Had The Strangest, Scariest Dream: A Lot to Be Thankful For/My 1st Sermon

This has been a year of abundant blessings for me, but also a humbling and sometimes stressful year. Grandma laughs and says, "STRESS! You don't KNOW stress til you start having a husband, and kids, and grocery lists, and bills!" Lol She's totally right, but as I tell me beloved Tino when he compares his Engineering Physics homework to my Communications homework...anytime I say it's difficult, he says "You don't know difficult"...while this has some humourly truth, we cannot usually perceive anything more difficult than the situation we are dealing with. One subject or issue may be harder for one person to deal with than another. I was struggling to write for while, because I didn't want you to think I turned my attention from any global, national, or local issues and decided to turn everything "Young, Black and Beautiful" about me, but I realized 1) this is a specialized blog and 2) I make some revealing observations about the world I don't often hear people talking about...and no worries, I will certainly talk about global issues in due time...but as I've said this year has been very busy. Israel is in my prayers.
So about this dream...I don't know if the scary factor has anything to do with all the Thanksgiving sweets I ate prior to going to sleep a couple hours later...side note: I wonder if sugary foods before sleeping causing bad dreams is a biological truth or a superstition (I will find out) anyway I interpreted it much different. I had a dream that my house nearly burnt down...and this was in the dream, apparently not the first time, but the second time. We had to rush out and the flames looked so real...I watched them creep up the kitchen wall, and later into the rooms upstairs...I was so terrified. I was thinking Lord why...where are we going to live? We'll have to start from scratch. Grandma said leave everything, or if I wanted to risk it I could try to go grab a few things of value and clothes. I ran upstairs to grab a few things and heart racing, I said a simple pray something like, "Lord I'm scared, but if this is your will I will accept, just please don't let us die. I give my life but I know there are still things I have to do on this earth and when I walked down stairs the flames had subsided. I couldn't believe my eyes. I took the hose off the sink and sprayed the kitchen wall and the fire was out. I was so relieved and couldn't believe it." I woke up a little after that. You can imagine how shook you'd be after a dream like that, but I look at it this way...a little bit of faith can go a long way. We may see ourselves in a bad situation and think that our end is near, but if we just had a seedling of faith and cry out, we can be restored. The dream still resinates with me as a little weird, but I will not take it lightly. It's been an enormously long time since I've had a dream I can remember so vividly.
Anyways, the last thing I wanted to share with you was my amazing Sunday. Last Sunday I had the tremendous opportunity to give my first unofficial sermon (not my initiation sermon to become an ordained minister, but that's coming soon). I wanted my family to come but things came up which prevented that. I wanted a church member to come, but that didn't happen. However, the love of my life Tino was there and one of my favorite professors who had introduced me the the first lady of the church at an informal lunch and she introduced me to the church. These two and first lady were just smiling up at me and it did my heart good! I spoke at Union Baptist Church in Winston-Salem for their 9th Annual Corner2Corner Conference Sunday morning service. Pastor Sir Walter Mack Jr. is the kindest man I've ever met...he sat me in HIS SEAT! I SAT IN THE PASTOR'S SEAT YALL! And believe it or not this was one of my visions...never dreamed it would happen at 19 years old. I poured my heart out to the congregation. my topic was "Making the Choice to Bounce Back: Making Your Setback a Comeback." Many of us beat ourselves up for past mistakes or find ourselves struggling to let go of the things someone else 'has done' to us, but in order to let God use you in an effective and wonderful way we must forgive people. At the second service Roland Martin (CNN) spoke he did a good job, he's rather riske in his commentary sometimes, lol but I felt bad because the ex-offenders/C2C graduates were jumping up in agreement at some of his comments like "Will you same church folk walk up to a drug dealer and give him the good new" and all the ex-drug dealers were  hollering "NOPE, NOPE THEY WON'T!" I felt bad because I poured my heart out as a child of an ex-convict...I spoke out of love and passion and they weren't hollering like that. Perhaps because they felt convicted a little...but people loved my sermon, especially pastor and First Lady. I have to realize that I can't worry about what people think, what was said was said, and it came from my heart and I know it was received my someone. But to add to the blessings, Pastor gave me a honorarium and a donation to ScholarCHIPS for over $1,000! I cannot wait to get a copy of the dvd, I will post the video so you can see it, or some of it if you so wish to put a visual with my story.

Back to reality I've struggled with finding rides this year...even the Megabus has decided to jack up the prices on holiday time tickets. My ride home dumped me on the corner in a rush to get home, but Thank God I still made it home in warmth and peace...I may not have a car, but when I get one I will be as helpful as I possibly can because I know what's it's like to be without. I've been on tv and radio, in magazines and editorials and God's not finished with me yet! I've got more sermons to preach, more children to help get into college, more lives to touch, more hurtful tests to endure, but I've still got shoes on my feet, a roof over my head, an education and a sound mind! In addition, I will be giving the opening poem I wrote for Gospel Choir's concert. I HAVE A LOT TO BE THANKFUL FOR!

 (Me in the middle of Pastor Sir Walter Mack Jr. and his Queen, First Lady. I met her at a lunch with my professor, had no idea she WAS a first lady of a church or that her husband would have me speak).