God is amazing even when He has every reason not to be. I have forty-eight hours at home by myself to reflect and be thankful for the past week spent working at the White Sulphur Springs retreat. The weather was beautiful all week, along with all the people there. After spending time there in the past, I would usually be left with a longing to return that would last a long while but I am finding that the more the song from my first entry becomes true and God becomes more than enough for my every thirst and need, that I am always able to find peace and be content wherever I go.
I sit behind my house in the late afternoon. Everything is still. Blue sky, birds, trees, flowers. Summer. My day alone has flown by and I have yet to get done all I need to. Last night I was out here, had a couple of cigarettes and enjoyed a beautiful evening. I sat slouched in my chair, feet on the table, sucking on burning leaf, thin wisps floating, curling in front and around me. I would look at my cigarette as I breathed in deeply the smoke I had taken in moments before. I found a peace in it that I welcomed after a stressful day. And then came the whisper in my mind, "Doesn't God promise to give His children His peace?" I brushed it aside, content to enjoy the soft object nestled between my fingers. "Atleast you're not sucking down two packs a day like some people," chipped in another voice, trying to comfort and soothe me in my brief moment of unrest at the soft sound of the whisper. I sat inside a little later, my Bible open to Philippians 4:8, having remembered something of what it said. God spoke to me then through that whole chapter and I knew in my heart at that moment that cigarettes were something I was holding back and needed to give up to God, forever. That last word was the hardest to accept and pain filled me as I realized in my mind what I would be giving up. I fell from the couch onto the floor and wept like a child, sobbing, sucking in deep, desperate breaths, crying out to God to take what I had idolized minutes before outside. Then the peace came, as it always does from our faithful God and I was able to find the peace my heart truly longed for, God's peace.
I knew I had to get rid of those cigarettes and so obtained what I thought were the necessary means. No old metal cans were lying around so in my ultimate wisdom I grabbed an empty glass Corona bottle from the recycle bin. Looking back on what was about to happen, I wonder at what I was thinking. I headed out back with my cigarette case, cigarettes, Bible, paper, pen, empty Corona bottle, and matches. I set up on the brick patio, stuffing my cigarettes into the bottle along with a paper on which I had written things and people that I was giving to God. I remember sitting back and looking at the glass bottle full of cigarettes and wondering how on earth fire was going to have enough oxygen down there inside. Well, I lit a match, dropped it inside. Nothing. I remembered an old Calvin and Hobbes cartoon and went to get some gasoline. I poured a little in the bottle, though not without drenching my hands in the process. That would do the trick. Match lit, dropped in. Something. Not what I wanted exactly. Unless what I wanted was a glass Corona candle:) I sat back and laughed to myself, "Patrick, you sure can be pretty dumb." Time to use the outdoor portable furnace conveniently sitting next to me. What a friend. I poured some gasoline in there. I never saw a fire start so quickly and with such force than when I tossed that match in there. The contents of my extinguished Corona candle were dumped into the fire. This wasn't the peaceful reflective time I had planned for with my hands covered in gasoline, left index finger burnt, and me sitting, frustrated at my lack of common sense. I chuckled to myself the way one would watching something he hates burn to ashes. I wrote out Philippians 4:4-12 on a piece of paper and put it in my Snoopy cigarette case. I know that there will be times when I will want to give in, being stressed out and feeling weak, and that's when I will pull my case out of my pocket and read that verse inside. Here is part of it, "...Be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication, let your needs be made known to God, and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus..." That peace did come to me as I showered and later lay in bed pondering. I learned some practical and spiritual lessons that night which I will always remember as I look back and laugh at myself. I like to think that, seeing me sitting there outside in my pained, frustrated, and emotionally broken state and knowing me through and through, God was chuckling to Himself and smiling down on me lovingly.