[rememberedbyGod]

When I was a child, I lived with my grandparents because my mother was battling with an addiction to alcohol.My father had nothing to do with me. My grandmother, bless her heart, showed me favoritism over all her other grandchildren. She was trying to show me the love that I was missing out on by being away from my mother. What it did in my life was, made me a target for mistreatment by my cousins and a couple uncles. I felt unloved. I developed a lot of anger and a bad habit of lying. I learned, in order to make people like me, I had to lie and tell them what I thought they wanted to hear. I only learned later in life that my grandmother would sometimes keep my mother from taking me to live with her.
Through my teenage years, I had so much hate in my heart, I just really didn’t care about anything but masking the hurt . I turned to fighting to inflict some of the pain and hurt I was feeling, onto others. I turned to alcohol and drugs to make me feel numb. I started lying to girls to get close to them so I could feel like I was loved. I was turning into such an evil, cruel man and I didn’t have any cares at all. I felt like I had no emotions except for the hate and anger.
When I got out on my own with a family, these behaviors, these bad habits, affected everyone I was close to. Everyone I genuinely cared about, my children. I was so busy trying to stay numb, that I was turning into the father I always swore I would never be. The same one that I had. Although I was in my childrens’ lives, I wasn’t really there because of the drugs and alcohol. The need to feel numb all the time took up all my free time. I was abusive with my wife at the time and many times my children saw that. I ended up going to prison because I threatened my ex-wife’s grandmother with a Chef’s knife.
In Mayes County jail, the Lord really started to deal with me. He showed me the path I had been headed down. I really started to feel His love, yet, I still relied on my own understanding of how to handle certain situations. I started to get involved with the business of a friend of mine, who happened to be IBH. I so desperately wanted to be a part of the IBH. I thought, “I’m goin to prison anyway, what’s the harm?”. When I got to the medium unit in McAllester, which is still inside “The Walls”, everything was going good. Or so I thought. I was asked to go into a bathroom with an IBH member to smoke a cigarette. While in the bathroom, I was jumped by about six people and severely beaten. A letter was sent in by a grandson of the woman I threatened. I was told by IBH members, that they made a mistake by “taking me to court”,that’s what they called it.
I was sent to seg(segregation) until the corrections officers “found out what was going on”. I was shipped to Lexington medium facility. Still wanting to be a part of the IBH, I went to their table in the chow hall and told them what happened. I was shunned and asked not to sit with them. I met a cousin of mine at Lexington, and I made a couple of friends. I was not as alone as I had felt at McAllester. The Lord showed me today that I was actually NEVER alone. I started going to church regularly with one of my friends.
I was finally shipped to a minimum yard at Vinita. I again had trouble with IBH because they thought I told on one of their “brothers” after what happened to me at McAllester. I was taken to court again. This time only by two people. I was told to leave the yard but I wouldn’t. I was still desperate for the acceptance of the IBH. I fought the person who told the IBH that I had told on one of their brothers. I was accepted by them. I continued to go to church with another friend of mine, LittleBear. All the IBH members asked the indians there on the yard one night to be ready to fight. LittleBear and I were on our way to church when we were approached and told to be ready. We were asked where we were going. We told them we were going to church and we were then told not to worry about what was going on, “Go on to church.”
When I got out of prison, I tried to drink. I drank a couple of nights, no problem. The next night, half way through my second can, I couldn’t stand the taste of it. I had no desire for the alcohol anymore. I continued on and slowly, my addiction to marijuana was also taken from me. I was really feeling like no one cared. Then a friend called me just to see how I was doing(just so happens, that friend is my wife now). That call just touched me so much. For the first time in a long time, I KNEW somebody cared. I feel like the Lord knew I was about to break. So, he sent me help. I praise God for my wife.
I told you all of that to tell you this. No matter what you’re going through or where you’ve come from, the Lord will always be there waiting. Last year(2008) around November at the Sequoyah revival I completely turned my life over to the Lord. Just remember each minute you are blessed with may be your last chance to draw closer to the Lord. There are no limits to what the Lord can do for you, in your life. We are responsible for the choices we make. I urge you, if the Lord is calling you now, make the best chice you could ever make. Accept Jesus as your personal saviour, because He died for YOU!
If you think what you’ve done is too much for the Lord to be able to use you or forgive you, you are so wrong. I recently discovered that my middle name meant “REMEMBERED BY GOD” in Hebrew, and even after all that I went through, and no matter how many times I tried to forget about God,I know I’ve been “REMEMBERED BY GOD!”. That’s just so awesome! I have been called to speak for the Lord. I still fall daily, just like you, but I trust in the Lord to make that change, like only He can. Humans are creatures of habit, and I struggle with those bad habits constantly(ask my wife). Today is the day that the Lord has made and I choose to now stand and say “Here am I; send me. ”Isaiah 6:8. I am weak, I know, but in my weakness, His strength is magnified and He is glorified.