What's My Story?

I woke up this morning with a keen sense that the Lord was moving on my heart. It felt like heaviness at first but as time moved on it turned out to be more like a sense of reality. A moment of sobriety, if you will. Some of you reading this are my family. Some of you are dear friends and some of you don't even know me. I want to be very clear to all of you about why I am journaling on this blog. I do love to write. I was a songwriter in the late 60's and early 70's in both New York City and Nashville but that's not the reason that I am on this journey with you. I have a remarkable story that just won't go away. I haved lived with it for 35 years. Even if I try to bury it, it always returns. It's eternal. It will always exist. I was 24 years old when it began and I cherish it with my life.

You see, since my childhood I've had a longing for something. I didn't know what it was at the time. According to my sister who is eight years older, I was a little boy with a bundle of God-given talent. I was a good athelete and had a wonderful singing voice for as long as I can remember. The part that was missing was guidance. My Mom and Dad never really did much of that for me. I love them both for all the struggles that they went through but they were not able to give me much guidance. I never attended church as a child and the Easter stories that I would watch on TV as a child used to make me cry. I would ask my mom and dad all the time, "Why are they killing Jesus?" Why mom? Why dad? They never answered. I was so saddened by the images of Jesus dying on the cross.

I want you to know about the story that developed over the years and how the Lord came to me and rescued me. It wasn't in a church building. It wasn't at a Bible study. It wasn't on a retreat. It wasn't at any evangelistic crusade. It was so loving, so powerful and so real that most things that I see in church pale in comparison. I have tried to understand traditional church life since then. I thought that I could learn something from the system that exists and I did. I learned that my beginnings in the Lord were what Jesus wanted me to keep all along. I am grieved that so many put so much effort into things of no consequence.

The thing that I cherish the most is that Jesus gave me a story. He gave me a lifetime story. That's what He wants to give all of us. He wants us to have a story about a glorious and wonderful relationship with Him. Many folks will never know the joy of having their own Gospel story. That's sad. God has one for each of us and so I implore you not to seek after the man made substitutes that exist but cry out to Him. Call on Him and watch what happens. Your story will begin to develop too. It's the beauty of life. It's Jesus!