Get Me Out Of This One And.. - Foxhole Prayers vs Spiritual Living

Jan 20. Hey friends. I have missed the blog the past few days and made a point at getting home early enough to work on it. Besides my higher power, nothing has helped me feel as good as sharing the spiritual wealth I accumulate with others. I had to cut plans short with a few loved ones to get the time before I got too tired but here I am typing this entry & content with doing it. :)

I had heard a man talking to someone else as I passed through a crowded area tonight. He mentioned the term "foxhole prayer". I remember seeing many movies about war soldiers in the trench, praying that if God just got them through that attack that they would change their ways.. stop killing civilians, live to do the work of their maker, or in one instnace I recall.. treat their wife better when they got back to the USA. God protected that particular soldier from missles exploding all around him, but not another unfortunate other who's legs were blown off. As the injured soldier screamed for help to the other, the man watched in horror. He immediately had forgotten his commitment in prayer and selfishly stayed tucked down in his bunker. The injured man still screamed on to him for help. In his ignorance and the true lack of spiritual commitment in that prayer perhaps God himself caused the next thing to occur. "To hell with him, I'm not going out there to save anybody" he said, seconds after a grenade toppled into the small hole he was hiding in. Blown into pieces. Had he gotten up and helped the other man, as God would have him do, he would have lived maybe a moment longer or maybe forever because an American helicopter flew down to save the man with no legs & he lived to tell this story.

I think of how many times in my addiction I prayed for God to help me not be sick one more time. When I was overdosing and losing consiousness as I threw up over the toilet, not knowing if my body was shutting down for good or if I would choke to death. I said prayers time after time in those moments and in even worse ones. Promising whoever or whatever was out there driving the force of the universe to just give me another opportunity to change and take action. For years those prayers were the same as those in the foxhole soldier's story. I had no spiritual commitment behind them. No plan to fullfill the promises in return. I was bargaining with my higher power with no intention of keeping the promises on my end. For some reason, my higher power kept their end of the bargain though. One day, nearing my sincerest cry to him for help, I was on my way walking home. Broke from binges the two days before, hungry, and injured feet from working so hard and not feeling the pain due to the pain killing properties of the dope. I couldn't walk much more and needed a break and I had chosen a church's grass yard to rest. I hit my knees in pain and suffering from my addiction and asked God to just help me. I promised him that as soon as I figured out how, I would change my ways and do what my beliefs say is acceptable. When I stood up, there behind me had blown a 20 dollar bill. Money for food. To some people this would not click, but in my spiritually damaged state it was my higher power telling me that he was there and DID support my goal to beat addiction.

I can recall many other prayers before that being answered for the moment & me destroying the situation all over again. It took me quite some time to actually beat that addiction problem, and another prayer as well, but with this prayer came a final and lasting spiritual commitment attached to it. I'd like to share it with you because I feel its the reason I am alive still today & free of the bondage of self and of addiction.

I had gone through an in-patient rehab, I was supposed to stay for 28 days. Nearing two weeks into the stay and after being off of detox assisting medication for almost a week things were getting physically difficult for me to bear. I had a roommate there that had drugs that would ease my suffering, oxycotin & suboxone to be specific. I had resisted for almost a week the temptation of him counting and eating them like candy in front of me. My faith was that in two more weeks I would not feel this way and that the rehab was there to help me through the next two weeks no matter how bad they were. Then all of a sudden my counselor calls me in her office, telling me that my funding for the 28 day stay was cut in half and I was going home in two days. I was horrified, physically sick, still spiritually broken, in a severe state of unmedicated detox, and not ready to do things on my own yet. I hadn't even gotten into working with my counselor one on one about things I needed to do to ease the obsessions or maintain sobriety on the outside. With panic and fear that I could not make it on my own, and the rehab unable to help me, I tried to help myself even if it was just for the moment. That roommate gladly parted with some of his pills because I was a threat knowing what he had and not using them also. The moment I took them the sickness went away in my body, I almost felt the cursed enjoyment for a few minutes during the peak of their shelf life, then they faded and the next day came when I needed more.

I had one day left at rehab and I said a prayer for God to help me do it on my own. The sickness still came back, worse then it was before and it felt like the devil himself was crawling around in my skin. The kid that was sharing his stash got kicked out overnight for inappropriately touching a girl in the laundry room. I was out of chemical options, the rehab wouldn't help me detox because I was going home tomorrow, and I had one choice at the time that I was obsessing about. I acted on the obsession and when I went downtown in the rehab van for the outside 12 step meeting I hid my credit card in my shoe and waited. I fled from the meeting, sweating with a fever, sick to my stomache, and shaking from the detox occuring again. I went to a mac machine, called a cab and paid 80 bucks to get to my dealer 20 miles away. He was still in business, laughing that I fled the rehab, and he sold me what I needed to be not sick. His laugh was echoing in my ears like the devil himself had a grip on my mind. I prayed to God that this kill me this time and proceeded to do triple the normal "high dose" that I would do in the past. It didn't kill me, in fact I didn't even get high only "unsick". Instead of letting me overdose and die my higher power acted through others, the right people talking to the right people somehow like a needle in a haystack my family showed up at the one house in the city I was in. My higher power didn't want me dead, and the next morning I woke up, so sick and wishing he did take me.

I called doctor after doctor, agency after agency for help with the detox. A hospital even turned me down because I was in a rehab so recently. After about 50 phone calls I hit my knees. The bottom was too low, the helplessness had me weak in ever aspect, so weak that I could not hold the spiritual door shut any longer. I said a prayer by myself so my family did not see me so desperate. I begged my higher power, crying, shaking, helpless. "Please, you've made man & you made me. There are men out there that can help me with modern medicine. They can take this suffering away. Please help me defeat this & I will do whats right. I don't want to die anymore, I want to live and be happy. I want to make these people I have hurt proud and be something. I don't want to be sick another day and I never let it near me to even tempt me ever again. You have got to help me find a doctor or just take this feeling away yourself." It did not take that feeling away, but somehow after drying my tears I felt strength to stand up. I went back to the directory that I had called every doctor for assistance and tried something. I typed the word Lord into the search and two doctors popped up. I called them both, getting voicemails I almost didn't leave a message but somehow the words just flew out of my mouth.. moments later I got a call back. You know what? You can say there is no power out there, I will never believe you though.. when the two doctors from Lords Valley both called back and were willing to see me that day.. how could I believe in anything but the Truth! The Light! & The Way! that I need to do the work I have been called on to do. People were orchestrated after that phone call, one after another, and the result was the beginning of my sobriety. I guess my spiritual commitment in that prayer that night was exactly what needed to be heard & to this day I live that commitment to help others the way that I was helped. The miracle lives on and one day my higher power may decide I am the one who needs to return that call to the helpless. Miracles do happen, they happen everyday somewhere & my commitment to spiritual living will help ensure that his power is worth spending on us all.

"Can you recall a time when you prayed to save yourself from tragedy with promise of change? How easy when the pressure was off for you to forget about that promise? Has the miracle entered your life? If not please don't quit five minutes before." Thanks everyone for letting me share that story with you. I hope that you all are as blessed as me one day & any who are still sick and suffering from any disease or condition in life become healed. Its worth living on, Until next time.. Good Night. Good Morning... <3 Jimmy