God always hears us

As I head down the final stretch in completing my book, I have been recounting the numerous times that God has personally intervened in my life in miraculous fashion to accomplish one goal or another. It is almost surrealistic when I look at it in a chronological sequence and it has helped to strengthen my already strong faith.

I needed improvement in many different areas of my life after I accepted God as my Savior and became a born again baby Christian. Some improvements were easier to accomplish than others and some have yet to be made.

One of the most dramatic was when I quit drinking alcohol. I miraculously quit taking drugs almost immediately after accepting Christ, but I kept drinking alcohol literally for years. Like all alcoholics I suffered many embarrassing incidents and acted like a jerk on many occasions. Over the years I got two DUI’s and experienced other problems too numerous to recount. I badly wanted to quit and tried on several occasions, only to resume drinking, only more than before.

This went on for a span of several years. I got serious and stopped drinking anything for one full year. To celebrate I got drunk on my one year anniversary and just took up where I had left off. I had convinced myself that I was not an alcoholic as evidenced by being able to quit for a year. Yeah right! Arghhh!

I was not going to bars; instead I would just drink at home and mainly wine. Even though I did not expose my drinking to too many people beyond family, employees, and close friends, it was enough to make me reach a point in my spiritual life where I really knew it was very wrong and my Christian witness was being adversely affected by it. I just don’t think it sets a good example even to drink moderately and certainly not every day.

I loved drinking and did not want to quit, but felt God wanted me to stop. I tried and tried and tried and failed again and again and again. Finally exasperated I prayed to God that I was powerless to stop drinking and I begged Him to personally intervene. Later that week I got a call from my doctor. I had taken a blood test for a very large key man life insurance policy for my company, and there were some disturbing results. The simple blood test had revealed that I had Hepatitis C.

Apparently I got it either from intravenous drug use in the 60’s or from blood transfusions when I had my car wreck in 1970. This is a serious disease in the form of a virus that attacks the liver and often ends in full blown cancer. The doctor told me that it is near incurable and if I lived long enough is almost always fatal. The only known treatment has a very small success ratio. Intense chemo therapy with Interferon and a variety of cocktail combos with it is the only option. Only 50% of patients see any improvement at all. Only 25% of that percentile group obtain remission and if that wasn’t bad enough news, the drastic chemo treatment for it ravages your body so badly that “it” can kill you.

I was told to immediately stop drinking to avoid any further damage to the liver.

Hmmm Coincidence?

No. I stopped drinking right after I discovered that I had this awful virus living in my body. I went to the number one specialist in the world and had a liver biopsy. The results were that the virus is quiet for now and as far as they can tell is in a somewhat inactive state and my liver looks healthy. He recommended that I not take chemo for now and that several promising new drugs were being tested and as the years go by and the virus progresses maybe something less devastating to my body would be available by then to combat it.

That was ten years ago and as far as I know my liver is pretty much the same. The thing that has changed is that I no longer drink alcohol and have been sober for ten years. I believe that God heard my prayer and in His infinite wisdom knew that something this drastic had to occur in my life in order for me to stop. I no longer crave drinking but I live with the knowledge that the virus within that lies dormant for now can rage into a full blown fury, but I also realize that I could fall off my horse this morning and break my neck.

I don’t worry about it and trust in the Lord. I live with the knowledge that when my number gets called, I’m off to heaven with a smile on my face to meet Jesus and learn and learn and learn, and explore and explore and explore.

Psalm 22:21
You have answered me