Willie grew up in a good, loving, caring family. But spirituality wasn’t a major focus in his world.
Yet, when they did an intervention on him and got him into treatment…a friend of a friend had a son who graduated from Helping Up Mission. Willie arrived here a week after his intervention.
But he didn’t like it and had no intention on staying. Upon finishing his initial black-out period, he still wanted to get high — but now Willie knew he shouldn’t. So he stayed!
He started learning and growing in spiritual knowledge and understanding. But he was still not ready to “turn his will and life over to the care of God” (Step 3 of the 12 Steps).
Then…in his 7th month here Willie had a moment of clarity. He was going home for a weekend that his family would be away.
Realizing he would have the house to himself, Willie began to make a plan to use. He believed he figured out a way to cover his track when he returned here Sunday night and beat a drug test Monday morning.
But he knew he shouldn’t! So Willie prayed and told God that He would just have to take away this desire to use — or he would use that weekend!
Willie prayed each day that week, but nothing changed…Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. He was going to get high that weekend and it would be God’s fault — because He didn’t take away this feeling Willie had.
Thursday morning Willie woke up…and the desire to use was gone! He couldn’t even come up with a good reason to get high — so he didn’t!
That was a year ago! In fact, Willie’s still here at HUM working on campus.
Jesus can sure get ‘er done!
One Day at a Time,
Pastor Gary Byers
Deputy Director