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| Valentine's Day 2014 |
"My hands were still shaking when I showed the president of my college the email yesterday from the DJ that read: I talked to the owner of Party 934 Radio and He is exited to be chosen to debut your song "What Love Can Do" on the air.
My blog, simply telling encounters with God is going viral. Its big news. U r the first person I have told, I feel connected to u. Hopefully everything else....could, and will fall in place...I don't need another Pastor, I want something else....." Text sent from me Wed Feb 19th 12:20 pm to the coast.
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Rev Ed (name change for privacy) was the first Pastor in a Methodist church that I met, that had to be careful of standing close to candles...or he might go up in flame. My gaydar flew off the charts when we first spoke. He is an awesome preacher, but like myself...when he opens his mouth....Judy Garland's purse falls out.
I was a volunteer in a new Praise team launching a contemporary service. I was migrating from the gay church downtown with a sound engineer & pretty Ms Golden Voice, as our lick-alot-of-pus (lesbian) leader.
I asked pretty Ms Golden Voice, if Rev Ed was gay since we were in a Methodist Church and I was unfamiliar with their acceptance policy. She nodded and said, Well Jamie I think so", with that big toothy smile...but it's a mystery...and really none of my business.
I got busted in the sanctuary (sleeping below the altar) one Tuesday evening waiting hours for rehearsal to start by Rev Ed. He was his usual charming self and before long I was at the piano giving him my testimony about how I foolishly tried cocaine in Florida.
Describing what I was like during my active addiction 20 years ago, is like talking about someone else I used to know. I became a monster crack addict and I did hustle briefly. I screamed at God for letting me get so sick and lose everything.
Instead of delivering me, God chose to walk with me though the valley (of the shadow of death) and out onto the other side into Victory.
It doesn't say in Psalm 23:4 "Yea though I walk around the valley, or stuck in the middle of the valley of the shadow of death" It says "Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death".
God chose on purpose to let me get 2 DUIs in 2 hours one night (on my way to the hood to score) to get my attention. It was time to face everything and recover. Time for a fresh start, 2nd chances and new beginnings.
I knew life would be different laying on the jail floor that night and several nights after. 7 years no license...shook the demon of cocaine from my core. I described to Rev Ed how God rescued, corrected, forgave, and healed me. How He made me a songwriter keeping His promise to give me beauty for my ashes.
I asked if Rev Ed would sit and listen to the song I wrote about my crack recovery. He slowly sat down in a pew just a few feet away from me in the dark sanctuary, and nodded yes. You could sense the electric presence from the Holy Spirit in the room, after basically confessing I got my d*ck sucked for crack money. I was in tears...
;
Knowing I was forgiven and no longer the same man....I closed my eyes and played and sang him my song about recovering. It is called, "God Has Not forgotten Me". I heard an echo from my voice bouncing off the ceiling, and felt wamth from the only light shining through stain glass down onto my forehead (from 2 stories above).
I opened my mouth and sang: click on the following link below to hear the song
God Has Not Forgotten Me https://mysp.ac/Gays?pl
Sometimes it seems i don't understand
I wonder about who I am
I want to do right but often fail
Many a nightmare I've lived to tell
But one things for sure
through all of my years
hang onto my faith when i cry my tears cause
God has not forgotten me.....
(chorus)
From this moment and then beyond
my heart will sing to you a song
cleanse me God of all my wrong
your mercy and grace
destroy anger and hate
my prayer and trust
grow into faith,
God has not forgotten me
Sometimes the sun just won't shine
Sometimes my fears can make me blind
my feelings can lie to me
I want to beieve what my spirit sees
That what I am not
He already is
What I don't have
is already His
God has not forgotten me (to chorus)
(Bridge)
when you fall down
and no one's around
believe in God
your already found
cause one thing I ve learned
through all of my years
hang onto my faith
while I cry my tears
God has not fogotten me
(to chorus end)
When it was over there were tears in his eyes and he stood up and approached me at the piano bench and said, "Jamie...a lot of doors will open for you someday, you have a gift from God. Look at people in the eyes when they compliment you and don't look down and be bashful. Shake their hand and sincerely say thank you, because your really saying thank you to God who gave you the gift. True humility isn't an act." And with that he handed me a set of keys that unlocked the entire campus of the Methodist Church, and left me alone with God.
The last Sunday I remember hearing Rev Ed preach, (I don't know where he is now except on FB)...we were singing a new song at the closing of a service, that just bombed. Trying to get 100 white people at 8 :45 am to clap in rhythm to a African American Spiritual was purely pitiful and quite fankly ugly and embarrassing.
Sensing the praise team's utter disappointment Rev Ed stood for the benediction, lifted his hand towards heaven and said "Father....forgive us for being white!"
I screamed all the way to my car laughing and I wasn't the only one
(check back for a link to the song referenced in this post I will upload it to mypace )
