God Knows and Understands

Right now there are some things that I'm experiencing that I've never experienced before. A lot of this is causing me to reflect on the year my father died and what I had to endure while appearing to be in my right mind. I'll never forget the year of 1998. That was a pivotal year for me. My mentor and my father passed within three months of each other. These two men were pillars in my life and I really thought that I'd have them with me forever. It's good that I'm even able to write about it because it's showing me how far I've come on this journey.

The day was June 6, 1998. His name was Michael Lee DeShay. He represented the best in me and pushed me beyond reason to push past the "yesterdays" in my life and reach for the greater good of tomorrow. No one in my life up until then had been able to do just that. I would have different people come in and out and help assist me with different conflicts but no one was able to get me to see things as they were from a spiritual implication. Most people would sugar-coat things in a way that made life look so "Alice in wonderland" but Michael, he had a way of being violently offensive and radical in his description of the world "as it was" at that time. I thank God for giving me a Michael because his spirit rests upon me this day. I too am known for being offensive in how I portray real life situations.

The day Michael passed this life was a rough day for me. I was not prepared and I thought that I had God figured out. I thought that I'd assist him with his ministry in Texas. Everything was mapped out and out of nowhere he falls dead on the basketball court! He was 28 at the time and had a wife and 2 kids. I had never lost anyone this close to me so I didn't know what to do or how to react. I literally thought I was going to lose my mind...to go from speaking to him one minute and then 30 minutes later have someone tell me that he was dead, it seemed surreal. With all the death that I've been experiencing lately, I couldn't help but reflect on the day I looked at him in his casket. To have so many plans and then look at the plans that you had basically closed up in a box, I really felt like I was dreaming because things went completely the opposite way from what I thought. I can't even put into words how it felt looking at my pillar, dead and there was nothing that I could do about it except say goodbye!

Then go just three months down the road to my father. My father was the one who I called when Michael died. He helped me process what was going on. I relied on him for so much during this season of my life and I thanked God every day that I still had him around. I told others that I would have lost my mind had it not been for my daddy. However, my father was sick at the time, but he also had plans of recovering and moving on in life. The day he died was very unexpected. As a matter of fact, I had just said good bye to him on his bed a few hours earlier as I was preparing to fly home to Atlanta. Now, when Michael died, I had my dad to lean on. When the call came to me at the airport that he was gone, all I had was GOD!

My father had been my safety net for my entire life and now he was gone. Still today, tears feel my eyes thinking on that day just as if it were yesterday. No one knows what I truly went through because I let very few people see the little boy inside kicking and screaming for his daddy. I said that things are tight right now and they are. It's been over seven years now and I'm feeling tremors of what I felt back then. Yes, it's tough dealing with death. It's even tougher coping with life, so no matter which way you look at it, it is a catch-22.

Either way you have to deal, so you might as well make the best of it. That's how I got through that period of my life. It wasn't easy at all so I'm not saying that but what else was I to do? I'm not a quitter in the least bit, I'm a born fighter. I can't be stopped because greater is He that's in me than any circumstance that comes my way. I couldn't always say that because there were many nights that I'd cry myself to sleep because I felt that I had done something wrong to lose the two men that meant the most to me. I had to, in the midst of the pain, force myself to see God. Because the foundation that my father laid for me was so pristine, I was able to use it to help me cope. The foundation I'm referring to is Christ! It was God and God alone who helped me deal, as a matter of fact, when I didn't want to deal, He still forced me to look at things from a different perspective.

Yesterday evening I was blessed to see one of my brothers installed as pastor of a church in Detroit, Michigan. It was wonderful and it brought tears to my eyes because his father was yet living and preached the installation message. It allowed me to reflect on the vision that I had where my father would preach mine one day. Although that will never happen, I couldn't help but thank God for the gifts that he had given me in the persons of my daddy and my mentor. Yes, right now is tight for those of us who are walking with the Lord. It's tight not because of what we've done wrong but rather because of what God has in store! I can't give up because I know that all things work together for good because I love the Lord and I know that I'm called for His purpose. NO, I don't understand why things had to happen the way they did, but God knows and He understands every tear!