07/30/2024
God is truly Amazing
If you had told me 20+ years ago I would be where I am today, I would have simply laughed in your face. So here is what has happened in my life. 20+ years ago I was not much of a father. I was in the midst of a truly dark time in my life. I had lost my kids due to a very volatile relationship. This relationship had me so messed up I wound up doing time in jail. Once I had done my time I found myself looking for things to numb me from the pain. I then lost my Dad, which drove me even deeper into my abuse of drugs and alcohol. At my Dad’s funeral I leaned over his casket and whispered “Dad when you get to heaven let God know I can’t do this on my own”. It wasn’t but a short time later I was introduced to Heather. Our relationship started out as a friendship. She very quickly became my confidant. I could talk to her about anything and she would just listen. After our first date I knew she was special. Heather and a few very close friends realized I was running full bore down a short dark road. I was slowly killing myself with the drugs. After about 6 months Heather made the decision that she needed to get me out of Atlanta. The way she put it was if she did not get me away from the people making my access to drugs so easy, I would not live another year. So unknown to me she went online and rented an apartment in of all places Panama City Beach. After about two years of hard recovery and her giving me much more love than I deserved we got custody of my girls back. Things got better as the years passed. I grew in my career, then Bam the real estate market crashed and I was out of work and lost my ability to support my family. I started applying for jobs back in Atlanta. I got a good offer and in a matter of less than a week we were headed back to the ATL. After about 10 years my little brother invited me to a church in Carrollton to see him get baptized. Now I had grown up in church and felt like God was calling me to the ministry when I was 16, but I said no. We started attending this church and Heather and I got really involved. Heather worked in the welcome team setting up refreshments for the Sunday service. I got involved in any way possible. I was a member of the praise team and the Pastor saw something in me I had forgotten about. He began to mentor me and God and I got real close again. Heather and I went to school and learned about God’s grace. This was a year and a half deep dive into His grace. I continued on and got my certification, through this school, as a Christian Life Coach and started counseling a few folks at the church. I actually preached my first sermon ever on Labor Day weekend 2021. Life was finally getting good for us. Then I started having severe chronic pain issues from an injury I sustained while I was in the military. This led to a very early retirement due to my inability to be able to do the job I loved so much. Heather and I struggled really hard for the next year until my disability through the VA was approved. After my VA got approved I applied for my SSDI and that got approved. After about 8 months Heather and I started planning for retirement and decided we wanted to move back to Florida, where our oldest daughter lived. A little while later Heather’s job was done away with. She had been with this company for 13 years. We found a place we wanted and it was going to take a whole lot of work to be able to move in. We put our house on the market. It sold in 13 days. The day we closed we headed to Panama City and closed on our place there. I only went back to Atlanta to visit and worked night and day for 26 days, with the help of a good friend and my kids, to get the place ready for Heather to move in. We made it. Heather moved down the end of the month. I was still trying and praying to figure out what God wanted me to do with my life. After about 5 months of being in our new home I found out that I had a major blockage in my heart. My heart was only getting about 10% of the blood it needed to work properly and I was in the midst of congestive heart failure. Yes according to all my doctors I was a dead man walking, but God had other plans. After having bypass surgery, I started asking God what purpose did he have for keeping me alive. God revealed to me what his plan was. He had seen me through the drug use, alcoholism, and my time in jail to prepare me for the next stage of my life. He revealed to me that he wanted me to take my life experiences and start a prison ministry. That is when Lost Ones Ministries was born. I am now preaching a mid-week service at a prison in Bay County Florida and as of July 27 we started preaching at Gulf Correctional Institution. It is totally amazing to me that God could take a former drug addict, alcoholic,and ex-con and turn his life around to the extent he has mine. Never think that you are too unclean to do God’s work. Even if you have taken a million steps away from God, it only takes one step back because has promised us in His word 365 times that he would never leave us. God is in the cleansing business and He will meet you where you are. You see, no matter what you have done, been through, or are going through God is never more than one step away. He loves you and sees you as perfect and He can make things right in your life. Just surrender to follow him and you can find the peace and joy you are missing.
