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Thank you so much for finding your way to this page. Simply open your heart and listen to my story. I call it The Greatest Adventure Ever. When you are finished, then we’ll talk. OK?

……Like a lot of preacher's kids I ran as far away from church as I could when I turned 18. That was my physical turning away from the Lord. Mentally, I had departed from the faith years earlier.

When I was six we lived in the cozy community of Riverside, California. The house and yard were big enough for my grown sister Ann's wedding, and to keep 3 of us younger siblings busy for a whole day of sock-buffing our hardwood floors. The wedding and the sock- buffing were fond memories. Sock-buffing was the sport my brother Joe, my sister Faye and I invented to accomplish shining newly waxed floors to perfection. We'd put old socks on our hands and feet and slide, glide and collide until you could see our faces in those hardwood floors. Those were some of the best times in my early life.
 

Ma Goes Away
That was the year Ma was hospitalized for the first of many nervous breakdowns. I didn't know quite what to make of the drama or the trauma of the missing mama. All I knew was that she was gone and nobody had a satisfactory answer for the question---"Where's my mama?" Sick people died as far as I knew, or the doctor gave them some medicine and they got better and told it in church. Ma didn't do either. My oldest and grown sister Venita came for a while to help take care of us while daddy continued his military tour. Venita was a delightful disaster who smoked cigarettes and looked for answers in a crystal ball. She was replaced by my Aunt Mamie. Aunt Mamie was so old she was seeing double. She probably thought she was taking care of 6 kids instead of 3. She stayed long enough to beat me with a hair brush for crying too much. Crying had become my means of dealing with present circumstances. Whenever things were out of sorts, tears would come to wash my troubles away. I got relief from those tears until Aunt Mamie beat me and they all dried up. I think that was just about the time I decided to officially move inside my head and live.

I knew about Jesus. I knew about prayer. I could recite Bible verses, long Easter speeches, 'now I lay me down to sleep…' and the Lord's Prayer. They sprinkled water on me and gave me blue ribbons at Vacation Bible School for talking about Jesus. I guess I just didn't get the part about trusting Him no matter what. Those people at Vacation Bible School just about killed me trying to make me put my foot in a pie pan of cement to make a foot print. That was the arts and crafts activity for the week and after the first couple of days of them pressuring me, I lost it. I was terrified at the thought of being stuck in that cement forever and I was afraid to cry for fear that Aunt Mamie would beat me again. I lost it and I was through with Jesus, church, family, everybody.

The Perfect Family

 I created an imaginary family that lived in my head and always treated me with tender loving care. My imaginary family and I hung out, talked only to each other and solved all of my life's problems with absolute loving kindness. As I look back now, I realize that even then the Lord was keeping me. I was disturbed enough to commit suicide, but He kept me. He allowed people to come into my life bearing switches and crystal balls so I would draw nigh unto Him. I thank God for Aunt Mamie and for Venita who helped us in our time of need. I thank God for every other person who came along to bear us up. Most of all, I thank the Lord that even though I chose fear rather than faith, He still kept me.

 One of the things I love most about Jesus is that He is always standing with outstretched arms waiting for us to run to Him. We might run in other directions, seek help in other places, but he stays put, just waiting for us.

When Ma finally came home to stay after 7 years, she had already been replaced in my mind. I didn't have a clue about how to communicate with her or anybody else. They told us not to upset her so, although I allowed her the title Ma, I had no intentions of giving up family life inside my head.

Off To Northern California

The drama intensified when we all moved to Northern California my first year of middle school. I was 5'8", 100lbs and struggling to simply walk into a room without my legs getting all tangled up. I'll never forget the day a boy named Michael asked me if I was a virgin. I didn't know what that was, so I politely told him "NO, NO WAY", and he told everybody at school; so, my imaginary family and I had to concoct stories about my sexual escapades. Thank God for creativity.
I got suspended for fighting that year too---had no idea that the words 'step cross that line' were fighting words. Fortunately, I was rescued by a chubby pre-teen named Pat. She became my defender, mentor and bosom buddy. When I couldn't get a handle on the proper way to cuss so I could fit in, she tutored me. I spent so much time with Pat that I began to neglect my imaginary family, and pretty soon they moved out. Late that next summer, my buddy Pat and her sister were killed in a car accident.

I don't remember if I cussed or cried, but by high school I made up my mind I was going to do whatever it took to make people love me. I noticed that people would roar with laughter when I would trip over my feet. I soon figured out I could turn classrooms up side down. I became one of the most brilliant class clowns of all times, and the laughter of my peers filled my soul with joy. 

 A Whole New World

The world was changing around me. James Brown was singing "I'm Black and I'm Proud" and on a historic visit to UCLA to visit my sister Faye, I was bitten by a bowl of red punch laced with cheap wine. That night I discovered that love and laughter could be achieved for a $1.99 a gallon. On that weekend I wore my first afro, met some Black Panthers and Kareem Abdul Jabar, nearly emptied that spiked punch bowl and was crowned the life of the college party. O what a night!

When I recovered from the hangover, my sister Faye pressed my hair so Dad wouldn't die when he saw it and put me on the plane for home. It wasn't long before I stood up to Dad and had a local barber restore my militant hairdo. It also wasn't long before I learned how to get alcohol without an ID. I welcomed the occasional anesthesia and by the time I was in college I had moved into the dormitory and into a lifestyle of dependency on alcohol. The class clown became a serious stage actress---captivating on stage and capable offstage of killing a case of Bud in less than two hours.

Sundays became recovery from Saturday binges and by graduation I re-settled in northern California, and was known as Bud-short for Budweiser-never leave home without it. I overindulged consistently and whoever rode to the nightclub with me would take my keys and drive themselves home. I would ease onto a bar stool and allow any male suitor to whisper sweet nothings in my ear and take me home. There were plenty of mornings when I would wake up, look over next to me and scream with horror. And still God kept me.

The Lord Works In Mysterious Ways
Faye, my brother Joe and I had always sung before Daddy preached and now that I was back in the neighborhood, people began to ask me to sing at funerals. I could sell a song with my drama and Faye was such a gifted musician, she could make the piano accompany the most tone deaf of singers. In any case, I found myself back in church and eventually in the choir stand.

I'll never forget one rehearsal when the Bill Cosby show first came on. The choir was electing officers and everyone was declining the nomination for president. I wanted to be home in front of the television with a cold beer in hand when Cosby came on at 8. The clock was ticking and the members had nominated everyone in the rehearsal for the presidency. It was 7:49 and everyone had declined the nominations. At exactly 7:50 somebody nominated me and I accepted and said "And as my first act as choir president, I declare the rehearsal is adjourned and goodnight." I made it home in time for Cosby and drank that night with more fervor than ever before.

I introduced the choir members to doing scriptural research for the songs we were singing. "You have to know what you're singing about", I'd say. I'd do my research with Bible in one hand and Budweiser in the other. Even at that time the Lord was drawing me.

Unexpected Guest

After a few years as president, a close friend arrived at my house after a church board meeting. By then, I had been fully convicted by the Word I sang about. I knew I was perpetrating a fraud and drank even more to drown my guilt. I could no longer buy beer locally so I'd travel 20 to 25 miles so no one would see the choir president buying beer by the cases.

That night I was in my pajamas minding my own business and sipping my 8th or 9th beer when a car pulled up in front of my house. I recognized the car and the driver and panicked. It was my praying, sanctified-for real friend and fellow choir member Deanna walking up. She hadn't called; there was no warning and here I was slightly toasted from the first round of Budweiser. I made a beeline for the bedroom, grabbed the garb of one 'too sick to have company' and began to practice coughing violently. She rang the doorbell and I opened the shuttered windows and answered in the sickest voice I could muster up, "hey girl, (cough-cough)".

She beamed and exclaimed, "I have to tell you about God and the meeting tonight." I coughed, watered my eyes and said, "I can't come out and I better not let you in. I don't want you to catch what I got." She beamed some more and said, "Girl, that's alright, I'll tell you from out here". Sister Girl stood on my front porch for at least 2 hours talking to me through the grates of the shuttered windows. She went on and on about the goodness of God and how He had moved miraculously at that meeting. I shuddered and prayed she would leave. She stayed, talked and shouted alleluia until sweat was pouring out of my body.

When she finally left, I felt tears falling down my face. Then with mixed emotions I began to thank God for not exposing me. I soon heard my own lips crying out-"Help me Lord, I can't keep living this way". Before long I had dropped to my knees. I was crying and asking the Lord to forgive me, heal me, save me and I don't remember what all else. I do know that somewhere in the midst of it all, I felt God's arms embrace me. I also know that sometime that night the Lord took the taste of alcohol out of my mouth and I have not been the same since. That night was the beginning of the greatest adventure ever. I have been walking with the Lord Jesus ever since and there has never been a dull moment.

That was a mouthful wasn’t it? The Greatest Adventure Ever is my story. You don’t have to wait until you hit rock bottom to give your heart to Jesus Christ. No matter where you are or however you have lived your life, you can accept God’s free gift of salvation by faith right now. God’s gift is for whoever is willing to believe and accept Jesus Christ. God loved me so much that he allowed His only Son Jesus Christ to die for my sins. I took that scripture in John 3:16 personally and you can too.

After you do that, listen to what Jesus says in Revelations 3:20.

Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice,

 and open the door, I will come in to him,

 and will sup with him, and he with me.

That door is the entry way to your heart.

This is your chance to invite Jesus in.

Say the following words:
Dear Jesus: I am sorry for my sins.

 I believe you died on the cross and rose for me.

Please come and live inside my heart

and be my Lord and Savior forever.

Thank you for coming so I might have an abundant life.

Amen

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