If I had the Chance to Do it all Over

If I had the chance to do it all over. If life had an eraser.  How sweet that would be for many. Most people would quickly change the things in life they think would make it better but many would soon realize they only made things worse. Ever tried to fix a problem and every time you did something you thought would make your life better you realize you either complicated things or made matters worse.

Taking audit of my life I see that I'm the only son for my mother and the oldest of seven sons of my father. In total my siblings are thirteen. That means there are fourteen children together and my mother only has four of the fourteen. (My mother had six children all together but two went home to be with the Lord).

My mother taught me through word and by example to try my best to take care of my children. My father was out of the picture as soon as I turned one year old. My mother usually tell us that he was forced to leave Kingston and return to the parish of his birth over 100 miles from Kingston because of political warfare in Kingston. I believe there was much more to the story but I was too young to remember, know or understand.

My reason for saying this is I have a brother born in Kingston to another woman and he is only a year younger than I am. Then a sister was born the following year to a woman in the parish of my father's birth and four more children followed from this woman in his parish.

Today I have seven children with four different women and my brother who is a year younger than I am and a very close friend, ( we got close when spending time with our father in the parish of our father's birth), has seven children with four different women too.

Back to my mother's teachings by word and by example. She told me from a young age to wash clothes cook and clean. She said if I end up alone (which she hope wouldn't happen but taught me just in case), or in between relationships, I would know how to take care of myself.  To elaborate, she taught me to keep myself clean at all times, how to know my way around the kitchen and to keep my dwelling clean or be a good homemaker. Then as a single parent I learned by watching my mother make sacrifices for us, her children.

On holidays my mother would take the same dress and shoes out year, after year, after year, and would take us to the store and buy new clothes and shoes for each of her children then give us pocket money and tell us to go wherever we like and be home by a certain hour. When we were leaving our mother would have undressed and be in her nightgown ready for bed. We would ask why is she not going out and she would tell us if she goes out we would have to stay home. I never got that statement until I was grown.

We had to wait for our mother to get home each evening before we would have a solid meal (The only solid meal of the day) before bedtime. One evening while waiting for our mother to come home we heard breaking news on the TV that a bus lost control and plowed into people waiting at the bus stop where our mother gets the bus downtown to come home every evening. It happened at the very moment our mother usually goes to the bus stop. We all started crying not knowing where our meals would now come from and especially losing the only person who was keeping this family together.

Our mother usually gets home by 10 o'clock p.m. this night in particular as we stayed up long after midnight watching the news as there was nothing else we could do as everyone was being told to stay away from downtown so clean up efforts may go smoothly and relatives would be informed as soon as possible of deaths and injuries of loved ones as soon as information was made available. Understand that this was the second largest passenger bus stop downtown. Only the terminus had larger numbers of commuters. 

We were up long after midnight into early morning with teary eyes and heavy heart which made us not feel the hunger in us since we got home from school early to mid afternoon earlier the previous day. Just before dawn we heard the gate open then the door and as it opened up wide enough we were able to see mama standing in the doorway. We all broke down in tears and ran to her each of us finding a place around her to hug her. These were tears of joy.

After all the commotion was over, my mother related the accident and the aftermath to us and revealed how she escaped the carnage. She said she was standing at the bus stop when she remembered a hoist (an item placed under a pot on the stove while cooking) she had bought earlier that day to take home with her. After checking her luggage and realizing it was not with her she walked back to her stall and it took several minutes for her to find it. As soon as the found the hoist she heard a loud noise like metal grinding. She was at a good distance away but saw a forty-seat passenger bus swerving back and forth, left to right and just running over people until it slammed into one of the bus stops out there pinning people under the bus and between the bus and the bus stop.

She said it was just horrible, people were screaming for help under the bus and in the bus stop and no one could help. Then there was blood everywhere. From where the bus starts hitting people all the way to the bus stop.  She wasn't able to get any bus as they stopped running there for the night. She got the first bus that left the terminus the next morning where she and others had to walk to and slept until morning.   

The experiences with our mother and the sacrifices she made for us to have a better life than the one she had made us love her, respect her as the greatest mom in the world and value her as the leader, breadwinner an matriarch among everything else a mother like ours deserve to be recognized for. God saw it fit not to take her away from us until we were grown and independent. She served her family as well a virtuous woman ought to. God bless her. She went home to be with the Lord at age 54 after battling diabetes and hypotension.

I had six children with three different women by 1990. In 1995, knowing the vicious cycle I was living in the neighborhood I grew up in where by fourteen years old a lot of females became mothers and the fathers of these children were not much older than the mothers and could not take care of these teenagers and their babies, I was determined that with God's help I would save my daughters from this cycle. As stated boys were not safe either. They were fathering these babies with these teenage girls and many were turning to crime as a means to an end.

In 1995 I was able to take my oldest daughter out before she fell victim to the cycle and not long after the rest of the children were out too(except one son). I was the only parent working for a long time while my children were growing up in this inner city neighborhood and when it was time to take my children away from this place their mother did not resist.

Looking back over my life and seeing where I was, where I am, and all the struggles and strife God brought me through to where I am today. Much of which has been excluded here because if I were to tell it all it would take a number of books to complete it. If I were to live my life over I would change nothing. Why? Because God had it covered and still does. Thank You Lord.

James 1

James 1 New King James Version (NKJV)

Greeting to the Twelve Tribes

1 James, a bondservant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ,

To the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad:
Greetings.

Profiting from Trials

² My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, ³ knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. ⁴ But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. ⁵ If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. ⁶ But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. ⁷ For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; ⁸ he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

The Perspective of Rich and Poor

⁹ Let the lowly brother glory in his exaltation, ¹⁰ but the rich in his humiliation, because as a flower of the field he will pass away. ¹¹ For no sooner has the sun risen with a burning heat than it withers the grass; its flower falls, and its beautiful appearance perishes. So the rich man also will fade away in his pursuits.

Loving God Under Trials

¹² Blessed is the man who endures temptation; for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him. ¹³ Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. ¹⁴ But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. ¹⁵ Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.
¹⁶ Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. ¹⁷ Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning. ¹⁸ Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures.

Qualities Needed in Trials

¹⁹ So then,^[a] my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath; ²⁰ for the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God.

Doers—Not Hearers Only

²¹ Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.
²² But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. ²³ For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; ²⁴ for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. ²⁵ But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.
²⁶ If anyone among you^[b] thinks he is religious, and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this one’s religion is useless. ²⁷ Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.

John 14 New King James Version (NKJV)

John 14 New King James Version (NKJV)

The Way, the Truth, and the Life

14 “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. ² In My Father’s house are many mansions;^[a] if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.^{[b] 3} And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. ⁴ And where I go you know, and the way you know.”

⁵ Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, and how can we know the way?”
⁶ Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.

The Father Revealed

⁷ “If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him.”
⁸ Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us.”
⁹ Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? ¹⁰ Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works. ¹¹ Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me, or else believe Me for the sake of the works themselves.

The Answered Prayer

¹² “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father. ¹³ And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. ¹⁴ If you ask^[c] anything in My name, I will do it.

Jesus Promises Another Helper

¹⁵ “If you love Me, keep^[d] My commandments. ¹⁶ And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever— ¹⁷ the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. ¹⁸ I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.

Indwelling of the Father and the Son

¹⁹ “A little while longer and the world will see Me no more, but you will see Me. Because I live, you will live also. ²⁰ At that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. ²¹ He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.”
²² Judas (not Iscariot) said to Him, “Lord, how is it that You will manifest Yourself to us, and not to the world?”
²³ Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him. ²⁴ He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine but the Father’s who sent Me.

The Gift of His Peace

²⁵ “These things I have spoken to you while being present with you. ²⁶ But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you. ²⁷ Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. ²⁸ You have heard Me say to you, ‘I am going away and coming back to you.’ If you loved Me, you would rejoice because I said,^[e] ‘I am going to the Father,’ for My Father is greater than I.
²⁹ “And now I have told you before it comes, that when it does come to pass, you may believe. ³⁰ I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming, and he has nothing in Me. ³¹ But that the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father gave Me commandment, so I do. Arise, let us go from here.

Psalm 18

I will love You, O Lord, my strength.
² The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer;
My God, my strength, in whom I will trust;
My shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.
³ I will call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised;
So shall I be saved from my enemies.

⁴ The pangs of death surrounded me,
And the floods of ungodliness made me afraid.
⁵ The sorrows of Sheol surrounded me;
The snares of death confronted me.
⁶ In my distress I called upon the Lord,
And cried out to my God;
He heard my voice from His temple,
And my cry came before Him, even to His ears.

⁷ Then the earth shook and trembled;
The foundations of the hills also quaked and were shaken,
Because He was angry.
⁸ Smoke went up from His nostrils,
And devouring fire from His mouth;
Coals were kindled by it.
⁹ He bowed the heavens also, and came down
With darkness under His feet.
¹⁰ And He rode upon a cherub, and flew;
He flew upon the wings of the wind.
¹¹ He made darkness His secret place;
His canopy around Him was dark waters
And thick clouds of the skies.
¹² From the brightness before Him,
His thick clouds passed with hailstones and coals of fire.

¹³ The Lord thundered from heaven,
And the Most High uttered His voice,
Hailstones and coals of fire.^[a]
14 He sent out His arrows and scattered the foe,
Lightnings in abundance, and He vanquished them.
¹⁵ Then the channels of the sea were seen,
The foundations of the world were uncovered
At Your rebuke, O Lord,
At the blast of the breath of Your nostrils.

¹⁶ He sent from above, He took me;
He drew me out of many waters.
¹⁷ He delivered me from my strong enemy,
From those who hated me,
For they were too strong for me.
¹⁸ They confronted me in the day of my calamity,
But the Lord was my support.
¹⁹ He also brought me out into a broad place;
He delivered me because He delighted in me.

²⁰ The Lord rewarded me according to my righteousness;
According to the cleanness of my hands
He has recompensed me.
²¹ For I have kept the ways of the Lord,
And have not wickedly departed from my God.
²² For all His judgments were before me,
And I did not put away His statutes from me.
²³ I was also blameless before Him,
And I kept myself from my iniquity.
²⁴ Therefore the Lord has recompensed me according to my righteousness,
According to the cleanness of my hands in His sight.

²⁵ With the merciful You will show Yourself merciful;
With a blameless man You will show Yourself blameless;
²⁶ With the pure You will show Yourself pure;
And with the devious You will show Yourself shrewd.
²⁷ For You will save the humble people,
But will bring down haughty looks.

²⁸ For You will light my lamp;
The Lord my God will enlighten my darkness.
²⁹ For by You I can run against a troop,
By my God I can leap over a wall.
³⁰ As for God, His way is perfect;
The word of the Lord is proven;
He is a shield to all who trust in Him.

³¹ For who is God, except the Lord?
And who is a rock, except our God?
³² It is God who arms me with strength,
And makes my way perfect.
³³ He makes my feet like the feet of deer,
And sets me on my high places.
³⁴ He teaches my hands to make war,
So that my arms can bend a bow of bronze.

³⁵ You have also given me the shield of Your salvation;
Your right hand has held me up,
Your gentleness has made me great.
³⁶ You enlarged my path under me,
So my feet did not slip.

³⁷ I have pursued my enemies and overtaken them;
Neither did I turn back again till they were destroyed.
³⁸ I have wounded them,
So that they could not rise;
They have fallen under my feet.
³⁹ For You have armed me with strength for the battle;
You have subdued under me those who rose up against me.
⁴⁰ You have also given me the necks of my enemies,
So that I destroyed those who hated me.
⁴¹ They cried out, but there was none to save;
Even to the Lord, but He did not answer them.
⁴² Then I beat them as fine as the dust before the wind;
I cast them out like dirt in the streets.

⁴³ You have delivered me from the strivings of the people;
You have made me the head of the nations;
A people I have not known shall serve me.
⁴⁴ As soon as they hear of me they obey me;
The foreigners submit to me.
⁴⁵ The foreigners fade away,
And come frightened from their hideouts.

⁴⁶ The Lord lives!
Blessed be my Rock!
Let the God of my salvation be exalted.
⁴⁷ It is God who avenges me,
And subdues the peoples under me;
⁴⁸ He delivers me from my enemies.
You also lift me up above those who rise against me;
You have delivered me from the violent man.
⁴⁹ Therefore I will give thanks to You, O Lord, among the Gentiles,
And sing praises to Your name.

⁵⁰ Great deliverance He gives to His king,
And shows mercy to His anointed,
To David and his descendants forevermore.

Ephesians 6:10-20

The Whole Armor of God

10 Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. 11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age,[c] against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. 13 Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.

14 Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, 15 and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; 16 above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. 17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; 18 praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints— 19 and for me, that utterance may be given to me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel, 20 for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.

1 Thessalonians 2:1-7

For you yourselves know, brethren, that our coming to you was not in vain. ² But even^[a] after we had suffered before and were spitefully treated at Philippi, as you know, we were bold in our God to speak to you the gospel of God in much conflict. ³ For our exhortation did not come from error or uncleanness, nor was it in deceit.
⁴ But as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, even so we speak, not as pleasing men, but God who tests our hearts. ⁵ For neither at any time did we use flattering words, as you know, nor a cloak for covetousness—God is witness. ⁶ Nor did we seek glory from men, either from you or from others, when we might have made demands as apostles of Christ. ⁷ But we were gentle among you, just as a nursing mother cherishes her own children.

2 Samuel 23:8-12

David’s Mighty Men

⁸ These are the names of the mighty men whom David had: Josheb-Basshebeth^[a] the Tachmonite, chief among the captains.^[b] He was called Adino the Eznite, because he had killed eight hundred men at one time. ⁹ And after him was Eleazar the son of Dodo,^[c] the Ahohite, one of the three mighty men with David when they defied the Philistines who were gathered there for battle, and the men of Israel had retreated. ¹⁰ He arose and attacked the Philistines until his hand was weary, and his hand stuck to the sword. The Lord brought about a great victory that day; and the people returned after him only to plunder. ¹¹ And after him was Shammah the son of Agee the Hararite. The Philistines had gathered together into a troop where there was a piece of ground full of lentils. So the people fled from the Philistines. ¹² But he stationed himself in the middle of the field, defended it, and killed the Philistines. So the Lord brought about a great victory.