A Graduation Story

John and Trisha Whalen, who came from Montana to join the Union Gospel Mission recovery program, will be part of the graduation ceremony on June 19 at Fourth Memorial Church in Spokane.

“What brought us here was a failing family,” Trisha said. “Our house was full of chaos. There was no order. I was drinking every day…and my children were watching. They were living that, and it was unbearable. I wanted them to have a different life, and I knew we were capable of it. I just didn’t know how.”

“There was a lot of hostility in our home,” John said. “A lot of hostility. Very little kindness.  We had lived our whole lives in addiction and incarceration. Everything was spiraling out of control, and we didn’t want to lose our family.”

Recognizing that they needed help, John and Trisha sold much of what they had and moved to Spokane with their three children – Matthew, Julianna and Gracie – to join the Mission’s recovery programs. It wasn’t easy. When John discovered he would be living in a mission, he almost turned around. A good friend who had encouraged their move stopped him: “Are you afraid of a little humility?”

Initially, Trisha and the children lived in one of the houses next to Anna Ogden Hall while John stayed at the Men’s Shelter. Later, John joined the family. Both John and Trisha speak of the past two years as life-changing…and extremely challenging.

“For me,” Trisha said, “the hardest part about doing this program was the marriage piece because I was not only trying to deal with what was going on with me and why I acted and behaved the way I did…At the same time, we’re trying to figure out how to fix a broken marriage.”

Trisha said her counselor was her lifeline: “She never judged me. She never looked down on me. She was always cheering me on and cheering us on as a family.” John added: “Having a counselor who had been through some very severe marital problems and come through to the other side of that with the help of Christ, that was a big help.”

John also valued the men who boldly spoke truth into his life as they worked side by side. He clearly remembers the director of the program saying to him, “John, you’re not trusting God to meet your needs.” That was an ah-ha moment. “He said, ‘God will always keep you.’ And he wasn’t lying. The Lord has kept me.”

While this graduation marks a major turning point for John and Trisha, they emphasize that it is just the beginning. “We stuck to it, and we finished something that we set out to do for the betterment of our family and our marriage,” John said.

“We still have our struggles,” said Trisha, “but we deal with them in a more healthy way, and I think that has a huge impact on our family as a whole because they’re not having to watch us fight and yell and scream at each other. There’s more peace.”