Stale cigarette smoke dripped off every surface in the dimly-lit trailer, its yellow tinted even deeper by the sun filtering through the curtains. She shuffled slowly back to her bedroom as I settled my little ones on the floor with some toys.
“Stay here and play, ok? Mommy will be down the hall for a few minutes helping our friend. Here are your toys. Don’t touch anything else. Do you understand?”
I stole a glance at them as I hurried down the hall after her. “Please don’t break anything,” I murmured. My footsteps echoed dull on the old carpet, exposing the cheap sub-floor underneath.
She had removed the old bandage and cleaned her wound as well as she could. I dabbed gingerly at the angry raw skin, apologizing each time she winced. We chatted as I laid out scissors and tape, cut medicated gauze, bag, and bandages to size, and carefully laid them over her wound. I studied it, looking for signs of new skin, but finding none.
“Have you heard from the insurance company yet?” I asked.
She sucked in her breath, trying not to cry out, as I pressed and held a Tegaderm over everything. It needed to remain intact for 2-3 days until I could get back to do it all over. “They won’t pay to send a nurse here. I guess it’s just you and me.”
I shook my head. “I just don’t understand that. Will you see your doctor about this wound soon?”
“Not for two more months.”
She sat up slowly, and we began gathering up the scraps.
“Lots of people get on me for smoking.”
I looked at her, puzzled. I’d never brought it up to her. She was an adult, after all, and perfectly capable of making her own choices.
“I know I need to quit.” She turned and hobbled down the hall. I followed her with the scraps. “But when God saved me in my twenties, I told him that I was too old to fiddle around. I needed Him to put me on the fast track. He took me up on that. But He hasn’t told me to quit smoking yet.”
I tried not to look surprised. It had never occurred to me that God’s priority for a smoker could be anything besides quitting. Was that even possible? I thought of the verse about our bodies being the temple of God.
“Have you ever tried to quit?” I asked, shooing my baby away from the hard candy on the end table.
“Yes. But I failed. It wasn’t the right time. God was working on other things in me.”
As I gathered up the children’s toys and herded them towards the door, I set that idea to simmer. Maybe I should quit choosing what to fix about myself or when to fix it. I’d never succeeded that way. I’d never understood what Paul meant in Philippians 4 when he wrote, “I can do everything through him who gives me strength.” How could I work “through him who gives me strength?”
My friend’s words hinted at something I’d missed for years. Maybe becoming like Jesus and who I was created to be isn’t about my choice and checklists and chore charts and trying harder. Maybe it’s about learning to recognize God’s voice and cooperating with what God is doing, whether that’s waiting for the right time or doing something completely different than I expected.
This post is the second in what appears to be a loose series (of I’m not sure how many posts). Read the first one here.
By Joy
{ 24 comments… read them below or add one }
I had never thought of it like this… I’ve always thought just “sort yourself out now”. Swear less, do good things, forgive… maybe I should listen to what God wants first and foremost. Not to say I shouldn’t try be more like Jesus all the time, but in our striving we often miss God’s prompting. Thank you for this.
love this post. i can relate to the story and yes, I am so glad that God did not call me out from crack addiction and expect immediate perfection….he works with us, in his time table and we tend to want to race ahead sometimes. so glad his power is made perfect in my weakness, because i tend to live in the weakness, and therefore rely on him all the more.
thankfully, i quit smoking this past summer, when i was pregnant with my second child….i am glad to be free of these chains, but it was not an easy surrender!
thanks for keeping it real on your blog here!
This is so wonderful. I have never seen it that way before. I loved your words, “Maybe becoming like Jesus and who I was created to be isn’t about my choice and checklists and chore charts and trying harder. Maybe it’s about learning to recognize God’s voice and cooperating with what God is doing, whether that’s waiting for the right time or doing something completely different than I expected.”
Sometimes I struggle with areas in my life that I seem to be unable to fix. But perhaps the struggle I am facing is because I am struggling against the areas in my life that God IS working in. Interesting thoughts … I will be thinking about this more!
Joy, I loved the first post in this series, and I hope you keep going. There’s nothing more beautiful than seeing a Christian change their mind about something… that’s the root of the word “repentance.”
This is also very heartening to me as I am watching both my parents struggle free from the bonds of various addictions, hopefully, by the grace of God. Sometimes I get very frustrated that, for instance, my mom has apparently ALMOST quit smoking but can’t quite bring herself to 100% stop yet (even though it has begun to really affect her health). But things have to happen in God’s time. I don’t have a great track record of patiently waiting for God, but He sure has been amazingly patient with me, and I feel He is trying to teach me to emulate that for the sake of others.
Again, thank you.
Good words. I find the more I live for Him the more questions I come up with and the more the answer is “get close to ME.” Thanks for sharing and stirring the thought wheels.
So, so, SO good. I’m coming up on 2 years smoke free. I’d love to chat with that friend of yours. Guilt and condemnation is mans game, not God’s. We, as people, are obsessed with this perfection, “sort yourself out now” like Shae said (above). God has never worked that way. Just look at Jesus. He didn’t just show up on the scene. He was formed in the womb, like all of us. He went through the birth canal like, well, most of us. He had to grow up. He had to go through the process. Until.
So yeah, I’m thinkin’ we’d all be a heckuvalot nicer to be around, including with ourselves, if we’d trust His timing. With us. And those we love. Ahhh, freedom in Christ. Ain’t life grand.
Thanks for this Joy!
*formed. Formed in the womb. Ooops.
I vividly remember a heated discussion we once had during classes at church camp in high school about this very subject. The idea that God will call us to fix things in his timing has stuck with me since then. Somehow in my mind that thought never applied to smoking. Thank you for the broader perspective.
a-MEN!!
we all have our “I know I need to quit” areas in our lives. and they’re no different or less harmful than smoking. but most times, they’re unseen to others: i know i need to quit focusing on what i don’t have, & instead remember what i do have. i know i need to quit looking to my husband to meet needs only Jesus can meet. i know i need to quit being impatient with that family member who lives in such bondage to being hard on people — all. the. time. because in my impatience, i’m doing the very same thing . . .
we all struggle. hard! and when we remember that, it enables us to not make a bigger deal of something just because it’s visible.
a battle’s a battle, & like you said, they’re His to fight.
how wonderful that your friend knew Him well enough to experience the freedom of entrusting hers to Him.
When we embrace that truth, isn’t like taking a deep breath for the first time?
I remember coming home from church/youth group/Bible studies every week with the next thing that I needed to fix about myself. But this, this is truth. That cycle of trying, failing, and guilt and shame flooding me ends when I believe this.
This is such an interesting perspective, Joy. I’m going to turn it over in my mind for awhile. Thank you for sharing this with us.
joy, i love this series! i read this one first, then followed the link to the first one. evidently, my background had similarities to yours in that i tho’t the first thing God would need to deal with in a new christian was their smoking (if they did!).
imagine my surprise when i was a student nurse and for the first time, out in the “world”. I started meeting people who had a warm love for Christ that i envied, yet they smoked. over time, God showed me that smoking (an external habit with physical effects for sure) was not necessarily a spiritual issue but my self-righteousness clearly was!
it was around that time that i started using the term to others that “i’m not your holy spirit.” when they wanted to know if they should do a certain activity. of course, i gave some guidelines for them to sort it out, but it was something for them to decide in conference with GOD.
it has been so interesting over the years to watch GOD change people in the order He wants to do it. That doesn’t always mean i don’t have some input, but I’m not feeling the burden that I have to fix them. I don’t have to be perfect either. i can be real.
of course, GOD has been working on me too! He keeps showing me new ways where self-righteousness shows its ugly head…as well as other ways in which i sin. And He is accomplishing His work in the world as well…amazing!
Cooperating with what God’s doing… That’s something this list-checker needs to hear over and over! What peace I find in resting in His perfect plan. He is doing HIS thing, not MINE.
Thanks for posting this! So encouraging!
Maybe it’s okay to have things that we’re fixing for us, while God fixes other things that he sees that he wants.
Unless you have a strictly calvinist view of reality.
Interesting thought, Todd. But I find that if I’m trying to do too many things, I get frustrated or overwhelmed and drop it all. I guess this story reflects a place I’m trying to find where I do the work I’m supposed to do with the help that God provides, and going off in my own direction isn’t that. It’s very difficult to articulate, but it’s more resting. I don’t know. I certainly have grown up with a Calvinist view of reality, which I’m sure bleeds through.
Yes. So good. Amen. Applause. Love.
.
I love this!
This is such a common theme in my life… eradicating the to-do lists and listening to God. Thanks for giving us this great perspective, Joy.
Very thought provoking..
Good words, Joy. That’s a really hard lesson to learn. Thanks for sharing.
Joy, thanks for freeing us to simply allow ourselves to not be guilted into thinking we need to get all fixed up by tomorrow. We all need time up time to be healed. And I feel reminded of that.
Thanks.
I told you it would take me a while.
See this is interesting because I just returned from a trip “over seas” in which I met with a new convert from another faith. He talked of the very real tension in his life with respect to whether to stop consuming a legal, and culturally acceptable stimulant (much like tobacco). And while he chewed over that decision, he made no mention of whether he needed to leave one of his multiple wives or whether biblical manhood required him to uphold his vows.
Neither addictions nor committments are easily broken. Perhaps its a better idea to engage in the slow process of fasting, prayer, and discipleship, and leave the rest to the Holy Spirit. So hard for me to live out, but true.
You do a good job weaving a story that brings all of this to the forefront. Thanks for tying some thoughts together for me.
I missed this when it was posted, and I’m so glad I went back to read it. This really speaks to me today. I need to rest in Him and what He is doing, and not what I think I am supposed to be doing.
Ok I need to think about this one. It’s a nudge to consider something I haven’t considered but not sure yet if I agree.