The Healing Box

Mickey Thornton offers his testimony about the power that prayer played in his salvation.

The cowboy church arena ministry means so much to me because, by my late teens and through most of my twenties, I had become as about as outlaw as they come.  I was drinking, doings drugs and hanging out in the wrong places most every night.

I didn’t care much about anything, except for getting high and making money.  Fortunately, I have an uncle that started roping in the late ‘80s and, of course, that fascinated me. Having the connection with horses and cattle because of my family had them, I started hanging out at the rope pen, riding his horses, roping the dummy and working the chutes.

They talked me into roping one night at the pen and I ended up catching five out of the first six I ran. I immediately discovered a new addiction. I was still out running the roads and getting high, but a few less nights of the week now because I was spending them at my Uncle Eulan Wheelers’.

On those nights, me and all the guys that he roped with would wrap steers, then gather in the heeling box and pray before we ever got on a horse.

I really wasn’t into it, and it really didn’t matter to me what was said. Most of the time I was high anyway. I was just there to rope, and that was all.

But the prayers I tried so hard not to hear would change my life forever.

God used that rope pen and a handful of men to get me off of, and away from, the drugs and alcohol as He replaced a couple of addictions with another.

We roped most every night of the week and went to ropings on the weekend, and by doing this, God was changing my playground and playmates, and this is necessary to break any addiction.

All the glory belongs to God because a prayer I tried so hard not to hear changed my life forever and I believe it will do the same for others as well.

God is good all the time, so stay hooked. Don’t give up ‘cause it’s working.

The earnest prayer of a righteous man has great power and produces wonderful results.
– James 5:16