I am ALWAYS a servant of the ALMIGHTY GOD and HIS son JESUS CHRIST.

He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
    And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
    and to walk humbly with your God.

• Micah 6:8 NIV

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An Example of GOD’s Love in my life

Thinking about what GOD has done for me has been a reminder and very humbling. It is not like GOD’s presence and miracles in my life have gone totally unnoticed, but like many of the things that GOD does, I have not fully understood the scope or wonder of them. I do not take GOD’s blessing for granted. On the contrary, I praise GOD with all of my being, all of my mind, all of my heart, all of my soul, all of my understanding, and through my lack thereof. I just realize that sometimes we as humans, and me particularly, do not really seems to appreciate GOD’s love until something obvious and looming hits us. Some challenge, some obstacle, some distress, some seemingly insurmountable thing can cause some to look to GOD and reaffirms the faith of others.

For me, this thing was a stroke. Enough about the stroke for now. Let me go back with a quick personal reflection of my life.

• My mother died when I was 2 years old.
• I was raised primarily by a father who was severely dysfunctional and possibly mentally ill.
• I attended 12 different schools from kindergarten through 12th grade.
• My formulative years were spent aimlessly floating around with little guidance and even less socialization with family and any friends.
• Raised two children and married not realizing how dysfunctional I was and how that disfunction would affect my family.
• After suffering through many years of a turbulent marriage, I decided to divorce, which had to effect of partially alienating me from my children and what love I thought I had in my made family.
• Alone and feeling a great type of depression like I have never felt before I dropped everything and moved to a place that felt like it spoke to me. Raleigh, North Carolina.
• I arrived in Raleigh feeling like I wanted to die. Not take my life or anything like that, but I really felt unloved, unwanted, uncared for and wanted to die.

I needed to rebuild my life.

Through all of this I feel that GOD was calling me closer. Allowing me to learn more. Allowing me to feel his magnificent love. Love through Jesus.

I studied GOD’s word. I tried to listen to what GOD wanted. I tried to understand or hear what GOD’s purpose was for me. I tried to hear GOD as I attempted to find out “who I was” and what type of person am I? I questioned myself and my existence, because surely no one can be a decent person and be so devoid of friendship, companionship, and be as lonely as me.

Now, back to the stroke.

I had a stroke. I live alone so I did not realize that I was having a stroke. I knew something was off. I noticed some depth perception issues to my left. A bit of coordination being off when typing.
First, let me mention something obvious to some and oblivious to others about GOD’s love:

GOD will show his power and work through people, objects, things, and situations that you do not expect. I spoke of the coordination issue when typing. I was working from home due to the Covid-19 pandemic. 6:30am. I am online working and a coworker, who is a professed atheist, noticed my typing was off and called me. Surprised, because this coworker was a person who not only was an atheist, but someone who says he is not sentimental and doesn’t care for a lot of people. He noticed something. He suggested that I take the day off and check on myself because he could tell that something was not right. Drove myself to the hospital. This was the week of Christmas. Ironically, the time set aside and recognized as the birth of Jesus Christ, GOD’s gift of love to all of the world.

I was admitted immediately into the hospital and placed in the Intensive care unit.

Feeling alone. Feeling frightened. Feeling like I may not walk out of the hospital, I attempted to call a couple of people. Lets just say this did not go well. The calls left me feeling even more alone than ever.

As I lay on that ICU bed, with strong medicines being pumped in both arms, one of my loved ones hung up the phone in my face. They did this because in my weakened stoke state I did not respond or conform to questions and demands they were making at the time.

Here is GOD’s love and power being shown again.

Another coworker, who also happens to be an atheist, came to the hospital and refused to take no as an answer when I tried to tell him not to come. This person’s wife sent food. They checked on me and my needs daily. He and his wife came to the hospital (during COVID restrictions) and also came to take me home once I was released.

I had a type of stroke that a lot of people do not recover from. On top of that, visually, you would never know that I had a stroke. No obvious visual signs. No face droop or twisting. No obvious physical limp, weakness, or speech impairment. My stroke was a Cerebral Venous Sinus Thrombosis. I had three (3) blood clots burst in my brain and they found blot clots behind my heart. I was told several times by doctors that this was pretty serious stuff and that I was “lucky”. I had to correct them, “No, I am BLESSED.”

I mentioned GOD’s Love: I was in intensive care. I did not think I was going to walk out of the hospital. I felt alone (again…as usual) and was starting to cry and feel sorry for myself. But somewhere during my stay in ICU a calm came over me. A calm. A realization. GOD was with me. GOD was WITH ME! GOD did not forsake me. GOD did not leave me. So what if no one else seemed to care. GOD cared. GOD Loved me. I did not want to die, but I was not afraid if I did, because GOD had me in his hand. There was a calm that overcame me. I did not go to sleep any of the nights I stayed in intensive care. I figured that if I died…I would have to die awake (I only slept during the day when there was a lot of activity and people). I was even able to continue my daily bible reading every morning from my ICU bed.

I am now back to a relatively normal life. Some time has passed since the stroke event. I try not to think too much about it and still try to live the best most productive life I am capable of.

I still do not know what my purpose is in GOD’s plan or what my role is in this life. I will continue to trust in GOD. I will continue to worship GOD and live my life in a way that is pleasing to GOD, bringing awareness and honor to GOD, and trying to be fruitful to the best of my ability.

I am not special. I do not do anything of any particular notice or public recognition. What is amazing and great about GOD is that what he has done for me he will do for everyone who believes in Jesus and trusts in Him.  GOD’s Love.

I do not have many answers in life, but I will quote a phrase from a song I heard on a church program I sometimes watch.

Jesus is the answer, the answer around the world.

I do not know, but Jesus knows. GOD is the supreme authority and I will trust in Him with childlike faith.