What if.....

God is still God. God don't never change. I did not realize it at the time that this would turn out to be a true story. I made it up or so I thought. But here it is in the Oakland Tribune. A 14 year old boy was walking down the street the other day on International Blvd. and was shot and killed. He was an honors student, raised by a mother that loved him and taught him what was right. Yet he was shot and killed for no reason other than he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I am back on the streets of Oakland and everyday I am reminded of how far God has brought me and just how much He has delivered me. I forgot how mean and ugly the world can be. I forgot how diseased and hopeless and damaged the world really is and how so desperately we are all in the need of the grace and mercy of Jesus. Once I was delivered from the "pit" I never looked back. My life is ordered and clean and I am sober and healthy. I forgot about the man or the woman I left behind. I closed my ears to the tone and pitch that resembles the same cries that I cried when I was lost and I believed that no one was listening. I forgot that somebody somewhere along the way whispered in my ear that I was loved by Jesus and a seed was planted. And that marvelous seed helped me to grow to become a bold woman of the most high God. What if no one had been receptive at the time to be used by God to be a witness to me and take me by the hand and show me that church was more than an ornate building full of pious folks like I thought and remembered from my childhood. Would I have turned out to be that hopeless wonder that picked up that gun that fateful day and shot that young boy? Or maybe I would be that hopeless wonder that shut the doors and windows and closed off all the madness. You know the saying....if you don't see it, it don't exist! I ask my self...what if? When I see in my spirit what life could have been for me and what it is today for some, I can't help but want to be of service in the Kingdom. I can't help but want to tell it like it needs to be told. Somebody needs to know that there is a man that is more than able to fix this insanity and his name is Jesus. Think of it this way....there are those that will never know nor be glad as we are about it unless we open up our mouths. This act was senseless and wrong and unacceptable. As long I am able to string a few words together to make a sentence I will not be silent...and I implore you to do the same. Thank you, Lord, for giving me the strength to speak boldly as I ought to speak.
Debi Mason - Stepping out on faith.
Spoken Word Ministries, (c) 2009