Unapologetically Apostolic

As I drove into work this morning, the sunrise painted an absolute masterpiece across the canvas of sky that sprawled before me. The dark midnight blue surrounded by the violets and indigos as it lightened into the reds, pinks and oranges before seeing the golden yellow of the sun. The clouds appeared as little wisps of the artist's brush or quick daubs to make the puffy clouds and to add depth.  As I beheld this beauty, I was taken back to almost 25 years ago. I attended a non-denominational church then that had a very large college and career group. Part of that reason was we had folks come in from a great number of churches in the area for our Monday night services. Through this, I was able to meet a young man named Tyson. To know Tyson was to love him. He had that type of personality you were drawn to. But outside of knowing him "at church", I knew nothing about him. Didn't know where he was from, where he had went to school, you know, the facts. Then came that fa...

A little over nine years ago, I sat down and started writing out what was supposed to be my testimony. I titled it "Patchworked and Pieced Together: A story of God's love and redemption.   But as I wrote, the story quickly became less about what God had done in my life and more about how jacked up my life had been. Oh, I told about how God had delivered me from the obvious sins in my life. I shared how I had been delivered from a homosexual/lesbian lifestyle, from alcoholism and drug addiction, all the while still caught up in other addictions and lifestyles.  At the time of writing, I began to focus on the who, why, what, how and when of every wrong that had ever been done to me in my life. I started at the beginning when I was conceived, the rejection of a father and then the unknown birth (my mother was told she would have a big boy yet delivered twin girls. I was a surprise to everyone, Dr's and nurses included). I allowed words that were exclaimed by a sur...

In just a few short months, I will turn 49 years old. I have spent my life gaining knowledge. It didn't matter what it was, I wanted to learn everything that I could.  This desire for knowledge has helped me in so many ways. It made me strive to learn all that I could at my places of employment.  Whether that was at McDonald's, to Mazda- Toyota to now at my current employer, I would read, try and do all that I could to be the very best that I could. This desire to be the best has helped me to move up in areas above my peers. However, this has also been detrimental in ways. I pushed in ways that rubbed the wrong way. I hurt relationships and friendships to get to what I felt was the top. But, today as I was sitting at work working on a Bible study, I learned something that I should have learned a long time ago.  I remember several years ago, I was trying to draw a picture of how I was feeling at the time. I drew a head without a face crammed full of books on many subjects....

One thousand, eight hundred and twenty-five days. Forty-three thousand, eight hundred hours. Two million, six hundred twenty-eight thousand minutes.  This is the amount of time that has passed since I made the best decision I have ever made.  This is the 5 year anniversary of the day that I was baptized in Jesus name.  For forty-two years, I had lived my life of walking an aisle to take a preacher by the hand to say that I needed "saved" or I needed to rededicate my life to Christ. If I wasn't taking them by the hand, I was hitting my knees at the altar talking to God and begging Him to let me "feel" something, anything.  Each time I would do one of these things, I would feel better for about the length of time it took me to take the man by the hand or kneel down to pray. I longed for more but never knew what the more was that was missing.  There's an old contemporary Christian song that said "There's a God-shaped hole in all of us and t...

As Bro. Nathan was preaching during our Sunday service, he made a statement that I wrote down as he said it. Once I finished writing it, I sat back in my seat with an image in my mind. I'm not quite ready to share that statement just yet though.  He was preaching a message entitled Horeshoes and Hand Grenades. The text he utilized was Numbers 16:8-11 which says, "And Moses said unto Korah, Hear, I pray you, ye sons of Levi: Seemeth it but a small thing unto you, that the God of Israel hath separated you from the congregation of Israel, to bring you near to himself to do the service of the tabernacle of the Lord, and to stand before the congregation to minister unto them? And he hath brought thee near to him, and all thy brethren the sons of Levi with thee: and seek ye the priesthood also? For which cause both thou and all thy company are gathered together against the Lord: and what is Aaron, that ye murmur against him?" The message, as the title of the sermon indicate...

Last weekend as I sat sharing a meal around a table in a local restaurant, we were having a discussion. During this the point was made about how we, as women, "fix" ourselves up to make us feel better about ourselves. A statement was made about trimming hair and having layers added, or putting on a bit of make-up to feel prettier whenever a lady starts to feel down on her appearance or whenever they are going through a particular situation.  Now I know what we believe as Apostolic believers, to not cut or even trim our hair for it is our glory and that we do not wear make-up to cover that which God has created.  But when you begin working with someone who is new to the Apostolic faith, you have to teach them. You also have to let the Holy Ghost move them to change, not demand. As I thought about these statements which were made throughout this week, I've had various thoughts go through my mind. I remembered when I came into the church 5 years ago. I was only 5 months remo...