Memorial stones...

Tomorrow (if death does not come and the LORD does not return in glory) will mark the beginning of the 14th year to the day since I publicly committed my life to Christ. The small town congregation I worshipped with was without a full-time minister at the time, and one of the elders there (Larry Harper) took my confession before the assembly and baptized me into Christ. As I look back on all the years since, I am thankful for many things and attempting to list them all would be impossible.
Here are just a few of the things I am I thankful for as I look back on these years of transformation:

• I am thankful the church at Alamo encouraged me to preach at a young age. No one in my family had ever led a public prayer much less preached, but the church membership and leadership encouraged me from the point of my conversion to preach. People like Larry & Cindy Harper, Frank & Annette Kail, Billy and Louise Evans, the Rawsons, Mack and Mary June Goode, Judy and Judy, Harry and Jermie Fewell, Kimberly Kail and a host of others rallied behind me as a young man and wanted me to succeed in ministry. The church helped provide for me a Christian education at Freed-Hardeman University and I will always be in their debt for all this great congregation did and continues to do for me.

• I am thankful for my close-knit family. My family has been my greatest support system through all of my struggles and my greatest cheering section in all of my triumphs. I love each of them completely and I only wish that we could have spent more of the last few years together. I am so glad we are now getting to make up that time living so close together and spending so much time in each others company.

• I am thankful for the bonds that formed with other Christians in my time at Freed-Hardeman University, Sardis Lake Christian Camp and at all the retreats, Gospel meetings and events of which I have been a part over the years. I still receive calls and e-mails from Christians on different continents who I met through these connections and we share a unity that only Christ can bring.

• I am thankful God sent me to Lebanon at just the right time for both of us. The church at Lebanon needed a shot in the arm spiritually and so did I and we united at just the right time in 2004. Our work together has been fruitful both in number and in Spirit. This church is where my heart is and I truly love each of the members there. God blessed me so much by bringing this church into my life.

• I am thankful that God broke down to build me up again. I had never experienced anything like the devastation mental illness caused in my life. The loss of my longtime partner, the loss of my sanity, the loss of my ability to think and feel in a way consistent with my value system. I more than once with Job cursed the day of my birth. I prayed for death; invited death. God had other plans. God has led me in this experience just as He has in all others and is now using this experience to bring others to Himself. I feel as if I too, while still ill but in recovery, have received now my "double portion." A new, better relationship, stronger family bonds, a more fulfilling ministry and a greater sense of empathy than ever before.

God commanded Joshua and the children of Israel to build up a memorial of stones where they lodged after crossing the Jordan so that when their coming generations asked what the stones meant they might tell them of the power of Y----H. I hope my life is being built up into a powerful testimony for God so that when others ask how did you come this far, I can say, "By faith and faith alone."