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Thank-you all for your words of encouragement and prayer. Back in the day...my mother was a super-soul winner...hundreds of people prayed through to the Holy Ghost in our home over coffee and the word.
From the Home Bible Study Course, In my Father's House, the slide show, The Turning Point, and last but not least the bus ministry was hundreds strong all begun by my mother.
I grew up hearing my mother pray, speak in tongues, sing in tongues, interpret in English, and prophesy. I always prayed that God would do with me as he did with Elisha and gave him a double portion of what God blessed Elijah with. I wanted a double portion of what my mother had.
Mom got discouraged when, while she was worshipping God and bringing her 5 children to church alone...my brother was being molested in the back rooms of the church during service.
Mom felt that God should have honored her faithfulness, her witnessing, and prayer life and protected her son. She has anger built up inside her that comes out in the most inopportune times and it is to the point that we always worry about what she will tell others.
I don't have the answers for her...all I know is that God allowed us to be raised in an ultra-conservative church to protect us from so many things. I always thought it was funny that everyone at JCM thought I was a preacher's kid [I was but my mom the preacher]. In all actuality, my father and step-father were both alcoholics. I was never very naive. My biological father lived over a bar in downtown Memphis and I would stay with him during many holidays when JCM was closed.
I had access to any type of liquor and drug that anyone would wonder about, and all the sexual addictions that were prevalent in that drug/alcohol culture...but God protected me. I have never tried drugs, not even smoked a joint. My husband was the first man I had ever been with, and I am not an alcoholic. My first cousin died of a drug overdose in her early twenties leaving behind 2 children.
My mother was not the only one who got discouraged...I became discouraged over UPCI politics and church trouble. I was under the impression that all Apostolics were Christians and would do the right thing...but I found out it isn't so.
My mother always told me I was beautiful, talented, intelligent and I could do or be anything I wanted to be/do....and I believed her until I was 33 years old. Then I found out just how imperfect and human I really was.
Despite my failings and shortcomings, God spared my life, allowed me to raise two Godly children, and see my grandchildren born. God allowed me to finish two degrees in college and has led me through valley after valley but also mountain top after mountain top.
God has spoken things into my soul that he wants to do and accomplish in me but the devil sends naysayers to buffet and discourage me...and he uses family to do it. But...
T.D. Jakes spoke an excellent message today that I believe with all my heart. God formed those who forged the weapons used against me...but they will not prosper. God will have his way with me and my family despite what others say or the devil will try to do. God is in control.
I said all that to say this...my family will be saved because my mother spent hours, days, months, and years in praying, fasting, and blessing her family and God is pulling those prayers out now...when we need them most.
I trust Jesus to do as he said he would do.
In His Grip, Rhoni
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