Bless the Broken Road

As I pray about the next steps in this writing journey and trusting God, I am at peace with however the road turns out. I have older works and if they get published eventually that is good and if not that is good as well. My main proof reader has read one of those & believes it is better than The River Hideaway. If other works get published I won't be able to say that. The River Hideaway, will always be my baby that I wrote long ago, reworked it several times and then finally was published by a small press.

Being a published writer was a long time dream that only occurred when I stopped placing my dream in front of God. It is hard to release what we want so badly or what we think defines us. We can want something so much that we convince ourselves that God is fueling the dream when it may well be our own desires. Those desires may not be anything bad but if I place them before God it will not be what I hope it to be even if it comes to fruition.

Right now for the first time in nine years I am writing something new. Their are parts that I think are funny if Julie's laughter is any indication. Some of it carries some sadness and though fictional there are elements of true feelings mixed in. There are times like right now when I have to break from it because it derives from too deep a place.

I don't know that I will ever have another fresh idea to write a novel, or I may have twenty more. I did not plan to write, The River Hideaway. It was just an idea that emerged while watching a movie. The other manuscripts I have came to me in similar fashion. I observed something and an idea floated out and once there never left.

I was writing something earlier in this story about the man's wife. This time it was personal and I was seeing Julie. She would love this part. She is on horseback. The man thinks back to their wedding day and the song that they slow-danced too. For us it was Storm, by Lifehouse. That is our song but my song to Julie will always be, Bless the Broken Road, by Rascal Flatts. 

There have been many broken roads in my life and most were because I made poor choices. I had to have what I thought I needed. I asked God for help in situations that deep down I knew He would say no. It was hard to believe through much of the heartache that he had something far better in mind for me than I could ever dream of. He had Julie.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7a47fEuB9vo

God bless the broken road that led me straight to you.

http://www.amazon.com/River-Hideaway-Billy-Beasley/dp/1610091361/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1429223900&sr=1-1&keywords=the+river+hideaway

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-river-hideaway-billy-beasley/1119573858?ean=9781610091367

Raw Honesty

 Mark 9:24 "I do believe; help my unbelief."

This is a portion of one of my favorite scriptures. The man is requesting of Jesus to help his son. Imagine that for a moment. You want your faith to be strong but in that moment he is real, vulnerable, desperate, & most importantly, he is brutally honest. In one moment, he says he believes & then quickly contradicts that statement.

One word comes to mind for me when I read this passage. Raw. The man displays raw honesty to Jesus. Did he get criticized for a lack of faith?  Is there anything in the scriptures to show Jesus was even mildly disappointed in him? No, and Jesus delivered his son.

I believe that being honest with God, even if we are weak, angry, disillusioned- take your pick is what he desires of us. Besides, can any of us fool God? Can we hide where he can't see?

Anger has been such a part of my life for so long that while I have made strides there are times when I go back to what I know.Last week, our lives were interrupted with a Sunday, 3:31 a.m. phone call telling us Sydny, our beloved little black, chihuahua mix, had passed away after what was deemed a successful surgery. My wife, Julie, and I cried, we prayed, we sought answers, we grieved.  We still are grieving.

I had prayed so diligently over that little guy. I even anointed his little head with oil. Many others joined us in prayers. I spent a significant amount of money trying to ensure he would be with us a few more years. Just that morning he was chasing the annoying neighbor's cat off the porch. It was so hard to accept how quickly he went. We blamed ourselves. What if I would have taken him to the vet the first sign of him throwing up? Julie, was doing a side job for a friend. She blamed herself for not coming home sooner. In the end I believe there were other things going on with him that were not so evident at the time. In short, there was nothing we could have done.

It was around Day 3 that I became angry. I was angry at God for not hearing me. My wife needed me to console her. I tried but the problem is for so many years when pain comes I crawl inside of my pain and in my anger I shut the world out. It pains me to say this is who I am. As long as life is moving forward with the normal ups and downs I am pretty good. I keep my faith, my hope, but when I hurt deeply I revert back to what I know. 

It is not as if the anger fixes anything but it seems to pull me through. Lashing out at God both in loud and silent ways. The silent way was to forget morning devotion. Forget praying because my faith was spent. 

It has been both a blessing and a curse that I met Jesus on a dark road one night. He showed up unannounced & spoke. The blessing in that is that regardless of how far I ran away from him at times, I knew him to be real. There was no escaping what transpired that September night, in 1976. The curse is my life with him that began with such a powerful, supernatural moment, is I know there to be no limit to his power. So, I want him to use it more frequently.

One thing I am certain about in all this is that God is not angry at me because I was mad with him. I believe he would rather hear our raw honesty above all else. Now, he certainly wants me to break this behavior pattern and I do as well. But so far I have not been able to live the Casting Crowns song, Praise You in the Storm. 

"Praise You In This Storm"

I was sure by now
God You would have reached down
And wiped our tears away
Stepped in and saved the day
But once again, I say "Amen", and it's still raining

As the thunder rolls
I barely hear Your whisper through the rain
"I'm with you"
And as Your mercy falls
I raise my hands and praise the God who gives
And takes away 

Pain will surely come again to me. You can't protect yourself from it. I know because I have tried. I have a dug a grave for three dogs in my life and each time I feel like a part of me went down that hole with them. This was the first one in almost twenty years. My choice would be to never do it again. I made that decision when I buried Pete, my black lab mix, on Christmas Eve night, in 1994.


My hope one day in this walk is that when pain & heartache come that the first thing I will do is to praise him in the midst of it. I will press into him. I surely have a long way to go as evident by the last week.

Many of you have referenced the Rainbow Bridge, of our beloved pets crossing over. I sure hope that is the case. I can't be certain but I want to believe that Pete & Sydny are playing together, and I will see them again, this time forever.

Heaven is for Real

I saw Heaven is for Real last night and I continue to be encouraged with how well Christian based movies are doing at the box office. The theater was close to capacity last night, which considering it was beginning the third week I found impressive.

I enjoyed the movie and I won't play movie critic here, though we are all movie critics, aren't we? Some are just wise enough to get paid to do it.

The part that intrigued me the most was how the same people who prayed for the little boy's recovery, also found it difficult when he began speaking about visiting Heaven. I think it removed them from their comfort zones. It is easy for us to discount what we have not experienced personally. I have heard people say they are comfortable with their church, or their particular denomination, and its routine. I wonder did Jesus die on a cross so we could be comfortable?

It is also resonated with me with an event in my own life. I have shared previously about my Damascus Road bright light moment when I was a troubled young man. I was dramatically Born Again.

Many people questioned what happened, though my life turned immediately. A story like mine, turning from a life of drugs, alcohol abuse, crime, and promiscuity, I thought the church people would receive me with open arms, and some did. Many did not. They turned their nose up at me. They balked at a story of a young man walking a street one night, and hearing, and experiencing intimacy with God. His life changing with the blink of an eye. Maybe they did not understand because it did not happen to them. They questioned whether it was real. They questioned whether I was sincere. Maybe living on probation with a suspended sentence hanging over me, maybe, just maybe I was doing it to fool the law. Secretly, I was probably still distributing pounds of marijuana. 

Now, I always thought there was a God. I didn't believe until that night He met me as I walked gazing at the stars with no destination in mind. But in my worse days I would have never tried to involve God in a ruse like that. Justify my life, sure. But proclaim to be Born Again just to hide drug dealing. No, even I was not that bad. And, I was plenty bad.

They were uncomfortable with the change in my life. Just as many of the same people were uncomfortable with my Mom, who at the age of 53, a good church attending christian woman, also had her Damascus Road moment and was dramatically Born Again. They liked her better, were more comfortable with her being like them.

I was a young man then, and I did not realize how much courage it might have taken for a outstanding member in the church to say, "I never really knew Jesus Christ. I was too prideful. I thought I was better than other people." She changed as much as anyone I know. It did not matter that she did not have a bad life behind her to turn from. She went from a comfortable Sunday school teacher to being totally in love with a Savior. 


Maybe in hindsight it was not difficult for her to be that honest. Maybe she experienced something so powerful, so life rearranging, that she could not have kept quiet about it if she tried. She knew the voice she heard when she was so broken was real. Just as I knew it was Jesus Christ who met a lost young man on a street one night. And, yes, just as a little boy visited Heaven.

The world of Facebook has many drawbacks but one great thing is I have been blessed to reconnect with people of my youth. One in particular is Nicky Pipkin. I told him this story once of what occurred to me after we lost touch. He listened about how the good religious people reacted to my conversion. He said something that I have never forgotten.

"Maybe them not believing says more about their life than anything to do with yours."

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Potter's Wheel

This is one of my first blogs & what occurred that day was instrumental in leading me to that point where I finally let go of the wheel of this life. Not that I don't still try to do the driving at times. But I realize that my life seeking the path God wants me to have is better than what I may think I need. 

Isiah 29:16 You turn things upside down, as if the potter were thought to be like the clay!

Would it seem peculiar if I point to a certain Sunday morning service as being instrumental in my seeking the path the Father had already laid out? Probably not, but what if I told you I can't recall one word spoken or one worship song sung that day? What if all I can recall is linked to the image below?

The event occurred soon after I returned to church, after a lengthy absence. I had spent many years being angry with God for my lot in this difficult life. I didn't care what path he desired for me. At times I tried to modernize God. Bring him up to our times. But always placing what I desired first.

A lady spoke while a man with a physical deformity in his hand silently molded an object with the potter's wheel. I don't recall any particular thoughts or any great epiphany as I watched. That would come later.

As I was leaving the service I heard a Father gently reaching out to his prodigal son to return home. "You have tried to mold me into what you wanted me to be. It does not work that way. I am the potter. You are the clay and it is not the other way around."

Imagine the possibilities if we viewed ourselves as the clay to be molded each day by a loving Father. Picture a simple flower pot being created.  It will not be a beautiful work of art each day because we are flawed and imperfect.There will be blemishes but the good news is that they can be repaired and made flawless.

I had no idea as I reflect back on that time that God would bless me so richly. I only knew that I had failed miserably in trying to do it my way. What did I have to lose?