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A Columbia County Boy's Recollections and Memories of Columbia County Florida (2012) Lenvil H. Dicks

the craving would begin to get so bad that I would give in and start smoking again. This particular night
I asked the Lord to give me the strength and the determination to give cigarettes up and that I was going
to need his help in order to do it, because I had tried so many times to do it by myself and had failed (I
suspect the same principle could be found in all sorts of other problems too).

So I went on to bed, without smoking a cigarette, and the next day 1 went all day without smoking a
cigarette, but I kept on repeating my prayer to the Lord to give me the strength and the determination to
stop.

After 1 had been off cigarettes about a month, while craving one every second of every day, I was
outside the office about 7:00 am one morning giving my work crew their daily assignments, and Jeff
Pope pulled out a pack of cigarettes and lit one up. The craving came over me in an over-powering
manner, and I said “Jeff, give me one of those smokes”. Jeff handed me a cigarette, and I started to put it
in my mouth and light it up and a voice came into my head saying “You have asked me over and over to
give you the strength to stop smoking, and now are you going to go back on your word this easy?” Well,
I did not realize it at the time when that thought came into my head, that it was the Lord speaking to me.

I realized later that it had to be an instruction from God, because from that very, very moment, until this
day 5 years later, I have never, never, never, never, at any time craved a cigarette. I asked Him to take
the desire away from me, and there is no question that he did that morning that I was going to bum the
cigarette off of Jeff Pope.

There is a little interesting addendum to this story.

About a year previous to that time, 1 had been with my buddy Happy Jack to Kentucky, where he was
much in demand as a minister to preach revivals, and met an old lady (actually, she is not quite as old as
I am) named Annette Harrod. Annette was a minister, and was a very popular figure over the large
hospital in Frankfort Kentucky, and she was summoned in on a regular basis to pray for people who
were about to die. She has done this hundreds of times, and I really believe that Annette Harrod has a
direct line to God.

Anyway, about 3 months after I had quit smoking I received a call from Annette one night, which was
unusual because she very seldom ever called me, and she struck up a conversation and we talked for a
while. Finally, she asked “Lenvil are you still smoking?” I said, “Well Annette, it is strange that you
asked that, because it so happens that about 3 months ago I did quit smoking, and 1 believe 1 have kicked
the habit by now”.

She said “Well, I might ought not to tell you this, but about 3 months ago I prayed to God that he would
wake you up about 3:00 in the morning, out of a sound sleep, and tell you to give up cigarettes”. That
was uncanny to me, because apparently God had answered her prayer as soon as she prayed it, and I
thank both her and God to this day for taking me off of cigarettes.

If any person reading this book has never smoked, God forbid that you ever will start. It is a very, very
easy thing to start, and an almost impossible thing to stop. Cigarettes, like dope, are best just left alone,
because if you have been able to do without them up until now, believe me you are better off to do
without them from now on. You don’t have to stop something you never started.

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