Kneecapped by God: My Journey through God's Providence

             In 2008, I moved my family to Florence, Alabama.  I was dreadfully lost, but I was too stupid to believe it.  In Alabama, I probably hit rock bottom.  Satan had me fully in his grasp.  I was allowing my marriage and my family to crumble.  I wanted nothing to do with God, Jesus or the church.

            God, however, had other plans.  I lost my job in one of the most ridiculous fashions.  I was stuck in Alabama with no job and no prospects.

            I was still turned from God.  He had not done anything for me, I thought.  I even tried to convince myself that He did not matter.

            After a month of searching for a job, I needed to find some work.  I decided to come to Memphis and work for my dad while looking for a job.  He had just contracted a job to renovate a building, and he needed someone to act as a foreman on the job.  This gave me plenty of opportunity to interview other places.

            In June, I almost took a job working at the casinos.  Something (God) seemed to warn me off the job, and I turned it down.  I continued to work construction, when I got an interview at the Marriott hotel doing the same thing I had done at the Peabody Hotel.  I went through three interviews, and I was waiting for an offer.

            God stepped in with an offer.  The owner of the building we were renovating came by while I was working one day, and he offered me a job.  We talked over a few days, and I accepted his offer.  The same day I accepted, the Marriott called and offered me the position for which I had interviewed.  I politely turned them down. 

            During this time, I had still not acknowledged God’s work.  I was not going to church.  I did not want to go to church.  I was still turned from God.

            On December 6, 2010, the two godliest people I ever knew, my grandparents, were killed in a car accident along with my great aunt and great uncle while on the way to Branson, Missouri.  For the first time ever, I felt something tugging me toward God.  I started to realize that I was not where I wanted to be.  Unfortunately I was not moving quickly toward where I should be either.

            I was still associating with influences that were solely from Satan.  God must have seen that, and through his providence, those ties were severed.  I didn’t see the providence in any of this at the time.

            I had begun to drift.  I would go to church, and then it would be weeks before I went again.  I kept saying I wasn’t getting anything out of it.  I also wasn’t putting anything into it.

            In the spring of 2011, I reconnected with an old friend who invited me to join a small group.  My wife and I took the kids, and we began to meet every Sunday.  I was beginning to put a little into the group, and I was beginning to get something out of it.

            By the fall, our small group had decided to become a house church.  We wanted to be a small community of believers.  Now I really desired a relationship with God, but I was still allowing Satan to have a hold on me.  I was still not where I knew I should be.

            In February, I was given the chance to go on the Walk to Emmaus.  It’s a 72 hour spiritual “retreat,” but I would say it was an awakening.  When I left that weekend, I considered myself saved for the first time.  I had my eyes opened to the sin that was causing me to be a bad father and a bad husband.  I saw in myself the self centeredness that was driving me straight to Hell.  I had never loved my wife the way I should, because I had never loved Christ the way I should.  I had never been the father I should have been because I had never let God guide my way.

            I referred to what happened to me that weekend as being “kneecapped by God.”  He broke me down to the sorry, miserable sinner I was.  Yet when I left that Sunday, He had showed me that His grace would restore me to a new glory. 

            In looking back at how God guided me to the place I needed to be, I am in awe.  Two years ago, I would have never gone on the Walk.  I would have never gone to a small group.  I would have never given God a second thought.

            For over a year, I thought about how much I missed my grandparents.  How I would do anything to go back and save them.  They meant so much to everyone in my family.  But I don’t doubt for a second, that either one of them wouldn’t have sacrificed themselves to see my soul saved. 

            If I had been the only soul to save, then Jesus would have still hung on that cross for me.