I Have Cut the Cord

I am in torment. Okay, not really. But I’m a little disturbed.

I haven’t had a cigar since 2007, unless my memory is faulty. Which it is, but still, I think I’m right. I don’t think smoking a cigar is a sin, but they started keeping me awake at night, and I found it harder and harder to find convenient times when I could smoke them, early enough in the day to avoid sleeplessness. Months without a cigar turned into a year. Tobacco-free time piled up, and now it has been nearly two years.

Once I realized it had been a very long time since my last smoke, I felt a motivational barrier between me and my stogies. I just could not reach for one. Sometimes I got them out of the Rubbermaid storage box, but I always put them back.

My sister was diagnosed with lung cancer. My mother and my aunt died from it. Two of my great-grandmothers died from it, although neither smoked. My uncle died from stomach cancer which was probably related to tobacco use. All four of my maternal grandfather’s daughters smoke or smoked.

My family has grown a lot of cigarette tobacco, and I have been against it for decades. I suspect that our addiction and cancer problems are spiritual blowback related to selling a poisonous addictive drug. We’ve killed a good number of people, and we haven’t made much money from it, so we don’t even have the excuse of financial incentive.

For a while now, I’ve felt that it was hypocritical to have cigars around. They’re not addictive, and they won’t make you ill. Not unless you suck on them night and day. But tobacco is a horrible drug. Probably the worst drug man has ever encountered. If I keep it around, I’m going to feel like I’m giving Satan his own little place in my closet. A foothold.

Perry Stone notes that a minor error in one generation of a family can become a major sin for the next. It’s an interesting point. Grandpa smokes a pipe. Dad smokes cigarettes. Junior smokes dope and cigarettes. Junior’s son smokes crack. Things like this really do happen. It has happened in my own family. A family’s morals tend to move in one direction or the other. If I have cigars in my house, wouldn’t it be easier for the young people who see them to accept cigarettes?

Spirits follow families, and they are associated with objects we possess. No sane Christian would own a Ouija board or a Hindu idol or a stack of porn magazines. It’s important to keep a clean house, morally as well as physically. That’s indisputable. So is it okay to keep a big pile of expensive cigars in your closet? How can I pray for my sister to get over her cancer and her addiction when I keep tobacco for myself? Besides, while cigars in moderation don’t cause cancer, they do fill you with nicotine, which renders your body less capable of fighting new cancers that arise from other causes.

Charles Spurgeon smoked cigars. I read about it while making this decision. But Charles Spurgeon didn’t know everything.

My cigars are sitting by the side of the road right now. I have to apologize to Aaron, because I was planning to donate them to his study group. He gets together with other Jews, under the authority of a rabbi, and they talk religion while enjoying good stogies. I wanted to send the cigars to him, but I can’t rationalize taking something questionable out of my house and putting it in someone else’s. So I put 19 boxes of delicious smokes–most of them Cubans–out in the trash heap. It’s like throwing out a stack of twenty-dollar bills.

I feel like I left a baby out there. Oh, my poor stogies. I think I’m having heart palpitations. But the reality is, I am never going to smoke them. Tell me I’m going to survive this day.

Here’s a prayer request:

Steve,
I am having arthroscopic knee surgery tomorrow. It is on my “good” knee. The other needs total replacement but we are trying to save this one from going down that road. I got up this morning with extremely high blood pressure, probably from anxiety, stress and pain, but I know they won’t do the surgery tomorrow if it is still this high. Please prayer for my anxiety to cease, my blood pressure to be normal and for a good outcome of the surgery. The surgery I am confident of, but I need that BP down. Thanks for your prayers for me and for the many others you intercede for.
Ruth

Hop on it while I weep for my smokes.