God Still Answers Prayers

I have some pretty special stories to tell about Thanksgiving today - but I will tell you about that tomorrow!  I had planned this one for this date because it is kind of special to me for today. 

Because I live in Frederick County, I have not usually met the men in our long term Spiritual Recovery Program – unless they have been here before.  Since Frederick is some 50 miles away and there is a good long-term spiritual  recovery program in that city, few men enter our program from there. 

But I did know from church the mother of a guy who was really struggling with his addiction.  He finally lost his place to live and had  nowhere else to go.  His parents brought him on a Tuesday night to our Recovery for a Lifetime 12 Step group in New Market.  As far as the family was concerned, Bryan had no other options except to enter a long-term recovery program.  Typically, Bryan did not really see it that way, himself. 

While I wasn’t hopeful that we would have any break throughs that night, I did pray for God to speak to him.  We talked and Bryan was resistant.  So, I gave him the good-old you will have to make up your own mind speech.  He sat quietly for just a moment and then said “okay, I will be there tomorrow morning.”  I was pretty sure he was just agreeing with me to get me to stop talking, but I wanted to believe he was serious.  I prayed with him and said I hope I will see you tomorrow. 

So you would understand my surprise when he rolled up the next morning with his family.  Our staff began the intake process with him and that Friday he was in our program.   It has been five months today and Bryan is doing very well in his spiritual recovery walk.  Last week I asked him what happened that Tuesday night when he changed his mind so abruptly.  He said he just felt like he was really supposed to do this and so he did. 

He told his mother about our talk and this week she shared with me “the rest of the story.”  That Tuesday night, while Bryan and I were in one room talking, his mother and his girlfriend were in our women’s small group in another room holding hands and praying for Bryant to surrender.  That night God heard the cries from one room and did the work in a needy heart in another. 

I don’t know who or what you are struggling over, but I know He knows and cares…and God still answers prayers.

Happy Thanksgiving,

Pastor Gary Byers

Spiritual Life Director