editing process surprisingly was less painful than child birth (I think that’s a good thing?). The amount of professionalism, consistency, accuracy and sensitivity to presenting an authentic Godly message are some of your greatest strengths!
I can only hope to properly say thank you for the support of all my family and friends during this several year process to follow this desire to help spread this important message God has shared with me. A huge thank you to my wonderful husband and children that allowed me to nap during the day on a regular basis during the times when I wrote or edited in the middle of the night (when else would a stay at home mom write?).
It only seems fair to say much gratitude is sent out to those that have helped shaped me spiritually. There are many that have provided encouragement and molding in my own faith walk. They are the men and women in Bible studies I have sat with, cried with, and prayed with. They are the cherished brother and sister members of the “Out of the Box” Bible study group. They are the women that are paving the way as strong, Christian, grace-filled, female leaders for others to follow as an example who faithfully inspire me like Arthelene Rippy, Joyce Meyers, Beth Moore, Donna Partow, Lisa Bevere and others.
Then there are the kindnesses of strangers that have impacted this process as well. Thanks to Amy Newmark, editor with Chicken Soup for the Soul books for personally delivering the good news that my book title didn’t infringe on Simon & Schuster’s book titles. Thanks to the men & women I have encountered over the years at the Ft. Walton Beach Waterfront Rescue Mission that shared your stories, your pain and your victories about this mighty God we serve. You are the essence of hope in my life. You have been the face of Jesus to me. I am constantly inspired to proclaim the good news of how Jesus saves and Jesus loves, as boldly in faith as you do.
INTRODUCTION
I admit that I rarely read the introduction to any book. But now I have a better appreciation for the introduction as I write a preamble to my own book.
You need to have an understanding of where I’m coming from and where I’m going before you can appreciate the message God has placed on my heart.
Our God is a God of relationship, and I see this intro as establishing a relationship between me and each reader before we engage in intimate conversations about truly knowing God and His heart, and how that relates to the mission of His people.
It is with great honor that I write to you. I still chuckle when I think of how God uses me and my weaknesses for the good of God’s kingdom. This book is to glorify Him.
I stand in awe of God’s Word and the plans for us revealed through the Bible. God’s Word and plans are amazing literary creations that have so many underlying themes and mysteries that I must remain careful to not present what has been revealed to me as having any authority over our Christian experience. I respectfully submit that this is God’s story, yet my story within the context of the covenant relationship between God and me. It is how God connected and revealed truths to me about His nature, the scriptures and our mission while on earth through my relationship with Him while serving in a soup kitchen.
After a grace-filled period of time, I came to understand these truths and was given a desire to share them with others. May we all search out to experience God in radically new-old ways, however and wherever it is that God will choose to lead us to connect our modern faith walk with these scriptural truths.
God promises that if we stop limiting Him by requiring Him to meet us where we are, and instead we go and seek Him, that we will find Him!
In Deuteronomy 4:29, Moses reminds us to not make idols of any kind (which would include our self-centered nature to have God meet us where we are), “if from there you seek the LORD your God, you will find him if you look for him with all your heart and with all your soul.”
When you decide to go and seek Him, He may lead you to your very own soup kitchen to serve and experience the applicability and meaningfulness of these scriptures in your life. Or He may choose to lead you to serve in a school as a mentor or in a court room as a guardian ad litem for a child, doing weekly laundry for the homeless, or packing sack lunches for the hungry.
Who knows where He will lead you to find Him when you respond to the promises and defining moments found in the scriptures? May these shared Christian moments allow you to see the message God placed upon my heart that allows you to reconnect with God and the missions set before His people in a radically new-old way.
1
MY STORY
Only as I sat down to reflect on my story for this book did I realize that my beginning relationship with Jesus was in a kitchen, yet long before my soup kitchen experience. It was in a little apartment in Indianapolis, Indiana. I was raised by a single mom and lived with her and my sister. We went to church and some classes on Sunday and knew about Jesus, but didn’t really know Jesus.
My sister and I were embraced into a surrogate family that knew Jesus. Their family and our family became one. My mom worked days mostly, and my friend’s parents worked nights, usually on weekends as musicians. So between the two households we were covered and together all the time at one house or the other, most often playing Charlie’s Angels. We were the perfect representation of Charlie’s Angels, the blonde, my sister, played Jill. My new found friend, turned sister, and the smart one, played Sabrina, while I was the other girl, stuck somewhere in the middle with no distinguishing label, and played Kelly.
Since “Sabrina’s” parents had a flexible schedule during the week, they were always there for breakfast. We would spend endless breakfast mornings over at their house being fed scrambled eggs with green peppers, grits, toast and a good dose of vitamin pills to boot. Not only did this mom feed us breakfast, she would feed us with the love of Jesus. She was always on fire for the LORD. I remember her Bible being out and open and the sound of her flipping through pages as she would talk about this Jesus. Jesus was like another person at breakfast with us. Jesus this, Jesus that. I liked this guy Jesus. He was warm and inviting, kind, and full of hope.
It wasn’t too long before I accepted Jesus as my Savior. I was in seventh grade. I think I had my own Bible at home, but it wasn’t alive like hers. And even though I went to church to learn about Jesus, it was the Jesus that was in her kitchen that was alive to me. My real church was her kitchen, and my Bible was her Bible.
Only a few years later, they moved to the west coast. I stumbled in my faith walk for the next twenty or so years. I would hop from church to church, but never belonged to one. I had never gone to the lengths of an official membership at any of them.
Over the years, I gained ownership of a few more Bibles in different versions to help make more sense of my NKJV Bible, in which I had some simple phrases highlighted in red that I thought I understood, or heard God talking to me about.
Then, some twenty-two years later, I chose Jesus not only as my Savior, but as my LORD. I was baptized as an adult on August 13, 2001, at a lake submersion ceremony somewhere north of Tampa, FL. I was raised a new woman in Christ, went on my first date with my future husband four days later, and was married within five months. As a wedding gift from my mother-in-law, I received a new Bible with my new name inscribed on the outside, “Mrs. Renee J. Crosby”.
Within the next two years I was indoctrinated into my first church membership through marriage. My husband was raised in and believed in belonging to a church. So we did church. I took my inscribed Bible to studies with some wonderful women, and started learning more about this Jesus fellow. This church became my church. This Body of Christ is what nurtured me, encouraged me and loved me. I had finally begun to understand the workings of Jesus and His Bride, the church.
The amount of exponential love and growth that I experienced in the Body of Christ was amazing. I can’t imagine what my life would be like had I not been in that nest of the church. I know for sure that it would have taken this bird a lot longer to learn how to fly had I not been there. Being in the Word of God set my heart on fire, and being connected within this Body of Christ healed me of my past and moved me into the future. Together they transformed