Jesus is Lord!

No Regrets

Written October 13, 2014 at 10:08am

No Regrets

I am at a stage in my life where I look back with regret at so many things. I often feel like a failure. There are many things I wish I had done differently. Things I can not change because they are set in the concrete of the past and solidified. How can I cope with this? That has been a hard question for me to answer but I have come up with one idea that has brought me comfort. I have decided to start counter-balancing my regrets by also giving some thought time to the things I don't regret. Today I am going to tell you about one of those things.

I do not regret quitting smoking. I am glad I do not smoke today. I am glad and grateful to GOD that I have not smoked since December 1977.

How did I come to have no regrets in this area? It started with GOD and ended with answered prayer.

In 1975, my sister Marki talked to me about the LORDship if JESUS CHRIST. At that time I decided to make JESUS Lord of my life and shared that decision with my sister. Marki then talked to me about a couple of things Iin my life: cursing and smoking. She told me, "I am not going to tell you what to do but pray and ask GOD what HE wants you to do."

The first topic we talked about was cussin'. I took her advice and prayed and the HOLY SPIRIT led me to the book of James and the stuff about our tongue being like the rudder of a ship. Small among our members but playing a big role in our lives. My question about cursing was definitely answered that day.

This story isn't about our words though. This story is about smoking. I did the same thing when Marki talked to me about smoking. I prayed asking GOD if HE wantede to smoke. Again I turned to the Bible and read something about not filling the temple with smoke. To this day, I do not know what I read or where it is but I do know the affect it had on me. I was convinced GOD did not want me to pollute my temple (my body) with cigarette smoke -- BUT, try as I might, I could not quit.

I am not 100% sure but I think Marki came to my rescue, encouraging me to ask GOD to help me quit. Whereever the idea came from, that is exactly what I did. I asked GOD to help me quit and HE did.

Is that the end of the story? No. That happened in 1975 but sadly in 1976 I started smoking again. I wished that I had not started again. I tried to quit but alas I could not.

In 1977, I was pregnant with my fourth child. I was working as a punch.press operator on third shift at Caterpillar Tractir Company in East Peoria, Illinois. And I was still smoking.

I really wanted to quit. I didn't pray and ask for GOD's help to quit because I had done that, GOD had helped me and I had picked it back up again. I didn't feel as though I could ask GOD for help with this again.

To make matters worse, I worked on a line with a fella named Randy who was a big anti-smoking person. He gave me a hard time about smoking almost every day. He especually did not like the fact I was pregnant and smoking.

What did his constant derision do? It just increased my guilty feelings about smoking but it dis not help me quit. Every time I lit a cigarette in September that year, I felt guilty. Then came a day in October 1977, I was standing at the foot of one of the staircases which went up to the lockerroom and cafeteria and started to light my smoke.

The guilty feelings arose as I pulled out the cigarette and a book of matches. I could not take it any more. In that moment, as I struck the match to light my cigarette, I prayed, "GOD, if YOU don't want me to smoke, please take it away and don't just make me quit, make me hate it so I will never smoke again."

What happened then? I lit my cigarette. I smoked it. I lit more cigarettes over the next hours, days, weeks. I smoked them all with no more feelings of guilt. And then..

December 1977, I wantes to smoke a cigarette but I didn't have a fresh piece of gum to chew. I also didn't have enough change.to.buy a pack of gum from the machine. I asked Randy for a nickel. He thought I wanted to buy a pack of cigarettes but I pulled my pack of Marlboros out of my pocket to show him that wasn't the case. I just wanted a pack of gum.

Why did I want the gum? Because the only way I could stand to smoke a cigarette was to chew a new piece of.gum at the same time to cover up the taste of the cigarette. I admitted this to Randy who replied, "Why not just not smoke the cigarette?"

When Randy posed his question and continued to give me a hard time, the moment from October came to mind. "Make me hate it so I will never smoke again." Was it possible my prayer had been answered?

History leads me to believe it was. I decided to see what would happen if I didn't smoke that cigarette. Nothing happened. No craving. No discomfort. Later, when I finished my lunch, I was fine without my usual after a meal smoke. Just to be sure, I carried those cigarettes around in my shirt pocket for about a week.

December 1977 was when I quit smoking and I have no regrets about that.




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