Recovery Articles

Originally posted at: http://www.theresstillhope.org

On September 9, 1965, James Stockdale was flying a mission over North Vietnam when the plane he piloted was shot down. Stockdale parachuted into a village where he was captured by the Vietcong. He would then spend almost eight years as a prisoner of war at the infamous Hanoi Hilton. His concrete cell measured three feet by nine feet, with no windows. As a senior naval officer, he was routinely tortured and denied medical treatment.

How do you survive eight years in those kinds of circumstances? How do you overcome that kind of physical and psychological trauma? In the words of James Stockdale, “I never lost faith in the end of the story.”

Henry Cloud wrote, “Everything has seasons, and we have to be able to recognize when something’s time has passed and be able to move into the next season. Everything that is alive requires pruning as well, which is a great metaphor for endings.” 

Solomon said it like this: “Better is the end of a thing than its beginning” (Ecclesiastes 7:8).

Recovery Step: Starting recovery doesn’t matter unless you finish strong. So finish what you’ve started!