Free Fearless by Eric Blehm Page B

carrying to Jesus. You can’t do it all by yourself. Just like your son can’t do it all by himself.”
    So she did. Right then and there, Janice prayed silently, and she could not deny the peace she felt. Larry experienced the same liberating freedom from his own debilitating guilt and failure as a father. “God is in charge,” Larry said to Janice afterward. “That’s what going to church reminded me of today.”
    Although Janice had gone for one reason only, to help Adam, “it ended up helping me,” she says. “Once I realized I needed Jesus, it wasn’t for Adam; it was for me.”
    Scripture by scripture Janice devoured her new Bible, until one morning, as she stood in her kitchen, she asked Jesus into her heart. She shared the news with Larry, who said he had recommitted himself to God and reconfirmed that Jesus Christ was his Lord and Savior. Together they prayed, asking Jesus to save Adam.
    Only then were they able to stop chasing him. “We quit,” says Janice. “We were like, ‘Lord, you’re in charge, and we’re going to back away and let you be in charge.”
    For the first time in her life, Janice understood what it meant to have “blind faith.”
    Two weeks later Adam’s boyhood friend Ryan Whited was driving south on Highway 7 in Hot Springs when he heard a horn honking from behind. The driver in the blue Toyota truck tailing him waved him over.
    Ryan pulled off to the side of the road and the Toyota rolled up alongside. “Adam Brown!” Ryan said through the open window. “What’s been going on?”
    In high school, though not a football player, Ryan had been rowdy right along with Adam. He had mellowed some as a senior and become more active in his church, and in fact had invited Adam along a few times. When Adam had been working on his workbook in drug rehab three months earlier, he had answered the question “Name the spiritual mentors in your life” with three names: Grandma Brown, Aunt Becky, and Ryan Whited.
    But it had been years since Adam had seen Ryan, who had attended the local community college after graduation, then traveled around the world, living in a commune in Switzerland before returning to Hot Springs.
    “Sorry for pulling you over like that,” Adam said, “but I saw you driving and Ikind of need to talk to you.” He hopped into Ryan’s car and proceeded to unload what had been going on in his life, that he’d stolen from virtually everyone he knew in order to support his drug habit. When Adam confessed he’d stolen from his parents, he started crying. “I’m really addicted to crack,” he told Ryan. “I can’t stop doing it. I need your help.”
    Adam asked if he could move in with Ryan and his brother, David. “I know y’all will be a good influence, and I’ll get myself well,” he said. “I won’t be a problem.”
    Yes, Ryan said immediately, then he called David, who was four years older and a youth pastor at a local church, to confirm. David had known Adam as a kid and agreed to let him stay, with some basic ground rules: no drugs or drug friends allowed in the house.
    Adam, not trusting himself, asked if Ryan could drive with him to where he’d been staying to pick up his belongings. Along the way he pointed out five crackhouses. “If I disappear,” Adam said, “can you come get me out of there?”
    In a wooded area outside town, they turned down a narrow road of broken blacktop that led to a trash-strewn clearing. “This is it,” said Adam, pointing to the centerpiece of the dump—a dilapidated trailer.
    The inside looked as bad as the outside and smelled even worse. Dirty dishes covered with rotting food were piled in the sink. There was a crib in the living room. The floor was littered with garbage. Adam waded through the tiny rooms, grabbing clothes and stuffing them into a black Hefty bag.
    “It was in a state that animals shouldn’t be living in,” says Ryan. “It was just nasty. The clothes that we gathered were on the floor. It