I was given away.
Before even being born, I had been cast out on life’s journey with no mother, no father, as “baby boy Pugh.” Imagine such a name on your birth certificate. No wonder I have spent a lifetime finding who I am.
As a by-product of the Sixties, I became a child of the Seventies. The Me Decade was not for me. I felt slighted and picked on as the smallest and youngest of my class. If you have ever felt like an outsider, you are not alone.
Grouping myself together with many an Eighty’s misfit, I somehow survived the Decade of Excess. Though I wore the weight of hurts, habits, and hangups, I still clung to the clarity of one moment of wisdom. It shines even more today.
Please, let it shine in, on and through you, too.
On a crisp fall night, I went to a pizza party after our high school football game. A local church hosted, spoke, and gave an altar call. I have no idea what was said but felt called to walk the aisle. I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior. Though it was another decade before I began to follow in faith, it is no doubt the reason I am still alive.
Not until marrying my high school sweetheart and having our first of three sons would I begin to recognize life cannot be lived without the light I found that night long ago. If someone had been the example of self-sacrifice as Christ in my life, what a change it could have been. My wife became mine. Maybe we can be yours. It isn’t about us, it’s about Him.
Seek a right relationship with God and His kingdom first. Read His Word and pray with Him about it along with everything else in your life. Share Him with others and pray with them. Look deep inside yourself through His eyes, find your gifts and talents, then put them to use in His purpose through your passion. In other words, love God, love others. Everything else is the opportunity to do these two. Today, choose to be the person you were created to be with God in His abundant life.