I remember that night in a little church basement in West Virginia. I sat in the back of the room wondering why I was there, but knowing I had to be. I don’t remember a single word they said. Just wanted the thing to be over. When it finally was, I bolted for the exit and this older lady leaped over a few tables and threw her arms around me before I could get to the door. She stuck her old coffee breath in my face and said “keep coming back we’re gonna love you till you love yourself.”
Sitting here today, thirty seven sober years later I have to smile. What a profound statement. It was always about Love, but when your trying to kill yourself with alcohol and drugs and you don’t even know it, your a long, long way away from Love!
Then. there was so much to learn about myself, you an especially Him. I was thinking this morning of a homeless center I use to go to below Tampa under seventy-seven. How I loved going there to see, speak with and perform for everyone. Twenty-four years now as a traveling evangelistic, recovery minstrel, loving the unlovable of which I was chief. What a ride it has been … so far
…but for the Grace of God