Still Praying. I Don't Have a Choice.

 It's been nearly three years now.  Time flies. I've written about this before, so there's no need to go into it really, maybe just a recap for those who may not understand why I'm still choosing to pray for someone so toxic and so hurtful. I guess the simple answer is I don't want to! I've begged God at least 1000 times to let me stop, but then I'm reminded of the fact(s) that Jesus didn't hang on the cross just for me. He did it for the good, the bad, the ugly, and even the unseen.  He died for the liars. He died for the truth tellers. He died for the same reason He chose to come here to die in the first place, and that was to fulfill (to the letter) everything He ever set out to achieve. Our sin (no matter how big or how tiny) is enough for Him to make that sacrifice. Who the hell am I to argue if He commands (not demands) that I continue to pray for someone who I've given up on because Jesus never will give up on any one of us.

    The simple fact is that this man is a real piece of work! Most people, including himself, would have and still do call him worse names than I can come up with. I have never met the man in person. Mine has been a journey of research, having people send me things out of the blue because they know my connection. I've had people literally make up fake accounts online so they can send me information about the guy, and I swear, I swear, I think sometimes it's the man himself doing it so I won't stop hitting the prayer closet for him because even HE knows he's not worth the time, effort, words, or trouble - - but there I am, and there I will be.  Thank you, Jesus. I think of it this way; if I find a wallet full of money I find the owner. I do that, even if I need cash, because I know I would want someone to return my purse or wallet to me. I wouldn't want them taking my money before they returned it.  EVEN if someone did take my money before (or if) they returned my purse or wallet, I can't stop doing what I know is right - - again, Thank you, Jesus.

    Three years ago I was listening to music and decided to switch it up and listen to not only worship music, but Celtic Christian music.  I Googled it, found it, and the band I found was just that.  At the time, not now, their lead singer was a man I won't call by name. He gets a bit upset with me when I do that. He can go suck an egg, I don't care, but I don't need to bring attention if it doesn't need to be brought. The purpose of the blog is to state the obvious; that is to say that I'm still praying and I am not going to stop praying because I was told to pray. How does one do that when their heart is tightly wrapped for protection against the words and emotions that spew from the keyboard of the man she's praying for? I guess I just do it the way I always have.  I take my rock in my hand, invite the dog to go into the closet with me, and I sigh a little, breathe a lot, and shake my head while admitting to God that I have NO IDEA what I'm doing! (But I'm still doing it)

    About a year ago the man was at a concert in Cornwall, England where he was giving a 33-minute speech to the crowd. I thought I had heard all of his podcasts, and/or anything that featured him since I was inclined to find information about him so I could pray for him (this was during the time I didn't mind doing so) and yes, this podcast from the producers of the show, had escaped me. I found it today only because another fan of his sent it to me after she had heard him badmouthing me in his hometown! She's an artist too, and I support her through whatever means I can. I try to promote great artists who sing of Christ. She sent me the podcast and her words in the email were a bit sad.  She said "Wow, what a difference a year makes" and she couldn't have been more right.

    During the 33 minutes, this man openly spoke the deep and honest truth about his upbringing, his lack of Christ as a child and young adult, and how he found himself lying to everyone and himself so he could score another drink or buy drugs. He was a mess from the time he was about 15; his parents split, he was bullied at school, and he explored and used sex, drank, and did drugs.  As a young teen found himself at the end of a few battering rams/fists which caused him to be hospitalized for the first time perhaps, but certainly not the last time.  If my math is correct, and it may not be, he's been in and out of hospitals and rehabs just about every five years since the year 2000.  Don't think I'm sharing information that hasn't been shared. I wouldn't do that. He himself has posted these dates, I'm just recapping so you'll have an idea of what sort of mess he found and finds himself in. This is WHY the man needs prayer.  God has always allowed Satan to tempt and torment those who are close to Him, as a way to teach and instruct us to remain faithful. Those of us who have come through the fires are now able to pray for those who are going through them. 

    Prayer is a direct messaging system and communication with God. When one prays we are literally in touch with the Creator of the universe. We're not talking to the Moon. We're talking to the One who set that and all the other planets in place. It's not a small thing to be prayed for. It is a HUGE gift and it is a  HUGE privilege to have someone praying for you; that's why it really stings and hurts when others ask you to stop praying for them, or they say they never asked you to do so. Hey, guess what friend, I didn't ask to pray either! I was told to! I was literally directed to do so.  God knows me. I am apt to stop, walk away, throw my hands in the air, and proclaim this asshat is NOT worth my time! The only thing is, he is worth my time because MY TIME is not MINE.  I am bought, just like he was bought, with the price of the holiest of holy commodities; the Blood of Jesus. We are NOT our own. 

    You know the saying, "There but by the Grace of God go I"?  That saying applies here. I could not have had a more different upbringing than my friend had. I was born into a loving Christian home. I was the last of four, I was the baby, I was spoiled rotten, I admit that. I had not only a Christian upbringing but the Christian discipline to go along with it. My backside was tanned up a few more times than this man ever experienced, but if you ask me, he could have used a good spanking from his parents while he was being reared! Some people haven't been sent to the shed to meet Paw Paw and it shows!  In my family, if I was in trouble at school I was in trouble at home, and then my MOM would call my Granny and aunts and tell them what happened, and I was spanked again when they saw me! Needless to say, I was brought up knowing that love is painfully applied when necessary! This man didn't have that same "love" experience (and it shows).

    A year ago he spoke about how he had been in deep trouble before meeting up with Jesus in 2006.  He talked about being homeless, going through strict and methodical training; a program much like that of the 12-steps, but with Jesus at the Center. He talked about finding Christ, then meeting and marrying his wife. I didn't hear a lot about love going on, just that she basically saved him from living on the streets.  Sure, they were together a long while, but as I did my research I realized it was a mutual understanding more than a loving and intimate marriage. This being opinion, I also decided to research the times he spent again, in and out of hospitals and rehabs during the marriage.  He literally spent an entire year away from home due to unusual behavior that stemmed from his recorded and well-documented drug and drink addiction. He drank bottles of a strong mouthwash which led to an entirely different form of illness and mental low. Hearing him talk about it in the 2021 speech, I was shocked. I really had no idea he had fallen that far, but he had.

    So, a year ago he's talking about what happened five years beforehand. He was going over how this event led to his wife leaving him to protect herself and the kids from having to find him dead on the floor in their flat!  She left him, but it appears she allowed him back into the fold. I checked...there were rules and some of them were expected, while some of them would cause any of us to just say no, and find a way to make it on our own. Friends and family agreed, he probably could have struck out on his own once recovered, but he didn't believe in himself. He wrote some of the best lyrics and songs during that stint, and I personally think he absolutely could have been better off trying to forge it on his own. This was before I found out about him, but now that I know what I know, I'm still here! I'm still praying, and I still believe in him. I may not like the man, he hasn't given me much to hold onto as far as that goes, but I won't say he isn't one of the most talented singers and songwriters I've been given the privilege to hear. He is.

    Over the course of time from the day he left rehab in 2016 (maybe 2017) right up to the Pandemic, he was able to pull it together, find a home with the Celtic gospel band, record two separate albums with them, and a couple of his own actually.  He signed with a music company that I personally don't trust, but he stands by them. He's been able to travel some, sing some, witness some, and join a few ministries.  So what happened? Why the statement, "A lot can happen in a year" from his good friend and colleague?  What happened?   Was it physical? He had an aneurism in 2018 I think, it was in his hand, but they can travel. Once you have one you are absolutely prone to another one; at least that's what the research tells me. Did he have a clot? Could that have sent him into a spiral? I don't know. Maybe.

    What I know is that after the Cornwall concert, literally a couple of days later, he's bragging about his wife's son like he's NEVER bragged on him before. For the entire two years (at that time, now three) that I've followed him, he's only mentioned the boy/man a couple of times and only in a passive manner. Suddenly, from the tops of the roofs he's proclaiming the kid is the bravest, the best, the most? No. Something is not right in Denmark, and he didn't even live in Denmark.  Over the next few days, he was bragging about the wife too! Oh, and mind you, I don't mean he was posting on the walls of his social media, no, just on the here-today-gone-tomorrow "story" sections. It was very obvious to anyone who had followed anyone that this sort of praise is temporal and not really meaningful. If you mean it, you post it. If you mean it, you don't look stressed and wide-eyed with a tight-lipped face trying to convince the audience that you mean it. I couldn't help but bust a gut laughing.

    Suddenly, and I do mean suddenly, he dropped off the face of social media 100% but not before performing one time for a show that would film in mid-September but not be seen until the top of December. It was a Christmas show. Not only did he not go on and on about how happy he was to do the show, but he also misspelled CHRISTMAS!  When we didn't hear from the man for months and then saw the video of what he looked like at the time of filming, it was blatantly obvious that he had been stressed beyond measure. The man looked like he had a gun to his head and was sweating while singing about the Little Town of Bethlehem. I wanted to call or write, but he wasn't available. When I did write I got a nasty response from someone -- I don't think it was him. I know it wasn't because he wasn't home nor did he have access to a computer at that time. His five-year appointment with rehab had been activated.  That's a harsh way to say it, but again, from my calculations, it was 2005, 2011, 2016, and now 2021.  The one thing I noticed was that he could possibly have been delivered in 2006 - - and the last three stints were after he was married. Just sayin'.

    Some people marry for love. Some people marry for security. Some people take advantage of others. Often times people use and abuse each other in their marriage/relationship and both can be blamed as well as calling themselves victims. He was a glorified babysitter; never actually taking a job, but keeping the place, and being there when she came home. She was a bit of a pretender when it came to working skills, and she liked to pretend she knew more about real estate too, which at the end of the summer in 2021 could have been a really good reason for there to be added stress in the household. The couple (or she) owned a house in one city that she thought she was receiving rent on and they were obligated to pay rent on an expensive apartment in one of Britain's swank City Centres. How do you do that if he's not working, exactly? You don't. What you do is add more stress to him through nagging and complaining.  If the man himself has no working skills either, only the grand and gloriously wonderful skills of music, there could be issues, and there were.

    Because I am nothing if not curious, I do research. I investigate, and that often times requires that I probe whatever is publically written and submitted online. I am not apt to go beyond the letter of the law, and I won't pretend to be innocent when it comes to asking direct questions of folks I know have contact with or who are colleagues and friends of the  man.  They too, like me, wondered what was happening, and if they could find a way to reach him during his troubles.  No matter how alone the man may have been feeling, he really wasn't. We were just over on the other side of that marriage screaming "LEAVE ALREADY!" It wasn't that she was an ogre or anything, but she had no love for him, just chores and expectations. She had grown over with jaded-face years back, and if not, it was certainly done so during the lockdowns when they were forced to realize the lack of love between them. Unfortunately, it was just a couple of months before the lockdowns that she began the family finance issues with real estate investments. Time, nor timing, were their friends.  The bottom fell, but not all at once. It sort of crept up on him. (them)

    A year later, the concert done, the speech over, the new rehab stint complete, it is obvious that he finally listened to someone on the outside screaming "Leave already", and it may have been (to her credit) that she pushed the bloke right outside the door! Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind if they won't take the leap themselves.  Where does that leave us now? Well, where does that leave him now? I know where I am left...in the damn closet, praying for him, just like I was when it all started nearly three years ago. What a freaking roller coaster too!  The lyrics "Because He lives, I can face tomorrow" come to mind. The tomorrow of today, the next day, the next day... Jesus is just always going to be the same day in and day out, now, or three years down the road.  Interestingly, and I mean this, I love hearing this man sing that very song. It reminds me that he has the right soil in his beaten down bruised heart - - and the seed of faith that he does have will grow.

    I don't know. He's asked me to stop communicating with him and his friends after I flat out called him out for things he was doing publically. Maybe I should just do that. His friends continue to communicate with me, and when they do I tell them what he's asked of me. I make it clear that he's upset with me, and they tell him he still reads everything I write online. He's still a fan! LOL.  I guess that makes me smile because if he's reading this right now I'll take a minute to point out a few things; three things.  (1) Jesus still loves you and so do I. I don't have to like you much to love you. (2) No one else besides me that I know of is willing to continue to help you after you have spit on everyone verbally and through email telling us how toxic we are and how WE are the ones damaging you -- when YOU are the one who put yourself in those places and situations, and (3) Who else do you know who is still willing to lift your spirit, your soul, your situation, your mean-to-the-bone attitude before our loving and healing God? Name one person who does this prayer thing for you on a daily basis - - I'll wait.  You may not like me, but you're reading this.  (Thank you, Jesus)

    Our world is temporal. We are not here for very long. We are not expected to take ourselves or our hurt and burdens any further than to the Cross. We are told we are worthless, but Jesus thinks we are to die for. We are told we are less, or an accident, we are told we are a mistake, but the fact is, we are so very unique and so very needed in the Kingdom. If I could, and I can't right now, but if I could, I would make a way so that this bird could fly and fly freely so that he could sing and perform literally day in and day out to the men in prison, to the hopeless, to the homeless whom he understands. I would make a way for that to be a reality for him so he didn't have to worry about anything other than what the next verse should be in his next song.  I have no idea why I am drawn to care but I do. I have no reason to care, but I do. I have no right to care, but I do.  I'd say sue me, but there is nothing of monetary value to be gained. Instead, I'll say it again; breathe. Know you are lifted to the One and I won't stop because I can't stop. There, but by the Grace of God. 

    We're going Home soon.  None of this will matter.

Photo Credit: EternalLifeStyle.com