Celebrate Recovery - Lyons

02/24/2026

Great meeting tonight! Thank you to everyone who keeps coming back. You are worth it!! 🙌

02/23/2026

02/19/2026

Jesus is calling you.

02/17/2026

To those of you who have crawled through the fire and still smell of smoke: Do not mistake the heat at your back for a hearth.

The tragedy of Lot’s wife was not a simple glance over a shoulder; it was a soul that refused to leave the city. She escaped the flames but carried the ruins with her in her heart. When she turned, she was not looking at a burning home—she was grieving a version of herself that was already dead. In that single moment of hesitation, she became a pillar of salt: a permanent monument to “what used to be.” A preservative of her own pain, frozen in a landscape of judgment while the promise stood just a few miles ahead.

Do not let your heart become a museum for the things God is trying to burn away.
If you have gone through hell, why would you ever turn back to study the architecture of your agony? To look back is to give the ghosts permission to haunt you again. The fire was meant to refine you, not to become your final resting place. You have survived the impossible, and you did not endure the desert just to become a statue on its edge. The salt of your tears belongs to the ground you have already crossed—do not let it crystallize and anchor you to the wreckage.

Your life is not a circle; it is an arrow. The ending that is being written for you lives in the dust of every mile you put between yourself and the shadow. You are standing right now on the threshold of a territory that the old you could never have survived. Honor the struggle by refusing to revisit it. The sun is rising on a horizon that has no memory of your chains—walk into it, and for the love of your own soul, do not turn around.

Stop negotiating with graves. The reason the past looks so golden right now is because you have forgotten the weight of the chains. When you look back, you are not looking at home—you are looking at the ruins of a life that could no longer hold the person you are becoming. To turn around now is not a detour; it is a betrayal of the mercy that pulled you out. You were not rescued from the fire just to go back and sit among the ashes.

Understand the cost of the glance. Lot’s wife did not merely look back—she lingered in her heart, and the earth claimed her for it. If you spend your energy staring at what is gone, you will miss the bread falling in the wilderness today. You cannot build a future on a foundation of “what ifs.” The ending you are searching for is not a destination you reach; it is the very next step you take with your back to the wreckage.

Keep your eyes forward. The light is moving. You are standing in the middle of an answered prayer. Do not insult your growth by trying to fit back into a skin you have already shed. The road ahead is unpaved and unfamiliar, and that is exactly why it is holy. It belongs to the new you. Walk into it.

“You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.” — C.S. Lewis

02/16/2026

CR Meeting ToNighT Monday February 16
6:30pm

It’s TESTIMONY night!

02/15/2026

Once homeless and trapped in addiction, now sober with a 4.0 GPA in Computer Information Systems from Oklahoma State University.

A decade ago, Danny M. Ellerd weighed just ninety pounds and was living on the streets of Oklahoma City. His addiction had consumed nearly twenty years of his life. Arrest warrants eventually caught up with him, but he was so physically ill that jail wouldn’t even process him. He was hospitalized instead.

That moment wasn’t a miracle fix. It was the beginning of something slower and harder.

Danny entered recovery and committed to rebuilding his life through Hope Is Alive Ministries. Day by day, he chose structure over chaos. Thirty months sober, he didn’t disappear. He sponsored others. He stayed accountable. He kept showing up.

In August 2023, he was selected for Cohort Number 4 at the Center for Social Innovation at OSU-OKC while working part-time, managing a recovery home, and starting college full-time at Oklahoma State University–Oklahoma City.

He pursued a degree in Computer Information Systems, earned multiple programming certifications, joined leadership organizations, and maintained a 4.0 GPA. No special treatment. No shortcuts. Just discipline and consistency.

Today, Danny says his past feels like a distant memory. Not erased, just no longer in control.

Recovery rarely looks dramatic. It looks like choosing the right thing on ordinary days until those days become a different life.

02/10/2026

🎶 Music has had a profound emotional healing impact on my life, and I get genuinely excited to hear when other people have the same feelings. I encourage youto hit play and TURN IT UP!

Truly, this song feels like an honest conversation many of us have had in recovery.

“I was so afraid what it might cost to follow You…”

That fear is real. Recovery costs comfort. It costs old coping mechanisms, familiar habits, and sometimes relationships or pride. But what it gives back is freedom.

“I don’t wanna look back someday on a life that never stepped across the line.”

Recovery asks us to step across a line from denial to honesty, from control to surrender, from shallow living to deeper healing. Standing still feels safe, but it keeps us stuck.

“You’ve given me a faith that can move a mountain, but I’m still playing in the sand.”

Oof. This is where many of us live for a while. We believe God can heal… we’re just not sure we’re ready to let Him heal everything. We settle for partial freedom instead of full surrender.

“I hear You call me up into deeper waters, but I settled on a shallow end.”

Recovery is God inviting us into deeper water, real accountability, real community, real change. The shallow end feels easier, but it never transforms us.

And then the question that recovery always brings us back to:

“What if I gave everything to You?”

That’s the heart of recovery.
Not perfection.
Not having it all together.
Just willingness.

If you’re tired of standing still…
If you’re done building little kingdoms that won’t last…
If you’re ready for deeper waters…

You don’t have to do it alone. 💙
Freedom begins with surrender and hope begins when we finally let go.

Video for the song "What If I Gave Everything" by Casting Crowns. From the (2016) album "The Very Next Thing".

02/09/2026

There’s a really good chance you might hear this at Celebrate Recovery - Lyons Join us for non-traditional worship and loud music!

Click here to stream "For God Is With Us": https://forkingandcountry.ffm.to/whatarewewaitingforJoin us on tour this Christmas! https://tinyurl.com/fKCCHRISTM...

02/09/2026

There’s a kind of hope the world talks about — maybe things will get better, maybe the raise comes through, maybe the situation changes.

And then there’s real hope.
The kind that holds you steady when life doesn’t go as planned.
The kind rooted in Jesus.
The kind we discover and grow in through recovery.

This week, we’re talking about hope that doesn’t depend on circumstances, but on a Savior who meets us right where we are and walks with us toward healing.

If you’re tired, hurting, stuck, or just searching for something deeper — you’re not alone, and you’re invited.

Come as you are.
You belong here. 💙

02/05/2026

“We’ll engage people continuously, from first contact on the street through recovery, through employment and through self-sufficiency,” he said. “Law enforcement, courts, housing providers and health care systems will work as one team, so people will no longer fall through the cracks.”

Calling addiction “above all, a spiritual disease,” HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that faith-based organizations meeting evidence-based standards can now access federal funding for recovery programs. The $100 million STREETS initiative will link people battling addiction and homelessness to treatment, housing and community through churches and ministries.

🔗 http://dlvr.it/TQm1fh