Writing for me is a double-edged sword, because it heals many of my wounds, but sometimes it also creates new ones by opening me up emotionally to remember things that have lived dormant in my mind for many years, and makes me feel things I would rather not feel. For a very long time, my expressive writing was kept very close to my breast, because I was so keenly aware of how much my thoughts on paper could affect other people’s lives. It was not until my bold encounter with the living God on East 149th Street in the Bronx on a very trying afternoon in 1996 that I started to realize how opening up my wounds could benefit other people. (That’s very ironic because at that time I was working in a level one trauma/training hospital, and that is the method used in the diagnosis and treatment of many medical maladies – you take what you learn from one case scenario and add it to – or take it away from – the next case scenario to find a veritable quotient.)

What I learned at that time, and have been told many times since then, is that by writing about the tough experiences in my own life and how I endured them, I am helping others to heal emotionally. When people read the candid expressions of faith that have helped me to endure through the wilderness period of my life, it brings them a new hope. It gives them the courage they need to open themselves up to other people, and the willingness to let God move in their lives. Talk about God’s amazing grace. That is why scripture tells us to “confess your faults one to another, and pray for one another, that ye may be healed. . .” (James 5:18)

Up until this even moment, I have remained very, very cautious about the people with whom I would share my personal experiences. However, what God has ask me to do with this book is to “stop sharing (my) life experiences like hors d’oeuvres at an invitation-only affair and spread them out before (his) people as an all-you-can eat buffet on the sands of time, that they can taste and see that the Lord is good, and that his name may be glorified.”

Nevertheless, for a very long time, I was deathly afraid that by expressing the naked truth about my experiences, I would “destroy the concept,” because that is what it is for the most part, “about who I am, and people would turn away from me.” However, what God has revealed to me is that by hiding the truth, I was building a wall of tolerance that shielded the works of the enemy and hindered his (God’s) ability to work in my life. So, I decided to not only remove my mask of deception and come from behind the wall of tolerance, but to go into the killing fields and destroy the enemy’s camp by tearing it down and revealing the cunning works of his hand. Now, I can acknowledge that in so doing, I am free from the bonds of sin and death – because guilt no longer has a hold on me.