A puffy white cloud

Watching a puffy white cloud slowly drift silently by.

I sit searching the sprawling noonday sky.

I am completely amazed and God, I appreciate you.

Thank you for the marvelous miracles that you do.

Beneath the warmth emerging from the shining sun,

Slowly across the sky the puffy white cloud travels on.

In spite of the many temptations, I must resist.

God, you are the undisputable reason, I continue to exist.

Across the sky sounds of thunder rings out loud.

For a while a moist darkness colors the puffy white cloud.

When life becomes so hard I just do not know what to do.

God, I know I can continue to absolutely trust only in you.

The regulated day moves on with a never ending pace.

The moist darkness in the puffy white cloud is replaced.

I thank you, God, for the joys and the sorrows and for everything.

I thank you, God, for the marvelous miracles that you bring.

An enduring prayer

My Father, as the sun descends for its night rest;
I bring before your throne my sins I must confess.
From my daily concerns, please come and rescue me.
Create in me everything you would have for me to be.

My Father, everyday I desire to be blessed by you.
I need your mighty presence to be able to continue.
In you, I will always continue to trust and believe.
From your pathway, please bless me never to leave.

My Father, I humbly before thee I kneel and pray.
I thank you for faithfully forgiving my sins today.
Please bless me with more wisdom to understand.
Nothing shall ever remove me from your loving hands.

My Father, please watch over me while I am asleep.
My life, I have placed in your merciful hands to keep.
In the midst of my considerable joy and severe pain
I will give anything just to experience your love again.

My Father, please faithfully continue to strengthen me.
Please grant me the hope of living with you in eternity.
God I thank you for everything for me you have done.
I gratefully thank you for the love of your precious Son.

Reflections: God’s grace and mercy is sufficient

In spite of my tragic lot in life, I refuse to feel sorry about the situation I currently face. As good as my life was before the diagnoses I received, God would continue to make it just that much better. Because of my trust and obedience to him not only do I continue to live without the aid of modern medicine, I experience abundant life because of the grace and mercy of God.
The grace and mercy of God has kept me alive for all these years. His grace and mercy will continue to keep me alive until God calls me home. His grace and mercy has allowed me to understand my situation and life better. As grave as my situation in reality is, I must admit that before HIV, I was destined to die anyway. Therefore, nothing changed.
The unfortunate truth is as humans, we are all infected with a fatal disease. Every person alive is infected with old age. Every person born of a woman must eventually die. Therefore, whatever diagnosis in life we receive, remember nothing changes. You will die anyway.
You can spend your hard-earned money on the multitudes of excellent doctors and the various experimental medications they offer. You can put up with the various unexpected side effects. You can return to them repeatedly for a cure for the side effect that the pills you took caused. However, they never will invent a pill to cure the inevitable coming of death. We all will eventually have to meet God.
Nevertheless, this is my only spiritual stand and my personal stand only. I would rather first meet God in the mist of my sickness and pain. I would rather take the medication that he has prescribed for me to ingest. I would rather ingest the powerful and healing word of God. I would rather believe what he said and live on his grace and mercy. I would rather depend on God.
From the infantile existence of our vast universe unto the dawning of the next day we will experience, the ability of God to take care of us has been undoubtedly revealed. He has constructed a vast biosphere just to house us. He has plant a lush and nourishing garden to provide for us. He has even suspended, way before any of us was thought of, the sun and moon in the sky.
This same powerful and healing God also created you and I. He sent his only begotten son to stand on the cross for the sins that we had not yet committed. Therefore, I reason if God would do all this beforehand just for us, what else would not do. Does he also have the power to stop death? Does he also have the power to change the diagnosis printed on the sheet that says we have a fatal illness and we are going to die? Yes, He does.
However, I have came to realize in my short existence on the face of this pollute planet that sometimes he does not change the diagnosis. I have come to realize that no matter how much we bargain with God or how much money we pay the doctors, everything sometimes continues to stay the same. I have come to realize that no matter what some Christians and the world say, sometimes, like to Paul, God will say ‘My grace and mercy is enough so live.’
Therefore, I choose to live. Moreover, each of us in our various fatal situation, we should choose to live. Regardless of what life may bring, we should choose to live until God tells us to come home. However, do not choose to live afraid of getting sick or dying. Do not choose to live afraid that someone in the world will kill you. Realize that God is powerful enough to create the wonderful world that we are destroying. He is also powerful enough to keep us on the face of this same wonderful world until He and only He calls us home. God’s grace and mercy is sufficient to keep us alive until then.

About me:

Reginald Levi Walker was born in rural Perry County in Alabama to the late Rev. R. Leon Walker, Jr. and Janie Mae Ward on July 9, 1964. He is the last of three children from this marriage. Reginald or Reggie, as he prefers to be called, was educated in the all black school system of rural Perry County. Reggie tried to excel at all his studies in School. He held memberships in the National Junior and Senior Honor Societies. In 1981, he moved to Miami, Florida to live with his mother.

After graduating from American Senior High School, he enlisted in the U. S. Army. However, because of the call to preach and the tremendous preaching tradition in the Walker family, Reggie soon found himself preaching instead of fighting wars.

The first influence to preach came from his grandfather, Rev Walker, Sr. At the age of nine, Reggie accepted the call to preach at Greenleaf Baptist Church in Alabama. After discharging from service in 1985, he studied under his father and other ministers in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. He was licensed to preach at St, John A.M.E. Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma ordained an elder at Bethel A.M.E. Church in North Little Rock Arkansas and educated at Shorter Junior College in Arkansas.

Reggie first pastorate was at Derrick Chapel A.M.E. Church in Van Buren, Arkansas. Since then, he has pastured many churches in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, and Red Bird, Oklahoma. He pastured Vision of Hope Church, Inc. He now resides Miami, Florida and endeavors to encourage children of God everywhere to stand up and be the mighty men and women of God. His favorite saying is I am blessed just to be alive.

Reggie knows the importance of each day since he has been living with an incurable disease since 1987. However, he firmly believes, if he lives God get the glory and if he dies, God gets the blame. He gave his illness to God along time ago and refuses to worry about it anymore.

All intellectual property of this author has been copyrighted and all rights are reserved by Pastor Reginald Levi Walker.

(additional information about the meaning of Nabahood23)

Not Anger But Action will solve the problems of our nieghborHOODs.

23 stands for the 23rd Psalms.

P.S. 23 stands for 'God loves you, therefore, I love you, too.'