Ray..................

For any of you who have seen the movie Ray it is a traumatic experience from beginning to end. Jeremy and I watched it together a few years ago and it appeared tonight on one of our few channels and I have had to escape the room to avoid going on an emotional rollar coaster that is certain to rip my heart to shreds, especially now as I am looking through the lens of a mommy. This movie motivates me to do everything in my power to tell people about Jesus. It is a gut wrenching reality of what real life is really like. We really do experience death at too young of an age. We are hit with infirmities that are no where near the realms of fair and finally we are tempted by the lowest of the low, satan, to cover those wounds with the unfulfilling lies of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. I hate watching this movie because I can almost see the lurking evil of satan as he wraps himself around Ray Charles' life just like he was portrayed in the Passion of Christ. What God meant for good in gifting Ray Charles, satan used for harm to destroy him and hundreds of others along the way. It seems to me to be a message of hopelessness by all accounts!

Thank goodness though we are not bound by that reality of hopelessness. We all have a Savior that came to die so that we wouldn't have to live with the cards we were dealt. He came to heal all of our wounds and childhood inequities to ensure that the visions don't haunt us for the rest of our lives. He came so that we wouldn't turn to the empty chains that the drugs, alochol, sex, food, shopping or whatever DON'T have to offer. That movie rips this soul apart because it was at least mostly true in Ray Charles' life but it is certainly true in the life of so many that I know. I have been out of that life long enough that I am seeing people I knew back then reaping the harsh realities of our foolish ways. I know of children who don't have a mommy or a daddy because of the lures of satan. I know marriages that have ended because of demons that were buried so deep that even the partners themselves where unaware they existed. I have seen drugs rule every decision a person makes and watched the innocent children be forced at the tinyest of ages pick up the pieces.

Lord I pray that Ray Charles' life is embedded into my consciousness regardless of how traumatizing it can be. I pray that when I want to be lazy, when I don't want to step out in faith and when I buy into the lie that nothing we are doing is making a difference that I will remember Ray. I pray that You use me to help every Ray Charles that comes into my path have a life free from the bondage satan tricked them into in the first place. I pray that I fight demons in the spiritual realm and demand that they steer clear of the family I have been entrusted to protect. I pray for Ray's soul, I pray it is in Heaven free from the blindness that literally killed him! And finally Lord I thank you that as I watch that movie, the emotions of hopelessness I feel are nothing short of a Jesus like miracle to fix! You are it Lord, you were what Ray Charles needed, you were what this lonely soul got and you are what every single reader reading hopefully can obtain! You ARE life and this broken heart is so thankful that at the young age of 23 that I received your saving grace and have been blessed to avoid the years satan had planned out for me! My movie could have been just the same, but by God's grace it is NOT!

K