Patience, Praise and Thanksgiving
This past weekend, me, my wife and son traveled to Rochester, Minnesota to witness the graduation of our oldest son from the Adult and Teen Challenge program. Nick is the victim of a strong insatiable addiction to alcohol and inhaled drugs. This dependence took some horrible turns throughout his life spiraling him into a life of crime, police, court, judges and a myriad of well meaning doctors. For more than 25 years we, along with many friends and ministers, prayed constantly for a miracle to remove him from that horrible life.
Even though we couldn’t see it at time, the Lord was always there looking over Nick. Nick suffered several, potentially life threatening, incidents. One incident in particular comes to mind when Nick was hit by a Jeep. In the emergency room, Nick baffled all the doctors when he suffered no broken bones even though there were tire tracks running across his chest! On several occasions he had drank to the point of unconsciousness requiring hospitalization. The toll on our family was immense. The sight of our little boy standing in a soup line or laying under a piece of cardboard was gut wrenching but we realized there was nothing we could do.
Prayer was our only answer. After years of psychiatrists, psychologist’s, addictionologists, hypnotists, AA and step 13, It became painfully obvious that we had run out of “man’s” resources. It was time to turn everything over to God. Once we had let Nick go and turned his life and future 100% to God we felt a giant weight lift off of our backs. We knew that our Lord had it under control, our faith was strengthened beyond measure and we started to see subtle changes in Nicks attitude.
In October of 2020 Nick called. In a remorseful, somewhat panicked voice he said, “please, I’m begging you”, “come and get me”! At first I thought, here we go again because I had heard a similar plea many times before. This time was different, his voice sounded remarkably sincere and scared. After the thousands of prayers and a thousand more tears over 26 years, he said “I need Jesus in my life”. “ I want to dedicate my life to Him”. After jumping through many more legal hoops and working with the district attorney, we were able to transport Nick to Rochester MN. There, Nick began a 13 month therapy that began each day with chapel, then Bible study and one on one therapy with a Christian psychologist. The day would typically run from 7 am to 7 pm.
As it says in Luke 15. My son was lost, now he is found, he was dead, now he’s alive. All thanks and glory to our Risen Savior, Jesus Christ.
Nick is now continuing his Biblical studies in Minneapolis.
Kent Patton, Operations Manager
