The Sun Rose Above Him

Jacob traded on his brother's hunger for a bowl of stew, deceived his blind father, and ran. For twenty years he lived far from home. When God called him back, he had to face the brother who had sworn to kill him. The night before, alone by the river Jabbok, he wrestled until daybreak, and he walked away blessed, renamed, and limping. Esau ran to meet him. And after a disaster at Shechem, Jacob told his household to get rid of their foreign gods and went back to Bethel, where God had first met him on the run.

The Sun Rose Above Him is a 30-day devotional through the life of Jacob for people in recovery from alcohol or drug addiction, and for the families, friends, and churches who walk beside them. Along the way you'll follow Cole, a 33-year-old sternman from a Maine lobstering town whose back injury led to pills and then fentanyl, who drained his father's savings for the family boat, and who was found not breathing in his truck at the town landing one November dawn, and Elden, an old boatbuilder who has been sober since a drunken fall at the shipyard in 1988. Their year runs from a recovery house in January through an amends at a kitchen table, supervised visits with a little girl, a relapse, a friend's overdose, and a father's last words, and their conversations lead into each day's Scripture, reflection, and practice.