Don't Get Stuck!

Don't get stuck!

Life happens to each one of us, we experience joy and heartbreak.

We learn things, usually the hard way, and in case no one has ever told you you were built for adversity.  The definition for adversity is difficulties, misfortune, trouble, hardship, distress, disaster, suffering, affliction, sorry, misery, tribulation, woe, pain, trauma, mishap, misadventure, accident, upset, reverse, setback, crisis, catastrophe, tragedy, trial, cross, and burden.

Man oh man you were built to go through some really tough stuff!  Only warriors will survive.

Don't get stuck!

The other day my girl Jennifer, when I called her in preaching crisis said to me, responsibility.  I'm like what the heck are you talking about.  She said, someone just explained this to me the other day and I want to share it with you right now.  Responsibility is your ability and your response.

I didn't know it was going to stay with me like it has at the time.

Your ability and your response.

Your ability is pretty great considering all the things adversity means and God saying He built you for it.

You are so much stronger than you think you are!

Things are going to happen!  It's a fact of life, but your ability and your response are the difference in how it affects you.  Knowing it's not going to be easy doesn't hurt, but even those who know this, aren't always expecting the things that befall them.

Things come out of nowhere like a diesel truck slamming into you at a red light.  You were minding your own business waiting for the light to change and wham!!!!!!!

In that instant everything changes.

You're going to live so what do you do next?

You overcome, that's what you do, you tell yourself, "I was built for this @#$! and no power on earth can stop me!"  You get up and brush yourself off like no one saw you fall.  You laugh like it doesn't matter and you just keep going.

Does this happen every time?

No.

It never hurts to have a good cry, tears are cleansing and you begin to release those things that have hurt you, to forgive those who have hurt you, to remember who you are, whose you are and how strong you are.

Weeping endureth for a night, but joy comes in the morning.

Don't get stuck!

Don't let that one thing keep you in a place you are supposed to be moving away from!

He says, "I am doing a new thing."

Get up!

Don't stay down!

There's so much more to live for, to go through and you are going to make it!

We get comfortable and think we are in the right place, but seasons come and go in the world and in our lives and we have to use our ability to go through things and the response to embrace the fact that nothing stays the same forever.

It's okay to not want to let it go, it's a place of comfort, you feel safe there.

I recently shared with my girls something I hadn't even realized until recently.

When I lived in Georgia I worked at Cracker Barrel and was acquainted with twelve different pastors, either through work, or friends taking me to church with them.  I had a handful of friends then, because I'd been in the streets for a long time and all my friends before that were strippers and people who worked in clubs.

When I was in the clubs, I didn't date people.  I had friends, most of them men, but I've always been friends with men.  Maybe it was my lack of fathering, maybe it was because girls always hurt me, who knows now, because it really doesn't matter.  I got all of my socializing out at work and after with friends, making sure no one followed me home where my babies lived.  My kids may have met five people in nine years, because I was a snobby, can't take you to my house where my babies are stripper.  LOL.

On Sunday morning I would wake up and start talking to God about where He wanted me to go that day and I went where ever He told me to go.  Only one time did I ever get up and leave the service and this was a church my husband liked.  For the fourth Sunday I had visited they were teaching about tithing and this guy went to his car and brought all these suits into the church.  My dumbass husband, no job, pledged a thousand dollars to this church and those folks, his boys, didn't even go visit him when he first got locked up!

I told him I was going down the street and I'd be back to get him, got up and walked out.  I don't even care what they thought of me for it or if the preacher gave a sermon about me afterwards.

Yes I went to twelve different churches, knew the pastor personally at every one, loved their congregations, but I never formed relationships with the people there.  It was always God and me.

There was a church at the end of the park I lived in, when I didn't have gas, or a ride, or a car, that I walked to.

It was always God and me, He decided and I went.

There were people in each one I loved, faces I can still see in my mind's eye today, but I didn't get involved with them, how could I, I might be somewhere else next Sunday and somewhere else the Sunday after that, it was all up to God.

I've been to three different churches in the same day before.

Yes I'm a total Jesus Freak.

Where ever there was a word, I wanted to hear it.

One church's service ran so long with their music, I would wait an hour or more after the time they were scheduled to start and go then, just to hear the word.

There were churches that made me uncomfortable about having money to give, which I didn't, so God let me in on a little secret.  He told me to write scripture on a piece of paper and put it in the offering, because some of those churches had everyone parade to the front of the church to give their offering.  He told me how much this pleased Him and He knew my heart and it wasn't my money I didn't have He wanted.

On Saturday's I went to Fishman.  He sets up in a parking lot two blocks from the Atlanta Greyhound station and cooks fish and grits and coffee.  We went and served while my friend JT preached.  I used to hear him and wish it was me, that I had something to say to them.  All of my children and other children that visited from Alabama went to Fishman with me.  We fixed the plates and handed them out.

JT always told them how loved they were, how God didn't care what they did last night, He loved them, with tears streaming down his face.

I'm so thankful for those vivid memories.  I have forgotten many things in this lifetime, thanks to drugs and also the passage of time.  I remember those mornings so clearly, cold and windy, so hot you had to keep wiping the sweat off your face.  JT gripping that bible in hands for dear life, people standing around waiting to eat.  I remember the people who said they were ready to get out of the streets piling in the car with JT and Randy being wisked away to their new lives.  I remember their faces, their buggies, the clothes they wore, all of them, every single one.  I remember passing out hugs and extra helpings.  I remember them much better than the people who came to help, all but Fishman.  He worked at Home Depot and I can't remember his real name, but I still see that van pulling up, those big pots being unloaded, those burners being lit and can smell the coffee.

If he's still alive, I can promise you every Saturday morning at 9 a.m. he's still showing up and setting up to feed them.  Atleast a hundred people, hungry, dirty, strung out, starving to death for all the best things in life.  The weather is of no consequence, it's got to be done.

Look how beautiful God has made my life.

I'm so thankful to remember those times, to still have the streets.

I'm so thankful He didn't give me stadiums of believers, instead He offered me the streets and told me they were bigger and there was so much more I could do there.

I'm so glad today I have that same boldness JT always had, I've got something to say.

He's not prompted me to do it, though, He just sends me down there looking like His Son.  I've never given a sermon in the streets.

Every church and their cousins go down there and preach at them, to them.  I've seen it being done, some guy backed against a fence, the expression on his face obvious that he wishes they would go away and there they are, gripping their bible for dear life asking the poor guy if he knows where he is going if he dies tonight.

God!  When did it get so messed up?!

I had a girl tell me not too long ago we aren't supposed to fellowship with them.

Seriously?

I called bullshit and after trying to explain how she doesn't understand the heart of the Father, told her she was out of her mind and how I preferred them to people like her, christians.

As I was saying I didn't form relationships with these people, not a single one, the christians, because it was me and God.

I went where He told me to go and I'm still doing that today.

I am fearless in doing it too.

Don't get stuck!

I never had relationships with people in churches until I came to Alabama.  I never knew what having lady friends was until now.  I've got lots of lady friends in Georgia but we haven't seen one another in years and years, we just have facebook.

I've got these relationships now and they are so complicated!  People who go off at the drop of a hat and tell you all about yourself.  People who might rip to shreds and who knows what's really going on in their lives because their boundaries are really walls and they don't even want to see you at church, they just don't know how to run you off.  People with big honking issues, just like you.

God bless them they are my people now.

Truth be told the people in the streets are easier and love more quickly, but such is life.

I wrecklessly love each and every one of them, including the ones I know don't love me back.  And how could you not love me back?  Sure, I'm loud and can be obnoxious and I'm liable to say anything sometimes, but how could you not love me?

I'm sure Jesus asks Himself the same question at times.

God is doing a new thing in my life and I'm stepping back from some of these relationships and hell some of them aren't relationships at all.  There are some Sundays I feel like everyone said hello just to move me on my way because they don't know what to do with me and they definitely don't know how to take me and that's okay.

Do what you do, live your life.

I refuse to get stuck.

I refuse to let hurt and disappointment and the opinions or lack thereof shape my life and my destiny.

I refuse to stay where I'm not celebrated like I celebrate others.

Kim said, don't be mad at people who don't show up and support you, half of them can't support themselves.

I'm moving into new places, new things, my destiny.

I'm stepping away from every single thing in my life that doesn't give me joy, or peace, or hope for tomorrow.  I'm stepping into new adventures and other things I want to do.

I want to preach all over and I will.

I want to share good news with everyone I meet and I do.

I want to be embraced by God's people and others everywhere I go and I will.

The bible says to speak those things that aren't as though they were.

You ain't seen nothing yet.

God will send you to places you never dreamed, asked you to do things you never knew you were able to do and show the world from His eyes.

That was 13 years ago, the time I'm speaking of, 13 years.

I was fresh out the streets, wide eyed and wanting more.

I'm seasoned now, still wide eyed and wanting more.

I didn't get stuck.

The world kicks us while we're down, tells us we aren't good enough and it has the chatter box to back up the lies.

People we love make us feel less than and attack us at the drop of the hat, but it's okay.

There's so much more.

God came and got me out of hell, if there ever was one and I wasn't even looking for Him!

I had no idea I was going to meet Jesus!

Don't get me wrong, I wasn't isolating, I just wasn't running with anyone but Jesus.

He's placed this beautiful and wonderful crew of ride or die people in my life, whose hearts are for me and the things we are doing, and for them, my people in the streets, and I am so very thankful for each and every one of them.

I cannot begin to tell you the things that have showed up at my doorstep, the money that has been put in my paypal, for what we are doing.

I didn't get stuck!

God has a purpose for you, has given you talents and a journey to make.

You just have to find out what it is and boldly step into it.

You may not even be bold at first, I know I wasn't.

One night we went to Victory Outreach where my sister was and they had street night, where we went into the streets around there, to talk to people.  They set up sound systems in a parking lot and all these people began stepping up to the mic and telling their testimonies.  I was there with Kelli and my sister and I was so amazed at how brave they were and what their stories did to my heart.

I am one of those people today, brave and unashamed.

You can be one of those people too.

It's not hard, just a step, then another, and another.

You were built for adversity!

Don't get stuck!

He gives freely and liberally to each of us, all you have to do is ask!

Nothing you did yesterday is going to stop your destiny for today!

Nothing can separate you from His love, so take that and run with it!

Change the world!

Love people!

Be brave and courageous!

Speak life into everyone you meet and no matter what, don't get stuck!