God’s Provision

In 1985, the Lord spoke to my spirit about the relationships that I had been involved in. I had had some unhealthy relationships in my life. But, to me, I was an ordinary country girl that loved people and tried to accept others the way that they are. I always seemed to care about others and often times would wonder how they ended up the way that they did.

There was this homeless person that had some difficult circumstances that he encountered in his life. I had seen a homeless person that lived in my neighborhood.

Every time my friend and I, would go to the soul food restaurant, we would get a doggie bag for him . She would get smothered pork chops in gravy and rice with greens, cornbread and candied yams. and I would get smothered chicken with gravy and rice or mashed potatoes with corn, cornbread and candied yams. We had a variety of things that we would get. One day, I saw this homeless person in the alley where he would be. I asked him what happened to him? I asked, “How did you get to be homeless? “He told me that he was an only child and he had been living with his mother. He was still in college and she did everything for him. She worked and she cooked for him. She washed and ironed his clothes. She basically did everything for him while he was in college. But then, she got sick and died and he didn’t know what to do. He wasn’t working and lost the apartment or house and he started drinking wine and became homeless. He said that his mother was everything to him and he just couldn’t cope with her death.

My heart went out to him and I would do more for him. My friend and I would give him a few dollars and buy food for him. I don’t know what happened to him…I had heard that he was found him dead in the alley. I haven’t thought about him for a while, until now, but I do still remember him and somehow I just included him in this book.

Maybe because my mother did everything for me, especially while I was incarcerated. She always called or came to see me and wrote to me. She never turned her back on me. She encouraged my brothers and sister to help me. She worked all of her life and did everything for us. When I was released, I went to look for work and hung out with my mother a lot, visiting, cleaning her apartment building ,and mostly shopping . I provided for my two children who were teenagers now.

I never tried to be more than I was. I cared about other people no matter what walk of life they came from and reasoned that there is a reason why people are the way that they are…nobody knows about a person with the exception of someone that has walked in their shoes.

You have to have walked in their shoes. I am not talking about the bad things they might have done, or the crimes committed, but the whole person. There is always a much bigger picture than what we see. In fact, movie producers make movies about them to make money.

I write to give a word from the Lord to inmates and ex-offenders. This is why I have dedicated my book to the inmates in the United States, the world, and ultimately to God. My book has the original thoughts and experiences that were placed in my spirit early on in life and after I was incarcerated in prison. Also, reading other books helped to inspire me to write this book also. My mother used to give me books to read.

When I was younger. She once gave be a book (forget the name) by Billy Graham and a book titled, “Good Morning Holy Spirit” by Benny Hinn. They were both talking about Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, but it did not mean anything to me then. I felt that there was a God, but, I did not really understand who God is. They were just words.

Over the years later, while I was in jail, I had read a lot of books in my time such as Chances by Jackie Collins, Master of the Game by Sidney Shelton, Donald Goines books, books on Iceberg Slim, Amityville Horror books by V.C. Andrews, Help Me Remember, Help Me Forget by Robert

Sadler, Autobiography of Malcom X, Encyclopedias and many other books. I especially read the bible a lot more now. I used to be very interested in psychology books. I wanted to be a psycho-analyst years ago for the criminally insane. In addition, I was mostly interested in mystery books…true stories or non-fiction stories. I know now that God has called me for His purpose, His glory, which is better. So I read His book, the bible more.

God has given me uncountable testimonies in being well rounded in my understanding and experiencing a lot of short comings of others. However, there are some things that I would never understand or do.

Sometimes, we can learn about life of a person by the simple things that we did as children.

The bible does say “Train children in the right way, and when

old, they will not stray” (Proverbs 22:6).

I grew up with both of my parents. When I was a little girl, my father and mother would take us fishing every Sunday. We would get up at 6:00 AM and go to the lake to fish. I was around 4 years old when my father taught me how to fish. My brothers and I would get worms for bait to fish, especially when it rained. Our father showed us how to put the worm on the fishing rod hook. And how to throw the line in the water and wait for a fish to bite. After we caught the fish, it was put in a big bucket. My father showed us how to scale the fish with a fork and we watched him gut the fish and cut it in half. I would watch him prepare the fish cleaning it preparing the hot lard or oil and putting seasoning on it and basting it in cornmeal. So, when I became older, I remembered how to catch and cook fish. But I have not gone fishing though since then. As I grew older and I looked back in my life, I realized, that God has allowed me, through my incarceration experiences, to fish for souls.

Often times, as inmates and ex-offenders, we are stereotyped by others to believe that we are incorrigible based on negatives perceptions of the world.

However, if we look at themselves, we will find that inmates and ex-offenders reflect their own passions, pain and perils in their own lives.

Everyone wants to be acknowledged for who they are, but who are we for real?

In my own walk in life, I have found out that I was not really a criminal. At least that was what others told me. I was just trying to survive and not hurt others in the process. Unfortunately, to me, I was a real criminal. One thing led to another, and I could not turn the clock back.

When I went to look for a job, there was that past life that came up. I was just trying to survive when my parents separated even though I had learned right from wrong, I did not take heed to it.

However, right is right and wrong is wrong. The bibles tells us that in the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20. We have a blueprint on how to live based on the laws of God and the stories in the bible. But not everyone have acknowledged the bible nor do they want to know anything about what

God or what our creator says. I was one of them who did not listen or hear

the Word of God. As a last resort, after nothing else worked, when I

reached rock bottom, I turned to God to test His Word for myself. Not

because of my predicament but because I wanted to know for myself. I had

been in this situation before and did not say things that I was not going to

do. I knew not to play with God in that area. I never thought much about

until this time around.