Stepping out of that car, what seems like a lifetime ago, and watching one of the last bridges to the ones I love drive away, reality was setting in. My God, what have I done and what have I become? Everything you dreamed as a boy, all the great things you were going to accomplish, had been destroyed. The enemy wasn't some mystical creature that had forced his way into my life, destroying every facet of it. No, the enemy I kept with me at all times; it was the face that stared back at me in the mirror. I had allowed this to happen, even asked for it. The consequences of turning my back on God were mounting, and they didn't come from him, they were all of my making. Now I had lost all sense of direction, purpose, but most of all hope. Having it drilled into my head over time by a Yankee ball cap wearing Drill Sergeant, we don’t get to this place as a principle of choice. No, we get here only when it becomes a better option than where we are at, and for me that was in hell. Once depended on by several cities to take care of thousands, now I couldn't even take care of myself. Newspaper articles about kids pulled from a burning cars were long gone, replaced by my obituary written by Satan himself..
So, this was my step up? A mission in the ghetto proclaiming, “Where Lives Are Reshaped By The Hands Of God”? Where was God's hand here? I mean this place looked like a bad scene out of a South Central L.A. Gang movie. Yeah, keep that article close Satan, it's about over. Faith of a mustard seed? Well I was still alive, breathing, and IN A MISSION... Call that a mustard seed if you want but little did I know then that was enough for him to work with.
After being rescued from “the ghetto” and sent to the set of “Deliverance”, things started looking up. At least now my death would come in the peaceful country, more than likely as a sacrifice beside some ritualistic camp fire thing they do here. But I sucked it up and did what they said. The cool thing was that I actually started realizing there were others just like me here; same hurts, same pain, felling lost and lonely. A bond started developing and before I knew it we started leaning on each other. Some light was leaking it's way into that dark cave we had all been in. Can you say it? Yes we started having a brotherhood that a lot of us had never felt. Something real and true, not based on selfish wants, but on common ground and caring for each other. God is a slick one. That mustard seed was growing.
Over time as guys came and went, there remained a core that stuck it out together. As with every graduating class, a bond was forged that no one that hasn't been through could ever understand. Forged through the same fires of hell, I will be forever be bonded with these guys. My brothers. We have laughed, cried, destroyed property to relieve anger and resentment ( Uh, not really Pastor Bill, Dusty and Mike ). We have watched brothers go through the hell of having divorce papers handed to him, parents pass away, children dying, and still having the audacity and tenacity to stay where God put them. I have watched shells of what were formerly men, the walking dead, transformed into mighty and powerful warriors for God. That wife, with the divorce papers? I just saw on their facebook page where she was telling her New Husband how much she loved him. I say new, but it's the same body as her old husband with a different man inside. A man on fire for God and his family. Gods promise of restoration in full effect.
I came here with nothing left. Everything destroyed. No reason to go on.. But with the faith of a mustard seed that God has watered and fed I'm leaving with more than I could have ever imagined. Ask me about God? There is a 17 year old girl, put through hell by her father; a father that doesn't deserve to still have her in his life; but on that Sunday she will be sitting in that church. Why? Because she said she wanted her daddy back. By God, she's getting him. People that you thought would never leave, are gone and people you never dreamed of or even knew are standing proudly by our sides.
But to my brothers, know this. Christ said he will never leave or forsake you, and being a new man striving to be like him, neither will I. A week from now, a year from now or 20 years from now, if you called in the middle of the night needing me, I will be there. I use to think I wanted to hang at the Country Club and let my kids run and play with the “elite” crowd. Guess what? I still do.. But my Country Club is on an 85 acre farm in Cullman, Those kids belong to some of the strongest and most courageous men and women I've ever had the honor to know. Yes, iron sharpens iron, and those men helped make me the man I am, and showed me the way home to my father.. God Bless You and I Love All Of You!!!
