A Prayer for a Friend

For a couple of months now I have been teaching this class at the mission on how to quit smoking. I was not very excited about doing it to start with, but since having begun I have become more passionate about it, and the great thing is that there have been at least 3 guys who have completely quit smoking for at least 5 weeks, which is a huge accomplishment for them. Last night we started a new class with 9 guys attending and 8 of them committing to go the journey of quitting. One of the group exercises we did was for the men to list all of the main reasons they wanted to stop smoking. Of course there were things like money, health, hygiene, etc, but the one that stood out to me above all of the rest was freedom, and once it was said by someone in the room, several of the men connected with that reason in a very moving way.

Because of my job as a chaplain working with homeless people and drug addicts, this concept of freedom is very near to the heart of so many men I come into contact with, and yet it seems so elusive to countless numbers of those who find themselves tied to addiction. It is especially painful sometimes in dealing with these persons, because they are real people with real problems and real families and real friends who love them, but are continually hurt by their addictions.

As the Smoking Class was winding down, one of the attendees asked me somewhat of a random question: if I had ever had high expectations for someone in the program and then they highly disappointed me by not finishing or going back to addiction. My first thought was to say, “Holy cow, there have been so many; how could I not be disappointed working in a ministry like this, where recovery rates are very low across the board? But, it was a genuine question, and I did try to answer it, and of course, the answer was a resounding “yes”.

Later on, as I drove home, I resisted the urge to turn on the radio and just felt the silence of the night at about 9:30. On a lot of nights when I typically do this, I scan the streets for former men in our program that left or were dismissed. One in particular on my heart this night was not just a program man; he was someone I considered a friend. His name is Dino and as I scanned the streets this night my eyes would fill with tears, because my heart breaks for this man whom I desire to be free from the hell of addiction and loneliness he is in. Tonight is a night I would pray for him and cry for him and long for Christ to bring freedom to his bondage and brokenness and suffering.