Good morning ya’ll ministry messages

Good morning ya’ll. I pray that you have a tremendously blessed day today.
“(Love) always perseveres..”
Please don’t judge me and please don’t judge my family and please don’t judge my parents. You see we weren’t always like this. My parents, oh they were just the best parents for the better part of my life. Unfortunately, that all changed in what seemed like overnight.  You see, my dad injured his knee at work which led him to be in excruciating pain for nearly a year before his insurance would allow him to have surgery for his knee, but by that time the damage had been done. My dad had become addicted to the pain medications. My mom, she tried and tried like crazy to stop him. She begged him. She prayed for him. She stayed by his side through every pain killer induced drug high and every crash and burn low, until she could take no more…and she joined him in his drug habit.  I understood it best. Being the oldest of three children I was 15 when everything changed.  When the bills weren’t getting paid, when my grandparents turned their backs, in hurt and betrayal, on my parents. Suddenly I went from being just a 15 year old freshman in high school to being the supporter of our entire family. I’d wake up every morning at 5:00am, get myself ready for school,  wake up my younger sister and brother for school then I would pack their lunches and make them breakfast before rushing out of the door to try to make it to my own bus stop in time.  When I got home from school I would run home, grab my work shirt and run back out to meet the city bus to my job as a cashier/bagger at the grocery store. Home by 9:00 or 9:30 at night I made sure my brother and sister had their homework done, showers done and pajamas on then I would see them off to bed. Then I would eat, usually a bowl of cereal or a can of tuna, do my own homework, shower and get in bed by 11:30. This went on for two years. My mom, in her momentary sober states, would see how hard I worked and how exhausted I was, and she would promise me that she was going to get clean and get our family back on track, but most days those promises usually fell to the wayside with mom and dad’s next fix.
By my senior year I was worn out, so were my siblings.  I called my grandfather and asked if we could move in with them. Our mom and dad had been the best parents, but the devil known as drug addiction had seemed to win.
“Where did this all go so wrong?” My mom asked me as I worked packing my bags to go live with our grandparents.
Recognizing her stone cold sober state I grasped the opportunity to minister to my mom as she had done so many times for all of us whenever we faced challenges as children.
“It doesn’t matter where or when things went wrong,  mom. What matters is what can go right from here on out. Pray with me, mom. Pray with me and together let’s let God win this war. Please, mom. We are strong enough to overcome this, and where we are weak, God will provide us His strength.”
I took my mother’s hand in mine as she sobbed uncontrollably.  Together we prayed with all of our might. We prayed so long and so faithfully that by the time we stood up our legs hurt, but neither of us cared. We knew that ultimately our God would bring our family to victory.
As we packed up our bags to leave our home my mom blew through the door herself.  She looked so frail, so weak and so spent, yet on her overly sunken in face a wide grin of true happiness brightened her face. With a new glimmer of hope in her eyes she announced,  “I’m coming too. Please? I want you guys to drop me off at a rehab facility.  I want my family back. Please?!”
I hugged my mom tightly as I thanked God that not one of my thousands of prayers I had spoken to Him had ever gone unheard.
Have a blessed day today
Love San 🤗

Good morning ya’ll ministry messages

(Photo courtesy of Choosak Wonggaew)
Dragonflies are a symbol of hope!

Good morning ya’ll. I pray that your day is blessed and peaceful.
“(Love) always hopes…”
He had eaten his way to this life, but it certainly hadn’t happened overnight.  It took a series of domino effect happenings to lead him to this day. It all began with a phone call which interrupted his usual busy day as a New York stock broker. The crude and loud busyness of the day on the market had fallen to an irritating background noise as his mom’s voice met him on the line to tell him that his father had passed away unexpectedly overnight.
“The doctor’s say it was a massive heart attack.”
The funeral was a blur as it led into him losing his job only 6 months later as he tried to juggle taking care of his mom who still lived 3 hours away from him. He tried to hold together his quickly unraveling 4 year relationship with his partner who had a constantly wandering eye, and he tried to keep his own health in mind now that a sudden heart attack had just cut his father’s life short.
Losing his job of course led to the ultimate end to his relationship when his partner found refuge in a new and wealthier man.
He salvaged what he could of his pride, sold his New York condo leaving most of his pricey possessions behind as well, and he moved back home with his mother to help take care of her.
After a year of being home with his mother she was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer and he had eaten his way from a trim and fit 175 pounds to a whopping 305 pounds.  His mother’s passing left him all alone with no job, no steady income and no hopes for a future at all. He wanted to change, thought about returning to the stock market, but he had lost most of his passion for the life he had left behind.  He turned on the television one Sunday morning as he sat down to eat his usual cereal with 4 pieces of toast and a side of eggs and bacon. While he flipped through the channels he stumbled upon the words of a preacher from a locally televised church screaming into the camera. “God doesn’t NEED your help to change your life. He can change your life for you in an instant.  What God NEEDS from you is the open heart, open Spirit and open mind to accept those changes and become victorious with those changes that God has brought into your life.” His eyes flew open wide as his heart skipped a beat. That preacher was talking directly to him and he was right. God had brought these changes into his life and it was now up to him if he was going to choose to let God help him be victorious or if he was going to let his own self defeating was lead him to an unsuccessful life smh to an early grave. He finished the last big breakfast he would ever have. Every bite of it. He went to his room, pulled out the dusty scale from beneath his bed and stood on it. 374! The 3 numbers slapped him hard. He went to his closet though, pulled his nearly brand new pair of walking shoes from the closet and put them on. He grabbed his house key and phone and set off for a walk. He may only get half a block from home or he may walk the whole block and back. Either way, if God loved him enough to bring him to victory one day then he certainly needed to love himself enough to strive for that victory too.
Have a marvelous day today
Love San 😀

Good morning ya’ll ministry messages

Good morning ya’ll. I pray that you have a terrific day today.
“(Love) always trusts…”
She paced back and forth, back and forth in front of her bedroom window praying that God would bring her little girl home safe to her.
So she really wasn’t her little girl anymore.  She was 17 years old only months away from turning 18, yet it tugged at her heart to see her daughter, her one and only child, drive away in her own car, going her own ways, doing her own things. Usually she wouldn’t worry and pace so much, but tonight was different.  Tonight before her daughter had driven off in here carrying as severe summer storms began to move over their area,  she and her daughter had come to blows somewhat, over a friend that her daughter was keeping company with these days.
“She just gives me a negative vibe sweetie.  Call it a mother’s instinct, call it the leading of the Holy Spirit, call it what you want, but she isn’t on the up and up. That much I am certain of.”
Her daughter tried to protest her mother’s insistence, but her mother held her ground.
Finally relenting for the sake of stopping the argument her daughter shrugged her shoulders and let her head drop between her shoulders and sighed.
“I have to go mom. She is waiting for me to pick her up. I promised her. Please mom. I love you, but I really need you to trust me.” Her daughter have her a disappointed look as she picked up her keys and cell phone and headed out the front door.
The silence hung like a 10 ton 18 wheeler all around her after her daughter walked out.
Her face was red and streaked with tears as she made sure her cats were warm and cozy by the fireplace, she made sure that the house was locked up tight and she showered and put on her pajamas.  She went straight to her bed, kneeled down and began to pray.
“Oh dear God.  She has always been such a good girl. She has truly been the light of my life and my wonderful blessing from you. Help me God, to trust her just as you have trusted me to raise my beautiful daughter.  God I know now how hard it must have been for you to send your Son, Jesus, here knowing what He was going to have to face and endure. I trust you God with all of my heart that you will always be with my daughter and you will always keep her safe. Amen!”
She climbed into bed and tried with all her might to sleep and when she finally stopped trying and she looked at her bedside alarm clock she saw that it was nearly 1 in the morning.  That was about the time she began to pace. As she paced she felt a stirring in her heart and she heard her own words echoed back to her. 
“You told Me that you trust Me child.”
The headlights from her daughters car glowed through her bedroom window and she thanked God as tears of relief fell down her face.
She met her at the front door wanting only toembrace her daughter in a hug and tell her how much she loved her. She never expected to see her daughter walk in so distraught and seeking her own hugs.
“Oh mom. That was one of the hardest things I have ever done.” She fell into her mother’s open arms and wept.
“What happened honey?”
“You remember my friend you don’t like. Well you were right, I just couldn’t tell you until now. She’s been drinking alcohol since we were in middle school and tonight I drove her an hour away to take her to a rehab facility.”
“Mom, she’s been my best friend for years now, I just never knew how to tell you because I knew that you would worry like you did before I left tonight, but mom for all these years I have been begging her to stop drinking and get help. Today she finally agreed. I knee that I had to do this for her. I just never expected it to be so hard.”
She hugged her daughter tightly as she reassured her, “Sweetheart, I am so proud of you.  She is going to be just fine and together we will help her and see her through this.”
“Thank you so much, mom. I love you.”
“I love you too.”

Have a fantastic day today
Love San 😁

Good morning ya’ll ministry messages

Good morning ya’ll. I pray that you have a phenomenal day today.
For the last part of 1 Corinthians 13, the love scripture, I wanted to try to capture each of the lines through stories much like the ones I sent out over the Christmas season. I truly hope that each story beautifully paints a picture of the lady few lines of 1 Corinthians 13.
Have a wonderful day today.
I love you.
Love San 😀

“It (love) always protects…”
She thought that she had seen the last of the best of who she was. The best of who she was ever going to be when she watched her husband walk away taking her entire heart and soul with him. Together they had raised two beautiful daughters who they had seen through college and watched them both happily wed and establish their own happy lives and begin building their own families.  She felt secure and blessed in knowing that she and her husband of nearly 30 years would now enjoy a happy and healthy retirement together, maybe travel to a few places they had always wanted to see together and even move to a new and smaller home together to lessen the upkeep of the home that had outgrown them.  The shock and sheer devastation that gripped her right in her chest and shook her to her very core came the day after her 48th birthday when he confessed to her that for the past 8 years he has been involved with someone else and that now that someone else was due to have his child any day.
“I love you still,” he had told her calmly, “but just not the same way that I used to love you and you deserve better than that.”
She spent countless, sleepless nights tossing and turning, crying and screaming into her pillows, questioning and replaying the tiniest of details trying to sort out what had gone wrong and what she could have done differently. Weeks and weeks of this and nothing had brought her to a good answer and no one had been able to help her shed any light into her darkness.  And so her darkness brought her here, to the place where she was going to end her own life just so that she didn’t have to feel the pain anymore.  She just couldn’t take the pain of the heartbreak any longer. In the dimly lit bedroom she once shared for years and years with the love of her life she had every detail worked out,  arranged and ready to go.  This was the time, the place and the day. She only uttered six last words.
“Dear God, please forgive me.”
The knock on her door came softly at first right after she spoke those words then it grew more intense and more steady. She considered ignoring the knock and hoping whoever it was would simply go away, but they didn’t and so she left her bedroom and grumbled under her breath as she made her way towards the front door. 
She looked through the peephole and saw one nicely dressed young lady standing in the pouring rain looking quite worried and desperate.
She opened her door somewhat cautiously.
“Please ma’am. Can you help us. Please call the police or something.  We are from the church down the street and we were walking through the neighborhood introducing ourselves and inviting our neighbors in Christ to our church when all of the sudden some man in a pick up truck driving too fast hit my friend and then just drove off.
“Please ma’am. I’m afraid he is dying.”
She looked over to the side of the road near the curb just in front of her house where that young man laid motionless and eerily quiet. She opened her door wider, ran back towards her bedroom and grabbed her phone and her rain boots. She dailed 911 as she made her way out the door and over to the young man. The sweet and scared young lady wrung her hands as she stood over her watching.
“Young man, can you hear me?”
“His name is Jacob.”
The young ladies faint voice echoed a hint of a Jamaican accent which sounded so sweet and so innocent to her ears.
“Jacob? Can you hear me?”
The 911 dispatcher finally answered.  She put the phone on speaker, handed it to the young lady to hold while she talked and began CPR.
“This is Dr. Childs. Please send an ambulance right away. I have a young man who has been struck by a drunk driver and I am beginning CPR now.”
The weeks had passed quickly following the rainy afternoon when the young couple had met her at her door, unknowingly saving her life just as much as she had saved the husband’s life. The three of them sat together on the third row of Hansom Hill Community Church listening to the preacher deliver another amazing sermon as they said “Amen!” and quietly thanked God for one another, for second chances, for new beginnings and for God’s unending and never ceasing amazing love, protection and grace.

Good morning ya’ll ministry messages

“Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth.” 1 Corinthians 13:6
Good morning ya’ll.
I pray that you have a fantastic day today.
Can I be honest with you all.  I really had to let this scripture play over and over in my head before I knew exactly how to put this into words. When I read and hear this one I think of just how many opinions are forming on microsecond moments which are posted on social media then take off like wildfires.  One person sees a news story about a highly opinionated topic and posts their opinion then another agrees and posts their opinion and before we know it thousands of opinions are fueling hatred, protests, and riots without ever fact checking first.  We all have our opinions about the things we see happening in our world today, but we have to filter what we read about in the headlines or hear about on the news programs through God before we start forming opinions.  I have learned (and I am still learning) to really pay attention and listen more before I form my opinions and to read deeper into the stories behind the headlines before I air out my position on topics. I want my legacy to be a legacy built on loving both sides of the opinionated individuals not just choosing a side and sticking firmly to it. I want the image that I display to be an image which people can easily see Jesus in me. Let’s choose to rejoice in the truth which begins in God’s word so that we can share that truth with the highly opinionated as well as our quiet and faithful supporters and let’s choose to turn away from what is evil rather than celebrating it. Can I tell you that one of the best “Hollywood” responses I heard regarding the recent Jussie Smollett story was the response of Tyler Perry who ended his quote by saying most importantly, “Can we please just stop the hate?” To that I say, “Amen!”
Have a wonderful day today
Love San 🤗

Good morning ya’ll ministry messages

“It (love) keeps no record of wrongs…”
Good morning ya’ll.
I pray that you have a tremendously blessed day today.
It is likely that all of us have experienced this in our pasts. We have made a  mistake or two, be them big mistakes or the smallest of mistakes, and there was someone who simply never let us forget those mistakes.  That someone could even be ourselves.  We are taught in this line of 1 Corinthians 13 that with true love, we are to keep no records of wrongs. God has forgiven us and He has removed our transgressions from our records and given us a clean slate as soon as we asked for our forgiveness from Him, yet the enemy always lurks and is ready to pounce. The enemy will usually waste no time finding someone, whether someone in our lives or our own selves, who will be quick to remind us of who we used to be or the mistakes we have made in the past.  If you face these challenges, like me, of letting your past mistakes be fully wiped away from your memory so that God’s love can fully live and operate within your heart, let us remember this scripture which tells us that our Heavenly Father keeps no record of our wrongs to hold over our heads. He wants us to return to Him truthfully flawed with open arms ready to repent and be washed as clean as the freshly fallen snow. If God, who knows us all the way down to every wrong or negative thought we have had, can see past all of our wrongs now and then because He loves us so much, then we too should love ourselves just as much, erase our past mistakes from our memories, and forgive ourselves.  This will also help us to forgive others who have also wronged us in our pasts, freeing us like we have never been freed before.
Thanks be to God.
Have a beautiful day today
Love San 🙂

Good morning ya’ll ministry messages

(Photo courtesy of Choosak Wonggaew)

It (love) is not easily angered…”
Good morning ya’ll
I pray that you have a beautiful and blessed day today.
I’m going to talk about it because frankly I feel that it’s not talked about as much as it really should be.  Domestic abuse.  I have faced it myself and I know all too well some of the ways that we, the victims, can explain away how the one we so loved has treated us and in our own minds not only make it ok, but make it our own fault. Yet here it is in plain old black and white right there in the unsuspecting yet always relevant pages of the oldest and wisest book we know-the bible. In the very same passage of scripture that tells us that “love is patient and love is kind and love is not self seeking”, God knows that we needed to learn what true love looks like, sounds like, feels like, and domestic abuse, no matter what pretty frame you may try to put it in to make it appear ok, is not love. It simply is not.
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does nodishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” That is the definition of love and nothing about domestic abuse embodies any of this scripture.  If you are in a relationship which you know deep in your heart isn’t safe for you, this is God’s way of telling you to get out. I can promise you that it will be one of the hardest things that you have ever done in your life, but I can also promise you that it will be the most amazing gift that you could ever give yourself.  It’s going to be a journey with some bumps in the road, some of those bumps will make you question whether you should have left at all, but when those times approach remember the 1 Corinthians 13 truth and remember also Deuteronomy 31:6, “Be strong! Be courageous! The Lord your God is with you.” True love “is not easily angered…” and it’s not supposed to hurt. God’s true and never-ending love for us wants the very best for us and that includes true happiness, true joy, and true safety and protection.
Have a blessed day today.
Love San

Good morning ya’ll ministry messages

It (love) is not self-seeking…”
Good morning ya’ll.
I pray that you have a great day today.
Can I tell you, God wastes little time speaking to me in many situations I face.
The other day I was loopy enough to talk myself into going to Walmart to shop for a few items. Walmart is simply one of those places, I have found, where I can easily see the “me-me’s”. What are the “me-me’s” you ask? They are the people who rush past me and rush past others to ensure that they get exactly what they need never mind who they need to push past or who they need to knock over. I am the first to admit,  I used to be a “me-me”, sometimes I can still be,  but again, like I said in the beginning, God is usually pretty quick to speak to me, especially if I am not acting or thinking right. Rushing around with a one track mind, solely focused on our to-do lists while never paying attention to the other people who are around us can so easily leave us missing the chance for us to make a positive impact on someone else’s day.  We never know who might be having a bad day, a bad week, a bad month or even a bad year and when we decide to slow down and pay attention instead of keeping our heads down and rushing through our days, we might be surprised to see how one small act of kindness from us, could make a tremendously positive impact on someone else’s life. Imagine if we could see all the things that someone has faced floating all around them everywhere we went.  The older lady in front of us in the fast food line’s floating words tell us that she recently buried her husband and her beloved mother within one month of each other. The floating words around the young bagger tells us that he has grown up in a home with an abusive alcoholic father and a timid and frightened mother. The floating words around our boss tells us that he and his wife suffered several devastating miscarriages resulting in them never having children at all. Imagine how much more willing we might be to let others go in front of us in line at the grocery store or we might be less frustrated if they take just a little too long ordering their food in the fast food line.
“Love is not self seeking…” even though we can’t see the words of someone’s history telling us immediately what they have faced, let’s treat others as if we could always knowing that even the tiniest of kind actions could lead to the greatest of memorable blessings.
Have a wonderful day today
Love San 🙂

Good morning ya’ll ministry messages

It (love) does not dishonor others…”
Good morning ya’ll.
I pray that you have a phenomenally great day today.
When we hear the stories of wrongfully treated individuals whether because of their race, their sexual orientation, their hair color, their weight, their nationality, or their age, it should definitely break our hearts. Jesus is love! God is love! And if we could see all people through their eyes, can you even imagine how their views are so much more hopeful, beautiful, and joyful than our views have ever been? From birth we are taught to see those differences beginning with short and tall, small and large, black and white,  but imagine what our world might look like if we were never taught to see and label those differences.  Truly though, the world which I would like to leave my children and grandchildren behind in is a word which sees those differences, but embraces all of those differences. Try to imagine what love looks like. What do you see? I see a man, broken and beaten and ripped and riddled to His core, hanging on a cross, drenched in fresh blood and dried blood, struggling for each breath crying out to His very own Father, our Father too, asking Him to forgive us as we have done this to Him and we knew not what we were doing.  I see that love which never passed judgement on anyone else based on how they looked or based on their past mistakes, He loved purely and freely with out dishonoring others, but always honoring God. Love cannot dishonor others and at the same time honor God. If God is love and Jesus is love and Jesus always honored God and God always honors us, then how can any of that ever equal to us dishonoring anyone and calling that love?
Have a spectacular day today
Love San 🤗

Good morning ya’ll ministry messages

It (love) is not proud…”
Good morning ya’ll. I pray that you have a fantastic day today.
“Pride comes before a fall.” That’s the well known quote derived from Proverbs 16:18.
We strive to be strong and to put up a facade that seems impenetrable so that the world around us can not see the pain which still runs within us so deeply yet so close to the surface that one mere scratch could bring that deeply hidden pain right to the surface. Pride keeps us from allowing those who we love to get close enough to us to see our scars, to hear our real hearts, to feel our emotional shakiness, but the truth is that we all need to let the pain rise to the surface and be let out and true love let’s this pain and hurt be released and talked about without judgements and without scalding.  If we try to hold it all inside because our pride tells us that we simply can’t let others know how truly broken we are inside, then that very same pride which appeared to have always kept us strong will eventually lead us to our breakdowns.  God has placed those who love you in your life for good reasons and one of those reasons is because God knows we all need someone there to talk to, to listen to us, to simply hold our hands tight in theirs or to embrace us in a warm and genuine hug when we simply break down and we cannot find the words. Let’s choose to not be too proud to ask those who love us for help and let’s not be too proud to admit when we are done being strong and we are ready to rest. Don’t let your pride lead you to the downfall that you didn’t need because you missed the chance that God’s true love, God’s true Son, and the loved ones God has blessed help you heal completely. Whatever the hurt and brokenness is that you are carrying choose today to lay pride down and let true love surround you, embrace you and help you begin to truly heal.
Have an amazing day today
Love San 🤗