Rehab Reflections: God Answers Prayers!

For details on what Rehab Reflections is about, please refer to the first post of the series, Rehab Reflections: The Return of Spirituality.

photo by kacey

Below is the second entry from the journal that I kept while I was in rehab.  Turns out, I didn’t write in it as faithfully as I initially thought.  This entry falls almost a week after the first entry, and it appears that so much has happened already.  So much more behind the scenes.  I’ll try to share what I can remember happening between entries, but I don’t expect much.  Maybe it will be noticeable without my having to remember.

Anyway, here it is.  From March 4, 2008.  Entry number 2.

Prayed again Wednesday night for “my friend”, hoping that he finds his higher power so that he will be able to do the 12 steps.  On Thursday our counselor had a great group meeting explaining spirituality and religion the way he saw it.  “My friend” said that helped him more than anything.  God answers prayers!

“My friend” is a fellow that I met at Cumberland Heights.  He was actually the first person that I spoke with, I mean, sat and spoke with, the first night I was there.  We met in the commons area and drank soda’s.  He was in pretty rough shape when I met him.

He is about my age.  Has children and a wife that’s on the verge of leaving him because of his issue.  To look at him, you could tell he was in need of help, and was in need of a friend.

I sat at the table with him, just he and I, and we spoke with the normal “Hey…” greetings.  Then the conversation started.  But to look at him, he almost didn’t have to say anything.

I noticed that he was shaking really bad.  He said that when he first got there, he couldn’t even hold his soft drinks or fork or anything.  He would spill the water or soda all over him, or shake all of the food off of his fork.  Someone had to help him eat and drink for the first couple of days.

I don’t remember how long he was there before I got there.  He was, at this time, able to hold his own.  But he still had the shakes like I’ve never seen, nor have I seen since.

Over time, We spoke about his mothers death and how much of a grudge he had with God.  How life was treating him.  He was having a hard time believing in God.

In my entry you see mention of the 12 steps.  It was actually only the first 2 steps that we completed, if we wanted, while we were there.  He was really wanting to complete the steps, but it was number 2 that he just couldn’t do.  The two steps are:

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

By this time, I’m fairly certain I had completed the two steps.  Most likely the third as well, if only in my head (3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.) If I hadn’t, I don’t think I would have been praying for someone else.

Then the group meeting I referred to happened.  Then the comment from “my friend” about how much that meeting helped him understand God.

Thanks be to God, his last night there he was able to complete his steps.  There was so much emotion in that room when he did.  Others making comments about how he was actually able to hold the paper “steady” while he read.  Tears of joy streaming down faces of strangers.  Happiness sprawled across his face like a rainbow after a terrible storm.

God Answers Prayers!

“Scott, was it really your prayers that helped him?  Or was it just pomp circumstance?”

You tell me.

Because of HIM

SC