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When you need help, when you really "need" help; it's not just "okay" to ask for it. When you really need help, you have a responsibility to ask for it, and to keep asking, until you get it. "132k" 640x480 | "185k" 800x600 |
One Sunday morning, about five years ago, my grandson's father woke up from a week long crank and alcohol binge. He went to my daughter's house, picked up my grandson and mustering all the strength within him, he walked to the nearest church. He went inside and walked up to the front of the congregation, turned to face them and said, "Hello, you don't know me. My name is John and this is my two year old son. I'm sorry to interrupt your service, but I love him and I want to be a good father to him. I can't though because I'm addicted to alchohol and crank. Please pray for me to be healed." Then he walked out.
To my knowledge he never asked again. To my knowledge he never found the strength within himself to fight off the drugs at all after that.
Last Friday, John was murdered. His best friends, also alchohol and crank addicts, killed him because they believed he had narced them out. He hadn't. It was a misunderstanding. The D.A., not wanting to go to the expense of a $12,000 trial to put John in prison; had let John go on probation, with the understanding that he'd go to prison with the first drug test he failed to pass. He knew John was still a severe addict. It was the least expensive way to get him off the streets. His friends believed John had bought the probation with names. A police officer told my daughter the irony of it all, was that he'd personally seen John sit a month in jail rather than turn in even an enemy, let alone a friend.
I believe in prayer. I know it works. I've seen it work too many times not to believe in the power of prayer. Yet those folks in that church weren't the only ones that had prayed for John to be healed of the spirits that owned his body and increasingly his mind and soul. I guess the bottom line is that when a monster has a hold of you, sometimes nothing at all works.
I got to thinking about what I could do to honor John's life. He was such a sweetheart. His loss is such a tragic waste. I wondered how I might find some bit of good within all this sadness. This wallpaper is the best I can come up with. Listen.... when you need help, I don't care how embarrassing it is to ask for help. It's not just okay to ask for it. You have a responsibility to yourself and to the people that love you to reach out for help, not just once, but as many times as you need to.
And to young people, I want to tell you something. Just say NO.... implies that all illegal drugs, from marijuana to heroin are equals and all legal drugs are okay. And neither implication is true. Neither is true at all.
By the numbers, alchohol is the most devasting drug on our planet. I'm too tired right now to look up how many people die from alchoholism, drunk drivers and mad drunks. I'm too tired to look up how many families are destroyed or at least terribly damaged by it.... but trust me, there's no good reason for that killer to be advertised as sexy. It's an insidious drug. It sneaks up on you. It tells you it'll never grab you, only people weaker than you.... and once it's grabbed you, it lies and tells you, you aren't an addict, you don't have a problem, the only problems you have are the irrational people telling you, you need to quit.
Crank, coke, crack and heroin are runners up in the race for the deadliest tools of evil. I raised my daughters in Poteau, Oklahoma. Poteau was listed as one of the top one hundred small towns in America. I wonder if it would still earn that rating now? Practically every kid I knew there is either dead from crank, hooked on crank or recovered from it. But it sure seems like that sweet little town has developed a terrible cancer that's destroying way too much of our best hope for the future.
Sorry, I didn't mean for this to become a drug rant. But my heart is aching and if just one kid reads this and realizes that NO ONE can be sure they're strong enough to resist once they play with that junk.... if just one kid doesn't go there because they happened to be lead here today..... this page has done it's job.
And if just one person who really needs help, with an addiction, with a weakness, with a problem or with a cause - reaches out, not just once, but again and again as it's needed..... then this page has done it's job.
Here's one of my favorite pictures of John and my grandson.
Thumbnails compressed to load fast,
wallpapers look much cleaner.
When you need help,
when you really "need" help;
it's not just "okay" to ask for it.
When you really need help,
you have a responsibility
to ask for it,
and to keep asking,
until you get it.
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