Recently, our family lost a person to substance abuse. This is not the first time in my family that being involved in the illegal use of drugs has caused a premature death in some way or another. This has caused my heart to be saddened and has caused me to ponder over many types of things. My Mother had been in relationships where there was abuse of substances with whom she was involved with. Consequently, she also became addicted to alcohol while within one of those relationships. She also became acquainted with the use of marijuana. I remember she kept it in a shoe box at the top of her closet and, at times, it was not unusual for her to participate in smoking it, even while I would be in a room where it was being done. I was only in elementary school, but I surely could tell a difference in how she would act while participating in these types of activities and I grew to resent it.
This caused me to hate alcohol and what people now call recreational drugs which society has now deemed as acceptable in many states within our country. I can honestly say that I have never even taken one puff of marijuana and I have made the decision that I will die being able to say that.
When my husband and I were younger, we set off on an adventure of having a neighborhood teenage Bible study within our home. We had a good showing to. I will never forget that one of the girls in the group was new to the neighborhood. She was very pretty and all of the boys found her interesting. I don’t know her full story but I think I am safe to say that she had not been exposed to church. She attended the first Bible study we held. Later, I learned that one of the boys in our neighborhood had been challenged by her in a bet that if they searched his parents room that they would indeed find some type of recreational drug. The boy emphatically denied that they would. However, upon a search, they uncovered marijuana. The boy never returned to the Bible study and the girl didn’t either. She later became pregnant out of wedlock as a child. This is a good example of a parent teaching one thing and then living differently from what they have taught their kids and how it can have negative impacts on them.
Based on the truth that the Bible says in, 1 Peter 5:8, I have purposely decided in advance how I would handle certain situations if or when they came along. I humbly have presumed that there is nothing that the devil wont throw my way to try to bring harm and evil into my life to throw me off of what God has said is best for me. His mission is to destroy our lives and our witness to others. Ingraining this into my heart, and renewing the way I see things in my mind regarding this truth, has caused me to view life situations totally different. I have found that it is best for me to decide how I will respond before an event occurs. This can be done regarding marriage, friendships, parenthood, as well as everyday activities.
Because I have seen and tasted the negative results of this subject of substance abuse, not because I participated or was addicted myself, but because I endured its negative effects from the people who were around me participating in them, I have a strong dislike to this chemical substitute the world has offered to so many people. One thing I feel strongly about is the fact that one cannot assume that though they only use marijuana, that their kids are going stick with being satisfied with only that. In fact, many will venture off to experiment with stronger substances and will find themselves at the point of no return or at the least, a lifelong battle of struggle. Therefore, I suggest one should never think that a little participation of any kind of drug is okay. Also, remember that no one takes a first drink of alcohol and says I am going to become addicted to it. In fact, the opposite is true in that they think they could never be led astray by such a thing and that they have it all under control.
When my kids turned the age of ten, I started talking to them about peer pressure that would be just around the corner. I told them that I knew they loved their friends, but that as they got older, some of those friends would turn to drugs and other things in this world that would be harmful to them. I told them that they needed to start thinking about how they were going to handle that situation when their friends started doing these things. I told them they would possibly be made fun of and that it was going to hurt when it happened. I told them it would not be easy for them to stand up for what they knew was right. I told them they could either choose to listen to God’s voice or to the voice of the one who wants to enslave them to the bondage of this world which would lead to a lifetime of battle. They laughed at me and told me their friends would never do such things. However, in the end, they learned that indeed I was right.
As a parent, I tried to find situations where they could practice going against the flow of what others thought was okay. I did it so that they could learn they would indeed survive not going along with the crowd. One of these situations which comes to mind is when my oldest son was three. He was in Pre-k three days a week for half a day. They took their snacks to school with them. He actually liked those tuna fish packs that has tuna, and crackers in it and he wanted to take that for his snack.
One day he came back and told me the other kids complained and laughed at him because they didn’t like the smell of the tuna. I told him that he had to make a decision. I told him there would be times when people would make fun of him, sometimes even for things that aren’t wrong. I told him he had to decide if he wanted to take tuna for his snack because he liked it, or if he was going to stop taking it just because the kids made fun of him regarding it. I also told him there would be other times in his life when he would have to make these decisions for as long as he lives. In this case, he chose to keep taking the tuna when he wanted it, and consequentially in the long run, he learned he would survive the situation.
There are so many things that this world will offer us to try to take the spot where only Jesus will fit and so many of them are so destructive. Teaching a kid to learn to distinguish the difference in the two voices which they will hear all of their lives and teaching them to think about which voice they should listen to is so important. The Bible says our battles are not against what we see with our eyes, but against the unseen spiritual realm. There will always be two voices in contrast to each other. One will always be promoting what is best in showing love and respect and care for others, and the other voice will be one that wants to cause division and enslavement to something other than the creator of all that we see. One will bring peace to our lives and those around us and one will bring destruction and pain to our lives and those around us.
The old saying that what you would want others to do to you is how you should make decisions regarding how you treat others is so true. Your actions will always affect not only you, but many others around you. Can you imagine what a positive change would occur if we trained our minds to think like this, and then took on the task of teaching the generations after us to think like this? It is mind boggling if you ponder it.
SeasonedMomBlog 