Hello Friends,
Part 1 of my story...
I'd like to share with you what I learned in the thirteen years I was fighting for the deliverance of my daughter from IV drug abuse and the destruction the enemy reigned on her. Our story is much like the ones you've probably heard or experienced yourself. It was 2003 and the opiate crisis began to climax in our state. But as with any fast-arising crisis, solutions were slow to emerge or were not in existence at this time. We were a middle-class family with traditional values. My daughters were raised in church, went to Christian school until junior high, participated in youth programs, excellent athletes, and straight A students. We were active in all their interests and appeared to have it all together. I had a deep-rooted relationship with Christ and spent time going to conferences and retreats to deepen my faith and seek the face of God. But I had never been tested in the way I was about to be tested. My faith had only sustained me in what I deemed a few negative issues, but I had never had to live and breathe as though my life or my child's life depended on the faith I had until now.
My daughter was only 15 years old when I was distracted with a health problem my older daughter had and I wasn't noticing the signs because I didn't know them. I thought we were immune to drug addiction because after all, we were a nice, clean family who didn't know any addicts personally. We certainly had no addicts in the church. But my world came crashing down the day I found out my sweet little Lacie was not only addicted to crystal meth but was a mule for one of the biggest drug dealers in Nicholas County. She was introduced by a friend of a friend, and it was the lifestyle she had been looking for or so she thought. I did the only thing I knew to do when I found out. I went to church. I went to my pastor, and we tried an intervention. It didn't work. I went to the mental health clinic to try and commit her but was turned away. I tried to have her scared by a US Marshall friend of mine. The fear wore off. I threatened military school and that was the day she disappeared with the drug dealer. Imagine your fifteen-year-old missing and you can't get the police to even do an amber alert. I was desperate. I didn't know from day to day if I would ever see her again and there was no one to help me. Noone, except my friends, and they took me to a woman I vaguely knew named Corky Holcomb. She was a woman of prayer who prophesied and saw results. We prayed every night for 7 straight nights where she taught me the first two weapons, I would need to have victory. She taught me to pray the word and to worship. We are taught to read our bibles and pray and that is good. But it's almost backward. We need to pray with the word, declare the word and expect the word to work. She taught me to declare the word and to worship as my warfare. She advised me to do things to demonstrate my faith as though the answer was already here. I redesigned her room the way she wanted it to show God I believed she would return. I didn't miss work, not even one day. But day after day, and night after night of looking, putting up flyers and chasing leads had me exhausted beyond anything I can even explain. I would sleep in the day, wake up to pray with my friends and Corky and worship and then go to work night shift. On the 10th morning I was so weak. Nurses I worked with knew how frail I was and began hugging me. It was like when you are walking around fighting tears and someone says something tender to you and just break under the pressure of their compassion. I barely made it to the car before the sobbing began. I could barely see to drive through the tears that wouldn't stop falling. I didn't know when it would end.
When would I hold her again? I made a decision out of habit and pushed in a CD from Morning Star Ministries and began singing with the lyrics to the songs. As I drove my voice cracked as I weakly sang, " Jesus. Broken, poured out to sinners. Jesus. Broken, poured out to me. I sang every word over and over during the 15-minute drive home and as I sang Jesus poured out to me, I was pouring out to Him. I walked into the house, turned my phone and beeper off and went to bed and slept as though I hadn't slept in months. I woke around 3:30pm and saw the phone light on and noticed several missed calls and the beeper had several missed notices. I called the hospital to see why they had been trying to reach me. The nursing supervisor was barely able to get the words out from her emotion. "They found her, Laura. Lacie is alive and not hurt. She is at the courthouse with her Dad". I fell on my face and cried and thanked the Lord for his goodness and his faithfulness. But, after the reality set in, as I was driving madly to town, I realized the frail singing I had done was the only thing new I had tried. But it wasn't something I was trying to "do". It was just all I had to offer Him, and I knew at that moment I had launched a nuclear missile into the atmosphere with that frail worship. It was then I realized that declaring the word and the sacrifice of praise were the most powerful weapons in my arsenal. There would never be anything or anyone who could tell me differently.
Laura Norman, Mountain Momma