What Exactly Does the Holy Spirit Do?

[Drich]

Drich, I would think that ODing on the floor of a public restroom probably changed her life.

You'd think that.. But it wasn't her first time. When we were dating her Od'ing in a public bathroom is how I found out she had a drug problem.. Plus if I remember right it was several months from her final OD to the 2am wake up call by the sherriff's department. and the reason she had her bags packed and sleeping on the couch was I found out she was using again.

So no, 'rock bottom' was not found on a barns and noble book store bathroom. Nor in jail (This was like her 2nd or 3rd visit behind 2 DUI's.) At the end of her stay in jail, she simply gave up and said I can do this by myself. So she/we finally turned to God together. Like I said, she had no other influences. our parents wanted nothing to do with us, no friends, no meetings, no nothing. And to tell the truth at that point in our relationship I was not supportive nor caring as I should have been. I had to demand to know where every thing of value was, where every cent she spent went, I had to turn out her stuff looking for stashes almost daily.(we 10 years later are still finding 'things.') Plus being a prison guard made a little cranky. So she did not get the emotional support she needed from me.

However, I do believe your prayers worked, not because your god is real, but because your wife needed to believe in something else to help her have the strength to not use drugs.  It is the placebo effect in action.

And it must have been the placebo effect that got me a business loan from a stranger, seen me through an AIDS Diagnosis, the recent year long Cancer scare, and all of the hundreds if not thousands of 'unexplainable' happenings in my life that has us where we are today.. The Holy Spirit is not a once and done thing. It is God actively/almost daily providing, seeing you though life.

One of the reasons why I do not try to deconvert people in real life is because I can't tell what someone else is going through. Maybe they need the placebo effect of religion to help them.

-or maybe it's God helping them through life.