Earlier today, a friend of mine posed this question on his Facebook page …

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?

The answer came to me INSTANTLY!

It was December 1995, and I was just in the process of learning about grace, forgiveness, JESUS, and, most importantly, that I could have a close and personal relationship with Him. I was at the forefront of the almost 20 year process of internally crumbling then coming back together, trying so hard to find a way to hold on because I was just so lost and broken. I’d joined a great Bible study, and one night after attending, a friend who knew I’d been struggling and having a really hard time with the concept of “faith” in someone I couldn’t see or touch, gave me one of the most precious gifts I’ve ever received … the DC Talk “Jesus Freak” album. He had that I should listen to the last track first, so, I popped it in my stereo and headed home. Everything about it began cutting me apart, but it wasn’t until I heard these spoken words of Reverend Billy Graham that I lost it in the most bittersweet, irreversible, and powerful way possible:

It changed the trajectory of my path forever! I believe with every shred of my being that those most impeccable words were meant for me to hear at that fated cosmic timing so that the following 20 years of living through a hell that some couldn’t bare would find me right here standing in the Light of my “Crazy Grandma Cat” blind faith and divinely appointed “punctuation”:

Can you see God? Have you ever seen Him? I’ve never seen the wind. I’ve seen the EFFECTS of the wind, but I’ve never seen the wind. Can you see the breeze? There’s a mystery to it.

{Reverend Billy Graham}

As par for the course with my serendipitous life, and in keeping with the tone of this post, there are two ironic memories now flooding my mind.

On the night I was gifted this album, I had just left a fellowship meal at Cafe Express in Addison, Texas. As I’d mentioned, I was listening to the song and LOSING IT, but I didn’t say where I was when it started playing. I had just passed by the infamous Midway Road intersection where life was really gonna throw me a curve two years later. There I was listening to the words that unbeknownst to me were plying me with all the faith and strength I was ever going to need “on down the road”.

Do you see this book? It was the first thing I noticed the first time I’d ever gone to Zack’s place. It was sitting on the dining room table next to the giant Chewbacca head he’d worn to a costume party the year before. Lol! He loved that flipping thing so much that he’d made it a part of the decor. Meanwhile, I vividly remember my little “internal nod” to Heaven:

REALLY, God? This is SOMETHING, isn’t it? HE is something, isn’t he?

How little did I know!

Despite the ending, the beautiful season that I was blessed to have that king in my life were not only the stuff that fairy tales are made of, but more so than that, twelve precious years that shall remain “in my mind’s eye” forever.

MIND’S EYE

In my mind, I can see Your face as Your love pours down in a shower of grace. Some people tell me that You’re just a dream. My faith is the evidence of things unseen. In my mind’s eye, in my mind’s eye, in my mind’s eye. You know what I’m going through. I know this is true, ’cause You stood in my shoes. Desire’s inside of me, but it’s hard to believe in what you cannot see. Can you catch the wind? See a breeze? It’s presence is revealed by the leaves on a tree – an image of my faith in the unseen. It’s in my mind’s eye, I see Your face. You smile as You show me grace. In my mind’s eye, You take my hand. We walk through foreign lands – the foreign lands of life. In my mind’s eye, in my mind’s eye. In my mind’s eye, in my mind. In my mind I’m where I belong as I rest in Your arms. And like a child I hold on to You in my moment of truth – yes I do. We can ride the storm. Endure the pain. You comfort me in my hurricane … and I’ll never be alone again.” {DC Talk}