JUL, AUG, SEP 2024 VOLUME 17 Issue 3
was the summer of 1974 while I was visiting my grandparents on summer vacation in Brushy Creek, Texas. We attended church every Sunday. During one of those church services the preacher gave an altar call for salvation. He said in a loud demanding voice, “If you don’t have Jesus in your heart, you will burn in hell.” I felt like I had to go! I Probably knocked a few people down trying to get to the front altar because I was scared to death. That hot summer day in Brushy Creek, I got saved. I really didn’t feel any different, but I knew I had to do it.
Not long after, my siblings and I would make the long trip on a Greyhound bus back to New Orleans. Life continued where I had left it 3 months earlier. Upon returning home, a huge argument ensued between my mother and her live-in boyfriend. This was typical in my home. My reaction and bad behavior, though, landed me in a boy’s detention center for 6 months.
While in the detention center, I saw a counselor regularly. During our sessions, he would ask me sternly, “Son, what are you going to do with your life?” I would look at him without knowing how to respond. What is this man talking about? I’m only 13 years old. He would say, “This is your best effort. See where it got you? You need to catch a dream.” It was like a foreign language I could not understand. I just wanted to get out of there, counted down the days.
Another day, he challenged me. “Why don’t you start dreaming about your future and what it could look like in 20 or 30 years down the road?” I know I looked at him like Man, do you even realize we are in a boy’s detention center? There was no sleep in that place much less any time to dream—maybe with one eye open. The days were long, and I never saw my mother, not even once.
Six months later, at the end of a basketball game, there was my mother come to pick me up. I was so happy to be getting out of there. However, I only returned to the same chaos.
Life rolled on. I stayed high on alcohol and drugs most days just to cope. It was all around me.
I had my first dream at 18. I dreamed that I would one day have a wife and children. I saw a big plantation house with a pond, pool, and a horse that slept on a pool table. It was wild. I had another dream that one day I’d own my own construction business. I had no idea that God was the author of my dreams. I began to realize that if I didn’t begin to sacrifice and work hard then these dreams would likely not come true.
Not long after, I met the love of my life. Who would have thought that could happen to me? We both worked hard and raised our kids, making mistakes along the way. Little did I know that while working hard every day my dream was being weaved into my life. When I was off from work, I helped build people’s garages and additions and moved camps on the weekend for extra money. I made furniture for our house and many other projects. I landed a great job building storage tanks in oil refineries.
We moved to Mississippi some years later after my wife finished her college education. I quit the refinery because I was burned out and needed a change. We bought a quick stop. While working the store one day, a regular customer who was a contractor asked me, “What are you doing? Do you want to help me build a covered bridge for a new development?” I told him that he was crazy for wanting to build a bridge over a one-foot-wide creek. Well, I took the bait.
That was 27 years ago. I had no idea what that quaint covered bridge would lead me to. Today, I’m married to the woman of my dreams. I have 2 beautiful children, 9 amazing grandchildren, have built and lived in many different homes (never a plantation yet, nor have owned a horse). I’ve built homes for hundreds of families, and I love what I do (most days). I fully surrendered my heart to the Lord at 37 years of age, but I know that He came when I called at 13 and that He made me a dreamer. God being who He is has expanded my dreams far beyond where they started, too. I’ve learned on this road that all things are possible in Him, and dreams do come true.
Never stop dreaming.