Comments on Grace Roots: Now teacher, don't you fill me up with your rules....

Haha. I hear you. Although I was younger when I fi...

2008-04-23T23:21:00.000-05:00

Haha. I hear you. Although I was younger when I first began to inhale. I forget when I started inhaling. I just remember the first time I tried to inhale, it hurt really bad lol.

I smoked until I was 19. Then I was "released." I simply wanted God more than cigarettes and was able to quit easily by the Grace of God. Me and my friend would have diversions set up (we thought we were very clever).

For example, one time we were at the bowling alley and the lady who worked there had an open carton of cigarettes (newports) and our plan was that I would go up and distract her by asking her what time the alley opened up on Sundays, while my buddy snatched a pack behind her back.

We were very mischievous and sneaky. ;)

"I tried it but I didn't inhale." LOL :)Actually...

2008-04-23T10:07:00.000-05:00

"I tried it but I didn't inhale." LOL :)

Actually, letting you in on a little secret, when I was a boy in England, probably around 10 years old, my friend and I used to go down to the newspaper shop down the street. Our code word was "bubbly" (which means bubble gum). We would say we were going to go get some bubbly. But we really went to buy cigarettes. My friend said they were for his dad, and they let us buy them! Things have really changed these days!

Anyway, I used to build fires quite often in our back garden (yard), behind the trees, and we would sit there and puff on those cigs, thinking we were so cool. When we came in the house, we just said the smell was just the smoke from the fire. I don't really think it got past my parents, but they didn't say or do anything about it.

It wasn't till we were back in the States and I was a teenager, probably about 15 or 16, that I began 'really' smoking. I don't recall ever getting caught smoking, but I'm sure the smell was all over me when I came in the house, and of course it remained in the car as well. The sad thing is that I had asthma, and smoking obviously didn't help the situation. I had a few trips to the hospital for emergency breathing treatments. Finally on January 7, 1992, when things in my life really changed quite a bit, I had my last cigarette, and I don't miss them at all.

Did you get caught smoking in the boys room, Joel?...

2008-04-23T08:42:00.000-05:00

Did you get caught smoking in the boys room, Joel? Haha

Of course, I was never brave enough to do that. It's way too easy for someone to smell cigarette smoke when no one else is smoking. There were times when I really wanted to though! lol

Just another example of how flesh reacts to being told what to do. It makes it even harder to obey.