“Where Was My Voice?” Part 5

Three days…. It was only a matter of 3 days before I began to see that God had, indeed, come upon the scene of my life when I sat in the living room of my home asking Jesus to take over the controls of my life. (See “”Where Was My Voice? Part 4) Walking into my bedroom from there to have a very frank, here’s the scoop, conversation with the Lord was my top priority. I needed to get right down to business if anything was going to change. From that point on, I had no idea what was going to happen, but I had some small, new faith that believed SOMEthing would happen. Thus, it began.

I decided to tell no one about giving my life to the Lord. Especially not John, the man I was now involved with. I was afraid what everyone would think. I secretly started going to church with my mom. It was hard as everything wild in me screamed against change and any form of discipline. Here I sat in a room with the very people I had verbally assaulted. But they loved me and were out of their minds with joy that I was there. In this church there were old people, young people, couples that had been married for a long time and some that were recently married. Teenagers and babies ran about…. I felt like I was on Mars. There were a number of cultures in my moms church. Her best friend, Lucy, was a fellow nurse she worked with who had invited her to church in the first place. Lucy was Dutch-Indonesian. I had no idea of any such things so I just assumed everyone was Chinese. Lol…. I wasn’t paying much attention during school so my knowledge of the nations of the world was slightly lacking….to say the least.

Anyway, it certainly was a curious thing to see all of these people singing and praying with tears in their eyes. “Ridiculous”, I thought. Don’t they realized how foolish they look?, I wondered. My pride was screaming. I’m not singing. No way. I’m going to just stare at these people to give them a visual of the disgust I feel. The frustrating thing was, they weren’t looking at me. Their focus was elsewhere. Week after week, I stared at these strange people. Little by little, my heart began to soften. Why were these people so emotional? How could they be so impacted by what they were singing that they would actually CRY in public?!? Deep desire began to grow in the center of my heart. Why can’t I feel like that? Why can’t I feel ANYthing?! As I listened to them speak about the love of God and all that He was doing in their lives. I thought, why don’t I feel His love like that? A mixture of frustration yet growing desire swirled in my heart. I may not have FELT Jesus doing much but I was beginning to see evidence that He WAS working!

In my last post, “Where Was My Voice?” Part 4, I told you what my first prayer consisted of. Basically it was, “Jesus, I have a drug problem… I can’t stop but if you’ll help me, I will.” Three days later, driving around with John, I made an announcement that surprised even me. “I’m all done, John. I’m stopping all use.” I thought, who said that?? It was quiet for a few seconds as John studied my face. I realized in that moment, the grip and dependency I couldn’t break free from was…broken! It was strangely gone! John interrupted the silence saying that he was done as well. What?!? “I’ve been thinking about stopping”, John said. “I used to be so smart when I was in school. I could’ve gone on to work with computers but…..” I sat quietly listening. “I can’t remember things anymore. Yah, I’m going to stop too.” Shocking. That’s the best word I can come up with to describe this moment. Shocking!

Here’s the thing…. My mom and I had actually started praying right away about my involvement with this dark man. I had tried to end things with him over time but could never actually get away. So, in talking to my mom about the situation after giving my life to God, she made a suggestion. “Tracy, let’s pray together about this. Let’s ask God to either save John and turn his life around or remove him from your life.” Good plan! We began right away. Could John’s announcement that he was done with drugs be the start to answering prayer? I wasn’t sure but I decided to continue to pray with my mom, get myself to church and see how things were progressing with John. What happened shortly after made me seriously doubt that he was headed in the right direction.

I had been looking for a way to see where John stood in his belief in God. One night after he had been drinking quite a bit, I thought I’d test the water. “What do you think about God? Do you believe in God?” I quietly asked. “What!?” He fumed. “There’s no God! I’M God!!” Chilling. Not a good sign. I left it alone.

After a months time, I decided to put it all out on the table. I felt quite sure it would finally be over. We sat in the driveway of John’s apartment one night. I was sick to my stomach at the thought of bringing up the subject of God again.
“John, I need to tell you something. I’ve been going to church with my mom.”, I began.
“What?! For how long?” John was stunned.
“For about a month. I can’t keep living like this. I’m not going to make it. You see, the people in my mom’s church are different. They have something. There are married couples there and for some reason, they stay married. I don’t want to be divorced and I know I will be. Going to church helps you stayed married. So, what I’m saying is, if you don’t go to church with me, I’m breaking off this relationship. I won’t marry you.”

Silence. There it was. I put it out there and now my words hung in midair. “Where’s that church?”, John asked. I answered his few questions and then sat there in silence while he thought. “Ok, I’ll go.”

So, we went. Into the church came John with his long hair, feather earring and knife down his side. My mom and I weren’t the ONLY people that had been praying for John so many were eager to come up and meet him. I felt proud of “my” people. I felt happy for John to see what I had now. It was a shocking experience for John as it was for me at the beginning….to have people look into your eyes with love and acceptance. I think it knocked him off his game. He sat and listened to every word spoken in that service. The next night, we sat in my car at the very same place we had met a year earlier, buying and selling illegal substances.

“I went to church my whole life growing up”, John started, “and I feel like I learned more about God and the bible in that one service than I did in all the combined years going as a kid.” I wasn’t entirely sure what to say or do at that point but remembering what Richard had prayed with me in my living room a month earlier, I thought I’d start there. “Do you want to pray with me and give your life to Jesus?” I can’t tell you how weird that felt to be discussing the matters of God with John. I hardly knew what I was doing but I could at least offer John what I DID know.
“Yes”, he said quietly. “What do I do?” So, with that, we held hands and prayed. I led John to the Lord in the very spot we had met in a destructive lifestyle. We had deep waters to wade through in the days ahead but at least now, new life could begin!