to Men’s Ministry. I wasn’t expecting anything that night, but it changed my life forever. Shortly after we started with Celebrate Recovery, COVID came up, and the church started food distribution here on the campus. They were doing it twice a week. Sally and I talked it over, prayed, and we started helping out at food distribution. It seemed like a little thing at the time, but it opened up the doors for a lot of other things. After a while, St. Matt’s started asking for volunteers to help with food distributions in other locations. We prayed and we became volunteers for St. Matthew’s house. Then we did the big Thanksgiving “Hope for the Holidays” distribution and right afterward we were sitting with friends, and one of them asked, “We’re praying about an opening on a committee here at the church. Your name just kept coming up in our minds. Would you be interested?” Again, we prayed about it, and we said yes. All that from wanting to help people get food.
SALLY: It’s obedience, too. Whether it’s leading a group, opening a door, or being with the kids on Wednesday night when they’re ready for bed and tired and need to be hugged, it is just a matter of obedience. It starts with the Word of God. Romans 10:17 says, “So faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.” Being in the Word daily and on a consistent basis has to be a priority when there are so many whispers from the enemy and distractions. Those little things keep us from the best part of our day, and truly when we have our Bible time together and separately, that’s the best part of our day. That’s the foundation. So yes, it’s the little things in serving that might seem really routine after a while, but you’ve got to show up.
DON: We come to church every Sunday morning, and so one Sunday, we noticed the greeters that always were at the door weren’t there. After the service, we went up to the person leading that ministry, and we said, “Why aren’t they there?” They said, “Well, they were sick and couldn’t be there, and they probably wouldn’t be there for a while.” So we said, “We can do that. We’ll fill in for them until they get back.” So we started greeting at the doors. It was just that small thing that we happened to see that there was nobody there. As Sally said, obedience. We’re still there. It’s been years, that we’ve been greeting. We thought it was only going to be a few months when we started, but we love it.
DON: They’ve always emphasized missions here. I remember them talking about the importance of missions not only to the whole world, but starting here in Naples and in the community. I thought that was always important in my life. Sally and I had never been on a mission trip to Africa or anything like that, but I always wanted to be a servant and wanted to be in missions. I realized my mission field is here in the community, the church, and the people, and the people here in the church.
SALLY: Especially the kids. We both are active in Preschool Ministry. I’m generally in a one-year-old room, Don is often in the two-year-old room, maybe kindergarten. He’ll go wherever they put him.
DON: I was actually afraid, fearful. I thought I was too old and it had been a while since I was around children, but Sally wanted to do it and signed up for the Kids Ministry on Saturday nights. I said, “I don’t want to be home all alone on Saturday night. If you sign up, I’ll sign up.” So we went through the training, and I showed up on that first Saturday, and Joanne in the Preschool said, “Well, where do you want to serve?” And I go, “I actually was going to say, ‘I don’t want to do this. I’m afraid of those preschool kids.’ So she said, ‘Why don’t you start in kindergarten?’”
We were only doing it once a month at the time on Saturday Nights. Then the church ended up switching to all services on Sunday, so we went to serving full time on Sunday. I ended up moving from kindergarten to doing other grades. On Wednesday nights I was going to Men’s Ministry and Sally was helping in Preschool. Sally was in the “walker” room, which was one-year-olds, and when I would go out after Men’s Ministry, I’d play with the kids in the window. The kids would all come up and I would get down on my hands and knees, put my hands on the windows, and I’d just play with the kids. There again, I felt a tug on my heart. So this night, I went into the courtyard and I sat down on the bench with the window with the kids right there. I could hear the kids playing, I put my head down and I started praying. I said, “What’s going on?” God said, “I want you to go and help in Preschool on Wednesday nights.” I said, “But I’ve got to go to Men’s Ministry.” So I actually struggled with it for a while but talked with Pastor Steve about it, I prayed some more, and I started helping with Preschool. I said, “Well, this is just going to be for the rest of the year and then I’ll go back to Men’s Ministry.” But then, the fall came, and I started back serving with the kids, and then I think another fall came, and I started again. I’m still doing it. I love the children, and it’s the most joyful thing. I just can’t get enough out of it.
SALLY: We first came to First Naples Church on Christmas Eve in 2017. Our family was just looking for a place to worship on Christmas Eve. We came and we never left. I love how the word is preached so sincerely and uncompromised. It helps me to “be the church.”
It helps me to “be the church.”