Jared Cox - June 2022

At Watered Gardens’ Outreach Center in downtown Joplin, we meet people who are often struggling on many fronts like chronic homelessness, addiction, mental illness, and physical debility. Under the weight of it, sometimes a person will simply lie on the ground. It may seem like a case of laziness, but in more than two decades of ministry, I’ve learned there’s always more to the story.

Jared was lying on the ground outside our mission in the Spring of 2020. What no passerby could have known is the physical abuse he endured as a child until he ran away at age 16 or that he became a slave to alcohol for decades, drowning away the pain of his past. Thankfully, a couple of students in our Forge program encouraged him the very moment when he felt all was lost.

My life was like a canvas painted black. The image of God was covered with layer upon layer of trauma, nihilism, and alcohol abuse. At my darkest hour—or month, really—I holed up in a dingy motel and drank every last dollar of a stimulus check. Yet at the same time, my spirit was thirsting for God and crying out for a miracle—and it turned out to be Forge. I found sobriety and strength through faith in God, healthy structure, and relational accountability. We’re all still a work in progress, but God worked with his people in this program to begin restoring and revealing his beauty in me.

Psalm 113:7-8 says, “God raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap in order to seat them with nobles—with the nobles of His people.” That’s what God did for Jared. Now, as he blesses others with his amazing gift of art, he reminds us that nobility is in every person, regardless of their condition or circumstances. Thank you for your support. Jared is sober, employed, and living in a Christian housing community, and I celebrate that with you!

James Whitford

Co-Founder and Executive Director