No Where Else To Go, But Jesus

Catherine James son started experimenting with drugs while he was in high school. Catherine was alarmed because she knew about his addictive personality so the first overdose was just one of those things where all of these things had to happen for him to live in a dead but he went to septic shock. He was on life support for three or four days and the doctor actually said that this is the worst overdose. You ever see which kind of slick when you mean and that's when my faith was shaken to its core. This is family life today.

Our hosts are David and Wilson on Bob Payne.

You can find us online@familylifetoday.com so what we do his parents for child substance abuse has gotten completely out of control and become life-threatening. We respond talk with Catherine James about that today. Stay with us and welcome to family life to.

Thanks for joining us.

I have to think that we have some parents listing this week who are hearing the story that were sharing and going. That's our story. We've had the same thing happen.

Maybe it's happening now and your anxious and your fearful and do you want to be wise and you want to do anything and everything you can to keep a child from dangerous, destructive behavior, and yet there is no guarantee that there is anything you can do.

I mean, I walked with parents who have had kids. You guys have two parents who had kids in the middle of drug addiction where they put them in programs. The kids go through the programs that come out they lapse back over and over again and the parents are at their wits end going to we do anything to stop this, and if we knew the magic words, we would tell you the magic words, but in some cases there just aren't any magic when I think parents are looking for help and they love to have a quick fix you now like I talked to so many parents think God could do this he could miraculously change things in here my son or daughter with the spoken word that doesn't always happen like that. That does sometimes happen like that, but most the time it seems like there's a process uncle. I would talk about it is so often the church is silent and quiet and afraid and so this program truly can be helpful to let people in, and you need to share it with people. Yeah Catherine James is joining us this week on family life to a welcome back.

Thanks, Catherine is a mom she's a writer. She is a fellow staff member with us on the staff of crew and she's written a book called a prayer for Orion which is a as I said it's a it's a memoir that no mom ever wants to have to write it's about your youngest son began his kind of dabbling with what kids were dabbling with the middle school which was smoking weed and in you learned about it. You confronted him you thought may be the behavior had self corrected and then you started to find evidence you found a homemade bomb hidden in the in the insulation in the crawlspace outside of his room and it was back to another confrontation and more grounding and I'm sure you and your husband were wondering what what can we do. Is there something we can do that will bring this behavior to an end. Yeah, yeah, I'm interested in the title. When I first read it I thought Orion was your son why prayer for Orion. During this time one of the most powerful thing.

I feel like God taught me was just basically the power of prayer and so I began praying just constantly and so did my husband and we had this huge bay window in the front of our house and if you look up and Mike on January can see the constellation Orion, and the belt of Orion and basically it has three stars right in a row and we have three kids and I used to sort of use the stars at sky naming our children as a pray for each one, and set it and when it began, it was sort of a working title to begin with and then ended up using it so I don't know if I've ever read an opening paragraph quite like this is obviously as Bob is. You know what this through started with smoking weed but it went beyond that. I just thought me when I read this on my first thought you were not there. We can't write anything that this this is genius. This is beautiful.

This is creative and what a way to introduce you know the reader to the story so it's okay if I read you chapter title sick. They say that when you tire rubber tube around in upper arm, you feel the love the way a river feels a rock, a swish up and over or around the river tightens and narrows the weight behind it shoots out water like the universe shoots out stars, but the gritty fog of sediment tells the whole story. The needle goes in rubber tube pull it tight flat in the arm needle so you introduce to the reader. We don't know yet but Elaine what in the world is this about, and so obviously your son went from weed to harder drugs. So tell us about that journey. Yeah well most of you probably heard about the opiate epidemic, which is just gotten worse and worse and goodness. I don't know how many lives now but I can to that and 17th something like 70,000 lives were lost opiate overdoses and actually covet is increase in amount course not talking about that much because there are other things going on the news but it is awful and so one of the things that high school kids and started doing his just basically popping pills from their parents medicine cabinets and sometimes that will be opiate painkillers and that sort of thing. So they're very easy to access, access, and there's also in other things that at parties there tossing around like mollies and seen others on the psychedelic drugs asset and that sort of thing, and in certain groups. It's really very very normal. To do this, you know, pills are sort of seen as not being all that dangerous relay and so for a kid like my son as I talked about before he really does have an addictive personality and so somebody like him who takes the pill it turns into I need another one know somebody else's like I was kind of interesting and I got home so started with lead and then who knows how it escalated into something far worse.

We loved his friends. They were great ended up with a lot of the kids that he was hanging out with and her girls are hanging out with in our home because outcome for Bible studies and we talk to them and some of them came to Christ and started growing in their just doing wonderful. Most of them but at the same point there other kids that her son was hanging out with it were doing these things and so we don't know exactly how it started, or what pills they were taking what have you that that kind of thing but ultimately I guess he start taking like a Percocet or that sort of thing and they can be prescribed from you know doctors for pain and you get it from say your grandmother's medicine cabinet and those are, you know the oxycodone that kind of thing.

But if they get it on the street you don't know what that made up of and so even pills is actually some tangent line. Until recently, even pills on the street can have something to affect nail in them and fat knows what he's responsible for a lot of the overdose deaths. It's very strong 5000 times stronger than heroin. So what happens is the pills harder to get more expensive so they start going to heroin on the street, which is much much cheaper and then sometimes a heroine is laced with that now. I was shocked that you even said some of the dealers will put so much fat in all or another substance in the drug that if someone overdoses are dies, it gives them a good reputation like what is that, yet it gets darker and darker and darker and it's shocking a dealer what happens with heroin. Is there any little cellophane sort of little packets are tiny and on the packets will stamp their particular brand. You know, so say you start in a producing heroin or whatever these little packets you can stamp it with your name something like that or you name it something Mickey Mouse, whatever. And so the notes coming from you and so if you include in your batch for that week. Some fat nail or something particularly strong in them and a couple people overdose and die or just overdose people know that that's a good batch. Still a go to you for the rest of it is a horrible thing but it sells the make more money that way. So yeah couple intentional overdoses are worth You Faxed Me Thousands of Dollars. Can You Imagine That You Ever Thought That You Would Know about That. I Know Right Yeah Right Yeah Right… The Whole World and You Know with the Opiate Epidemic Going on. It Was Just like Wow's Kinda Blew My Mind How Bad It Was No Back When I Was Growing up Was Just That the City and a Little Thick Maybe a Couple Streets That Have the Stuff That Was Your Reaction Any Different.

You Know You Told Us Earlier That When You Cut Them with Weed. Now It's Heroin Is a Different Reaction for You or Yeah That Was That Was the Mother of All Drugs to Catch Them How to Do You Know What, It's Also Complicated in the Situation. His Friend Actually Said You Need to Tell Your Parents That You're Doing Heroin and so He Sat down Next to Us and He Told Us He Cried. He Said I'm Doing I'm Doing Here. Why Would His Friends Tell Them to Tell You Guys There Hanging out at Your House yet Rate They Had Come to Christ so They Really Cared for Him and They Were Worried about Him and I Don't Think Any of Them Were into the Really Hard Drugs.

Somehow He'd Gotten. Like I Said before He's Is an Addictive Kid and We Knew That He Was Going on That Direction Did so Once He Told Us You Know, My First Reaction Was, You Know You Going to Rehab Because to Me at That Point We Have and That's What You Get Rehab Which Oftentimes You Should but You Know Rick Was Able to See Things a Little Clearer. At That Point Because He Knew That Our Son Because of Who He Is and We Know As We Know Every Kid Is Different That He Wishes Ron and Then He Wouldn't Stay Because of His Anxiety Issues. So Mostly You Know What We Told, I Don't Remember As Far As You Know What He Was Able to Do Not Able to Do, but We Tested Them Constantly like Every Day. I Got the Tests That Tested for Every Possible Drug Take and Then I Tested Them so He Was Saying. I Want Help All Get Tested I Want You to Help Me with Yes Yes and His Friends Were Encouraging That and Again I'm I'm Guessing Your Thinking Okay As Long As Were Testing Him, and He Wants Help Then Were to Win This Battle Yeah but That's Not Exactly the Direction Went Now Because of the Physical Addiction.

Now I Think That Psychologically Many Addicts. Most Addicts Want out, but It's a Physical Thing and so at That Point, I Don't Think We Realize You Know Once You Admit That You Have a Problem You Want out.

That's Not Necessarily the End of It. That's a Long Struggle, and so Once You Start Testing Him. There Was Some Peace in That Obviously This Was Hard throughout It for My Husband and Me. So at That Point to Start Testing Every Day. You Know You're Praying You're Looking up Even in a Beautiful in the Sky You're Talking to God about Your Son Number of Days or Weeks Years Writing so They Go Because It Doesn't Seem like He's Hearing or Answering Your Prayer Yeah Boy You Know When You Go through These Difficult Times. Everything Becomes More Alive Used Are Awake and Sensitive to the Holy Spirit What's Happening around You Because You're Desperate Because You're Constantly in Prayer.

So What Happened Is We Would Get Little Encouragements Here and There.

Kind of like God Reminding Us yet.

I'm Here I'm Here Even Though You Know from Tents and Purposes He Seemed like It Was Nowhere the Kind of Things. Catherine Talk about a Little Bit in the Book, but There Were Supernatural Things That Happened.

This Was after Our Son Had a Very Serious Overdose and We Didn't Know If He Was Gonna Make It or Not. So My Husband and I Were Trading Places That Hospital and He Was at Home in a Dining Room Just Praying, Praying and Crying and He Just Saw out the Window. This Man in a Very White Shirt and It Was One of Those Strange Things Where Night Yeah Just a Really White Shirt and He Was Looking up at Sweet Boys Window His Bedroom Window and Then You Know It Took a Moment and It Can the Man It Just Kept Walking and Originally Rick Thought That Must Be Neil R Daughter's Husband and Then He Thought, Wait a Second Nails in DC.

There's No Way That Can Be Neil Wasn't and Then at That Point Rick Realized It Had to Be an Angel That There Really Wasn't Any Other Option and He Was Praying so Intently Intensely That That's Just Kind of What He Realized and You Know It's One of Those Things Was so Private Heating Tell Me for Months. No Real Audit Yeah That That Was Almost Strange That Encourage You. The Guys Hearing Your Prayers. They Are Much, and It Was like That Everything Was so Intense, Good and Bad That We Saw the Evil and We Saw the Good Saw God's Hand in Universes in Here and There Where You Just Knew God Was Involved. That Doesn't Mean We Always Felt like Excited or All Who Were Encouraged Just Needed to Be There Because That Was Our Rock. Now You Started a Prayer Group at Church.

I Thought for People Who Were Battling with Addictions. Yes, It Was for Mostly Was Parents People Who Love People Who Are Battling for Addictions. You Know Somewhere in Prison and Some Were Still Living at Home. Older Kids Younger Kids Also to Things and You Know Once You Can Let the Word out to Such a Need, and in the Same Way As We Began to Pray. We Saw Things Happening in These Kids Lives That Were Pretty Amazing and As of Today. None of Them Died. The Fact That They're All Live If You Understand the Culture and Understand What's Going on Is Miracle That They're Living so Pray Pray Pray There Isn't Any Other Sure Thing You Know You Can Try to Do All the Right Things. It's Very Important to Get Wisdom from Other Parents and Read Things and All of That Very Very Important and Do Your Research but at the Same Time. The Only Thing That's for Sure Is a Prayer and That This Isn't Just Out Of the Blue. You Know There's Nothing Random about This Had to People That Attended Gear Group Prayer at Church, Had They Been Anything like That in the past. Was This Something New at Your Church. Yes, I Started in Our Church so but We Had People Coming from Other Churches As Well, or Other Places Where throughout the Philadelphia Area and You Mentioned That He Didn't Just Overdose.

Once You down Sometimes and You Know You Read That You Likely Died, but He Overdose in December. Yeah He Did.

Yeah. So the First Overdose Was Just One of Those Things Where I Think I Talk about in the Book Where All of These Things Had to Happen for Him to Live and He Did but He Was in the ICU. He Was on Life Support for Three or Four Days and He Know We Prayed All If You Know the Whole Waiting Room Was Just Filled with Mostly His Friends Who Come to Christ to Walk with God and Little by Little Things Started to Happen with His Body.

He Needed to Get His Blood Pressure up. He Went to Septic Shock. So the Doctor Actually Said That This Was the Worst Overdose That Is Seen Wherever Anybody Actually Lived through It and Then One Year Later, I Was Knocking on His Door in the Morning to Wake Him up and He Wasn't Answering at My Aunts McCammon Kicked in and He Is Blue so at That Point. My Husband Ran Towards Him and I Ran Away from Them, Just a Different Kind of Impulses That We Had. So He's Trying to Revive Him and I Just Leave. I Think I Was Just Terrified. I Didn't Want to See Him Was so Scary Because I Did See Him When the Door Came down and I Saw His Blue Face and I Didn't Want to See Anymore.

I Immediately Called 911, but at the Same Point I'm like Physically Just like Melting Know My Knees Are Just Completely Giving Way and All I Could Think Was, Because Things Have Been Going Really Well before That and I've Been Thanking God for How Well He Was Doing and so at That Point I Could Think This Real God. I've Been Thanking You This Whole Time and Then This Know What Is Going on. How Could You Possibly Let This Happen. And That's When My Faith Was like Shaken to Its Core.

It Was Can Either Disappear or Grow Stronger and Not This Isn't This Is an Amazing Thing and I Did at That Very Moment. Rick Came over to Me As the Paramedics Were Going up the Stairs I Guess and He Said Don't Worry Ugly for You and How Was I Might Not Make Any Sense, but at the Time It Was.

I Was like Okay God so You Can Even Get Me through This. How Long Did That.

Less Than Your Your Faith Journey. It's Kinda like You Stumbling Just Stand up Again. Keep Walking. Maybe Little Bit like a Zombie Walking What I Have To You Have To. I Didn't Have Anywhere Else to Got When I Knew Enough to Know That That I Don't Have Anyplace Else to Go except to Do Some Ways Rick Was Your Rock. In That Moment Was There Ever a Time Where His Face.

There Was a Time When His Sorrow Was so Awful That I Really Had to Kinda Carry Him.

I Don't Know about Him Questioning His Faith Probably Was Probably Mixed up with That Sorrow, but Thankfully I Think the Lord Kinda Work Things so That It Was My Times of Great Need and I Couldn't Do It Anymore. Rick Was Strong Enough to Do It, and Vice Versa.

So Thankfully I Don't Think There Was Ever This Place We Are Completely Both after That Second Overdose Were You Afraid to Be Hopeful Again.

Yes, Yes I Was Afraid to Be Hopeful Again after That I What's That Look like Walking through Those Days Forward, Probably like. He Seems Better but Easy You Know You Always Getting Ready for the Next Thing One of the Things That Kinda Became a Revelation for Me Was That My If Only This Became Even F's. So My If Lonely Is That I've Been Struggling since Day One Were Only Had Done This Differently. Are We Done This Differently If Only Seen Things Earlier If Only We Been Harder on Him or Whatever It Was, Which Was Doing Nothing except Kind of Polluting My Prayer Life Turned into a Even If It's Kind of like Jesus at Gethsemane, You Know, Please Take This from Me, but Not My Will but Yours. And so I Was Able to Come to Christ to Jesus and Say, Even If Our Son Dies It Will Be the Most Painful Thing I'll Ever Go through. But Even If Our Son Dies. I'm Okay Heavens Okay I'm Going to Be Good. That's Huge and It Was Amazing Just Relieved All of the Fear I Wasn't Afraid Anymore. It Was Okay.

You Know It Was Okay.

I Knew Would Be Hard but It Was Okay, Once You're Not Afraid of the Worst Thing You Can Imagine. I Mean the Freedom That Comes Is Wonderful in the Sense of Peace and You Are Walking with God. At That Point, You're Not Just Kind of All Right, If That's What She Wants. I'll Do It Whenever Your Will Be Done. But No, It Was like You Can Take Care Of Me in Ways That I Could Never Imagine If the Worst Happens and so Very Much Was Kind of a Gethsemane Experience, or Even You Know like the Abraham and Isaac on the on Mount Moriah. It Seems like That's a Point Experience That We All Need to Come to You Know It's like a Surrendering of Everything of Our Kids, and That's a Hard Thing to Do Because It's Releasing Your Child to God, Whether They Have an Addiction, Whether They Walked Away from God Wherever They Are in Life That That's a Hard Place to Come to Is That the Place You'd Encourage Parents to Get to. I Would and yet Hands down You Can Get There Overnight Did Not Get There Overnight Very Hard to Get to, but If You're Struggling Right Now in That Place of Just Complete Uncertainty and Fear, and You Don't Know What's Can Happen and Then There's Two Malted Home or Whatever. That Is a Place You Want to in You Know Get There by Prior Constant Constant Prayer and You Know Read Scripture like Hebrews 11 Is Great. You Know, Talking about the Faith and Some People Didn't Didn't Experience the Answers to Their Prayers in the Very End but They Knew That There a Better Future Was Coming for That Is the Second Time in the Hospital Was a Turning Point of Sorts Wasn't Yeah and You Started to See Things Get Better to the Point That the You Started to Have Hope Again.

What Were You Seeing It Was Just Such a Gradual Thing and with That Gradual Thing.

My Fear about Something Happening Kinda Loosened up a Bit, He Got Jobs That He Held down. Well, You Know He Tell Us Things He Got a Little Bit More Open about What Was Going on. I Said Somebody Had Come into Where He Was Working and Offered Him Pills and He Was Mad at the Guy Because He Knew the Guy Knew That He Was Trying to Use so Things like That. You Know It's Interesting We Always Wanted and Expected Him to Have This Miraculous Spiritual like Awakening and Start Leading Bible Studies with His Dad Can Know Things like That That This Is How It Works for the Christian, You Know, They All Of A Sudden Discovered a Spirit Filled Life and Everything's Perfect and It Wasn't All like That Is Very, Very Slowly, Still Very Internal Person but His Heart's Good, and a More Than One Time I Feel like I Just Kind of Gave Me the Image of a Turtle, but I Was Praying Finally Kinda Came to Me.

I Should Pray That, like a Turtle. He Would Always Go Slow Slow in the Right Direction.

I Don't Care How Slow It Is, but Always on Going Right Direction and Never Back Right Springiness.

As I Was Walking through a Park One Day. Got My Car Headed out and Had to Stop Because of Little Turtle Was Literally Walking on the Road. You Know, 5 Feet in Front of the Car and I It Was Going so Slow I Had Picked It up and Just Carry to the Side of the Road, but Things like That You Know Slowly Could Tell Things Were Headed in the Right Direction.

Even Now, There's Always Going to Be a Little Bit of Fear There That Something to Happen but I Do. I Think That I Have Gotten to That Place Where My First Reaction Is to Go Back to. Even If You Know Today He's Living Independently. He's Married to Mary Haslam Little Baby Girl and As Far As You Know Some Excuse Is Part of the past Not a Part of the Present Note PC Is Doing Really Well, Really, Really like the Apes, but You Know It's like 10 Years Ago Would They Be My Sons and Benefit. But Now, of Course, You Look Back in Think the Lord so Much His Life Were so Thankful and He Works with My Husband and Dad's Doing Great so Thankful and the Story Is Not over Talk to Parents All the Time Who Are in the Middle of Difficult Situations with the Prodigal with Somebody Who's Using Whatever Their Circumstances and There Is a Broken Heart.

In That Conversation. There's Also a Sense of Hopelessness and I Have To Look at Him and Say the Story Is Not over. We Don't Know What God Could Do There Still Hope Keep Crying out, Keep Interceding Keep Pointing Them in the Right Direction. Keep Asking God for Wisdom There Walking around the Walls of Jericho. Not a Single Bricks: I Mean You Get to Be Thinking Just Give Me At Least You Know Her Turtle Game That Is Beautiful, Lesser, Some People Need to Realize You Don't Know It but Has Could Be Day Six and Your Prayers Are Being Heard. Yes, Yes, and He Had Mom Was Right in the Book Telling the Story the Dead Guy Asked If He Wanted to, That It He Took It to Read and He Got for the First Couple Pages and He Said I'm Sorry I Can't Read It Nice. I'm so Sorry Did That to You but He Was Okay. He Signed All the on You Telling the Story and All of His Friends Who Are in Here As Well.

I Write about Them so Everybody Signed and Now There Are A Lot Of Moms and Dads and Maybe A Lot Of Addicts Who Are Going to Read This and Get Hope Because of the Story. Yeah, Yeah, Thank You for Writing of Things from Coming Here and Thanks for Sure in Your Story. Thank You. Thanks Faith. We Get Copies of Catherine's Book Which Is Called a Reporter for Orion's Sons Addiction of the Mothers Love. You Can Order It from Us online@familylifetothe.com regular website family life to the.com. You'll find additional resources there for parents whose kids have become involved with substance abuse. Other books, articles, resources that we have available. Again, go to family life today.com for more information, and if we can pray for you and your family. If you're going through this or any challenge.

It would be a privilege to be able to pray for your family in the new year. So get in touch with us and let us know how we can be praying for you at a course today is the first day of 20, 21, and were all praying the 2021 will be a different year a better year than 2020 was 2020 was challenging. It was hard for many of us, and yet God was with us and sustained us as he always does, and so were grateful for that.

We do want to say thank you to those of you who over the last 30 days have responded to the matching gift challenge that we have made available to us here at family life. We don't have the final total. Yet, because many of you mailed in donations and were waiting for those donations derived to see if we did in fact take full advantage of that matching gift so prefer that if you would and thanks again to those of you who donated. Pray for us in the new year ahead.

As we look to be innovative and creative about how we can most effectively minister to marriages and families. But God will open new doors as he is already been doing for us in so many ways to spray the 2021 will be a fruitful year of ministry for us here at family life again. Anytime we can help you please to get in touch with us and let us know and we hope you have a great weekend. Hope you and your family are able to worship together in your local church this weekend and I hope you can join us back on Monday when David man will center to share with us about their engagement about the very first weekend to remember marriage get away that they ever went to back before they were married and then about the first tumultuous months of marriage where eventually they looked at each other and set up. We made a huge mistake here that story. Monday hope you can tune in for that. I think our engineer today. Keith Lynch along with our entire broadcast production team on behalf of our hosts Dave and Wilson on Bob Payne see you back next time for another edition of family life today. Family life to a is a production of family life of Little Rock, Arkansas. Accrue ministry help for today hope for tomorrow