Katrina: God's Purpose For Her

"The strongest, most devastating storm in the history of the USA." That is what they are saying about hurricane Katrina as it subsides from the areas of the South where she destroyed nearly everything in her path. Bodies of people’s pets float in the flood waters that broke through dikes in, Louisiana, over flowed in Mississippi and parts of Georgia and Alabama. Under the waters there may be bodies of more people missing since Tuesday.

As I watched the news and saw the pictures there was mention of how in one town there was “even the toppling of a church”, it was said as though this were a surprise. Of course we know there were probably more than one such toppling. Utterance of this statement that appears to say, "so there", as though anyone ever felt that a church should be exempt from harm, brought to my mind this portion of a verse from Matthew 5:45(b) He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. So, it should not surprise anyone that a church or several churches are destroyed in a catasrophe such as this. Just their very being in her area of damage was enough.

God created a good world, but evil entered because of the first man's and woman's deliberate choices. God does not, however, withhold the normal blessings of life from those who oppose His will. He allows them to function in His world in order that He might lead them to see His love and experience His forgiveness. Since God treats evil people with kindness, we should also. They are a part of the world He created, and we should seek, by every means possible, to lead them to His love and way of life.

Some will ask, “Is this punishment from God for our sin?” Others will ask about God’s judgment.
How quick we seem to be, to believe that God is some ogre who waits for just the time to pounce on us. With that said I must add that, there will come a time when He will judge mankind for the evil that we demand our “right” to pursue. His way is not as we may do. He isn’t interested in beating us down for each and every wrong we do. They are being logged though and will be our headstone in the end. We have it all written down, in a book gathering dust somewhere in most of our homes.


I believe that things like Katrina are permitted to happen to shake us from our slumber. God has not lost his control over our world. He has a leash on Satan and the enemy cannot do more than permitted by God. God has a message for us, we are going in a very suicidal direction due to many of our demands. We demand things that God has already condemned. Where is this condemnation? In the very Book that many have chosen to call antiquainted and outdated. This book is like the instruction booklet that we have in the glove compartment of a new car. Like that booklet, we often do not open it until something terrible happens.

Today we are witnessing the coming together of people all over the country, in aide for and prayer for the people who have been so affected by this storm. We did the same after 9/11. Even so, it must frustrate the angels of glory to see how soon we seem to forget the God who loves us. The God we can find it in our hearts to pray to in the face of evil yet, we take for granted and push away throughout the other happier times.

God is our Creator and wants to be our Father. He stretches out His arms to take us into them and heal our brokenness. He wants to wipe the tears of sadness from our eyes and replace them with laughter and joy unspeakable. Why wont you run to Him today and stay with Him forever??
Not just for the moment as sorrow permeates your being.

Father God, I come to You asking Your mercy for the people in the aftermath of this storm. My prayer is that You will draw many to You through this horror and glory be Yours alone. Be with all who work to comfort and restore. Place Your guardians around all who are survivors of this devastation. Not my will oh God, but Yours be done. In our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen

Saltnlight

Once Upon A Time: Billy

There was a little boy who loved to play in the back yard that was on the edge of the alley. He found many interesting things back there because he often wandered out into the alley. Billy was his name and he frequently brought some of the treasures he had found into the house. Mother would fuss at him when she would unexpectedly encounter strange items in his room. "Billy, this has got to stop. These things belong outside."

Being a divorced woman her nine year old son was totally her resposibility. His father had taken up with a woman in the office where he worked. Billy at the time was only two months old. No longer was the man's wife or new born son of any importance to him. All he had to do was pay some child support and go on with his life. Not so for this single mom.

Billy had fun in his back yard but there were times when he was very lonely. There were times when Billy thought about kids he knew who had fathers and this made him feel even more lonely. They would tell in school of going to ball games with their dads or hunting/fishing and so on but he never had anything like this to share in class. Classmates would call him names like "sissy" or worse.

His mother worked out of the home and came home in the morning very tired. She tried to spend some of this time with Billy but was so tired that this didn't work out very well. She didn't care for sports so he would watch them alone on TV at night while his mother worked. There were times that he would spend most of the night up watching TV or playing games. Some of the things he watched on TV were not what a boy his age should be watching and the games contained violent things but what else was there??

There was a man at the house next door doing some work and Billy just happened to get nosey. As usual Billy was in the alley playing and the man working on the house next door was having lunch. He was seated in an areaway on the steps leading to the porch. Billy walked right over and began to talk to the man. Since the man was working on the house Billy could see no reason to fear.

“Hi there, what’s your name?” Came the voice from the man nearby eating his lunch.
“Are you talking to me? My name is Billy.”
“Have you had lunch yet?”
“No, my mom will call me when it’s ready.”
“I would have shared mine but I just finished and there’s not a crumb left”.
Billy went over closer to where the man was sitting and saw that the man was now writing with a stick on the ground in front of him. He couldn’t make out the words because he was looking at it from an angle.
“Whatcha writing?” he asked as he moved closer.
“Bet you can’t even read this.” The man moved so Billy could see better.
Billy looked closer and saw words he had not seen except for what is on the walls of the toilet stall in school. These were a bit different though in what they had to say. Usually the words were filthy and this said something different. It was in fact an invitation for a sexual play. Billy told the man, “I can read that but it’s not nice and I wont do that.”
“Come closer to me and I will show you that it is nice, in fact it's very nice.” The man then reached out and touched Billy on his privates as he touched his own. “Don’t you want to feel good? I can make you feel very good.” Billy slapped the man’s hand away and ran from there.

Billy ran home but never told his mother anything that had happened. He had lunch and thought about it. In bed that night Billy thought about this and soon found his hand reaching to where the man had touched earlier that day. Billy found out something about his body that night before he fell asleep that he had never known before.

Billy pondered what he had experienced and began to wonder if this was what boys and their fathers do when they are close. Is this what it’s like to be loved by a man? Is this right? The strong sensations he had gone through the evening before and the things that occurred with the strange man were so overwhelming for him.

Billy never saw the strange man again and so wished he would because he knows he would act differently the next time. Next time there would be sharing of good feelings with the man who could have been father he never had. At least that is how Billy saw it.

There are literally thousands of Billy’s or Elizabeth’s in this world who, through no fault of their own, have had encounters with the same sex individual or the opposite sex individual that take them into territories where no child should ever be made to go. There are thousands of strangers such as the one Billy met who prey on these love starved children. Using their need for affection to fulfil the desires that enslave themselves. Bringing about confusion that will later cause them to make poor decisions.

There are also many older Billies and Elizabeth’s who have underwent some traumatic things in their life that have caused them to seek love in the wrong places and in the wrong ways.

There is nothing wrong with love. Love is good no matter who it is for, with, or towards. The problem lies in the demonstration of that love via sexual means. Since the sexual gift is so deep an expression of our love it is the one thing that for the human says it all. When we love with all of our heart or sense a deeper than we can express in words kind of bond, sex is where we go for that expression.

Someone who has just given you the greatest thrill and the most profound pledge of their heart, according to you deserves the absolute best we can give them in return. Not a wrong thing at all. But should that best be agreeable to God or does it matter?

This is where the rubber meets the road. What is most important to you? Here and now or eternity? Do you know what God has said? Do you believe God said it? What do you not believe and why? Tell me what you believe and what you do not believe.

How about you, the Christian who has sensed the call of God on their life to do ministry with these who struggle with same sex attractions? What are you ready for? Do you believe that God loves them? Will you want to show them that love? Are you interested in souls or quarrels?

The need is for tenderness and love from Christians who have hearts prepared by the Spirit of God to do this kind of ministry.

When I ask these questions, they are for only one reason, we cannot minister effectively in our flesh and we cannot minister to these with a whiplike tongue. I know, I found out the hard way. We cannot compromise truth but it must be seasoned with love. Remember that without love we are no more than a clanging cymbal. Lord help me to speak softly with love that can only be from You Amen.

It's Not About Me 3

Here am I in unfamiliar territory, Baltimore Maryland and on the outskirts of town. The only person I knew was this lesbian I had met in the service. We had a few evenings together but it didn't last long.

My life became interesting to say the least. Getting involved in the Baltimore night life ended me up on the infamous "block". This is a section of night clubs where there are strippers, "B" girls, and call girls, where anything goes.

It wasn't long before I was dancing and doing like everyone else. There are many a gay bar in that part of the city all within walking distance of one another. A few of the strippers were either gay or bi and got to be good friends of mine. I say "good" because at the time there were no bad people to me. At that time the mob still had a choke hold on this part of Baltimore. Having the Mafia around never upset me because it was all a part of life. A couple of the big names in the stripping business were married to the mob.

I got partnered up with three or four different lesbians in the several years of living there. I spent time in jail for breaking the law and had to be on a few months probation. By this time I had learned all there was to know about lesbianism.

At one time I felt that what I needed was what many had told me I should have, a man. I got married. I wont spend much time on this because it was hell to say the least. Like everything else I did in my life, it was sudden and without much real thought. He was still married to a woman in New Jersey when he married me. I got pregnant and that's when he fessed up to this. I gave birth to a son and gave him up for adoption because I knew I was headed back to life as a lesbian. Having no family there was no one who could help me and I wanted him to have family. This is something that has haunted me all of my life but, it is the one thing in my life before Christ that I know I did right. Many prayers have gone up for him since.


One night while out bar hopping I met the person I would spend the next seven years with. We danced, went to my apartment slept together and fell in love, or at least that is what we called it. As it turned out she was a married woman with children and had lived as a born again Christian, attending church and doing all the wifely things. Her life was missing something and here she was on a search. She was not from Baltimore but when she had to leave to go home we vowed to stay in touch and that at some point we would be together.

One day in the future this is what we did. I took a plane and moved to where she and her family lived. For a while all seemed wonderful, meeting on the side and doing our thing but in no time at all I made her life miserable. While she lived with her husband I was constantly in her face to leave him. So much was wrong with our relationship right from the start, desined for disaster. I was very immature due to all the missing things in my childhood that I clung to her and actually drove her nearly insane.

In time we managed to be together, she left her husband to be with me. When I look back on this now it makes me ill to think that I helped to cause this. He would have been just to have killed me and it's a wonder that he didn't.

We had a home together, cars, bank accounts etc. We were in business and even this began to go sour. In a matter of three years to four it was down the drain. She had a daughter who lived with us and sons who didn't. None of them liked me and in fact hated me for what I had done to their mother and father. As I said before, we spent seven years with each other but, to this day I can't figure out how she could have hated life so much as to want to spend any of it with me.

Some may say that I am being too hard on myself but I deserve to be seen as what I was. Selfish and related to the devil himself. I was a willing tool of the enemy, a wrecker of family. Oh sure, she came to Baltimore looking for a thrill that is true, I just wish it had not included me.

We attended the Metropolitan Community Church, a church that panders to the homosexual in denying the truth or twisting it so badly it is no longer recognizable. One Sunday, to my surprise, ( surprise, because this had never happened in past times we had attended) an invitation was given to receive Jesus. When I look back on this I see the Master's hand working for me. Calling me to come to Him. I got tearfully to my feet and marched steadily toward the podium. Standing there repeating the sinner's prayer, tears just flowing down my face, my head bowed. I recall words like, "I denounce the sin in my life, Satan and his lies and turn my heart over to Jesus Christ to be my Lord and Savior from this day forward."

As my lover and I headed for home I remembered those words and my heart was pricked with a sense of convicting guilt. Looking over at my partner in the car, I knew something was being done in me.

She and I did not split up right away because the Holy Spirit had to do His work in my heart. My conversion was so real though. The fruit began to grow almost immediately. We had a quarrel during which she told me, "You are ruining my life." This was an answer to much seeking and prayer. Many were the evenings that I would drive home from my work, yelling for God to give me a sign that she and I were not to live together as lovers anymore. It was near to impossible for me to just tell her we were through. this proclamation she had made was to me that sign from God that I had asked for.

Right after she said this, I called a Christian couple who were friends of ours and went over to their home. We prayed and they told me that how I was living must change for as it presently is was not pleasing to God. The best I could do at that time, because of it being winter and she and her daughter had no place to go, was to talk with her and tell her I desired to live a chaste life and we must not sleep together anymore. She easily agreed. Again, another proof of God setting things in order.

Through the kindness and understanding of the pastor of the church I attended, we did part but not as some may split. He had agreed that since we were not in the same bed, she could stay until they found an apartment. She and her daughter finally did move and we remained good friends for a period of time after that. She went back to work she was acquainted with and a church of her choosing and I pray she never went on to further lesbian relationships.

I am so thankful for Christ and His blood shed on Calvary, all done to save me. My greatest desire is to help others meet this wonderful Savior who loves them and died as much for them as for me. We do not get forgiven through anything we do. It is all dependant on our confession of knowing that Jesus paid it all. We need only to believe and receive that gift.

The Beginning
Of many, many years of service in leading others who struggle with same sex attraction to the saving grace of Christ.

It's Not About Me 2

The night I ran from the foster home, it was getting to be colder weather. The police had been called and I was hiding in the tall grass behind the house where I had been partying without permission. My reason for being there was that I had need of friends who would listen to me. There was no surprise that police came to find me.

Sitting in the cruiser I had a choice to make. I did not want anymore of this foster home where I would get beaten with wooden spoons and called all sorts of names. It took little time to tell them what I wanted. They took me to the juvenile detention center and I waited to see the social worker.

There was one girl there in the cage with me and she was lesbian. Here is where I found out for certain that my same sex desires were real. It was easy to lay in the arms of this young woman and be soothed and feel loved. It was easy to want more of something I had had so little of before. Tender and gentle and loving. Still there was no way we could have sex. We danced to music on the radio and were on a near endless date.

After two weeks with this person the time drew to a close and I had to be moved to the training school. Parting was difficult but it had to be. She and I never met again.

I went back to the school to be there for another year and a half. Then a most unexpected thing happened. The woman I had called my sister for years, came to see me and said she would take me to live with her. I told her that her one time fiancee' had told me who she really was, not my sister but my birth mother. Shje quickly informed me that she did not want to be called "mom" or "mother" by me. Her husband would not want me to call her that. She didn't want it either.

I went home with them, to a farm in a lovely part of Michigan.

She and her husband drank often and got into fights. He was like most men, wanting to get into the panties of any girl he could. He did try with me but I slugged him and told him off. Once when they were fighting he threw at my mother how, "I almost got into your kid's pants." He was such a jerk. She just told him that he had probably scared me and that is why. To that he hit her in the face causing a black eye and bloody nose.

I went out on the road in front of the house and he was on the porch sucking up a beer. As I walked back and forth on the road I yelled at him, "If you ever hit my mother again I will kill you." He just left the proch. As long as I lived there though he never hit her again.

She let me know in no uncertain terms that she would always side with him no matter what he did. That of course made it perfectly clear how much I was worth to her. I joined the military.

My enlistment didn't last long because I got into the wrong clique and the commander hated my choices of friends. They were lesbians. I got into an auto accident once and soon was discharged under honorable conditions.

Though my friends were lesbians I still had not had a sexual experience with any of them. There was one that was headed in that direction but not before I got out. At the time I was discharged I was only 19 yrs. old. The one person who I had gotten close to was stationed at a base in Maryland. That is where I went upon discharge.

To Be Continued

It's Not About Me

It was 1954, I had been caught with a bag of stolen peanuts in my desk at school. It wasn't long after they had found them that I was seated in the principal's office. A police woman who was talking with me had just told me that I was going to the detention center. I will never forget that day. Not one time was I offered the chance to speak to my grand parents who had raised me. I burst into tears and was whisked away into a car and to Juvenile detention. In court I was informed that I was to be sent to a place where I would remain for one year, a big lie.

In a matter of a couple weeks I was in a bus on my way to the Girl's Training School in Adrian Michigan. There would be my home for nearly three years. In that time I learned that the feelings I had experienced for my own sex was something shared with me by not a small number of other girls.

Yes, I had felt that there was something quite different about me at about age eight and I also felt that this was not something to talk about with my grandparents or anyone else for that matter.

In the training school a person's hunger for affection and for someone to love them became the single most needed fulfillment in life. To be held and told that all would be o.k. Told that you are loved and to feel the warmth of a kiss. These were things you read about but never experienced without sneaking them.

During my adolescent years there had been molestation by men who were close to our family and even one that was part of the family. He was put in charge of my care for a short time one day and took advantage of this to force me to give him oral sex. There was the time my "sister" brought home her future mate and he toyed with my private parts and attempted to have sex with me. And there were many others.

My starvation for hugs and love didn't help in these situations because I encouraged them. This in no way excuses the actions of adult males but just so the whole story be told. The "sister" I mentioned above I found out later just happened to be my mother. She had been a fifteen year old girl when she became pregnant with me. This was a very shameful and disgraceful thing back then so she had me and handed me off to her parents.

Back to the training school.

When I first arrived there at the school I learned how a person loses their privacy so completely. There was physical exams during which a "doctor" would do horrid things to me and laugh at my upset. There were matrons who had about as much empathy as a floor mop. We were locked in our rooms when not on a work detail and had to use a pot for a toilet at night. We lived in what were called cottages and these held around thirty girls in each. We lined up in the morning to empty our pots and take water back to our rooms for bathing. It was somewhat of a nightmare.

In the three years that I spent there I had numerous close encounters with other girls. None of them wound up in bed because we were watched very closely. There were notes and an occasional bit of kissing and fondling that went on but no sex. One thing sure though, I was definitely turned on by the kisses and fondlings. Sex came much later.

I got into many disciplines because of note passing and so on.

There was one foster home. That turned out to be unbearable for me and I ran away only to end up back in the training school again.

To Be Continued