Male- A Trial Of Faith

I fell in love with the Lord when I was eleven years old. Sitting on the first pew of my father’s church I listened intently as he preached about “The importance of Love.” I was on the edge of my seat as he quoted 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude.” I knew on that day that I wanted to be that. I wanted to be standing in the pulpit with a room full of people listening to my every word because they trust and believe that the Lord is speaking through me. Twenty- three years later I retired my father and took over running the church. It was just the beginning of my blessings. Growing up people expected my father to be their father. There were moments that I wanted my father to myself. I needed to be selfish. He reminded me “Love bears all things, believes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.” Love never ends, that was one of his greatest lessons to me. It’s okay to share him because he would always love me. (Laughs) That was how I met my wife Mya. We were both attending a conference and the workshop was entitled “Finding Love within the word of God.” I never expected to meet the most amazing woman, next to my momma, in this workshop. But there she was. She spoke up in class about how she had lost faith in the possibility of love and that was why she signed up for the class. She wanted to find her faith again. (Beat) I sat there. I listened and I thought to myself that maybe this was my purpose for being at this specific place at this specific time. Five years later I made her my wife. We tell that story to our congregation all the time. They need to know that it’s okay to lose faith but when you lose it you have to seek it, find it, get it back in your life because God loves you.