The Praise That Got a Kidnapped Boy Released…AKA THE POWER OF PRAISE!!!

Hello World,

I first heard of this story a couple of weeks ago, but as I was preparing to go out of town, I didn’t have the time to break this story down like I wanted to on this blog so I thought I would wait so I can get all up in it…

Some weeks ago, a wicked man snatched then nine-year-old Willie Myrick from his southwest Atlanta driveway into his car, according to police. The man drove the boy, who was in the back seat, around throughout Atlanta’s streets for several hours. Instead of panicking, the boy sang “Every Praise” the whole time until the man finally released him in East Point! Yes, the boy lived to tell his story and to help him celebrate his 10th birthday, gospel artist Hezekiah Walker, who wrote the song, flew from New York to Atlanta to meet the boy who used his song to help him get released from the kidnapper! They met at Mt. Carmel Baptist Church (just down the street from my church) where Willie told the crowd his testimony! As we love to say now, won’t He do it?!!!

There are some who would chalk this story up to happenstance or a mere case of luck, but I know that Willie’s praise got him released!!! In fact, we can see several examples of the power of praise in God’s word! The most awesome example that I know is when Paul and Silas were beaten and thrown in prison. Instead of tending to their wounds or falling into despair, they praised God right there in their cells! What happened next should make all prisoners, either figuratively or literally, start clearing their throats and brushing up on Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti, Do  to belt out a praise song…

Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everyone’s chains came loose. Acts 16:26

I have a story about the power of praise in my own life…While my story is not as dramatic as the stories of Willie and Paul & Silas, I can testify too…Right after I graduated from college, I was unable to get a full-time job in my field so I got a job at a law firm. I figured that having a paycheck was better than incessantly job hunting for the perfect job…But every day on my lunch break, I did go to the nearby Kinko’s to use the computer and fax résumés. This was back in ’97 y’all…

Working at that law firm made me feel like I was in prison. I enjoyed working with the people, but the job itself was as boring as sitting in the class of the driest college professor you’ve ever had. Except going to college wasn’t even necessary for this job and every second I spent there made me feel like all like all of the brain cells that I had strengthened by four years at University of Georgia evaporated each time I showed up. In fact, one morning, after just being at work for a few minutes, my boss sent me home because I couldn’t stop crying. I don’t even remember when I started crying. I was just sitting at my desk and all of a sudden, it seemed, I was heaving and my nose was red. I just couldn’t fathom that a scoring a reasonably high score on the English portion of the SAT, skipping freshman English, cultivating a high GPA and completing four internships prepared me to be a file clerk…Yes, my entire job was to keep track of files. Manilla folders and paper cuts became like second nature to me…

Within a few months of working there, I started to meet or meat with a bucket of KFC original recipe chicken and biscuits on a weekly basis to express my feelings. And I told everyone who asked me how I was doing that I hated my job! And I saw no way out of my prison because no other employer wanted to hire me..Finally, my uncle, who is a pastor, threw a life preserver to me to keep me from drowning…He said to simply stop bad-mouthing the job and speak positively about the job no matter what…He told me this verse…

The tongue has the power of life and death,
and those who love it will eat its fruit. Proverbs 18:21

So because of that conversation, I began speaking positively about my job even though I still felt like I was showing up to have my nails plucked from one fingers one by one or have cold water dripped on my head a drop at a time…Within two months of that conversation, I got a job at gospel record company where I worked with Larry Tinsley, radio host of “Sunday Morning Praise” on V-103 and just a nice man…In fact, Tinsley, who seems to know everybody gospel singer, interviewed Hezekiah Walker about God using him to write that powerful song…

What we need to realize is that God is in everything and nothing happens to us without His permission! And once we demonstrate that we know that God is sovereign and working it out by our praise, I believe that God will release His power in our lives…

Thank you Willie for your testimony…It is a real-life example of Psalm 8:2…

Through the praise of children and infants you have established a stronghold against your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger.

So what is your favorite praise song? My favorite praise song is Yolanda Adam’s song “The Battle is Not Yours.” God used this song to help me go through….

Any thoughts?

Below is a video in which Willie Myrick and Hezekiah Walker are interviewed by my Soror Blayne Alexander of 11AliveNews…

To everything there is a season…Cherishing my 40th Birthday…

Hello World,

brideOne of my favorite passages in the Bible is Ecclesiastes 3 in which we are reminded that time is not arbitrary, there is a season for everything in God’s world…And now is my time to turn 40 years old…I thank God that He allowed me to reach this milestone in my life…I don’t like the idea of aging but such is life…aging is a blessing especially when you consider the alternative…

As I reflected about my life on my birthday (which was actually Sept. 7), I realized that some of my birthdays in years past were bittersweet…I was always grateful that God allowed me to live another year, but I was confused about why some of my oldest dreams had not come true…I remember when I wrote one of my most introspective posts “Hope. Wish.. Pray…” at the end of 2008, the year that I start my dear blog…Below is an excerpt…

For today, I have decided to hope, wish & pray that my dreams will come true…According to the Word, you are to “delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.” Psalm 37:4 When I first read this verse years ago, I thought it meant that God will give you whatever you want if you serve Him. I know that’s not true now.

Now I believe that if you come to know the Lord in an intimate way, He will guide you to your true desires – that is He will give you the desires He has for you. He will guide you to your God-given destiny. So over the years, God has shown me what are my false desires and what are my true desires.(I no longer desire to date a man from every continent, ha,ha, for instance.)  Anyway, two dreams or two desires remain…at least for today. Well, that’s not true. I have more than two dreams, but I am thinking of two in particular…(What dreams do you think I am referring to? Guess?)

I had two dreams that I desperately longed for but did not reveal in that post…I wanted to DSC_2854meet and get married to the man God kept for me, and I wanted to be a published author…And it seemed for a long, long, long time, no matter what I did those two dreams eluded me…I literally chased them and every time I thought I was getting closer, all of a sudden it felt all of my chasing was for naught…But I now know that I was on time all along, it just wasn’t my season…And FINALLY, God saw fit to bless me with the right man, and He blessed me to become a published author…So this is a new season in my life…I don’t know what awaits me, and I’m still hoping, wishing and praying for the best…I’m thinking about new dreams too…

Happy Birthday to Me 🙂

Any thoughts?

P.S. Since I moving on up in age, I decided to post Curtis Mayfield’s “Move On Up.” This captures how I’m feeling….

Let Freedom Ring: Dr. Alveda King Remembers Her Uncle Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (REPOST)

 

(Editor’s Note: I originally wrote this post back in August, but I thought I would repost today on Dr. King’s birthday and on the eve of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. holiday…Enjoy!)

Hello World,

As if you did not know, today marks the 48th anniversary of the March on Washington and Dr. King’s delivery of his magnificent “I Have a Dream” speech in our nation’s capital. Today is also the day that the Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial, which is located on the national Mall, was to be officially dedicated in front of thousands of people. However, due to the emergence of Hurricane Irene, the official dedication has been postponed to September or October, according to various new reports.

However, I still want to honor Dr. King and his dream today as well as highlight the accomplishment of having his monument on the National Mall, the first time an African-American has been honored in such a way on the National Mall!

Dr. Alveda King, center, next to her cousin Bernice King and other members of the King family.

I was able to interview Dr. Alveda King, niece of Dr. King and daughter of his King’s younger brother Rev. A.D. King, about her uncle, his dream and other issues…

On the dedication of the memorial:

I think it’s wonderful to remember my uncle. With me being a preacher, I’ll be giving honor to God for blessing us with the gift that He gave to us through my uncle Martin Luther King Jr.

Her favorite memory of her uncle:

My favorite memory of my Uncle Martin were the times that our families were together. My father Rev. A.D. King is his brother. He and Dr. King live together in the kingdom of God now. They are in heaven together. But our families during their lifetimes were together very often – Christmas, Thanksgiving, summer, swimming, just fun. I remember we were at our Uncle Martin’s home one year. Daddy was playing the violin. And Uncle Martin was talking and laughing. We called him Uncle M.L. actually because my Dad was A.D. Alfred Daniel Williams King and Martin is Martin Luther King Jr. So they were laughing, and I was a young teenager, and I walked through, and I remember my uncle laughed and said, “A.D., you gonna have to watch it because the boys are going to be after her. She is gonna be a very pretty lady.” It affirmed me and made me so happy.

Reflection on Dr. King’s death:

I was about 18. I got married the next year. My uncle was killed in ‘68. I was born in ‘51. So I was either 17 or 18 I guess. And the next year I got married. My daddy walked me down the aisle, and a week later, he was killed as well in our swimming pool.

On the realization of Dr. King’s dream:

I believe that the world will remember and should remember Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I think the most important thing for everyone to remember is that he loved God and he loved his family. And he was very much loved by us. I think I noticed in “USA TODAY,” there’s an article and it says with M.L.K. memorial opening, the dream has come true. Dr. King’s dream was really that we would all have the love of God in our hearts toward each other. The main part about his dream was advancing the kingdom of God and the love of God. And I do see that increasing in the world, and I think that’s true.

And I ask people as the dream is realized, has the “check for insufficient funds,” have those funds been made good? We are still struggling with the economy and many social issues, but I believe as we learn to love each other as brothers and not perish as fools, as my uncle said, we all have to learn to live together as brothers and sisters, I might add, or perish as fools. So as we move closer to that agape love, that God of kind of love, I believe that we will all overcome.

On the redemptive power of Jesus Christ, particularly for young people:

I like to remind people that David in the Bible pleased God in all things except the matter of Uriah the Hittite, and we know that he committed adultery and killed Bathsheba’s husband. Paul used to kill Christians. Mary Magdalene was the woman caught in the act. But the redemptive power of Christ. I want young people especially to realize this, when you stumble, get up. And then as you mature in Christ, you don’t stumble as much. None of us are perfect, but God is perfect. The blood of Jesus, the perfecting blood of Jesus His son can help us, can cleanse us, and then the power of the Holy Spirit.

So these are things that my uncle understood, my father Rev. A.D. King understood, my grandfather Daddy King. I’m understanding it more and more every day as I continue to mature so these are principles that young people and mature people can embrace.

 And like I say, if you make a mistake just get up and keep going. If you can remember the days that when you were learning to ride a bicycle, when you fell off, you didn’t quit riding your bike. You got back on. When you were on the skating rink, if you fell over, you got up and kept skating. If you were at the bowling alley, if the ball went in the gutter, the next time you took it and you made a spare and found your strike. So these are the ways that we advance in life in Christ. And I do want to encourage all young people to live accordingly.

Dr. Alveda King is a civil rights and pro-life activist and founder of King for America Inc. which endeavors to “to assist people in enriching their lives spiritually, personally, mentally and economically.”

Dr. King also made an official statement regarding the dedication of Dr. King memorial…

 

Thank you God for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr….and Thank you God!

Any thoughts?