PERSONAL EXPERIENCE

Personal Experience

     Some of you may be wondering what kind of qualifications and, or experience I have with addiction and being set free from it. I have been set free from so many things that I could write an entire book about all the things God has redeemed me from, but for now I will tell you about the most recent and two of the most difficult addictions that I have been completely delivered from.

      I smoked cigarettes for 17 ½ years and had a great desire to quit, but some believe that nicotine is more addictive than heroin and I knew I was bound and powerless, I knew I would need God’s help. I did a lot of what I like to call pray-paring (my term for preparing) and I will admit that at first I sought and used the help of nicotine patches, but the more I sought God the more I realized I didn’t need that external help. He became “the thing” that replaced cigarettes. The more I sought God and asked Him to take the desire for the cigarettes away, the more I didn’t want cigarettes and the more I desired a life filled with the new things of God. 
     You do have to be ready to give up the addiction, but when you are ready there is nothing that God won’t do to make sure you are filled with His supernatural power and the ability to succeed—after all, it is His reputation that is on the line!

      The other deliverance is nothing short of a miracle— I was taking doctor prescribed pain medication for chronic conditions, of which I am seeking total and complete healing, but as it goes with the world’s answer for everything I had to keep taking more and more to even get some relief.    Nothing was really working or even helping me and after 12 ½  years of taking opiates (it started with vicodin and ended with morphine) I realized I was now taking them just to keep from withdrawing and getting sick. Once again, I needed God’s help. I needed to be set free from this bondage of pain medication that wasn’t even helping me with pain control.  I began pray-paring myself for a long rough road. I did not abuse my pain medication by using too much, but I had taken pain medicine for over 12 years and I knew the more you do and the longer you’ve been taking it the worse the withdraw can be so I was completely pray-pared to endure some serious withdraw. God had other plans! I had been given some useful information from my son who was at the time a serious heroin addict (it’s funny the things and, or people God will use to help us), he told me that if you start to wean yourself off of the pills a little bit at a time you can almost avoid the withdraw all together—well by doing that AND giving my addiction and the pain to God and trusting Him to see me through what I thought would be days of lying in bed writhing in pain from withdraw  ended up being a few muscle cramps in my legs for a day or two;I was then DONE with opiates!

      I know beyond any doubt that God took the desire AND withdraw away and I will never be able to thank Him enough for everything He has done for me. I can’t wait to get to heaven where I will forever thank Him!!!  Psalm 34:8 NKJV,”Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who trusts in Him!”

      Don’t you want to know this Great God of mine? He can help you with ANYTHING you are facing!!!

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