Dearest Brother and Sisters,

I wanted to write and give God all the glory, honor, and praise. I was raised in this Message but you would never know it by the life I have led. Even through all of my running, God has been good to me. This past Easter was truly a blessing because God said, “It was time.” I gave my heart to Him and was baptized Easter Sunday! Well, don’t we all wish it stopped there and we lived happily ever after! That’s where the devil starts, but that’s ok!

I have been thanking and praising God ever since, no matter what Satan throws at me. A couple weeks later, after Sunday evening service, we had Communion and Foot washing. When I came out of the trailer, I was blessed to see Brother Joseph standing there! As I came down the steps he shook my hand and gave me a big hug. He pulled back and asked me how I was doing? I told him, I was fighting the good fight. He said, “You know what’s good about that? We already know what the outcome is!” That just thrilled me! How simple it is and how hard we make it.

The next night I had a softball game. I was listening to some good gospel singing on the way to the game, and while putting on my cleats, I started praying. I asked the Lord for a good game and asked him to allow me to play to the best of my ability and be a good sport. We had a double header. First game we lost in the end but I was singing to myself whole game and man did I play well! Second game, I was still singing and playing well. Then it came. Toward the end of the game, we were walking off the field and a ball came from an adjacent field and hit the ground in front of me as I stepped through the gate. I never saw it as it hit me in the mouth and knocked one of my front teeth back, cutting the outside and inside of my lips also. Everyone looked at me in surprise and I asked what that was. As I said it, my tongue hit my tooth. I realized something was wrong. I was able to push the tooth back into place and assess the damage. I was bleeding a little and everyone waited on me to see how I was. I could tell something still wasn’t right but it was my turn to bat, and at 10 pm at night, not a lot can be done. I went and finished game, still praising God.

I spoke to my dad, and my main concern was losing my tooth. I prayed about it and asked the Lord to take care of it. The next morning I went to my dentist where some of our faithful sisters work, and they took X-rays. They showed me my tooth and how it was “fractured” above the gum line at the bone. They wanted to send me to a specialist to make sure but they said, “Worst case, you could lose the tooth.” Still thanking the Lord, I went to the specialist and there was a sister there also! I sat down, and the specialist looked at it and did movement checks on it and cold checks to see if the nerves were damaged. He told me, your movement on our scale is a 1 (good) and the nerves are dead. You will be able to keep the tooth but we have to do a root canal to help it. Praise the Lord!

I don’t know if any of you have had the misfortune of having this done. Overall it wasn’t bad, but the outcome just made my heart swell. The fracture was across the tooth. The specialist had to drill up through the tooth and when he was done, he fills it with an epoxy (basically cement). After this he took another x-ray and there in front of me was my tooth with a cross inside of it! I have attached this picture of the X-ray. I am just so thankful to be home in the arms of our Lord.

Pray for me as I pray for you,
Your brother