Being rescued changes things. It is one thing to wake up every day a nice person, living a nice life and making God happy. That wasn’t me. I don’t have any answers to why He chose me. Why He chased me, like a lovesick schoolgirl… no matter how far I ran or how many bridges I burned. Still, He came for me! I can never deserve the love He gives me. I cannot out give it, and He has shown me over and over again that I will never outrun it. It is outrageous. The Creator of everything… Loves me… and tells me He will never let me go.
I have asked my father, and he says that we were involved in many churches as I grew, but I don’t have any memory of God or church until around nine or ten years old. But by 12 years old, I had a basic understanding: God/Heaven was real, Satan/Hell was real, and I didn’t ask for any of this. I was here and regardless of how I felt about it, now I had to choose where I wanted to go. God says, “believe me and I will show you!” when what we want is “show me and I will believe.” My life has been a testament to that.
A diving accident that led to a horrible illness when I was 16 was the first in a series of difficult events where I saw God intervene, protecting my life, my heart, mind, and my family. Time and time again He rescued me! He delivered me from a deadly car accident, drug addiction, saved my two-and-a-half-year-old son from a horrible gun accident, my innocent teenage daughter was taken… then rescued out of sex trafficking, there is no shortage of stories I could tell of God moving for us when we could not, to deliver us from the impossible. And in the midst of those situations, I would hear God speak or see glimpses of Him that reminded me that He still wanted me. He was still pursuing me, there was nowhere I could go that He would not be there for me.
I used to spend many nights on Ft. Lauderdale beach alone on a blanket with God. I would sit for hours and just listen and talk to Him. I began to ask Him for things – I wanted a family, a wife, and to settle down. I began to ask Him. And He lovingly obliged. The biggest mistake of my life was making a covenant to God saying, “watch me Father… watch me make you proud!” My mistake was telling Him what I was going to do; not asking Him what it is I could do that would make Him proudest of me.
Still, through all the trials, and even now as I find everything I love and value being put to the test, navigating health issues, trying to heal relationally with my wife after so much family trauma. I know that God is with me and guiding me. It hasn’t been easy, and I have made so many mistakes. There have been lots of times I could have thrown in the towel, but I’m still following him. And now that looks like creating a space for new friends through the Anywhere community’s Tables Groups in Florida. I am finishing reinstalling solar and other hurricane readiness items and then planning another table following their completion in the next few weeks. The idea is to inspire and help my neighbors install similar preparedness elements in their own homes and then continue to meet regularly from there so as to maintain a network of resources before the next hurricane as well as create community amongst ourselves.
My foot still hasn’t hit the ground since I took that first step. God is a pool. Swimming to the bottom of the deep end to find Him starts the journey. Realizing there is no bottom and continuing on is the next step… the story hasn’t stopped being written. If the last forty years are any indication, then there is never going to be a time in my life that I am not facing a fight, and at some point I’ll reach an expiration date. Until then hopefully some of this helps someone to be inspired and keep on fighting and know that God never leaves your corner when you are His. - Jim F.