discoveringdesaray

When I was eight years old I went on vacation with my aunt and grandparents to Mississippi to visit family. One day I was taking a walk with my aunt and I tripped on the sidewalk and fell. I busted my thigh open pretty badly. Instantly I was screaming and crying and completely going crazy.  My aunt got me back to my great aunt and uncle's house and my grandpa started trying to look at the cut. It was a pretty bad wound and really needed stitches. But I wouldn't hear of that.  I was hollering and carrying on something fierce. The blood was scaring me. My thigh was hurting really bad. I was terrified of needles so the prospect of being "stitched up" was not a soothing idea in the moment. I was fighting everyone and telling them all I would not go to the hospital. No amount of pleading or convincing was going to change my mind. And considering I was in a house full of elderly people, no one there was physically capable of picking me up and forcing me to go.  My gra...

My family has been rocked to the core this week. Shocked out of our routine and safe world into an unknown and unforeseen tragedy. We are at a loss. Some are falling apart. Others going through the motions. Some doing what must be done while grieving and barely holding on. All of us coming to grips, in our personal ways, that life will never be the same again-no matter what the final outcome of this situation. I'm not sure how to process what I've seen. The shock was enough to stop time for me. But I fell into a familiar pattern, "this will be the same as the other scares we have had". But it isn't. It won't be like anything we have ever had to face. We have all watched and cried and asked how. We have all encouraged and put on the brave face and smiled through our pain. We have all sunk, exhausted, into our beds and stared at the ceiling wondering what just happened and what will tomorrow hold. I'm not alone. But I can't speak for anyone else'...

I was reading ice breakers today, trying to find the perfect one for tonight's first small group meeting at my home. I came across one about mentors. It wanted the members to share about a person that has helped to mold them and instantly Valerie came to mind. How could she not, in all honesty? We laugh over and over about how we first met and I tease her about her stalking tendencies. In reality though, it was all the Lord. He answered my wondering, almost immediately, about finding the right small group for me and my children. He sent Martha to sit next to a total stranger and introduce herself and ask if I belong to a small group. Then she immediately recommended Valerie and Bart. Okay, I know the Bart guy from the preschool room. Later, Bart has to call me back about yet another issue with my little guy. But instead of kicking him out the way so many others did, he kept him in and sent me back to service. When I went to pick him up later, there was my son getting in trouble...

Feeling a little blue and nostalgic today, I started going through old journals and found some things that really made me blush! The Lord has really brought me out of some mess, I tell you! I can't believe the state I was in just over four years ago compared to now! I was so lost back then. It seems like a lifetime ago. But it really isn't so very long ago. It is amazing how far the Lord can bring us in such a short space of time. I remember that not long after I wrote these things I felt like He was putting me into some kind of fast-forward mode. Everything was just flying! My eyes were opened to so much so fast, knowledge and understanding were being poured on me in abundance. I remember being so excited and overwhelmed and scared all at once. But I didn't want it to stop. I was falling in love with God. There is something special about true love. And when you are first falling in love and discovering someone it is the most alive you think you will ever feel. Try fall...

I cried yesterday.  As I quickly headed toward the KidzHop room to pick up the little boys, I had no choice but to pass the junior high room. On instinct my eyes searched for your face in the crowd of teenagers. Then the weight of knowledge set down on my heart and I remembered I wouldn't see your face in there. I hurried along with tears in my eyes.  It's been four days since you left. Slowly we are all adjusting and finding our rhythm. But this has been the most difficult transition yet. The boys keep asking about you, keep accidentally calling you for meals. Joshua called Jamarcus Isaac yesterday when he walked into the room. Your absence is felt.  There is an aching hole in our home and in our hearts now that you've left. You have become so much a part of each of us. I prayed for this day to come. Yearning for the acceptance and love we have now found from you. I longed for the day that you would trust me and confide in me and turn to me in moments of fear ...

"This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God." -John 3:19-21 I accepted the Lord almost 14 years ago. Since that very night that my life changed my prayers have remained vigilant for my family to turn toward Christ as well. I've seen both of my younger sisters turn toward him, take the walk up front, be baptized, and then slowly fall away-distracted by what the world offers. My brother is a similar story, though he still professes Jesus as His Lord, his relationship suffers and distractions get in the way. I long for the day I see my parents make that step. My mom, as a girl, was raised in the church. She served willingly and with excitement as a te...

I was in church this morning and enjoying the sweetest moment in the Presence of my King. I felt overwhelmed with the sacrificial love that He poured out for me, I mean ME? I know it wasn't JUST for me, but I also know that I was part of it. I know that my sins were part of the pain He felt that day. I know my debt was paid that day. I know that my Savior took my punishment that day. I know that He suffered a death and separation from the Father that should have been mine to bear. I, along with every other man and woman on the planet, am so unworthy.  Who am I that He takes the time to reach down from His heavenly throne to concern Himself with my trivial problems? The smallest requests and desires? Who am I that He would defend me unto death? That He would reach down and pull me out of the pit I was heedlessly falling into? Who am I that He would salvage me from the rubble of this world and take the time to carefully and tenderly clean me up and teach me a new way?  As...

I have a pretty big responsibility that is about to be laid upon my shoulders in about six weeks. It is one that I take very seriously and that has taken me a long time to build up the nerve to accept. This isn't something I accept lightly or easily. I have prayed, fasted, studied, talked about, trained, observed, cried and resisted this for some time. But the time has come and I know that I am equipped and prepared. I take it humbly and will hold on to it with precious care and caution. This has been absorbed much of my prayers, thoughts and concentration recently. Preparations and logistics and lots and lots of prayer. Suddenly, just as I have come to the place of accepting this new role and responsibility and have started to believe...not in myself, but in what God has instilled in me through my leaders, teachers and experiences and by His own creation and formation of me...I have been delivered another invitation. Fear. Panic. Hesitation. Concern. Overwhelming pressure. T...

I went to the utilities office to pay my water bill. As I parked my car I saw a girl hunched over by a truck. She was looking beneath by the back tires. I wondered what she was doing there, reaching out in a reassuring gesture. I went down the street and turned around and came back up to park. There I saw the tiny ball of fur on the pavement, she had coaxed the little cat out. She got in the truck as her mother did and they started the engine up. The skittish little cat jumped and bolted...right back toward the truck! I yelped and ran, waving at them as I went. They saw and stopped and waited for me, now my turn to coax her out. She came to me and my children pretty easily and I gave the ladies the sign to go. Then I left her there in the rain and cold so I could go take care of my bill. While I was inside writing my check to pay a debt, I overheard the ladies talking inside. The little cat was the topic of the conversation. Everyone was talking about it holding on all day, feeling...

Pt. 2 I remember the day that this light came in and shone into my darkness.  Through an interesting series of teenage hijinx and events, I was conned into going to church. The eye rolling, pouting and murmuring I did in my closet about that ordeal! It was a conspiracy. It was hypocrisy. It was annoying.  Months went by as I attended just enough to satisfy the hounds. I would be bored and irritated. Not at all interested or open. But there was this one Sunday morning...I to this day could not tell you the date, nor the sermon. But there was no way that man should know anything about me...yet somehow his words from the stage reached out and struck a match at the opening of my closet door.  The light seemed so far away. I didn't was afraid of it. I pulled back and curled tighter. Hope equaled pain and disappointment. They were not going to catch me now. No matter what pretty words that man spoke on stage. No matter how intriguing that little light was. And no matter how kin...

Pt. 1 I ran away from home when I was in the sixth grade. I decided that I couldn't live in darkness anymore and that I would run forever if that is what it took.  I ran to a friend's house and I hid in her tree house til her family left for the evening. Then I used their hide a key to sneak into the house. I went upstairs and I hid in her closet. it felt like the safest place in the world at that point. Hiding in that secret place and praying to never be found there. Praying for an escape to a better life. I hid with my little backpack of treasured possessions and prayed that I would be okay.  Then the doorbell started to ring. They were looking for me. Of course they would start at my best friend's house. It rang over and over again. I was so scared.  I remember she had a cubby in the back of her closet. It was storage space. That night it was my hiding place. The doors of the house were locked. The lights off. No one was home. No one even knew I was there. I was on the...

Today my boogeyman died. The dark shadow that always loomed over my shoulder and in the peripheal of my dreams has disappeared...never to return again. Today I realized I am free.  I am free from every curse spoken over me. I am free from every negative word spoken over me. I am free from those shameful nights of intrusion and fear. I am free from those early mornings full of disgust and a panicked need to flee. I am free.  I am free from the insecurities you birthed in me and your memory has nursed. I am free from the wounds you have caused that I thought would never heal. I am free from the anger and the disappointment. I am free from the betrayal and broken heart. I am free from embarrassment and shame. I am free from you.  The day I got away at last was the day I was free from you.  The day He reached out and touched me...I was made free through His blood.  The day I forgave you I was made free of you.  Today I realized the cage door has been o...

"My Rights as a Daughter of the King of Kings" Over the past few months I have been contemplating my rights as one of God's children; the legal issues in my life. My right to good health. My right to a pure, wholesome and happy marriage. My right to raise and educate my children as I choose, in the ways of God and not the ways of this world. My rights to financial freedom and stability. My right to a sound mind, peace and relaxation instead of busyness and stress. These are all promises made to me by God in His word. So why have I settled for so much less than I deserve? When our governing rulers make decisions that I don't agree with or I believe are unjust I speak out. I speak out in discussions with those around me, occasionally I will share my views on social media sites, and I speak out through my votes.  Why then, when the enemy of my soul comes to steal, kill and destroy the promises of God on my life do I sit back and take it?  It is time to take a stand for H...

I want you to tell them my story, not yours.  I want you to tell them that I am a God who can make all things new.  I want you to show them that I can fix them, if they will only give me the pieces. I want you to show them that I am a God who restores. Who cleanses. Who heals. I replace.  I reset. I am the answer to their every question. I am the love they dream of finding. I am the one they seek.  They will never find what will fill the void until they come to me.  Out of the overflow of what I offer is when and where they will find what they “think” they need now. Tell them our love story.  Tell them how you rejected me and denied me and ignored me.  Tell them how you scorned me in your heart.  Tell them how patient I was and what a gentleman I am and how I courted, pursued and wooed you.  Tell them how you fell in love with me. Tell them how you left me.  You betrayed and cheated on me.  Tell them how you kept chasing other lover...