My FIL

Please by praying today for my FIL and my husband and I as we decide what to do about his situation.

My FIL has struggled his entire life w/ addiction and everything has gone drastically down hill over the past year. God has given him SO many chances and we feel like he is nearing the end. He is very "lucky" to be alive at this point.

Our church is doing an outreach this weekend with an excellent Christmas program. The program is Friday, Saturday and Sunday night. Friday night when we went, I got a strong feeling from God that we needed to get him to come with us somehow, and I began praying for this during the program. (On a side note, 30+ people were saved at that service. Praise the Lord!) After we got home, I told my husband we needed to get his dad to come, and he said, "yeah, there's a lot of things I want my dad to do..." I knew it would be hard, especially since the communication between my FIL and dh is a key component. We have done so much to get him to change and we have given up on him so many times. It's gone on for years. God has reminded me not to give up and to be persistent with prayers, but it's still hard to keep hoping. My FIL has let us down soooo many times. BUT we weren't praying so much at those times. It has been emotionally draining and it's hard to keep praying.

Anyway... that very night we got a call from him. He only calls when he is in trouble and needs something. The situation he is in may be the opportunity we needed to get him to go. He is so far away from God right now that going to this program will be the only way for God to get through to him. Talking to him is like talking to a rubber ball. He bounces back just what he thinks you want to hear without processing any of it. This may be his last chance. (We also have been expecting he may die at any time - His lifestyle is that dangerous and unhealthy. Just last week he had a car accident and was unhurt, miraculously. And it's not his first miraculous car accident without injuries.)

We are torn, however, because where he's at is a natural consquence to what he's been doing in his life and he may need to learn from it and stay where he is (jail). We have been hoping he would finally have to go there and STAY so he would have to think, but it's possible he is going to be released Monday anyway. Then he'll go back to what he was doing. We will have to bail him out early to take him to church. Then we would have to babysit him to make sure he goes to court. He may try to play games with us and tell us he's going to go to treatment, etc. and then just leave us holding the bag again. We have tried so hard not to enable him and cut loose from that drama because dealing with his problems was putting our lives on hold and making us miserable. We want to do everything we can to help him without enabling him or being taken advantage of. Please pray that we will have wisdom and that whatever happens, his heart will be softened and he will realize he needs to come back to God. In the past we focused only on the addiction, but in the past few months we've realized that his relationship with God is the primary issue.

Thanks. :angel: :love:

 

THANK YOU for all of your prayers. God has answered our prayers tonight. PRAISE THE LORD!

This afternoon when I was praying the most, my FIL attended a church service in jail (he was being held for drug-related charges from Friday night). He told us that he thought, "what the heck, I might as well go so I don't have to sit here in my cell.." Otherwise he wouldn't have thought to attend. It was during that service this afternoon that God laid the groundwork for what would happen later. He said he cried during the service as he felt God stirring in his heart. He did not know that my husband was on his way to get him to take him to church tonight. We only had an hour or so after he got out to get cleaned up and eat... On the way to church, we told him how all we wanted was for him to come to church with us and understand that God has not given up on him and He still loves him and will forgive him for his sins. It was then he told us about the church service this afternoon. When we pulled into the parking lot, he was already crying. He cried through the whole service. About half way through, we were singing more worship songs and he started singing along... He thanked us for taking him to the service. At the end, he decided to rededicate his life to God, and is looking forward to attending the addiction recovery classes at the church this week.

He has been through treatment before, but he has never put God at the center of his recovery. It is a long road to be fully delivered from the addiction, so please keep him in your prayers so that he will withstand the temptation and make the right decisions in his life.

(On a side note, the sanctuary was packed tonight - We had to add rows of folding chairs. There were at least 5000 people there. I have never seen it so packed. It was very moving.)

This is a great scripture for tonight. I hope the scriptures will provide encouragement and inspiration to anyone who reads them.

Psalm 63:2-5
I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory. Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you.
I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands. My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you.

Again, thanks for all the prayers. We have been praying for this for a long time. It was hard not to give up, but God kept reminding me to be persistent. (See the parable of the persistent widow.)

I posted some scriptures earlier today at AtoZ, and want to include them as well. I want to give God the glory for answering our prayers and doing what he says in his scriptures...

Here was my post (posted at 2:25 this afternoon when he was in his church service at the jail!):
"Here are a few scriptures for the occassion. Praise God for comforting us and giving us strength in times of trouble. He has all the power to deliver Les from his addiction and problems if he only asks. I pray that he will feel God tugging at his heart today.

Psalm 50:15
Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.

Psalm 138:1-3
I will praise you, O Lord, with all my heart; before the "gods" I will sing your praise. I will bow down toward your holy temple and will praise your name for your love and your faithfulness, for you have exhalted above all things your name and your word. When I called, you answered me; you made me bold and stouthearted.

Psalm 55:16-18
As for me, I will call upon God, and the Lord shall save me. Evening and morning and at noon I will pray, and cry aloud, and He shall hear my voice. He has redeemed my soul in peace fro the battle that was against me.

Psalm 71:20,21
You, who have shown me great and severe troubles, shall revive me again, and bring me up from the depth of the earth. You shall increase my greatness and comfort me on every side.

Psalm 55:22
Cast your burden on the Lord, and He shall sustain you; He shall never permit the righteous to be moved.

I Peter 1:6,7
You have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Isaiah 40:31
Those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.

Proverbs 9:10
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding."

 

One last thing... There was a very appropriate testimonial given during the Christmas program this weekend by a woman who struggled with addiction, depression and abuse during her life. It was about a 5 minute video, but I found a video of her entire testimonial given during the women's conference this fall. (I missed it!) It is around an hour long, but if you need the encouragement and have a high speed connection, you can check it out here:
http://jamesriver.org/my_story.cfm
Click on Kim Bruce's story

 

Okay - He's supposed to go to church with us tonight. I'm praying that he will be here when he says he will and that it will be a positive experience for him.

Please pray for my DH. He needs encouragement. He's not looking forward to this and I'm praying he'll have a positive experience tonight (even if his dad doesn't go - He doesn't like going to this service, but I do.) In regard to his dad, it's hard for him to want things to work out because he's afraid he'll be disappointed again. I think God has given me the motivation and faith to help him, but it's really hard... I know he's protecting himself from getting hurt.

 

Thanks skippy - He didn't show up tonight.

It's hard to understand for most people. He was clean for around 16 years. I think he was able to stick with it for his kids. When I met my now husband, his parents had just gotten divorced. He stayed sober for almost 5 years after that, but the past 5 have been bad. I think it was 3 years ago Christmas that we all got together and did the first intervention. We had 2 or 3, and he finally went through treatment 1.5 years ago after he'd been hospitalized. He was sober for about 2 weeks after he got out. It's all about self-destruction for him. It's hard to go through the process when you don't care enough about yourself to live.

I know my husband can't check up on him and be the parent... so I just pray that God will put situations in people into his life that will help him make the right choices. We can't do anything else for him. I am thankful we were able to spend one night with him when he was himself. We hadn't seen that in many years.