31 YEAR OLD...etc etc etc

I don't know how to type this so I'm just going to type what's in my heart. First let me say that I know that I haven't been blogging as much as I used to but I would in previous years, but I've come to the point now where when I do blog I want to them to have some kind of meaning behind them. I could usually blog about nothing, but I'm 31 now. I'm working now. Granted I'm a cook at Zaxbys, but gotta start somewhere right?

So recently, while at work a couple of young dudes were talking about sex. One of them asked me about it, and I told him silently that I was a virgin. Almost as if that I was ashamed of it. The kid was shocked that I said that and then tried to say that he could fix that problem for me. I'm not 41 yet, but you get the point...

It's a weird position to be in honestly. I look at other people in my age group, and their much further along in life than I am. I can't say that I'm married. I can't say that I'm a parent. I can't say that I'm making decent money. As I mentioned in previous posts, I'm still trying to figure things out. Some are even trying to help me out by asking me stuff like like, "Have you ever thought about---" I've thought about a lot of things. I dream about a lot of things. 

I can say that I'm a survivor. What people have died from, I've survived. Congestive heart failure, I'm still here. Homelessness, I'm still here. Depression, I'm still here. Not saying that to boast. Trust me. I'm NO where near perfection.

Here's what's crazy tho. Before all stuff that happened, I was meditating on a song by Tye Tribbett, oops, that says, "Let us worship/Let us Sing/Hallelujah to the King/Let us raise our voices high/Praise the name of Jesus Christ." The drive says this, "Halleu ooh yah/Halleu ooh yah/Halleu ooh yah/Hallelujah we praise Your name" Through most of the shift I was humming this to myself. It's like what the Bible says, "When I want to good, evil is always present."

It's not easy. This whole being single thing gets lonely sometimes. I remember when I was high school I would write quotes like, "I'm so sick of being lonely." Practically I was begging for help but afraid to ask for it. One time though a classmate read it and wrote under it something like, "You're never alone with Jesus" or something like that. I had wrote sentences like that all the time but never showed them to anybody or never told anybody. This classmate even gave me like a happy face cookie on a stick. Obviously it left an impact cause I still remember it all these years later.

Recently I've find myself liking who I am. Liking the fact that I like to laugh and have fun sometimes at wrong times. Liking the fact that I'm sarcastic. Liking me. Liking Daniel. With that, I still find myself down sometimes, but usually when that happens I find something to laugh at. Think of something funny to get my mind out the dumps. It's an up and down thing. 

I don't know of any of this made sense. I just needed to get all this out. Hopefully you got something out of this. Thanks for reading either way.

Stay saved,

Daniel Richerson

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO?

As I'm typing this I just turned 31. Some told me that I wasn't supposed to make 30. Some said I'm not going to make it past the next couple of years. I'm single. I really don't know what to do in that department, but that's not what this blog is about. I work at as a cook as a fast food restaurant. My coworkers consist of mostly teenagers. I hear them talking about what do they want to do after high school because some of them are about to graduate. They talk about other things as well...moving on.

So I feel like I'm ready to move on from where I'm working now. I find myself getting more angry at little things. I'm getting bored. I'm feeling like I need more. I'm feeling like I need to do more. I'm feeling like there is more for me to do. One of my problem is, is that I don't know what that is. I don't know what I want to do. Some people know what they want to do at 12. I'm 31 one, and I find that question, "What do you want to do?" is one of the hardest questions I've ever been asked.

When I went to college after high school, I picked a major that I thought was something, but I soon realized that I didn't pick the right major for me. Besides picking a different major, I just left because I didn't know what I wanted to do. I was 19 or 20 at the time. So we're talking 11 years or so of trying to figure this out. Something something something, and now I'm working at a fast food restaurant. I've heard it said that when you turn 30, that's when the "light" turns on. I think for me it was 31.

Recently I was having a conversation with a guy and he plainly asked me, "What do you want to do?" Per usual, I didn't have a solid answer. I mentioned that I like to write. It is well known I liked to write blogs such as this. Thanks for reading by the way. I've always wanted to write a book. Like a novel. I've always written short stories since I can remember. I feel that as soon as I started using Microsoft Word for the first time, that's when I really started typing short stories that I would never finish. I remember in Middle School, I would continuously print out new chapters of a story and it would end up going around the school. At the time I was voted something like best author or something like that. I do remember it had something to do with writing.

I've often had dreams of singing on a big stage. I've lead songs at church and I remember dreaming that I would sing with the artists that originally sang the songs I led at church. I see singers sing on Instagram all the time. When it comes to singing on camera or singing out outside of church, I choke. Nothing comes out. I think singing and music at work. It's usually what's gets me through a shift by the night, but I try my best not let a single note come out my mouth because of fear. Even when I lead songs now, I tend to sing under the key I'm supposed to sing on because of, you guessed it, fear.

"What do you want to do?" Good question. I hope to figure it out one day. It's not as if I don't have dreams. I just don't know how to pursue what I think and dream about. And when I do hear about ways to go through a door, I become fearful. Have you heard that old saying, "fear of the unknown" ? #Storyofmylife Even my coworkers, the young coworkers, that I work with, some of them can see that I'm not satisfied with the job. It's as if they know I don't want to be there for the long term. It's a shame that all those years I heard, "You got to do what you have to do, until you can do what you want to to do?" that it took me too long to get that.

So again the question is, "What do you want to do?" Sounds cliche, but I definitely want to be the best Daniel that I can be. The best  Daniel that I'm supposed to be. I'm just trying to figure that out.

Stay Saved,

Daniel Richerson

DON'T GIVE UP ON THE PRODIGAL SON/DAUGHTER (HAPPY 2018)

Happy 2018.

So one Sunday I was sitting in church and I happened to be scrolling on my Facebook timeline…sorry…but it hit me as I put my phone to sleep. The thought that hit me was, “Don’t give up on the prodigal son.” I don’t know if I hid it well, but my instant reaction was, “Wow!”

Most of us know the story of the prodigal son in the bible. IF you don’t know, where have you been? Anyway, the story is found in Luke 15: 11-32. To summarize, this father had two sons, and the youngest son decided to take his share of his father’s estate and go out and enjoy life. To put in a terms of now, the youngest son wanted to turn up. Wanted to go wild. Etc. So the son left his father’s house where he had everything he could’ve wanted, but yet he wanted more. It’s amazing you can have everything, and yet you feel like that’s not enough. So the son blew his money and ended up finding work feeding pigs. Being hungry as he was, he gladly ate the stuff he fed the pigs with to get something to eat. Later on he came to his senses.

“And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee and am no more worthy to be called thy son,, make me as one of thy hired servants.” (verses 17-19)

So he went to his dad’s house. The father saw the son coming towards home, and before the son came to the house, the dad ran to him and embraced him with hugs and kisses. So son said what he had to say, and the father decided to have a big celebration because, “…for this my son was dead, and is now alive again; he was lost, and is found.” (verse 24)

Now the oldest son, the one was home the whole time, felt some kind of way about this. Like why would you celebrate the fact that wasted your money living with prostitutes. The father put it like this, “Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine. It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad:  for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found.” (verse 31)

So that’s the story. So why bring that story up in 2018? Cause I believe it won’t be long until that prodigal son or daughter will come back to the “father’s house.” We used to sing a song at church that said, “Come and go with me, to my Father’s house. There is joy. Joy! Great Joy!” It is written, “For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us.”

Now when they do come back in the forefront, and there’s a praise break, don’t fold your arms and be like the big brother to the prodigal son and be bitter. I think we all know or have seen people like that. Get so easily jealous of someone’s deliverance. Rather than praises God with the prodigal person, they become like the Pharisees were in the Bible days. I read somewhere that the Pharisees were “angry and resentful that sinners were being welcomed into God’s Kingdom.” The question would often come up in Bible Study at church, do Pharisees exist today? Yep.

Some are already in the “eating pig food” situation, or close to it, but when it comes, just know that soon they’ll be coming back home. And it’s I believe it’s on us to be like the father in the story and embrace them. Not to disregard the ones that has been there long, but I believe the bible says, “Likewise I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.” And we are created in God’s image, and yet and still when they come back home, some of us hold that sin or sins over their head until they leave again. We got to remember that we were all once lost in sin until Jesus took us in, and that little light from heaven filled our soul.

You may be that future prodigal son or daughter reading this, and I say to you go ahead and come back home. Fred Hammond pinned a long time ago, “I’m running back to you, I see you standing there for me. Your arms are opened wide, and I don’t have to cry no more. You’re standing there for me and I am running back to you. Why do I go away when I know I am no good when I’m on my own?” I think Fred was speaking for a lot of people. God is not going to just take you back and let you go astray. The same promise he made back in Jeremiah 4 still rings true today: “I will give you pastors according to mind heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding.” So come back prodigal son. Come back prodigal daughter. Don’t wait until you have to eat pig food to survive. There’s a saying that goes, “After you tried everything else, try Jesus.” No. Try Jesus now. Come back now.

Stay Saved,

Daniel Richerson