Day Thirty One

Day 31

Understanding My Shape

Abilities, personality and experiences, how do they shape who I have become? Where do I begin? My first God given ability or talent I can remember was at the age of five on my grandmother’s piano. I started playing it on my own with no one in the room all by myself. Simple songs like Mary had a little lamb and Twinkle Twinkle little star all by ear. My parents leased a piano when I was six years old and I began to take lessons to see if it was something I was interested in and I kept on playing for the rest of my life. By high school I had stopped the lessons and all I needed was an audience. It came naturally to me this gift of music. If only I could sing I might have gone on to do more with it. Up until high school, school was pretty easy for me, my grades were mostly all A’s and I never seemed to struggle at my school work. God did not fail at blessing me with an intelligent mind either. To be able to pick up music like I did there had to be something upstairs that worked I guess. It wasn’t for a lack of knowledge in high school that my grades became less than average, but it was my emotional state of being and my depression that got the best of me where as my attention to my school work and my motivation to succeed failed me. But at the same time my school work lagged, I found a new passion to replace it. A new part of my personality emerged. I replaced my depression with giving and helping others. I knew that my childhood was not a peaceful or pleasant one, but by serving and working with the children’s department at my church, I found a way to replace my brokenness and at the same time forget about my emptiness by making others happy and seeing the joy that I could bring to others by just being myself without the pressure of what I was going through trying to be someone everyone expected me to be everywhere else. This was the first time in my life I felt truly happy in life. I felt loved, accepted, appreciated, needed, all the things a human being was created to be but never seemed to get anywhere else except when I was at church teaching or spending time with the kids and the parents of those kids. It was safe and secure. What could ever possibly make me want to leave all that? But yet I did. While I was involved with the children’s department I found that I had a great personality that the kids seemed to gravitate towards. I was someone that they all wanted to be around. Their parents couldn’t stop praising me for what ever it was I had their kids couldn’t stop talking about MIKE and their child’s desire to spend more time with me. Even after the year that they would spend in my class they never stopped coming by and visiting. There were always the kids of the families that were the regular church goes that would always be there, but I always seemed to gravitate toward the one kid or the many kids that were not there with any family or parent, the ones that had no parent connection. The one that maybe came just for the girls, the one that came because of a special event and I saw as an opportunity to get to know that may struggle with a drug problem or a law enforcement problem, the kid that didn’t go to regular school but to a continuation school. You know, the kid that was DIFFERENT! All ready even as a teenager God was putting it in my heart to reach out to the people, the others in this world that were different and not like all the others, because even as a teenager I was already feeling different and not like all the others. The ME I am now is the same ME I have always been. It doesn’t matter today if the different people are still teenagers or if they are adults, they are all the same. I see them all every day I am on the street and I am glad I have the personality to still be able to mix and interact with them all just as well. The only thing I think that has changed is the date on my ID. It says I am another year older, but as long as I don’t feel it and as long as people still say I look and act many years less than it says I am, I feel great.

It wasn’t until after I left this safe and secure environment that the experiences became my training ground for my life lessons. And like high school, I wasn’t a very good student. I had to take the same classes over and over again, some for almost twenty years. Again it was my personality that was my biggest selling point. Once I was over the hurdle of my awkwardness and my newness to a world I didn’t understand, my ability to talk my way into situations that would get me what I wanted was easy. I didn’t have to try very hard to get what I wanted out of this new life. Things, this or that seemed to come very easy to me. In fact everything I desired was mine for the taking. This is why I became so hooked if you could use that word, to this new lifestyle. Was it all my and my wonderful personality that got me the desires of my heart, or was it the enemy that gave them all to me? Either way I was like a kid in a candy store and all the sample were free and never ending. I could talk my way into anything, or out of anything if I found myself in a situation I didn’t want to be in. Very rarely did I suffer at anyone’s hand. I should have gotten into a lot more trouble at times than I did, but somehow I always managed to talk my way out of them.

Working was always something I was good at. My work history while I could change jobs early in life they were not menial jobs, they were very good high paying one. From building airplanes for McDonald Douglas at age eighteen, to driving eighteen wheelers at twenty, to managing a business from twenty three to age thirty, I knew how to make money, keep a job in the mist of my addiction and disease, and perform it well. When I have something I am responsible for, I can get the job done. I know how to put more than one hundred percent into what ever it is I am doing. That has always been something I do well. I take pride in what I am given to do. I think this comes from my father always telling me I was no good and couldn’t do anything right growing up so I became someone that overachieved at what ever it was I did. THANKS DAD! You taught me something even if it wasn’t in a positive way.

Everything in my life as it’s meaning and it’s purpose as I just found out in that last couple of sentences. How God can use circumstances is very unique. I never would have thought that all those years of my father being the man he was would have ever taught me anything positive in my life or that it would have ever done me any good in life, but as I can see now, it did have an affect on me that was used for my good. It made me want to strive even harder at what ever it was I was asked to do because I didn’t want to hear anything like what I heard all my life from him. WOW, I can’t believe I am just now realizing all this for the very first time. This must be why I am sitting here this morning writing all this down. Thank you FATHER in Heaven. Thank You Rick for writing this book, I have really found much more healing here than I ever imagined. And Pastor Mike for listening to God and suggesting this book for me, it is exactly what God wanted me to do instead of finding a counselor this year to start off with. I am shaking right now feeling the touch of God all over me imaging and hoping for what is next in my life.

What is God going to do with all the abilities and experiences I have had I can only imagine. If you can compare the hurt and harm to others in my life and turn the tables on the enemy, WATCH OUT WORLD, there’s gonna be an explosion. When the Lord finally releases me on it, there is not telling what we will do together.

Day Thirty

Day 30

Shaped for Serving God

NEVER LET YOUR ZEAL LAG

Can I see God planning each day of my life ahead of time? Or do I just see Him knowing it ahead of time? I can’t see Him planning my sinful life for me because that would just be wrong. But I can see Him planning what He would use it for. I am sure He didn’t say ahead of time “I am going to make Michael a Junkie and have him shoot speed for most of his life just to make him able to speak to other junkies for the rest of his life. Or I am going to give him a father that hurts him and leaves him so he can minister to other boys in similar situations that he will meet along the way as he grows up. But I will use those experiences he is going to have and give him a heart that feels passionately for others that feel the way he did. I am going to save his life time and time again just like he is going to ask me to one day to prove to him that no matter where he is I was and am always listening to him and to give him every desire of his heart because I know that at the end of the tunnel that will seem so dark to him at times, at the end of it he is going to feel and experience so much joy and happiness that I know he will praise and thank me and serve me with his whole heart. Just like a diamond cutter has to apply a lot of pressure to make that diamond faceted and beautiful, so was the pressure that God put me under to take me from a diamond in the rough that I was to the jewel that I am becoming. He knew it wouldn’t be easy on me, or Him having to watch, but He knew the end of the story, where as I didn’t, He knew the joy that was coming, He saw the end result before the story ever began. So when I begin to develop this same kind of faith, even though I don’t know the future of everything that is happening in my life, it is because of the past experiences of my life that I can trust in Him and know that the end result of everything is going to be for His glory and be just what He has planned for my life. IE: no worries about the ending.

So what are some of the things that I know that I am passionate about? You might ask, what are some of the things in life that I love and care about, passionately? People! People that are hurting, or those that are different. Different than what? We are all different this is true. But as the world sees things, there are those that are acceptable and there are those that are less than acceptable. It isn’t right to put people on a scale like that but it is done every day. It goes by weight, looks, color of your skin. Where you live, what you drive or don’t drive. How you dress, whether or not if you work or if you work, if you have all your mental faculties or if you don’t. Let’s face it, people that are different that you don’t usually get attention from you. Most people don’t think to put out their hand to someone that looks talks or walks to a different beat. But in my case, I know I am that person that doesn’t look talk walk or move to the same beat as others, so it’s up to me to speak up. I am glad God has given me the ability to be able to do so without being too intrusive and to be able to have a sense of humor to get the party started as they say. Conversation comes easy for me. A quick wit and a smart come back used in the right way can be very useful to me. I enjoy people, I enjoy making them laugh. I have been called many times “A HAPPY PILL” for others when they are feeling down and depressed. I have had friends cry to doctors when I was being moved from one floor to another in a psychiatric hospital because they didn’t want me to leave. I have had friend on the phone from other states tell me how important my friendship was to them because of the way I made them laugh and how I made them feel just because I was able to life their spirits in a phone conversation we had. The gift of encouragement is definitely one I know God has blessed me with. Hospitality is another one I know He has given me. I love taking care of my friends and serving them when they visit. Serving them when I visit them it doesn’t matter. Making people happy was a way I made friends in the past and making people happy just because it makes me happy that they are happy now is a blessing to me. To be able to know that they are happy because of something I said or did is a wonderful feeling. To know that I was responsible for making their life a little better today and that I was able to do something to put a smile on their face is a great feeling. I thank God that He made me so sensitive also. I can hear things is peoples voices and in the words that they use or the word they are not using to express themselves that allows me to understand what life has done to them. Especially to the young men and women I meet everyday. And example of this would be a boy named Alex a month ago telling me he never knew his real mom but that it didn’t matter any more. Why would he tell me that and at the same time say it didn’t matter any more. IT DOES MATTER OR HE WOULDN’T HAVE SAID IT IN THE FIRST PLACE. I can put myself into the story of a 13 or 14 year old boy in a split second when they tell me their dad is gone or their family is in jail or they don’t even live with their parents. Instantly my heart begins to ache and cry on the inside because I hear God saying to me “Mike here is another one that I have placed in your life for a reason” And it makes everything that ever happened to me as a child have meaning. Better than that is when one of those kids or even an adult says to me “Mike why are you in that wheel chair?” Now every moment in my adult life begins to have meaning. It was my whole adult life that put me in this wheelchair. If I wasn’t in it, who would ever think or have a reason to ask me anything? No one ever walks up to someone and says “tell me about your life twenty five years ago.” And they never think they are going to get a Novel when they ask me that question either. But I am really good at deciding just how much they can handle and what they will be ready to hear and not hear. I think the best story I ever told and the best reaction was about 10 years ago sitting with another kid named Alex, it was about forty five minutes to an hour into the story, and he was wiping his tears off with the sleeve of my t-shirt. Not just a drop or two, but a river of them while his arm was around my shoulder holding on for dear life. When he left my home he was still in these tears all the way to his house and when he walked in to his house his mom was on the couch watching television and she told me a few days later he came in crying and just fell into her lap and cried for over fifteen minutes without saying a word. Later after I met his friend Oscar, he told him “be careful, Mike will make you cry when he tells you his story” and when I told Oscar the same story, He cried too. It was never my goal or my intentions to make teenage boys cry, but I do want to make them think. Both Alex and Oscar were no strangers to the drug and sex life already as fifteen and sixteen year olds. I at least waited until I was twenty one. Oscar said the one thing I did after telling him my story was I ruined his MACING skills. MACing is his Flirting and his ability to pick up girls for sex skills. Well every time he had the opportunity he thought about my story and my life and my unfortunate circumstances and thought twice about what he was about to do and changed his mind for the moment. I had left an impression on him. How long that lasted I will never know but it sunk in for the time being and that was what mattered. The seed was planted. So I guess you can say that any of us is like a farmer planting seeds of our lives into the lives of others every day. Our, my experiences are all like little seeds that God uses to plant later on into the lives of people we meet to share with them what we have learned and what we have gone through. I have never met so many young men that are fatherless or motherless as I have in the past two months. I have never met so many that have so many drug addicted parents as I have theses past few months. I see it in their eyes, I hear it in their words and in their stories about their lives, they are missing so much. Very few of them ever mention the word GOD. Today is the first time I heard that one of them say he has a grandfather that is a preacher. His dad is not in his life and his mom has had three different men father her five children but this is his life. He is fourteen years old.

All in all, whether or not it is a teenager that has a history like mine, an adult that suffers with a mental condition, or anyone with a drug problem, my life has meaning every time I meet them. Where ever I go, no matter who it is, I am comfortable in my own skin because I know who it is I belong to and that is all that matters to me. I am not out to impress anyone, live up to anyone’s standards, or try out for the next audition. But I am out there to just to be out there because that is where THEY ARE, that is where Jesus was, OUT THERE ON THE STREETS with THEM, the public, who ever they were. Not the rich or the pretty or the famous, just the ones that would listen or speak with him. He had a gimmick, it was called Miracles. I have one too, they are called SERVICE ANIMALS on a WHEEL CHAIR. We each drew a crowd in our own way. But either way, the message was delivered.

Everyone, every Christian’s job is to get the message of Christ out to the world. How you do it is up to you. You were made in a special way to reach people in a special way. If you are not, find it. Don’t let your light grow dim. NEVER LET YOUR ZEAL LAG.

Day Twenty Nine

Day 29

Accepting your Assignment

An assignment, serving your Master, doing your job, all sound like something like hard work, something like slavery, something like you have to do so many hours of the day just to pay your bills and get by financially. NO ONE wants to do that so it is a hard thing to have to accept doing. Finding a job that you enjoy getting up and out of bed for in the morning is a rare thing to find. I don’t know many people that pop out of bed in the morning because they can’t wait to get to work. I was probably one of the lucky ones. I not only enjoyed the job I had, I couldn’t wait to get there. I started work at five in the morning, was on call twenty four hours a day and night after hours, it was a normal thing to be out on a Friday or Saturday night and have my pager go off and a company need employees to be on a job site at four the next morning and I would have to stop what I was doing and find them at that hour no matter what time of night it was. But that is what made my job interesting and I was always prepared for it so it really didn’t take more than just a few phone calls and then I could go back to what I was doing. I didn’t know anyone my age or any age for that matter that said they couldn’t wait to get to work every day, or enjoyed the fact that when I told them I started at five o’clock in the morning they said I was crazy. But I was also off at two thirty usually. But if I had to work until closing at six, it wasn’t a big deal, it was my office, and it was my responsibility. They were my employees and my vendors that needed servicing. I was committed to seeing that every one was happy. I truly loved what I did.

When God created me, He had a special plan in mind. He made me with a special personality, a plan that including my likes and dislikes. He knew the way I would be raised and the kind of people that I would work well with. He wouldn’t ask me to minister to a group of people I had nothing in common with. What would be the point? It would do Him no good and me no good. I would lose interest and my motivation would suffer before I even got started. But hand me a handful of people that I can relate to and that I am comfortable with and that I know before I even meet them and we’re set! I could minister to them in my sleep if I had to. Sometimes I feel like I am too. God would never give me a job to do that I wasn’t suited for. He would never give me a job to do that I wasn’t inspired to do. He wouldn’t assign me a job that He knew that I wasn’t excited doing for Him. No one likes a complainer, even God, even though I am sure He listens to them a lot. But what is better than having someone wake up in the morning with an attitude of “Where do we go today Father? Who is on the list of people to meet today?” Someone that is willing to say I will go where ever it is you need me to go. And just be a good listener to His Spirit and respond to it. To be ready to be able to speak at any given moment a situation presents itself, without worrying about what others will think. The army had it right when they advertised “IT’S NOT JUST A JOB, IT’S AN ADVENTURE!” Everyday in His service should be an adventure, because you never know where God can lead you, to whom He can lead you too. Christians talk about being Happy Joyous and Free. But a lot of the time it seems like they are living their Christian lives like they are Happy Joyous Free and Selfish because they are KEEPING all that Happy Joyous and Free stuff to themselves. Like on a Sunday morning you can hear them saying “Good Morning, How are you, Praise the Lord, I got Mine, Hope you get yours too” and then they walk away. If that is how they are at church, imagine how they are any where else during the week. If they can’t even be caring, honestly with the body of Christ on HOLY GROUND, imagine their testimony anywhere else in the world. I don’t even want to think about it. My mother is sixty seven years old and she says she is still waiting to see what God wants to do with her life. MOM look around, please! You are not here just to keep the house clean.

I am so happy that God has created a FIRE in me, a passion in me. Energy in me to be able to use in what ever it is I do. That I am the type of person that can’t just do something half heartedly, that no matter what I ever did in life I always put more than a hundred percent into it. I know this was why when I quit my job that I loved so much just to get high for a few months, that when I went back after I sobered up, this was why I was hired back, that I was convincing enough and serious enough with my life that my boss and the owner knew that if he hired me back, I would do nothing but make money and do right by them, and they were right. I increased the business of two of their offices by five hundred percent within just thirty days. I was the right man for the job for them, and I know God sees me as the right man for the job for what ever assignment He gives me.

God’s assignments are never ones that require a resume that are unreachable. You are the resume He is looking for. There are no requirements needed. Well except that you are willing to accept the work He has for you. That is all. I guarantee it will be a job you are probably already in the middle of doing somehow. The people involved will already be there in your life. And if they aren’t yet, don’t worry you will get along with them just fine. God will only bring you someone that wants to know you. Think of the happiest day you could have. Then think of God giving you an even better day and that will be your best day of work. And then you would say, “If I could do that every day I wouldn’t even worry about the pay” because at the end of the day the satisfaction of knowing that your day just meant more than any paycheck could ever give you, would be enough to carry you though until tomorrow or even the next week. Yesterday is gone for me, but today, was even better, and yesterday was the BOMB!

Day by Day

Each day of my life is a new adventure

For what it holds is store for me I do not know

But one thing is for sure, my Lord will be there

To keep me and guide me, and with Him I will share

As each day goes by I see more and more

Just what it means to walk with the Lord

To ask seek and knock, on Him I will call

For Jesus is with me when I stumble and fall

Each morning I pray that my spirit He’ll renew

It’s a cleansing I need, by His blood thru and thru

Fill me O Lord with your spirit today

That others might ask if I know the way

As day passes on and trials they come

I count it all joy cause I know whom they’re from

In Him I will trust, endure ‘till the end

Cause Jesus you know is my strength and my friend

Today I believe that He’ll show me some more

And give my the hope that my heart He’ll restore

It’s my life he is changing, for a price I could never afford

Hallelujah to Jesus, and Praise to my LORD.

Day Twenty Eight

Day 28

It Takes Time

“I want it NOW” or “I want it MY WAY” are common catch phrases we hear every day when it comes to many things in life. The worst is standing in front of the microwave and saying HURRY UP! You can’t cook or heat up something any faster but still people get impatient and say hurry up in front of the microwave. If the microwave isn’t fast enough for some people, imagine their impatience with God when it comes to their prayer life. They probably get real frustrated if what they prayed for last night didn’t happen by the time they woke up in the morning. And when they realize that it didn’t happen just the way they prayed, I bet they have a lousy day all day wondering why God didn’t answer their prayer just the way they prayed the night before. Then there are people like me who started praying for things at the age of eleven and prayed every day every minute of the day it seemed like and nothing ever seemed to happen but still I just kept on praying believing that someday God would answer me just the way I was praying but HE never did, and still hasn’t to this day. At least now I know what Paul meant by living with a thorn in his side. So I guess I do have something in common with someone in the bible. Just because we pray for something doesn’t mean we are always going to get the answer we want. And when we don’t it doesn’t mean He didn’t hear us either. It just has taken a lot of time for me to understand this lesson or this part of my life and to be willing to accept this part of my life and learn to let God use this part of my life as He sees fit. It sure as given me opportunities that no one else could ever understand or areas of ministry that no one else could ever reach into. They say what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. If this is true I should be the HULK of the Christian world then with all the things that have tried to take my life and all the time I have tried to take my own life, and all that God has seen me through and brought me though, God’s faith in me has been much stronger than mine has ever been. But has time as gone by, He has helped me to realize that I can accomplish much more than I ever thought I could, that He has kept me around for much more than I ever thought I was created for, and that from the very beginning His plan for my life has always been much greater than I could have ever seen. Why else would I have made it this far after so much despair and so many traumas in my life, just to sit back and watch life pass me by day after day? But because there have been so many and so much that has happened over the years, it will naturally take a great amount of time to reshape and refocus my life in a direction that would be positive and stable enough to have meaning and a solid foothold. Trying to walk on water with a head full of doubts would be foolish. But a mind that is clean and free from worry and free from guilt and free from shame is a mind that can do great and mighty things and this takes time, time that comes from spending it with God and with others daily that are of the same mind, time daily of replacing old ways with new ways, time daily of spending it in prayer and studying His word. Learning to rely on Him for every area of my life, not just the ones that I am comfortable with but also the ones that I have trouble trusting in. Being willing to face issues that I can see and also being willing to face issues that other point out to me that I can’t see in myself.

But it won’t happen over night, or the next night. As long as I am alive there will always be things to change in me, lessons to learn, wounds to heal, and areas of my life that will need growth. Just when I think I have learned to be patient in one area of my life, there will always be another area that comes up that I have trouble with that is there to humble me. To keep me looking to Jesus for help and guidance, and of course there is always going to be that THORN in my side. It like a line in a movie I once saw, people were at a home after a Jewish funeral and someone said “Why are the mirrors covered up?” So we don’t see the pain in our faces. “Why are we sitting on boxes?” To make sure there is Pain in our faces! There is always going to be something in our, my life that is going to be there to remind us to lean on God because when there isn’t I begin to feel comfortable and feel a little bit like a God in my own life and think I have control of everything. This is where I start forgetting that God is in control, that God wants to be number one in my life. That He wants to be the center of my life. I need things in my life to have a reason to depend on Him for. Then as I conquer them one at a time, I can feel a sense of accomplishment in my life. I can see the growth in my life. I can see that we are in this life together and that I am not in it all alone. That God is on my side. This is a great feeling to have and to walk in everyday. It builds confidence and self esteem. It builds character and self worth knowing that the God and creator of the universe is deeply concerned for me and my daily comings and goings, even the little things in my life, the struggles and the triumphs. When people realize that God is on their side day after day after day, the possibilities are endless. You begin to trust in yourself for things that you never thought possible before. The light at the end of the tunnel gets brighter and brighter. It may not be quick, it may not be fast. It may not be the Burger King “have it your way”, but it will be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing, right on time, the way God intended it to be, if you will only be patient, willing to be honest, and willing to let God do for you what you can not do for yourself, then you will become just what He wants you to be. I will become just what He wants me to be. A mirror image of His son Jesus Christ.

Day Twenty Seven

Day 27

Defeating Temptation

Defeating temptation after so many years of enjoying it was no easy task. Recognizing it as a temptation and not just a way of life was the first step for me. When you have become so a custom to doing things as a normal part of life and then all of a sudden making changes in your life and deciding that there are things in your life that you don’t want in it any more, all of a sudden, you are faced with decisions that you hadn’t had to deal with in the past. Should I or shouldn’t I? Why shouldn’t I? Is this really not ok anymore? Will this be ok or will this lead me into something that will take me down a path that will lead me into something else I don’t want to get involved in anymore? What about these friends? Do I have to give them up too? Soon I have found myself having to make a whole lot of choices that were very difficult to decide on. Decisions that left me in situations that left me feeling very uncomfortable. Usually situations that left me all alone because it was usually a decision that meant letting go of friends that were not good for me. I was never a person that dealt well with loneliness. A low self image and low self esteem I needed others around me to feel good about myself. Surrounding myself with people and doing things to please them was one way I got the attention I needed and doing things for others whether it was the right things or the things that made them happy right or wrong didn’t matter as long as everyone got what they wanted or needed, I always looked like the GOOD GUY and therefore got the attention I wanted and needed to feel good about myself. So what if I let my morals or my character fall by the wayside in the meantime. This was the first step I had to take when I came to the point in my life that I wanted to serve God instead of my own self and my own needs. Letting go of others and saying yes to God’s ways for my life was the hardest part of defeating the temptations in my life. Removing the reasons that made me fall into sin was one of the hardest things for me to get used to doing. What did this accomplish in the mean time? It gave me “alone time with God”. The more the PEOPLE were out of my life, the more time I had to rely on God to fill in the missing pieces I was lacking in my life. The emptiness in my home, the quietness in my home, the lack of the constant telephone ringing and late night visitors. But also the less I was putting myself at risk. The more I was focusing on what God wanted, the less I was putting myself in harms way with everyone, with every strange I was meeting. And possibly allowing myself to be taken advantaged of. So there were benefits in listening to God and resisting the temptations that I so often would give into.

But what would I do when I just couldn’t take the loneliness that I was left with? Who could I talk to when I was depressed and or lonely? Over the years of making few friends that I could trust, there were very few friends that I could go to. But with less than fingers on one hand, I do have a few that no matter what it is I am feeling, I do have some that I can go to that do know all there is to know about me inside and out. Friends that know all there is to know about me and still love me. Friends that no matter what I say, when I say it, how I say it, will always be there for me. I couldn’t trade these people in for all the money in the world. If you don’t have someone like this in your life, I bet your life might be rather hard for you at times. Someone in your life needs to know everything about you. Because although God know all, you can’t see or hear Him, and there has to be someone whom you can sit down with and verbalize your feelings to and get understanding from. Who will listen to you when you are going thru a struggle, when you are at your wits end with a problem, and when you just need someone to be there for you.

Defeating your temptations in your life also requires that you have ammunition, God’s word hidden in your heart and mind, something to say back to those voices in your head that are telling you to do things at a moments notice. If you have nothing to fight with, how can you win? You have to be able to recognize a lie when you hear it other wise you won’t know you are being misled down the wrong path or that you are being led to do something that goes against God’s word. The enemy is far too sneaky to just come right out and lie completely to you. It will always sound true up until the very last word. And if you are not on your complete guard, you will miss that very last word and be thrown for a loop before you even realize you are in a spin that you can’t get out of because by the time you realize it, you are probably feeling to good. And once the pleasure of the sin takes over, you’re gone. Once the pleasure of the sin is in your mind, you are more than half way gone. The moment the sin is introduced you need God’s word to defeat that lie right from the start. Knowing all this is one thing, having the willingness to act on it is another. Anyone can say they want to be sin free. Anyone can say they want the defeat temptation in their lives. But where and how much are you willing depends on you everyday. It is always a choice, not a right. A choice to say I have hidden His word in my heart Just in Case. I will stay away from here, just in case. I will remember to reach out to my friends when this happens, just in case. No one can do it all alone. But just in case you are all alone, God is always there when you are, and He promised that HE would always plan a way out, just in case. It’s up to you, to me, to believe that there is always a way out. That we are never alone in our temptations, they are just Gods way of saying I am trusting in you today one more time to show me how much you love me. Will you love me today one more time?

Day Twenty Six

DAY 26

Growing through Temptation

Until I read this chapter, for the third and forth time, I was having a difficult time finding a place to start. It has taken days to get my thoughts together. My views on temptation and Rick’s views on the subject have been far apart from each other my whole life. Some of it came from my upbringing in the church I grew up in and the way things were explained at an early age and the way my young mind understood things to be. I grew up thinking that if I just thought the wrong things over and over again, that it MUST BE SIN because if that was what was on my mind it must also be what was in my heart. And because of the nature of the things that were on my mind I most definitely wasn’t going to talk about them just to see if I was right or if I was wrong about them. So I suffered with my feelings and my thoughts from a very early age. It just wasn’t about homosexual issues, but much more than just that. Today compared to the seventies, the homosexual issue is a much more talked about, accepted in the public eye as we have celebrities and television shows centered around this subject with every turn of the dial. As a young boy, temptation, a thought, a feeling, a desire, it made no difference to me, in fact I didn’t know the difference between them. to me they were all the same. To me just having an immoral thought race through my head made me feel sick, evil, sinful, shameful, ashamed, like I should have never been born to begin with, and like it would be better if I could just die. This started at the age of eleven and continued throughout most of my life. Trying to find anything to occupy my mind to rid myself of these never ending negative feelings about myself was the hardest and most demanding exercise of determination a boy could endure. How to escape my own mind, my own head, my own way of thinking was a never ending task. The best way I found to escape was as a teenager in church. At the age of fifteen when I began helping out in the children’s department, was the first time in my life I had ever received positive reinforcement for anything I did in my life, both from the kids I worked with, the adults in charge of me and the parents of the kids. To hear them say ‘MIKE, my son or my daughter has said such wonderful things about church and the way you encouraged them to want to return, I just want to thank you for what you have been doing.” Some one thanking me for something good I did, this was exactly the opposite of what I can remember growing up hearing at home my whole life. It was praises like this that helped to keep those evil, sinful etc. thoughts somewhere deep down inside of me. But never GONE, just buried.

As a young adult, after leaving my so called SAFE ZONE, and finally giving into the war within my head, my heart, and my mind, I couldn’t take the pressure anymore. Temptation had risen from a feeling to a curiosity to an exploration than began a quest that seemed to have taken on a life of its own. I had to see how things would play out. What was all this inside me? Where would it lead me? What would I find within its calling? Temptation, a world all unto itself, and in order to grow up, I had to go down as far as it would lead me. Once there at the bottom, the struggle to get back up, through all the hills and valleys that I had been lead down was now the growth process of my life. How do I get back to where God was once the center of my life? How do I get back to Him though all the things that had clouded my mind and changed my ways of thinking? How do I begin to release all the things that had their hooks in me so deep that it would seem like their hold was set in me for a lifetime? Was it even possible to find my way back again after over half my lifetime had been spent giving into all the temptation the world and the enemy had offered me and that I had accepted so freely with no questions asked?

The Word of God said that it was. It didn’t say that it was going to be easy. It didn’t say that it was going to be instant. It just said that it was possible. It was grace and mercy that saw me through those years of temptation, now it would be faith and prayer that would see me through to the other side. With these four elements of God, everything in the world under heaven is possible. There are times when I think that there are parts of me that are never going to be able to be forgiven or removed or changed or taken away, but this is just what the enemy would have me to think just before I am ready to move on to the next phase of my recovery, onto the next step in the process of restoring my mind to the mind God gave me in the first place. Another lie born of satan that tried to steal my joy and my happiness that God gave His son for in my place.

It is one step at a time, one though process at a time, One diversion at a time, One addiction at a time, One habit at a time, One lie at a time, and one thing after another until I start over and do it all over again. Rome wasn’t built in a day, putting down my needle starting six months after I started and took twenty years to finally let go of. Saying good-bye to nicotine was another twenty year habit that was an on again of again I’ll try it again one more time until it finally was gone. Thinking that every Friday night was meant for Speed and Sex that would last until Monday took years to change, even though while I was in the middle of it, I knew it wasn’t what God wanted for me. And that it wasn’t what I was looking for or that I was going to find what I was looking for while I was participating in it. But there I was, believing the lies the enemy had so carefully laid out in front of me. The enemy was good at giving me just enough to entice my mind while leaving me without enough to satisfy it at the same time. Giving me enough to get me high but not enough to make it work or last the way it had in the past. But the promise that it would the next time. And I like a fool, a sucker would believe it every time. How many times does a person get lied to before he stops believing them? I am embarrassed to say. How many years did I spend trusting the enemy to again give me what the temptations promised to do for me? Again, more than half my lifetime. How many mistakes did Thomas Edison make when he invented the light bulb? But then how many things did he know NOT TO DO the next time? Well same here. I know many things not to do, many things that don’t work anymore. MORE THAN MOST and have lived to tell about it, that is the real miracle, Surviving all of it at the Will and Grace of God for His Purpose. God purpose is to bring every man unto Himself. And it is up to God to use us to accomplish that task. If it is His will to use me to do that by seeing me through all my temptations and allow me to get though them just so other men women and children can see the power of God, then that is all by Gods doing, nothing I have ever done has gotten me here to this point except one thing, making a choice to follow Him, surrender to Him, say yes to His will for my life. I have given in to every thing that world had to offer. I have fallen into temptation, given into it, ran with it, and failed at resisting it over and over again. If it were up to me, without God temptation would be a losing battle, but because I Love God, I have made up my mind to decide that I would rather say TODAY I thought about serving God and serving others to keep my mind off the temptation, rather than to sit and dwell on the things of the past, the feelings my flesh would love for me to enjoy, the places my head would love to take me. I have twenty some years of memories, but I also have those same twenty some years of remembering who lied to me, who deceived me, and where all those phony promises got me. If a can throw all that back in the face of the enemy, he shouldn’t stand to much of a chance in the future.

Day Twenty Five

DAY 25

Transformed By Trouble

I wish someone would have told me about this one when I was growing up because as I have written in my past writings, TROUBLE followed me all the days of my life right in front of GOODNESS AND MERCY. Now more than ever as I made that request to God at the age of twenty to sit in front of a large group of young Jr. High and High school students, (maybe that is where the request should have been STAND IN FRONT OF) and tell them all the ways GOD has saved my life over and over again, do I desire it even more now. If I can just help them understand early enough that life isn’t their fault, that the troubles that they are having just being young men and women are really just God’s way of GROWING them, maybe they can see life in a different view point and not be so shocked when things don’t always go their way. That the stuff that happens to them aren’t really tragedies but lessons that God is using to make them into something GREAT and that with each one of them, they are closer to becoming just who He created them to be. Hopefully they will learn what needs to be learned and ask what can I learn from this early enough not to have to repeat it over and over and over again like the author of this message did. I understand why GOD feels His word is so important to us as Christians, He wrote all the instructions down to be able to live, if we would just pay attention. How great would it be if our children would but listen to their parents and mentors and teachers the first time and soak it all in instead of letting all this wealth of knowledge just pass them by. Or why does anyone sit in a church service to hear the pastor and then leave and not remember a word of it the rest of the week? I HAVE NO IDEA! But then I am just the kind of person that can’t do anything hap hazardly, anything I do I am passionate and serious about, otherwise, why do it? Why waste anyone time? It makes no sense to do anything you are not committed to in the first place.

So have you ever heard the song that goes like this, “NOBODY KNOWS THE TROUBLES I’VE SEEN”? Can you imagine going through the same troubles as the next guy? Lucky for you my troubles weren’t yours. I guess God figured that I was the only one that could endure all the things that life as brought my way and God also had the faith that I would someday emerge from them relatively unharmed. Good thing I said RELATIVELY uh? Being infected with the HIV virus for the past 26 years and rolling around in a wheelchair for the past 13 may be more than relatively to some, but with the troubles I have seen, it seems like nothing to me. WHO COULD EVER SAY THAT and get away without being thought of as a liar? ME, that’s who! Sure times were tough, times have been tough, and they can still get tough. And for most of my life I fought ever one of those tough times with usually by making them tougher. Shoot a little speed here, sleep around over there, make a fool of myself in the process most of the time everywhere. Did I listen to the mentors around me, usually not. Did I pay attention to the warning signs that God put in front of me, not usually, mostly because I didn’t recognize them until it was too late. How do you tell someone when they have been hurt emotionally that it is for their own good? That God must be allowing it so you can grow. No one wants to hear that, especially at that very moment. Or when you have gotten yourself arrested, then released with the charges dismissed, some might say that was a waste of time, but was it? Was it a warning call? Did I pay attention to it? For about 2 days then right back where I was the day before I was arrested. Lesson heard but lesson ignored that quick. (That is where the FOOL stepped in and took over)

So where was the good in all my troubles over the years? What lessons have I learned finally? Where do I start? l I don’t play with matches, I don’t cross the street without looking both ways, and I never eat something that doesn’t smell good. I know that drugs don’t solve problems, they create them. I know that temporary sex is just another way of telling myself that I am hurting and that I am really lonely and that there is something missing that only GOD can fill in my life. What else? That God is really the only one that can LOVE me the way I want to be and need to be loved, regardless of what my mind or my hormones tell me. That serving others rather than taking everything for myself leaves a better taste in my mouth and a more joyful spirit inside me. That lying to make myself look better only last until people get to know me. And that I can depend on people only as far as I can throw them, so the old saying goes. But God has got my back and will never let me down. That all along no matter where I was or what I was doing, it would not have happened unless God thought that I was for my own good or that it was something that would teach me something, sometime.

I always wondered why it always took so long for me to come to the point of surrendering to God. Why was I so stubborn for so long? Combine loneliness with extreme emotional pain, a need for acceptance that you look for it from almost anyone, only to realize that it is people that are flawed but not the Lord. But I could only allow what I could see and touch rather than what I needed to just believe in and trust and have faith in. It has taken years of seeing God’s hand in situations that I have no idea humanly how I made it out alive. Or that I wasn’t locked up for things that I have seen other spend a lifetime in jail for. Was I that special to God that He allowed me to be saved for some grand purpose? I must have been because I am here writing all this. Remember I asked God for something many years ago, And I was just reminded of that tonight. ASKING GOD FOR WHAT YOU WANT. I have always known that He will meet my needs, like the sparrow. But tonight I was reminded of or was it just the first time that I was ready to hear this, that when a person is seriously ready to be set free from the troubles in their lives, asking God is the first step. HE wants us to ask. Come to me He says, tell me your burdens and I will make them light. Let me transform those troubles in your life, let me know that you are ready to have them removed and I will.

There has been an old issue in my life that I have tried dealing with over and over again, this week it has presented itself in one way or another more than once for no specific reason. I know I have asked God to remove it more times than grains of sand on the beach. But was I ready to have it removed? Did I want it removed for real? Do I believe that it is possible? Intelectually yes, beyond that, I can only wish. How do I come to believe with my whole heart that it is possible when I have a lifetime of memories to recall at any given moment whether I want to or not? All I can do is say “YES GOD I am ready” and let Him finish it for me. I have always thought that it was my job which is stupid is the only word I can spell at the moment. I know there is no way I can do anything, Lord knows I have tried. It is just something that seems like it is a part of who I am and not just something that is a symptom of something else. It is the ELSE part I have no idea what it is. So where do I go from here? Just keep trusting God to do His part. Surrender to Him what I can not do for myself. Say “YES GOD I am ready”. You know my heart, my mind and my shortcomings. Thank you for getting me this far, but please don’t stop here, finish what you have started. Make me a whole man, a healed man, a man of integrity and a man that is above reproach in every area of his life. Start today, begin NOW, make me into your son Jesus. Make me an example for others to see YOU in me. Let my life have the meaning you made it to be. Restore unto me, the joy of my salvation, the feeling I felt at the age of nine, when I went forward and asked you to save me. I ran down the isle to make that a commitment in my life, always let me remember to run to you now with everything that I am. Every trouble that comes my way, every feeling that confuses me or wants to harm me, Let me run to you with it all Lord. I know you will be there, because you have always been there. Don’t leave or forsake you son Michael, he needs you now more than ever.

Day Twenty Four

DAY 24

Transformed By Truth

Truth, what is it? Is it in the mouth of the person who says TRUST ME? Does that mean you are about to hear something TRUE? For much of my adult life, I believed people who said those two little words. Why would they say them if what they were about to say wasn’t true? UMM, silly Michael, look in the dictionary and under the word FOOL there was your picture. It seemed to become that way after a while. I guess I was searching so hard for something to believe in; someone to love me, that I would believe anything anyone told me if I thought it would make me happy for the moment. THE MOMENT, what about FOREVER? Why couldn’t I or didn’t I care about seeing the long road ahead of me? I never thought about it because I didn’t ever know from one minute to the next if there was ever going to be another next time. In my mind, this was all there was. I lived every day for the day, every moment as if it were my last. And every time I got my feelings hurt, let down, stepped on, it was just another reminder that the world and people were nothing to be trusted. That those two little words TRUST ME was the biggest lie ever told. Even as a child not knowing what those two words were or meant but still they were something I was supposed to have learned to feel, I never did. Instead of trusting that I would be protected, I grew up in fear. Instead of growing up trusting that someone would always be there, there wasn’t. Instead of growing up knowing that everything would be alright, it never was. Trust and security, the two most important things a child should learn to live with and have in his or her life was absent from me, so trying to understand these concepts in someone that I could never see. IE: God was a very difficult thing to learn how to do, especially when learning to hear Him took so many years to recognize. What was a little boy to do?

As I struggled through life with a head full of God knowledge, and a heart so broken and full of guilt and shame, I always knew God had His best in mind for me and that His word was the best thing to look to for the answers to all of the questions I had. But at a young age trying to decipher those answers for myself without being able to ask for help without revealing my secrets to anyone was not easy. I say that only because there were times in my life I did talk about the sensitive issues in my life with quote un-quote MEN OF GOD, but maybe it was just the times or the era that I lived in but they were as uneducated and naive or completely misinformed to have any idea what to say to me. Some wouldn’t or didn’t even attempt to pray with me. Their best advice was to tell me to just MOVE OUT OF STATE and maybe everything would just go away if I was living somewhere different. Like that would make any difference what so ever. So you see the advice of some was just so wrong it was no wonder I seemed so helpless to seek advice from anyone, but back to the topic at hand, God’s Word. Finally it would come down to “Was I ready to give into it or not”? For years I searched for someone to give me answers, a solution to follow to guide my life to live by, Psychologist, therapist, counselors, humans with their own minds and own ways of thinking. All of them with their own egos that thought they were right in their own way of thinking about life and how I should live mine. But every time I got this bad sick feeling inside that would tell me this isn’t the answer, don’t you understand I am a Christian, and God says. Then they would say something like “Yea but God didn’t really mean for you to suffer like this did He?” Well suffer or no suffer I guess that is my choice. But no matter what, your way of thinking isn’t going to make me feel any better about myself so “See you later BYE!” So once again I am left to myself all alone to figure out who I am, what to do with what I am feeling, and how to live my life with the feelings that I have been dealing with and the confusing thoughts and all the lies I have been hearing and believing all my life. Every once in a while I would put my thumb on the Bible somewhere as I felt Gods gentle spirit leading me, sometimes I felt the comfort that it brings, other times I felt the conviction that it can also make a person feel. That is when I usually put it back on the shelf so many times before. I just wasn’t ready to make a commitment to continue with the next verse or the rest of what I was reading entailed at that point in my life. But I always knew “IT was in there, the TRUTH was in between the covers of that book on my shelf.” The rules if that is what you want to call them. I don’t because that sounds to much like something you have to follow and if you don’t you will be punished by someone that will make you feel sorry you didn’t meet up to their standards or worse, send you to hell. I like what I heard once, using the words HOLY BIBLE as an acronym, He Only Left You Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth. How simple does that make the Bible sound, Basic Instructions written by the designer on how to operate His creation? I remember my dad all to well at Christmas time after opening up a new toy that had to be put together that had a lot of pieces and a big book of instructions. The instruction got thrown out with the wrapping, because MEN don’t ask for directions and they don’t need instruction. But sooner than later someone was in the trash looking for those instructions. How often when life gets us down do we go looking for a dust cloth and the bible on the shelf to see what is wrong in out lives and try to find that one or two verses that will make us feel better, hardly ever. So what happened to me, how and when did God’s word all of a sudden just jump out at me and become so alive to me. I can think of two times in the past year that God did His leading that was so amazing that I was hooked so strongly on it. Last July I was in my bedroom, and He nudged me to stick my thumb in it because I was right next to it on the table in my room. I picked it up and stuck in my thumb and opened it up to the book of Proverbs chapter one, the very first page. So I read the first chapter, put it back down and went on with my day. The following day I read the second chapter. I found verses like Proverbs 1:23 If you repent and give heed to my reproof, I will pour out my spirit upon you. or chapter two, My son if you will receive my words and treasure up my commandments within you, making your ear attentive ….then you will understand the reverent and worshipful fear of the Lord. It was on this day after I read the second chapter that I took these verses to heart, and took my four packs a day of cigarettes habit to the trash can and trusted GOD to do his part and threw away FOUR CARTONS of them straight into the dumpster. Four packs a day meant the kids in the neighborhood used to call me chimney because I always had a smoke in my hand. But as soon as I released them into the dumpster, there because of my faith, went my habit and my cravings all at the same time. I had been trying many ways to quit for a long time my 20 year habit, cutting down, changing brands, not buying any then just buying one pack at a time. Nothing worked. But throwing away four cartons, all that money at once, not even giving them away to other smokers I knew. GONE, in LESS THAN 60 SECONDS!

Then just this February when I called my doctor to tell her to stop the medication I was abusing, the Lord told me to put my thumb in the bible another time I put it into Psalms 116 and began to read, it was verse 16 He was heading me towards and it read “I have Loosed Your Bonds” and then verse 18 said “I will Pay my Vows in the Presence of His People” and right there I knew I had to take the microphone away from my Pastor the next week in church and testify to what the Lord had done in releasing me from my addiction of thirteen years. The Power of the Word of God will out do and out live any thing and any human being ever. Why would anyone go anywhere else for an answer or pay anyone any amount of money for answers that can be found for free in the instruction manual left by God for His people written by His Holy Spirit through His people in the first place? It makes no sense and I am living proof because I have spent a life time doing just that, Sad uh? Starve if you will, starve if you must, but never go to your Pastor with a problem if your first one is anorexia from the word. He’ll just send you home with a diet plan and tell you to call him in a month. Because there is nothing he can do to force Gods word into you. There are no feeding tubes for the Word of God, you can feed with others, or as the old saying goes, you can lead a Christian to the Word of God but you can’t make him READ IT, he has to do it all on his own.

Day Twenty Three

DAY 23

How I Grew, and I am Still Growing

Sure the seed was planted, a long time ago. October 9^th, 1969. My mother told me to WALK, but inside I wanted to RUN down the isle into the waiting arms of Pastor George Peek of North Long Beach Brethren Church. I wanted two things, for God to save me from the things I knew made Him unhappy with me, and for Him to save me from my father. After that day when the days and months and years past, and as I would call out to Him to save me from my father, and it seemed like He was absent or didn’t hear me, I wondered, why He didn’t listen to me. Why wouldn’t God pay attention to a little boys cry for help? I didn’t stop believing that there was a God, I just didn’t understand why everything I heard about Him didn’t seem to come true for me.

Then as I reached puberty, those horrible confusing years that really shut me down and locked me inside myself, God got even more distant. I wouldn’t speak of anything I was feeling or thinking to anyone except God and He didn’t seem to be hearing me because I just wanted all that STUFF to just go away and the more I did, the more it just seemed to get worse. Umm, Nature, no one told me what to expect. But somewhere deep down inside I just felt that what I was feeling wasn’t normal and that something was broken and it was God’s responsibility to FIX IT so I prayed and cried out inside to Him every day to FIX me, to change me, to make me normal (what ever that was or is) but nothing ever happened, the feelings I had just got stronger and stronger, so again the absence of God was there all the time. I heard that if you asked God for His will to be done that He would do it. Well I couldn’t think of anything more in line with His will than to take these abnormal feelings and desires out of me but they never left. I used everything I could to mask or disguise them. I tried removing myself from any temptation that I could think of. Wasn’t that the right thing to do? I became involved with the children’s department at the age of 15 which took up all of my time. I became better friends with them rather than friends my own age just to keep my head away from the temptation that I had at school all day. I loved telling stories that I had grown up with to children. I sometimes felt like even though God didn’t listen to my prayers, the kids still needed to hear about who He was and that they needed to hear about Him so I wanted them to know about Him. I remember the first 4^th grader I led to the Lord on the back stairs of the church one afternoon. He was sad and upset about something and I asked him if he knew that Jesus died to make everything better for him. And with tears in his eyes he prayed and asked Jesus to come into his life. And as the years went by I watched Sterling Zimmer grow and grow into the most amazing spiritual giant I had ever seen. For the next five years he became one of the most smartest, most popular, most well liked young men in the church and at his school. Every week when he arrived at church he would stop by my classroom to say hello, then when he got into Jr. High school he went to the same school I attended and would stop by my home to visit every day. Just to know that I had this kind of an effect on him made me proud to know that I had an influence on a little boy’s life like that. But at some point at the age of twenty one I had had enough of waiting for God to answer all my prayers, ten years I though was enough and I left church and family and my values to try and find out those answers to all those questions I had rolling around in my head for myself.

So what happened to the seed that was planted at this point in my life? Did it just die? No, unless I died it couldn’t die. In a way, God’s voice seemed to get a little clearer. Because I was now hearing things that bothered me, my conscience. I didn’t’ hear this before because I had never acted on my feelings. But now I was taking all those thoughts and curiosities and making them a living thing. Now instead of trying to find something to take the place of temptation, I needed to find something to take the place of God and the guilt I was feeling, not as easy a task. Pleasure was temporary, but it was also the cause of the guilt. So more pleasure seemed to work for a while, which piled on more guilt. But when I found chemicals to go along with the pleasure there went the guilt and there is when I thought I had reached the point of no return. Satan had his hook and found his hold on me, he found what worked to keep God far away and me safely bound and tied. I struggled for years within my addictions to break away and find my way back to a life I once remembered. Every time I thought I had made it safely to a neutral corner, the enemy found a way to drag me back into his web of lies one more time. When would this end I would cry out to God? How much more of this can one man take? It was like Moses and the children of Egypt being taken to the edge of the promised land for a glimpse of it and then lead away just as they were about to take the final last steps every time for the last five or ten years. Something always seemed to stop them at the last and final moment of there redemption.

Well it finally had to come to an end sometime. Everything has a beginning and an end. Even the Bible starts out with the words “In the Beginning” so I knew that what had started in my life must have an end to it someday. My last and final chapter of letting go and letting God ended in February of 2008. For thirteen years I had been on a medication for a medical condition that turned into an addiction that the enemy used to keep me tied up and bound. It was the only thing in my life that I was holding onto that was keeping me from allowing God to have total access to all areas of my life. I couldn’t function with it or without it. I felt I needed it because I had used it for a valid reason at one point in my life, but as time went on I had learned to abuse it for a whole lot of other reasons and learned to use it to satisfy a whole lot of other feelings I didn’t want to face in my life. I knew for a long time that this was what was standing in my way between me and God. For a long time I had so much fear of “What will I do without waking up and not having this to take in the mornings? How will I make it through my days having to deal with the feelings that I know will come crashing in on me? Who is going to be there when I begin to cry all day long?” These were just some of the things I was worried about when I began to think about letting go of the last drug and last addiction in my life. But in reality it was like God pruning off that last of the dead branches that were still attached to me. The biggest and the heaviest ones and YES it was going to HURT, A LOT. But it was those last branches that were sucking up all the life out of me.

So it was time to let go and let GOD. How did I know it was time? For the past few months He had been preparing me for this final act of commitment. He lead me back to a place I said and promised I would never return to. The only promise I think I had ever made to God and kept, ever. He placed a Pastor in my life that was prepared for me. He placed church members in my life that HE prepared for me. He placed me in a Church that was prepared for me, or as I have said before in my past so many times “HE SET ME UP” for this very moment. I knew at this very moment that it was NOW that I had to say NO, this is the END. This will not, this can not go on any longer. I made two phone calls. The first one was to the pharmacy to have the refill I was on my way to pick up put back on the shelf, and the second phone call was to my doctor to tell her that she needed to take this drug away from me and not allow me to have access to it any more because I had been abusing it. It was at that very moment I felt the Lord release all the depression, all the misery I had been feeling for the past few months. He even put my thumb in the middle of the Bible to Psalms 116 and when I got to verse 16 it read “I have Loosed Your Bonds”. No thumb could have just picked out that very verse at random like that at that very moment. But God could! No pill from any doctor could have taken away what I had been feeling for so long just like that, but GOD could! No drug could have made me feel better without the side effects like that, but GOD DID! I didn’t even ask for any of that to happen, I just made a choice to put an end to something that I didn’t want in my life anymore. I made a commitment to myself and a promise to myself and to Him to live without the help of anything other than God in my life any more no matter what the outcome was going to be without the drug. And He met me right where I was instantly. The reasons the drug was prescribed were not working anyway. The reasons why they were being prescribed are being met now that I am not taking them. I did my part, God is doing His. No more life sucking branches attached to me anymore.

Since the pruning has been done so painlessly, real growth has taken place. Feelings have risen, feelings have been put on these pages, but with very few tears. They’re more like memories of life that took place, a story of a man that lived through something that got him to a place that has brought him to the promised land still in one piece, with a sound mind, with a pure heart, with an honest Love for God and a heart for people that I can say to everyone I meet,

Have you fallen in Love with Jesus, I have! Would you like to meet Him. Let me introduce you to Him.

Day Twenty Two

DAY 22

Created to Become Like Christ

OK, next Sunday I’ll show up to church in sandals and wrapped in a sheet, and I’ll have to get a wig until I can get my hair to grow back out, will this complete the meaning of this chapter? Of course my feet will have to be dirty in the sandals. Oh he was talking about “on the INSIDE” to be like Jesus. I think if I try really hard I can sweat blood.

What does it really mean to become more like Jesus Christ? I don’t know if I can honestly say if that concept in such a way as it is today has ever been impressed upon me as it has this last year, to become LIKE HIM and not just to be someone who tries not to sin so much. Growing up being told that I was such a BAD KID was no way to grow up thinking of myself. Thinking Mike was BAD or WRONG from the beginning was so imbedded in me it was a hard label to overcome. It was much easier to learn to accept and learn to get my attention from that than it was to learn to succeed from a positive viewpoint of myself. When I was praised for something good in my life, I sometimes had a hard time accepting it as true. Why would you tell me that? Don’t you know how BAD I REALLY AM? If you only knew what was really inside me I would always think to myself, you would think twice before you said those NICE THINGS about me. Living under constant criticism of myself I know kept me from growing and moving on with my life many times. I always chose to view myself through the eyes of others, people who really didn’t matter much but I allowed them to have their opinions and let their opinions matter more about me than I did my own that I would never even considerd what GOD thought of me. Because I knew HE KNEW what was really inside me and I knew a lot of that stuff was worse that what anyone ever saw. But what I failed to realize was that before I was ever born HE KNEW all that, and yet HE still decided to choose me and accept me. What ever it is or was that I felt was BAD that HE just saw as something that He could change, that those parts of my character weren’t all my fault, and the ones that I had chosen to develop on my own I could chose to surrender to HIM when ever I wanted to. It was the job of His Holy Spirit to nudge me into wanting to do just that. And that He could do this when ever He wanted to in His time. The desire to have what I have right now at this time in my life I have had for a life time it seems like. So why is it I am just now getting to this point in my life, God’s timing, not mine. Only He knows why He took the time to get me to this place in my life. Never before have I experienced GOD in such a way move in my life in such a personal way. I have always felt His presence but the way He is being so comforting and so obviously leading my paths and revealing Himself to me is definitely something more than I have ever experienced before.

Looking back on my life, there has been very few people that have had direct influence, meaning other than my parents for as long as I lived with them, but other than that, most of the lessons of life I have learned by my own trial and errors. Because I wanted to get away from any thing that resembled authority, I wanted to be in total control of everything that had to do with Michael Carpenter. “DON’T TELL ME WHAT TO DO” Stubbornness was a word that fit well in a description of me. Self centeredness was another one. It was MY LIFE, MY WORLD, MY WAY. But when something went wrong, it was never MY FAULT. Someone or something else needed to take responsibility for it. Blame it on an ADDICTION that was a DISEASE, a sickness, not my fault, or a MENTAL ILLNESS a sickness and again NOT MY FAULT. Either way, both were KNIT IN THE WOMB. So how could I be at fault? Kind of sounds like “BUT THE WOMAN YOU GAVE ME” doesn’t it? It just has taken years of beating my head against the proverbial wall time and time again for me to understand that life doesn’t owe Michael anything or any special favors, but rather I owe it to myself to pay attention to life’s lessons and life’s challenges to grow up instead of sitting back at getting beat up my the same mistakes over and over again. I need to turn off that song in my head that has been playing for so many years “I don’t want to grow up, I’m a Toy’s or Us kid”. There is nothing wrong with a “child like mind” or being Young at Heart but putting away childish ways has to come some day. I always wondered if I would still be doing and thinking or even be around living at the age of 50 with the same mind set as I did in my twenties and thirty’s. I still feel much the same way as I did then. But what has changed is the reality of decisions I made then and the ones I make now are slightly different. Maybe a whole lot different I hope with some. Do I have to? NO. But do I want the chaos I made with those decisions back then? No and that is the difference today.

So what is more like Christ today? The “ME” is out of the picture in most of the things I do. The fact that I have a purpose of things “TO DO” every day I wake up. It wasn’t too long ago it seems like that my days were spent waking up, lighting up, medicating myself, zoning out, fading out all day, and going back to bed. I had no idea of what to do with myself or my days. I had no reason to make any efforts in my life for anyone. Why? There was no one in my life to do anything for. Bored, lonely, depressed were three more words to describe my life besides stubborn and self centered. Now I have replaced those words with Joyful, giving, serving, caring, helpful, seeking, worshipful, mindful, excited, hopeful, patient, kind, forgiving, just to name a few. Becoming but not arrived, becoming more like Him everyday. Forgetting it is anything but me and all about Him, a life of service to others for others because He has given everything for me. I am here because He has willed it for me. My life is not my life but HIS. I just made a mess of it, I am not to proud to admit that one. I am just glad I didn’t destroy it totally to where He can’t use it anymore. So LORD do with me ALL YOU CAN and ALL YOU WANT. I’ll do my best not to get in the way again. Continue to teach me and mold me to be more like your son Jesus. Use all those you have put in my life to complete this work in me. Now and forever more, I am forever in your hands.

Day Twenty One

DAY 21

Protecting My Church

In day nineteen, I started out saying “Can’t we all just get along”. Well church is the only place you can join where no matter who you are, what you are, no matter if you are rich or poor, everyone is equal. Everyone has just as much an opportunity as the next person. But when each others personalities begin to over ride the main purpose of the mission of the church, trouble begins. When someone’s personal way of thinking becomes more important than the goal of the task at hand, the final result can become lost or never completed. Quarrels can easily become more common than harmony. Gossip then begins to spread like wild fires. Who did what to who, or who didn’t do what when. Remember imperfect people that are trying to do something to perfection often run into something that doesn’t seem to go smoothly. This is why it is so important to remember where the focus is supposed to be. Not on each others faults or mistakes, but on the one that gave them the job to do in the first place and who they are doing it for to begin with. FOCUS FOCUS FOCUS. Don’t ever let your guard down. Everyone has weaknesses, yourself included. And everyone has his or her own strengths. People work together better with encouragement rather than condemnation. A little praise goes a long way. A little dissention takes a long time to forget. A pat on the back feels uplifting; a personal dig at someone’s ego can discourage them to never return. Human beings are sensitive creatures. Depending on how each of us was raised or what we all went through as children, we all need different levels of nurturing even as adults. Leaning to get along with other adults in a situation where the personal differences are so noticeable, takes time and patience. Learning to accept others in a place where you may not have had to deal with people like that any other place in your life before may be difficult. But if church is a place you can’t get along, how would you ever get along with people like them any where else?

I am happy to say that since I have been at my church, Johnson Chapel, I have enjoy seeing how people work together and how the team effort in getting things done as really benefited everyone I have had the opportunity to be involved with. Whether it was planning a party or being asked to provide help for Sunday refreshments, I have enjoyed being asked and getting involved in everything I have been asked to do. Even just being around the church and being in the office during the week has been a blessing seeing how everything is working behind the scenes is fantastic. I have been able to watch two very dedicated women very competent at what they do who may or may not always get the recognition they deserve. But what they do is the very back bone of our church. I know and have seen that out Pastor depends on them greatly. Now if he could just keep me out of their hair I know he would really be pleased.

Day Twenty

DAY 20

Restoring Broken Fellowship

Letting go of my Rage

Conflict, I grew up with it all around me. Someone was always shouting, arguing, fighting, and getting mad at someone for something. The wall of grudges ran deep within me. “I’ll get you my pretty” as the wicked witch said in the Wizard of Oz riding her broom in the storm. I would sit around thinking up ways to get back at my sister for something she had done all the time. And when I did figure out just what I was going to do, I planned it well, and when I executed it, she knew I was getting even. Even though I knew I was going to get in the worst trouble I had ever been in, so what, no one ever punished her, so I did the punishing for my parents and took what ever I got because I usually got it anyway. So I just thought I might as well get even with her in the mean time. But as I grew up, because of all the fighting and yelling that went on in the house when I was younger, anytime someone raised their voice, inside I backed down. I didn’t like to hear loud voices or angry voices being used. No matter what the topic was, if it was said with a loud or harsh voice, I cowered inside. I never felt like I could stand up for myself and speak up for myself because I was always made to feel like I was the bad kid just because that is what I was told for so many years. This is why I probably felt safe being around the kids in church from the time I was a teenager instead of friends my own age. Not much conflict there. And if there was any, at least I was the older on who was in charge and could be the one to resolve them instead of being the one in the midst of them usually. So I felt very comfortable as a manager of a business in my twenties being a boss over many employees. I only had one man over me. That was Brad and even though I learned how to argue with him, I felt safe that I could express my anger and not have the threat of being hurt and that at the end of the day, what ever the argument was about, it ended when we locked the office door. But in my personal life, when there was personal conflict, personal pain in a relationship, casual or intimate, it only took once for me to get hurt and instead of discussing it I just learned it was better to walk away and not wait for another round of when will you do this again. It was easier than trying to face the issue and wait for it to happen again. That is why I went through friends as fast as lighting strikes sometimes. All was good until there was the first disagreement. Then depending on the level of disagreement or the circumstance, it could be over as quickly as it started. My voice could raise to levels unknown without me even knowing it at a snap of a finger with so my intensity over nothing. Rage would be a good word for it. In fact many people asked where mine came from and I would answer “WHAT RAGE?” The one who are displaying right now they would say. I guess I would hold so much in that when it finally did come out, every bit of anger that I had been holding in for so long came out all at once and the poor soul that was in front of me at the time was the one who was the proud recipient or it all.

When I first read this chapter, I couldn’t thing of anyone that I had any conflict with. Life has been pretty peaceful for quite a while. BUT then yesterday just out of the blue, something happened that could have reincarnated my rage all over again. I was asked to leave the Mall with my service animals by an uneducated security guard that just had no idea who he was messing with. Instead I left the mall after letting him know I would be taking care of this issue with his bosses and maybe even a lawyer. But not once did I raise my voice, shout, cuss, swear, or promise myself to take revenge. I did do some internet searching for things to present to them next time I am in the Mall. I did contact the mall operations manager today and had a discussion with Cindy the Manager of the Mall and explained to her the situation and what my views were and what my situation was in detail concerning my animals and my reasons for having them, She understood and was able to see my views and as well as I did hers. We finally came to an agreement that we could both live with and that I feel no other legal action needs to take place at this time. But I also was able to find out that the operations manager of the security officers had a bad experience as a small child and is very afraid of my kind of animals so it is also his own issues with them that is playing a part in his decision making processes. Sad that I have to deal with his childhood fears but not right at the same time. So instead of just backing down and getting angry and frustrated and doing or saying anything I shouldn’t, I calmly made the proper phone calls to the proper people and calmly stated my concerns and was polite and to the point and resolve the problem with no conflicts like I usually created all by myself in the past. I am proud that I did this. And it just wasn’t for me but for my animals and all the folks that get to enjoy them when I take them for a ride with me. Maybe it is because my and my prayer partner had just finished prayed a short while ago. Maybe I am just growing in the Lord. Maybe Jesus is becoming more and more a part of me everyday the more and more I trust him to take control and let him handle the big and the small things in my life so I can enjoy life and let life be what He wants it to be for me, abundant.