Cease Striving and Know That I am God
One day in the spring 1989 I felt a strange restlessness as I wandered around the house. It was an unusual feeling because outwardly things seemed to be fine. There was no trouble in the home. My children were well. I was not ostracized for ready my Bible. I was able to attend my Bible Study classes, go to church, and do all of the things I loved to do. I was alone for the day and everything was peaceful, sort of. In the quiet peaceful atmosphere I continued to feel a sort of unrest. I examined and reexamined the various parts of my life and still could not get rid of the uneasy feeling
After awhile I said, “Lord is there something You want?” . I may have even spoken this out loud. He answered immediately with, “I want you to give up smoking.” I panicked. I remember saying, “Oh Lord, let me go to my Bible Study and ask them to start praying for me so I can get ready to do this.” And He said “No, I want you to do it now.” I ran into the bathroom with my purse to hide from the Lord and have one last cigarette. I can’t imagine what I was thinking, but there I was sitting on the toilet, hiding from the Lord, as I pulled an almost full pack of cigarettes from my purse.
If you have never been addicted to smoking you may not understand the significance of running to the bathroom for a cigarette. The bathroom is hiding place for smokers, whether it’s the girls’ room in High School, the rest room at the mall, or the bathroom at a relative’s house during the holidays. It’s the “sanctuary”.
So, I pulled out a cigarette, lit it up and attempted to take a “drag” but I couldn’t. I threw cigarette in the toilet, put the pack back in my purse and came out of the bathroom. It was the last time I ever tried to smoke.
I carried that opened pack of cigarettes around in my purse for a very long time. My husband smoked multiple packs a day, most of them in my presence. I didn’t mention what had happened to me that spring day and he never noticed that I no longer smoked. For days, he brought me a new pack of cigarettes each evening.
That attempt at a drag from the cigarette in the bathroom was my last. God did for me what I could never do. He’d delivered me from smoking. There were a few times , during the following days, that I had a desire for a cigarette, but the desire left when I rebuked the demon of nicotine. A few months later the children and I left Indianapolis to begin a new life free of smoking and free of abuse in Kansas City.
I’d smoked cigarettes (and a few cigars) for 25 years. I’d tried countless times to quit, under my own strength, and failed miserably every time. God delivered me of smoking in an instant, you might say “in the twinkling of an eye”. Am I grateful? You bet! When God frees you from addiction it feels as though He’s given you wings to fly.
Thank you, Lord, for your great loving kindness. Praise God.
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