A White Board Deity

One of my patient’s today was a heroine and speed addict up until she discovered she was pregnant in January. I finally got a chance to ask her about it this afternoon when she had no visitors. “What’s your plan now as far as drugs go?” I asked. “Well, having a baby has changed everything for me. I’m so different now. And I go to NA (Narcotics Anonymous),” she replied.

“Oh,” my interest was peaked. “I know Narcotics Anonymous requires you to find a Higher Power. Can I ask, how is that process going?”

“Funny you should ask. That’s been the hardest part of the program. I grew up Catholic, but I’m not religious at all. But as far as I understand, anything can be my higher power. God, the ocean, or this white board can be my higher power,” she motioned to the white board on the wall.

A White Board god! What a tragedy! I thought. I was quick to respond, “Well, you need to make sure that your ideas are based on reality. It won’t help you if it’s just something you make up in your head.”

“Oh, no, all that matters is that it works for me,” she said. Are these lies being taught in her program? I wondered wryly.

Then she asked me what my beliefs were. I explained that I was a Christian and was a little familiar with her twelve-step program. “The problem, though,” I said, “is that Narcotics Anonymous doesn’t push you far enough in its idea about the Higher Power. You see, God is greater than we can imagine, far bigger than the ocean He created or this white board. He is able to help you because He made you. He knows everything about you, better than you know yourself. If we don’t recognize that He is God, then we miss out on our purpose for living. He made us to know Him, to experience the joy of life in Him.”

She seemed interested, “Don’t get me wrong,” she said. “A lot of people at NA do talk about God. But I just don’t know. I don’t like the God of the Catholic church. The people are hypocrites, and it seems that God is mean and just wants to send people to hell. If God wants to send me to hell because I don’t do what He says, then I don’t want to have any {bleeping} thing to do with Him.”

I felt compassion for her lost soul. “Of course, we all want to run our own lives because we’re rebellious at heart. But the reality is that we are not in control of our lives. We need to remember that God has the right to make the rules because He created the world. But I think you have the wrong view of what God is like. Unfortunately many Catholic people think that they are good because they go to church, go to confession, etc. But the reality is that we can’t do anything good no matter how hard we try. Only God is perfect and He can’t tolerate anything less than perfect in His presence. So instead of rejecting us, He did the unthinkable. He died in our place even though we were His enemies. You wouldn’t give your life to save your enemy, would you? But God did through Jesus. We should respond to God with gratitude and total devotion because of this.”

She seemed impressed. “Wow. Thanks for talking about this. I feel really good now.”

“Well,” I said, “if you’re honest and really want to know God and you try to get to know God the way He’s revealed Himself in the Bible and you ask Him to show Himself to you, He will. The Bible is God’s word that tell us about Himself. So if we want to have a personal relationship with Him and get to know Him, then we need to read the Bible.”

“Yeah, I have tons of Bibles. I should really start reading it,” she said with more conviction than she had started with in the conversation.