Breath of Life Testimony: Donald

To begin, my mentors name is Douglas. His responses to my input in this course has been very helpful. I would like to take this time to thank him for his perserverance. I could have avoided the bondage of smoking had I been stronger in character. I didn't start smoking until I was 19 years old. The excuse that I used was that I was in the army, and I had am image to live up to. Besides, the smoke kept mosquitos away and smoking helped to relieve the stress of everyday life in the jungles of Viet Nam. I will have to say that there was never a reason that I could give for smoking, because they were all excuses for doing what I wanted to do without being held accountable. "It's my life, and I can do what I want with it." Looking back, it seems that, in order to prove that I was in charge, I would abuse myself with tobacco, alcohol and drugs whenever I wanted. But, for all of the stupid things that I did, God never abandoned me. Periodically, throughout my life, He would send someone into my life to remind me that He loved me and had a plan for my life. This was usually something that I didn't want to hear, because it would mean that I was accountable to a higher authority and I had already gone so far astray that to work my way back into His good graces would be impossible. It has been through His patience and love that I have come to know that it is impossible to work our way into His grace. It is only through His grace that we are saved. Through His grace, I have been saved and freed from nicotine addiction. In less than 60 days, He has freed me from something that I have tried to free myself from for over 20 years. For 20 years, I tried to prove that I was in control. In 60 days of obedience, I now know that He is in control. I became curious one day and sat down to do some math and discovered a couple of interesting facts: in one quarter of a year, I would have smoked 1800 cigarettes that would have cost me approximately $280.00. If you consider a smoke break to take 10 minutes, then those 1800 cigarettes will take 18,000 minutes or 300 hours or 12.5 days out of your life.