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Each episode is hosted by Ray Sanders, an award-winning journalist with more than 30 years of experience in both print and broadcast media.
As a CEO, he has grown multi-million-dollar organizations, led an award-winning financial institution, served in a nonpartisan role with the United States Senate and pioneered international efforts to bring clean water to remote regions of the world.
Sanders is the founder of Coaching Leaders an executive coaching and business consulting firm that provides CEO’s with valuable input from a team of seasoned business leaders who have served at the highest level within successful multimillion-dollar organizations.
The Ray Sanders Leadership Podcast unpacks inspiring insights from inspiring people.
Audiences discover:
Powerful life-changing stories.
How to overcome adversity.
Ways to live a life full of meaning and purpose.
Common mistakes and how to avoid them.
What makes a purpose-driven business unique, different and successful?
What makes life at work fun, significant and satisfying?
What industry tips and tricks do listeners need to be aware of?
How cause-minded companies give back through Edify Leaders and other great causes?
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Hello, everyone. I'm Ray Sanders, and you're listening to the Ray Sanders Leadership Podcast. You know, we have a special podcast schedule for you today. I recently had the opportunity to be down near my alma mater, the University of Oklahoma, at a church down there called New Life Bible Church, and they asked me to speak and tell about my story. And so that's what I want to introduce you to today.
Speaker 1:You know, if you know much about me, you know that my childhood and my upbringing was a little sketchy, a little crazy at times, and there's a lot of things that went wrong along the way. But one of the things I've learned in life, it's how to forgive and forget and move on. So on this special edition of this podcast, I wanna take you with me down the road aways to a live service where I shared my story on forgiveness and reconciliation. Let's join that service in progress as we speak. Hello, everyone.
Speaker 1:I'm Ray Sanders, and you're listening to the Ray Sanders Leadership Podcast.
Speaker 2:I want
Speaker 1:you to go back with me. Ancient history. Back to 1960. 1960. There was a young girl moved to a small town, not too far from here, out in Union City.
Speaker 1:Moved to a small town. Her dad was gonna be the new baker banker in town. And she was cute. And as it often goes, you know, the new girl gets all the attention. And she showed up at school and everybody began to take interest in her.
Speaker 1:But one guy in particular took interest in her and that was her next door neighbor. And they were they were hanging out And, he wasn't in school. She was in school, but he wasn't in school. And it turns out that he was like 8 years older than her.
Speaker 2:Would, you know, go cruising around. And they
Speaker 1:began to kind of become sweethearts. But unfortunately, he was kind of manipulative and it ultimately, he took advantage of her. And when I say he took advantage of her, I mean, he really took advantage of her. Some would even call it I hate to use this word, but some would even call it statutory rape. And she became pregnant at 15 years old.
Speaker 1:15 years old. Now think about that. You're 15 years old, 1960. What happens? You show up to the school.
Speaker 1:What do they do? Oh, we can't have those kind in here. And she was asked to leave school. She was asked to leave school and then her mother takes her to the doctor and there her mother and the doctor talk. And even in those days, it wasn't necessarily legal, but in those days, she had options.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean? She had options. And to her credit, she said, you know what? I don't want those options. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I've made a mistake, and what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna have my child. She got kicked out of school. She had to live at home. And this guy that, got her pregnant decided to do the right thing, and
Speaker 2:they got married.
Speaker 1:And they had a child. And they had a child. And And they had a child. And that child is standing before you today. And that child is me.
Speaker 1:And because of the decision she made, I had 6 kids. I now have 10 grandchildren. And on my way out here, my my youngest grandson I have 10 well, I have 9, a 10th on the way. My youngest grandson named Hank FaceTimed me because every morning, he FaceTimed me. And he was FaceTiming me on my way in here.
Speaker 1:And I'm not gonna miss that call. Service will start late because I'm taking Hank's call. And so I facetimed Hank. And I look at the decision she made and I go, wow, that's amazing. That's that's incredible that she would have that much courage.
Speaker 1:And if she hadn't made that choice, then I wouldn't be here. My brother wouldn't be here. All these other grandkids wouldn't be here. But let's pick up the story a little bit. So they they lived in the country.
Speaker 1:He was a country boy. And on the dock, he did okay. But he really was never too, proud of what he had done. And he took to drink and other things, alcohol and drugs. And he began to, really turn on his wife, my mother.
Speaker 1:And that was my dad. So much so that he would he would beat her. He would drag her around by the head of her hair. It became a classic domestic abuse situation. In fact, he would stay at the bars at night and then come home.
Speaker 1:And a lot of times, I remember as a kid, when I was a little bit younger, my dad would come home. Some of you are old enough to know this. We didn't have remote controls. You know. It's fun to watch these kids play out here.
Speaker 1:They have games and they're doing it with their hands. I was my dad's remote control. And in fact, we had a television with something called rabbit ears. You all remember that? And if you wanted to watch 4, 5, and 9, you could turn the dial.
Speaker 1:If you wanted to catch the UHF channels, there was a dial in the back and everything was kind of fuzzy. Guess who got to get up and go adjust the channel? I did. I would play with the rabbit ears. But I never would forget it.
Speaker 1:My dad would come in. He would be in his overalls and he'd be in his work boots. He was working on the dock. He kinda had that grease, kinda smelly, sweaty, aroma about him. And he would have a big tall boy, Coors or Falstaff.
Speaker 1:Some of you may know what that is. Sitting beside him. And he kicked back in his lazy chair. And the first thing I was to do is I was to pull his boots off and I'd unlaced those those kind of tan colored boots with a yellow string. You guys know what I'm talking about?
Speaker 1:And and I would pull those off, and he may want me to change the channel. And then it'd be time for dinner. And it's funny what you remember as a kid and those smells. And we'd get up and go into dinner, and my dad, you know, he would, at that point, be kinda be inebriated, and he'd he'd sit down at the table. And my mom was I mean, I'm talking comfort food.
Speaker 1:I mean, we're talking, you know, we're talking about farming community where it's all cast iron skillet and fried chicken and, corn and mashed potatoes. I'm making a mistake. You never talk about food from the stage on a Sunday morning. Anyway, I mean, I'm talking good stuff and there might even truly be a pie in the window cooling. This is like this isn't like thanksgiving.
Speaker 1:This is like every day. And if my dad didn't like what my mom had done, what he would do is he would take the back of his hand and he would just literally clear the table. Clear the table. Dump it all in the 4 4 and tell her to clean it up, you know. And and this was wouldn't fit it wouldn't fit to eat.
Speaker 1:Didn't have the just right salt. Didn't have the just right pepper. And she would cry or worse than that, the fight would be on. And I mean, things would get slowing around the house. Furniture broken.
Speaker 1:My mom was, you know, younger than him, but she would get in there and she would scrap with him. And I mean, she would get the snot beat out of her. And that that was the environment we grew up with as a little kid. And I know some of you are sitting out there today, you say, man, I can relate to that. I can relate to that pain.
Speaker 1:I can relate to that suffering. I remember there would be times that my dad would just be waylaying and my mom we lived in a little 900 square foot house. We had 2 bedrooms and a kitchen. And I tell my kids, I didn't have a shower till I was 15. And you're like, you didn't shower?
Speaker 1:I took baths. We didn't have a shower. That's the kind of house we lived in. Some of you lived in those kind of houses. No.
Speaker 1:We didn't share bath water. We know we all get a fresh, you know, fresh we'd pull the plug. And, so but but what I can tell you is that it was it was chaos. It was terrible. Domestic abuse and violence is awful.
Speaker 1:It's terrifying for a young kid. And I remember one time in a small little hallway, my dad was waylaying into my mom, and my brother was balled up in a corner, balled up in a corner in a white hanger like you have whenever you go to the dry cleaners. He had that hanger in his hands. And on both sides, he was just back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Just balled up.
Speaker 1:And he was just so anxious. It was those things stick in your mind. And there would be times in the middle of the night and sometimes it'd be raining and we would we would run across the street. We'd run across the street and we'd run to mister Brown's house, mister and missus Brown. And we go knock on that door, and it'd be raining.
Speaker 1:And I I might be in my little briefs, my little underwear, and my brother would be coming with me. And behind me, my mom would come and probably have blood on her face, and she'd run-in that family. It could be 9 o'clock at night. Across the street, they always let us in. Mister and miss Brown.
Speaker 1:And when you go in, missus Brown would say, it's okay. It's gonna be alright kids. It's okay. Come inside. My mom's, they would make a place for her on the couch and they'd lay a pallet on the floor for me and my brother.
Speaker 1:And I always loved going to mister and missus Brown's because her house smelled so great. Remember what I was talking about earlier? About how houses and experiences and things like that make you feel? How do people make you feel? And mister and mister Brown were Christians.
Speaker 1:And that's not how we lived in my house, but we would go into their house and we always felt comfort. We always felt loved. And she made candles. And so when you walk into her house, it's like, oh. It was just instant.
Speaker 1:Just beautiful. And if it was late at night, sometimes what I would hear is I'd hear this. And some of you are thinking, was it the dog from Sandlot? No. It was mister Brown.
Speaker 1:It's mister Brown coming down the hall. But in this case, he didn't have his, he didn't have his cane. He wasn't going.
Speaker 2:And
Speaker 1:at first, you know, when you're a kid you're like, what is that? But mister Brown had a prosthetic leg and he was missing a leg. He could have stayed in bed and let mama handle it. But mister Brown on the floor would come on the floor with his elbows. And he'd get to the end of that hall and he had a haircut like me and he'd peek his head out like this and says, hey kids.
Speaker 1:Hey, mister Brown. Where's your legs? And he said, hey, we just want you all to know you're you're safe. It's gonna be okay. And the next morning, missus Brown would treat us like royalty and we'd get bacon and eggs and all this stuff.
Speaker 1:And my dad would be off to work and we would go back to our house. And that's the kind of life I lived. I remember at 10 years old, I was 10 year old. My dad was got to where he'd be a bar fighter. And I could tell you, I could be to every shanty, every beer joint in Canadian county in the in the west side of Oklahoma City.
Speaker 1:And my dad it it didn't matter how big you are. He would hit get his liquid courage. You know what I mean? His liquid courage. And he'd have him one too many and he'd try to find the biggest guy in the bar and he'd try to figure out if he could whip him.
Speaker 1:Now you may think, okay. But the trouble is my dad was 5.8 and about a £120. He looked like a bany rooster. But he didn't care how big they were, he wanted to see how hard they'd fall. And he would get in these fights.
Speaker 1:And there'd be times I remember one time I was in Union City, he would he had been in a bar fight, 152 Highway down what is now Garth Brooks Boulevard at 10 years old in an old Galaxy 500 vehicle. At 10 years old I'm driving him home. I'm driving him home, and he's passed out in the back seat. And my mom was like, you know, this this can't continue. We can't we can't keep living like this.
Speaker 1:And so she made the decision, that she was gonna divorce him. And she did that after one time when he was way laying into her and I stepped in between him when I was around 12 years old. And I was a little bit bigger than him at that time. And she realized at that point that if she didn't do something, he was gonna start doing the same thing to us that he was had been doing to her. And so she divorced him and that really made my dad go crazy.
Speaker 1:And one time I was staying with him. I went to visit with him, and he took me down to, have you ever been to one of these little restaurants you walk in? It's a diner. If you ever been to Chickasha, there's j and w or you go to El Reno. There's these these these these have a bar and stools, and the and the and the cooks behind there, and there's these little bar stools.
Speaker 1:And you sit there. It's always the best burgers. If you ever find a place, pull over. It's worth it. So we're hanging out in there.
Speaker 1:And, my dad and I are eating. We finish and we go to the end of the counter. We're checking out and it's a small town and there's this little cabinet. And in this cabinet of all kinds of weird things. It's out in the country.
Speaker 1:It's like, bow bowie bowie knife bowie knives, matches and trinkets and stuff. And one of the things that was in there was a revolver, a pistol, an ammo, and a little country diner. And so we're checking out. My dad says, you know, we're standing there. My dad says, hey, what do you think you've what do you think your mom would think if you weren't here?
Speaker 1:And I'm like, like, not hanging out with you? No. I mean, like not here. I didn't think much about it. Sorry, mister Brown.
Speaker 1:I didn't think much about it. And he buys the revolver and the ammo. And he takes me out into the country. And he takes me out to where he grew up, and he took me out to this big creek, real deep ravine. He told me to walk down in the ravine.
Speaker 1:And this is the point in the movie where you say, what is he? Some kind of idiot? Why would he do that? And you think, no. Don't do that.
Speaker 1:Don't go there. Don't do that. But when you're 13, 14 years old, this is your dad. You don't know really you know, you're thinking, he's not gonna hurt me. But he walked me down into this big ravine.
Speaker 1:He told me to stop, turn around. I looked at him and he's pointing the gun right at me. And he points it up like this. He pulls back and he starts to cock it. And you think, run.
Speaker 1:Unless you've ever been there and it's your dad, all I can tell you is I'm like, this isn't happening. What's going on? I'm like, dad. Dad, please. Dad, please.
Speaker 1:Dad. And he and he comes out of it. And I think I I don't know for sure, but I think my dad was probably bipolar or even schizophrenic and he had alcohol to that. And for whatever reason, he broke down and cried And he and he and and he had shot once and left into the right, and then he stopped. And I'm like, holy cow.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna have to stop by Walmart and get new underwear. I mean, this was crazy. So I go home and I tell my mom about it. And guess what? I wouldn't wanna go see him anymore.
Speaker 1:And it's interesting along the way, some things start to happen. I don't go see him anymore. And I played I played basketball in high school. I know you're looking at me thinking, I bet you were a star. And I know you're looking at me thinking, yeah, I bet you were a star.
Speaker 1:I was a b teamer, baby. I was a b teamer. I made I was like top of the b team, bottom of the a team. And if you've ever been on the b team, you know what I'm talking about. You get to put on the warm ups.
Speaker 1:You get to sit on the bench, but you're on the end of the bench. And when a game's going good and you're up by 30,653 points, The coach looks down the bench. Who hadn't played? Who has on their warm up? And that was coach Wilson.
Speaker 1:Coach Wilson. And God brings people into your life whenever you're, you know, 14, 15 years old and your dad's crazy. It's amazing how the Lord can bring people into your life to influence you. And at this particular point, I wasn't thinking I was getting positive influence, because I'm looking down he's looking down the bench. And if you're a b teamer and it's the Q4 and there's 30 seconds in the game, you're the only one with your warm up jersey on.
Speaker 1:You know what you're doing. Back. Please, Lord God, no. Please, no. And you know,
Speaker 2:always sees my shoes. I need to pull your shoes back. Who hasn't played?
Speaker 1:Who hasn't played? So Who hasn't played? Who hasn't played? Sanders. Oh, no.
Speaker 1:30 seconds to go. 30 seconds to go. Like, I'm gonna win the game. We're up by, like I told you, 30,000. And so I'm a big kid.
Speaker 1:I'm a little bit chubby. And at that point, they don't care who's on the field on the court. Right? And so the guy tosses the ball into me. Tosses the ball into me and I'm like, do do
Speaker 2:do do do
Speaker 1:do. I'm I'm I'm like, oh. It's kinda like right now. Oh, look at all these lights. This is what it's like to be in a game.
Speaker 1:And just like you all are doing, people were laughing at me, but it but it got worse. I'm not a guard. I'm a forward. I'm the guy at the bottom that's trying to push big guys out. And I'm like, I get to half court.
Speaker 1:I look up at the lights, and I'm like, right off the tip of my toe. Game over. Crowd roars. How did I feel? I'm the kid whose dad beats his wife.
Speaker 1:I'm the kid who's been shot at. My self esteem was about this tall. What do I do? The buzzer went off. I'm running off the court.
Speaker 1:It gets worse. I run the the buzzer goes off. I run-in back in the day, I run down back down into the basement. Down my way down to the basement, I hit my head on the sewer pipe. Everybody comes around.
Speaker 1:They're gathered. I mean, you used to did you do that on purpose? That's hilarious. Yeah. That's funny.
Speaker 1:Wow. That was so funny. Yeah. I'm just wanting to I wanna put myself in a band box. Put me on the cheerleader's bus.
Speaker 1:I don't care. About a week later, I was always helping coach Wilson out. It was a dark evening. Everybody's going home. I was, kinda, helping him walk up.
Speaker 1:And there's those moments. Remember the smell of my dad, the boots, the burger shop. There's things you remember. Places matter when you come in that make you feel a certain way, just like today. And I can still hear the chains going around the door locks.
Speaker 1:And coach Wilson's here and I'm right here. And he puts those chains around those pushing bars on those doors. And he raises up and it's just me and coach Wilson. Put his arm around me and he says, you know, Sanders, you and I both know you'll never start on the 18. Pull it out coach.
Speaker 1:Pull it out. But he said, let me tell you something. You keep up your work ethic. You keep treating people the way you treat me, and kid, you're gonna be something someday. Now for a 15 year old chubby kid who kicked the ball to the upright on a basketball game, I'm still talking about it today.
Speaker 1:I'm still talking about mister Brown. I'm still talking about coach Wilson. Not too long after that, my mom and I and my brother, we were working outside in the backyard and we hear this car racing down the street. And I look up and it's my dad in a car. And he sees us in the backyard and he jumps up on the curb and he starts to chase us literally in his car around the backyard.
Speaker 1:My brother goes one way, I go another way, my mom and I go in the house. And then we hear this big and I'm thinking, oh my word. He's driven the car in the back of the house and killed my brother. Now growing up, one of the things that I would do is I would go to sleep every night with a 12 gate shotgun under my bed. After my dad had divorced us or divorced my mom, or my mom divorced my dad.
Speaker 1:And I would sleep with a 12 gauge shotgun loaded with turkey shot in it. And when I heard that that crash, I ran immediately to my I ran immediately to my bedroom and I pulled a gun out. And I heard one door come down. I heard another door come down. And as the and I heard one door come down.
Speaker 1:I heard another door come down. And as this last door came down and he came through that door, I thought to myself, this is the day my dad dies or we're not gonna deal with this anymore. And I pumped that 12 gauge shotgun and put it on my shoulder. And when he walked into that door, he was looking down the end of a 12 gauge shotgun. Now by that time, my mom had called the police.
Speaker 1:The SWAT team arrives. They're knocking down doors. They come in and I got a 12 gauge shotgun in my dad's face. Who do you think they think is the problem? Put the gun down.
Speaker 1:Put the gun down. And I did and that was the last time I saw my dad for 35 years. He became a convicted felon
Speaker 2:and I
Speaker 1:didn't see him for 35 years. So one night here in Northwest Oklahoma City, I'm laying in bed. We had moved back from Washington DC, and Stephanie and I are asleep. And, I looked down at the end of my bed. I'm I wake up.
Speaker 1:I don't know if I'm dreaming or what it is, but I looked down and I see what is some type sort of an angelic figure. I don't know if it was a cherubim. I don't know if it was an angel or what it was. But this this angel begins to rise from the end of my bed. Now I'm not a mystic.
Speaker 1:I'm not I wasn't I I didn't have too much pizza. I mean, I hadn't been drinking. I don't know if I'm I'm telling you. I'm I don't know if it was real. I don't know if it was a dream.
Speaker 1:I don't know if Stephanie was, you know, doing puppet shows. I don't know what it was. But but at the end of the day, there was this large, massive angelic figure at the end of my bed. And it really got my attention. Wouldn't it get yours?
Speaker 1:It got my attention. And this angelic figure began to rise from the end of my bed. And as it began to rise, I noticed it was holding someone in its wings, in the face that it this person's face was there. And when I looked it was my father. I hadn't seen him in 35 years.
Speaker 1:And it and it was him as I thought he might look like. I woke up Stephanie. I said, did you see that? She says, what are you talking about? I said, that angel, hold on.
Speaker 1:Go back to sleep. Didn't think much about it. Drove to work. The next morning, I'm sitting in my office. I get an email.
Speaker 1:Ping. There's an email. A cousin that I hadn't heard from in 35 years. Dear Ray, we want to inform you that your father is dying. Not dead, is dying.
Speaker 1:Your father's dying wish is to what? See me. Really? I hope you've got fire insurance, because I think that's where you're heading. And I might be the first one to light the match.
Speaker 1:So I call Stephanie and I say, can you believe this? My dad's dying and what is he he didn't see me in 35 years. The last time I saw him I was holding a shotgun on me. Tried to kill me twice and he wants to see me before he dies. He can rot in.
Speaker 1:And Stephanie says, well, what about that angel thing last night? That was last night. This is this morning. Do you think God might be up to something? Now all the guys in the room are going, yeah.
Speaker 1:I know, man. I've got a junior Holy Spirit in my life, too. Stephanie was my junior Holy Spirit. She said, I think you may need to consider what's going on. Long story short, I took one of my best friends with me.
Speaker 1:I go and I find where my dad's at. He's on oxygen. He's got the cannulas. He looks like death warmed over. If you have you ever seen those chick tracks?
Speaker 1:You know, these sign find them in truck stops and things sometimes, and they always have the grim reaper reaper in it and he looks like death warmed over like a walking skeleton. That was my dad. I thought he oh, he posed for those tracks. That's And he looked terrible. He looked terrible.
Speaker 1:And I took my friend with me. I said, because I don't know if this is a big joke. I don't know if my dad is about to go out and this is his last hoorah, he wants to get me back. Or I don't know if I will be able to contain myself because I might actually take my fist and put it through his face. Because of what all he did to our family.
Speaker 1:I haven't seen him in 35 years. But guys, I kid you not, I knock on the door. Come in. Come in. Remember those sounds?
Speaker 1:How you feel about certain things? I still hear the creaky door. And then it was a, thriller. Thriller. No.
Speaker 1:I'm joking. It wasn't. But it was that kind of and he's in this chair and he swings around and and I mean, I just went pale and I because I thought he was gonna he was swinging around to shoot me. He swung around in that chair and then he got up and he fell on his knees. And he grabbed me around the legs and put his head into my thigh.
Speaker 1:And just weeped and weeped and weep. And he said, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry. I can't believe you came.
Speaker 1:I can't believe you came. And so what do you think I did? I'm standing there and I take my knee and I just put it in his chin. No, I didn't. I fell down on my knees beside the prodigal father.
Speaker 1:The prodigal father. And we wept, and I boohooed, and it was one of those slobbery girl cries. I mean, it was snot on the face, and I felt I mean, it was amazing. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe it.
Speaker 1:And I sat down beside him, and I didn't have one good memory of my dad. I'm not kidding. We've talked about this many times. I didn't have one good memory. I'm talking I was 50 years old at the time.
Speaker 1:I didn't have one good memory. But I did have a pocket watch that my dad gave me. And the pocket watch was something I remember and I thought, if I see him and it goes well, I'm gonna ask him if he remembers what this this pocket watch was about. And I opened up my hand, I show him the pocket watch. He looks at it and goes, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:I remember that pocket watch. And I looked down and the pocket watch was stopped at 2 o'clock. 2 o'clock. And it's like the Holy Spirit said to me, tell him this, dad, look at the time on the clock. Look at the time on the pocket watch.
Speaker 1:It's 2 o'clock. I said, dad, I think God is telling me we're getting a second chance. I don't know if you're gonna live 3 hours. I don't know if you're gonna live 3 days. I don't know if you're gonna live 3 weeks, 3 months or 3 years, but can we just decide today, we're gonna forget about the past.
Speaker 1:We're gonna start over. We're gonna begin again. We're not gonna look back. Whatever time we have left, let's go do what we can do in the time you have left. I called a meeting.
Speaker 1:I called in all my kids. They're like, is this the guy? And he couldn't believe it. He had never seen his grandchildren. He he got so worked up and so excited at our family dinner.
Speaker 1:He couldn't eat and we had to take him to the hospital because his COPD and his cannulas weren't wasn't giving him the next oxygen. He couldn't believe the mercy and grace that he felt, and the forgiveness that he felt, and how much he was loved by grandchildren that didn't even know him, and a son he hadn't seen in 35 years. That's the power of forgiveness. That's the kind of forgiveness our God gives each and every one of us. So my dad doesn't die within 3 days.
Speaker 1:He doesn't die within 3 weeks. A year and a half later, I'm taking him to the hospital for a open heart surgery. He lives through it. The doctor's like, he ain't coming back out of here. He ain't coming out.
Speaker 1:We've worked on skeletons before. They just they don't ever make it. And he's he's coming out. We're a Baptist hospital. And some of you I'm I'm really aging myself today, Tom.
Speaker 1:The old Cara Burnett character, you know, Tim Conway. You know, how he goes he would walk like this, just barely walk. You know, I'm talking about that was my dad. And he was honoring. We were walking out of the hospital.
Speaker 1:We're walking out of the hospital and he's walking. And he gets right to the the the doors. You know where he goes, as he takes it. He walks up a little bit more, and he stands right in the middle. And one of the doors do, He's like, I'm like, you sick sucker, man.
Speaker 1:Let's go move it along little cowboy. I'll never forget it. Remember those moments? Those moments you feel special? Those memories that are built in your mind?
Speaker 1:He's all hunkered over. He can't hardly talk. He's got his cannulas. He's got his bony fingers and a hairdo like mine. And he steps a little bit.
Speaker 1:Those doors are going off. And he looks up, and he says, you know, they think I ought to be dead by now. They think God ought to be dead by now. And then he says, but you and I both know that god's given me more time with you. Wow.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:He lived 3 years, 3 years on his death bed, hospice, cannulas, oxygen. If we had lit a cigarette in his room, it would have blown up. I mean, that's the power of forgiveness. It rev it revived him. You see, I was sitting with my dad one day and I said, dad, what does a guy do that's been disconnected from his family for 35 years, a convicted felon, what do you do all day?
Speaker 1:You live in this stinky apartment in deep snuff. What do you do? He says, well, I do 2 things. You know, I read my King James Bible. He came to faith.
Speaker 1:He had been left in a ditch in a bar fight. They broke his neck and he said, it was then when I realized, man, I gotta get my act together. And he became a believer. Reading his old King James Bible, and then he said something, then he said something that blew my mind. And this remember the angel?
Speaker 1:Remember the the crazy stuff that happens? He said, I read the dictionary. In my mind, I'm thinking, okay. So this is where it goes. You read the King James Bible and you read the dictionary.
Speaker 1:I said, can I see that dictionary? He said, sure. He reached the door and he grabbed it and handed it to me. And you know how thick a dictionary is. Right?
Speaker 1:You know how thick a dictionary is. I flipped the dictionary open. I looked down on the page and there was a word record, circled on the page. There's a word circled on the page and a note beside it.
Speaker 2:Do you
Speaker 1:care to guess what word out of all the words in the dictionary, I open up the book and I look down on the page. Do you care to guess what word was circled? The word reconcile.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:Now I don't know where you're at today, but I know this much. There's been people in your life that have hurt you. Maybe you have a a Donnie in your life. Maybe you are Donnie. Maybe there's a dad in here that's doing the same things that Donnie was doing.
Speaker 1:Hey, man. Come talk to me. There's a way. You can get you don't have to keep living that way. Maybe there's another little boy or little girl that are putting up with what you're doing.
Speaker 1:And maybe you're a mom and you need to find the courage to do what you think is the right thing. But I can just tell you that we all hurt people. And what had happened for me for many years was Donnie, my dad was Maya Charles Manson and he had held me captive for so many years. For so many years, he had held me captive and I lived in a prison made of his making. And eventually, I came to the point to where I forgave him.
Speaker 1:Did he deserve it? Heck no. Heck no. He did not deserve it, but when I forgave him I was set free. I was set free.
Speaker 1:I wasn't held back by those chains anymore. I was set free from my past. I didn't have to be held hostage by my past. It didn't matter where I started. It's where I was going and where I was heading, because the past didn't matter anymore.
Speaker 1:And you may be thinking, that's great. You you you forgave him. And, yeah, I had the chance to reconcile. And some of you say, well, I won't ever have the chance to reconcile. My dad's in prison, or my mom died, or the person that's doing this I could never get with, or not mentally healthy enough.
Speaker 1:And you know what? I think that's okay. But I think ultimately, what the Lord wants to do, is the Lord wants us to be reconciled. He wants to make all things new. He wants to forgive us.
Speaker 1:And see, I don't care where you've been. I don't care what you've done. I don't know what your life's like. I don't care if you're cheating on your wife. I don't care if you're cheating on your boss.
Speaker 1:I don't care what you're doing. We're all broken. We're all Donnie's in our own way. We're all messed up. We're all broken.
Speaker 1:We need forgiveness. We need to be reconciled and brought free because we can stay in the past, we can be hung up in the past, or we can you don't have to be present with the person to forgive them. You can forgive them. They don't even have to know it, but don't let them hold you hostage. Don't let your past hold your hostage.
Speaker 1:You see, I had a journey. I had a coach Wilson. I had a mister Brown. And all of us have the opportunity to be those kind of people in the lives of other people. And this, you may be wonder what is this?
Speaker 1:Well, this is a turtle. And I'm not gonna tell you anything else. But that turtle right there, that's me. And you're thinking, he has this similar haircut just like you. But see, we're all turtles on a post.
Speaker 1:And we don't get to where we are unless somebody else put us there. If you ever see a turtle on a post, what do you know? And they're out there, I promise you. You'll go Google it. If you see a turtle on a post, you what you what do you know?
Speaker 1:He didn't get himself there. He can crawl all day and he's never gonna get up there, but somebody helped get him there. And in my life, it was a mister Brown. It was a coach Wilson. And are you ready for this?
Speaker 1:It was a guy named Donnie. He helped me become who I am today, but guess what? Ultimately, who I am, the person that put me on this post, is Jesus himself. Because we don't get to where we are without Jesus and other people come around us. And so then the question becomes this, and I'm gonna close here in just a minute.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna give you the scripture. Here's the thing. When you look around this neighborhood and you did book bags, you're thinking, oh, there's some book bags and pencils and scissors and notebooks. Let's hope that Jesus works through all that. Can I just tell you?
Speaker 1:You better believe he will. Because in this community around Norman, there's little Rays and there's little Tommies who need coach Browns and mister Wilson to step into their life and fill the gap and be that for somebody. And at the same time, there's people in this community who need to know what forgiveness looks like. They need to know what, reconciliation can look like. The name of this church is New Life Bible Church.
Speaker 1:You see, we all need a restart. We need to reset. We need to be the influence and we need to be reconciled. And so the verse I want to close in this morning is this. It ties this story all together.
Speaker 1:Ask yourself, where do you see yourself in this passage? What role can you play? You've heard this passage before. 2nd Corinthians 5 17. And here it goes, Anyone.
Speaker 1:Anyone. Anyone. Anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person, a new creation. It happened in my dad's life. It happened in my life.
Speaker 1:It happened in mister Brown's life. It actually happened in coach Wilson's life. Then what does it say? The old life is gone. When Donnie grabbed me around the knees, it was over.
Speaker 1:The old life was gone. A new life has begun. Forget the past. Move on. Jesus has made it clean.
Speaker 1:It's a fresh start. It's a new beginning. And all of this is a gift. Very important. You don't earn it.
Speaker 1:You can't earn it. You can't be good enough. You you can grow up in a Christian home. It doesn't matter. You can come to church 6 times a week.
Speaker 1:It doesn't matter. It's a gift that you have to accept and that gift is what? For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him will not perish, but have everlasting life. And it's not just in the by and by, it's now. Right?
Speaker 1:And that's available to you. It says, who brought us back to himself through Christ and God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. Why are you guys here? You guys are here to reconcile people back to the Lord into good relationship with him. For God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people's sins against him.
Speaker 1:Praise God. And he gave us this wonderful message. That's what you guys are all about, of reconciliation. It's in the dictionary. Donnie circled it.
Speaker 1:So we are Christ's ambassadors. God is making his appeal through us. You and me, mister Brown, coach Wilson, we need to help put people on their post. We speak for Christ when we bleed. Come back to God.
Speaker 1:That's where it all started. That's where it all began in Genesis. But we messed it up. We chose our way. And you're sitting in the room today and says, man, I don't know what happened but I started making some choices.
Speaker 1:And I started drifting. I started getting away from the Lord. And I think today, I recognize, you know what? I wanna get back. I wanna be forgiven.
Speaker 1:I wanna reconcile, not only with God, but with my wife, my friends. There's some people that I need to call, and I need to say, I blew it. I'm sorry. And guess what? There's some people you need to call, and say, hey.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna and say, hey. I'm the turtle on a post. I wanna call you and thank you for helping me be who I am today. Mister Brown, coach Wilson, I remember stepping up on mister Brown's porch years later. He said, Ray Sanders.
Speaker 1:I said, yes sir, mister Brown. He said, I never thought you kids would amount to anything. So today, my message is simple. Forget about the past. Let loose of those change.
Speaker 1:Let the Lord forgive you from anything that you've done. Start afresh. It's an opportunity you have every day. Forgive those who have hurt you and ask for forgiveness. Be reconciled.
Speaker 1:It's your calling. It's your mission. It's your passion. It's the name of your church, new life. Let's pray.