Gesuschic

As I drove down Tussing Road I felt it.
The lump in my throat, the pit in my stomach.
There are certain people you look to and expect them to be there forever.
Rich Fout was one of those people.
He is the one who told me about the King’s Place. A christian rock hall.
If you were a Christian Rock band in the 80’s, you weren’t “in” unless you played there.
Every single time my friends and I went to see Bride, Tourniquet, Holy Soldier, Barren Cross ect…Driving down Tussing, the excitement would build and as you were turning into the long ass drive way you could always see people lining up. Laughter, anticipation, happiness filled that parking lot as we all stood in those lines waiting to see our hero’s rock it out.
But this particular day…Was different. We wouldn’t be throwing up into the air our lighters or metal horns, windmillin’ our long hair or head banging and screaming as the lights went down.
No..Not this day.
Today we were all coming together one last time. To say goodbye…To our favorite hero of them all.
Our Godfather.
Our Moses.
The one person who was always, always there.
It was the summer of 87′ Mary Burnett and I were out and about and she took me to HeartSong. The first two people I met in the door were Scott Walton and Rich Fout.
I swear from the moment my eyes looked at theirs, I fell in love with both of them.
Rich was like a never-ending cup of wisdom, love, compassion, understanding, discipline, genuineness (just to name a few), that poured into my spirit as slow as I needed it, or as fast as I needed it.
I had the best Parents any child could ask for. But The Godfather was an “added blessing” of parental love. The kind of love that’s true, loyal, unconditional. He and Karen were my “cool parents.” I honestly could sit here for hours blogging about the characteristics that made Rich so special to a group of crazy teenagers who had no clue what we had in that old record store…but in all seriousness, there are no words.
To truly grasp the knowledge of why our heartbreak was so unbearable in losing Rich, you would had to of had that Godfather experience.
Few people have that bizarre quality of being all things to all people to the point you could connect with them no matter where they were at.
A child who looked at faith with such simplicity, a teenager who was angry at the world, a young arrogant adult who felt had all the answers, an older person with higher education and dropped one hundred-dollar words, it didn’t matter who you were, or where you were in life.
Rich Fout loved you RIGHT WHERE YOU WERE AT.
He never understood why God chose him, he just knew that He did and he picked up that mantle and carried it with humility, love and passion.
In my mind Rich Fout was an A~List Celeberty who, without question, would humbly kneel and wash the feet of the poorest of the poor or the richest of the rich. He didn’t bother with “should I…could I…what about…Well…” Rich Fout pursued the hurting. He chased after the broken. He loved those whom the world tossed aside and those the church chose to forget.
He was love. Point blank. Pure love…
Rich’s life was crazy, but he was the most beautiful picture of redemption.
He was our Moses.
Guiding us through a wilderness of a broken battered world and picking up every stray along the way and just lovin’ on ’em.
He had vision.
And NEVER lost sight of it.
That vision was to reach those who felt abandoned, lost and unworthy.
To find them and love them with the perfect pure love of Jesus.
REVIVAL…
So now what?
Rich has graduated from this life and entered into HIS Canaan. But that vision…THAT vision he taught us through EXAMPLE and not just words, is still very much alive. And waiting for Joshua to rise up, grab the mantle and move forward in Courage.
Well…
HERE AM I.
The mantle…excuse me…The cigar 😉 has been placed down upon the ground. Our leader has gone to stroll with Jesus on streets of gold. But I will tell you this, just as Jesus roots and cheers for us throughout our journey, the next biggest cheerleader in Heaven is Rich Fout. He went Home on Friday morning April 18th 2014 because he knew we would get “it.”
As in we would know what to do.
The past few years we have lost AMAZING men of God.
Pastor Chuck Smith, Pastor Dave Brown, Pastor James Moody, Larry Norman, Rich Mullins, Keith Green…Rich Fout.
The battle is NOT over. There is work needing to be done. There are broken people who are counting on SOMEONE…ANYONE to notice them missing. There are teenagers who are secretly wishing to God that just one freaking person would chase after them. Hold them until they stop screaming and break down weeping! THIS is now OUR time to take everything that has been taught to us, breathed into our spirit, spoken over us in prayer and fasting for YEARS. We can no longer hold onto it. We need to review our lessons, because what you don’t review…you can forget.
So here it is;
LOVE without condition.
REACH even if they aren’t reaching back.
RUN after the lost, hurting, broken and forgotten.
NEVER relent.
ALWAYS know that to God ALL glory be.
We have our marching orders.
It’s now time for the students to become the teachers.
We’ve done our weeping.
We’ve said goodbye to Moses.
Now…we rise.
Let’s do this…
WHO is with me?

Onward Christian Soldier,
Gesuschic
Joshua 1:16 & 17 (kjv)

 What if  I told you the past few years of my whole entire life had been shifted and uprooted?
Would you believe me?
Would you care?
Perhaps you’d think I was over exaggerating a bit?
But seriously though, everyone goes through life-changing events. Weather it be a marriage, divorce, death, retirement, a career taking off ect., but to have your WHOLE ENTIRE life completely shifted annnd uprooted?
I use the term “shifted” because I sometimes struggle with these crazy ass strongholds that once I feel confident they’ve been defeated, come right back around and smack me in the face like a brick. I absolutely despise it. I must admit that sometimes when that happens it’s usually at the WORST possible moment and I get so blindsided, that instead of directing my anger at the true source, I wail and shake my fist at the sky as though I’m looking God right in the eye-ball. However, as always, so merciful He shows me compassion and slows my role as gently as a parent can to their child. My God rocks hardcore man.
I would love to say I’ve moved on, moved forward, am a better person, all is forgiven blah, blah, blah and all the right words you’re expecting a God-fearing, Jesus loving, Bible reading woman to say.
But I can’t.
Because I haven’t.
Because I’m not.
Because it hasn’t.
I can only be real with whoever is reading this because I feel in this big huge world there is a lot of things to offer but honesty and genuineness and openness isn’t even among the top ranks of  “qualities seeking for in a true friendship.”
I only seem as though I’ve done the moving on and forgiving because the ground beneath my feet has been shifted.
When the very core of your foundation has been shaken, your ground begins to shift shapes and before you’ve had a chance to settle, breathe in the change and move on…you notice you’ve been shifted and you’re not even where you were to begin with! At that quick, slap in the face reality check moment my buddy, my dude, my loyal sidekick “insecurity” decides to pop in for a visit and throws a rave party and invites all of his other l’il friends…rejection, attitude, anger, unforgivness…and before to long, the craziest one of them all strolls in with a couple of babes, hello there fear.
I have this thing I do when I feel as though people are about to hurt me. OR…when I know people are at the point of tolerating me (ahem…stronghold) I smell it in the air (ahem…stronghold) and my knees go weak and before it happens I usually cut them off at the root (ahem…stronghold) severing all ties and communication.
So I shift. Back and forth, one from another. Playing tag with my strongholds, crossing them one by one as though they’re a set of monkey bars…and instead of leaning INTO the wind I rely and run back to my own familiar places, my “panic room” if you will.
My entire life has always been rooted in the basics.
Love, respect, faith, loyalties, joy, laughter, friendship…and family.
I watched and wept as my parents buried our youngest brother, Kenneth, and I shuttered to think I would ever have to find that type of strength to have to do that. Yet not just two decades later there I was.
I buried my father.
My mother,
my brothers…my sister…I felt as though my very soul was uprooted as each one of my immediate family took their last breaths. Every time one died it was as though I lost all of them all over again.
One…after…the…other.
When I lost my parents I felt totally naked. Emotionally, spiritually.
My mom and dad were the two most beautiful people I ever had the highest honor of knowing.
My mom and dad were the two most loving people I have ever known and it was a pure blessing to have had the priveledge of being their daughter.
My brothers Randy and Kenneth were never without a laugh.
My brother Terry…the fatherly advice and soft correction in love was like no other I have ever yet to come across again.
My sister Tina, we could on the phone for HOURS.
I had barely started my life and I lost them all. No family Christmas, no spending weekends with Grandma and Grandpa…My children would never have those memories. My life as I knew it, was grabbed by the very roots and yanked away from me forever.
As if that wasn’t even enough…
My marriage.
Dead, buried and forgotten.
It was just that easy for him.
Again, by the very roots from which I breathed…
I could go on and on but it seems as though I can never be settled long enough to re-group before I’m once again uprooted or the ground below my feet is shaken and I find myself being shifted into another direction.
I can’t even be comfortable in the most secure place I have right now. Why? Because my past is there. Each and every week. Right….there. What hurts the most? The very thing that cuts me deeper than the deaths of my family, the broken marriage my ex husband kicked aside, the losing my place, my job, taking thirty fucking thousand steps backward, only to crawl through it all again face straight into the cold cruel wind, yes, the very thing that tears to pieces what’s left of my soul is that it’s a past that pays me no mind. Doesn’t ever glance my way, no second thought…And just like everyone else, before and apparently after, I was just that easy to forget.
Although my perspective has almost come FULL CIRCLE with change by grace, mercy, and guidance and comforting of the Holy Ghost those strongholds come FULL FORCE right into my front door as though they were the kool-aid man.
They rage through my mind, body and spirit whispering lies and manipulation on how I should just relinquish all rights to obedience because nobody really cares. How many times do I sacrifice my happiness and do “the right thing” when over and over the “right thing” gets me right back in the front line of my soul, fighting an army of relentless strongholds? Well I’m spiritually and emotionally worn down man…
Not knowing where I’ll be a year from now terrifies me. Being at the mercy of friends for a roof over the heads of my children scares the shit out of me. It’s the very thought that wakes me up at night.
The only constant sure thing I have is God but even Him…Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing more I like to do than dance with the Holy Ghost (as He is such a Gentleman) but those quick steps and jives He likes to do makes me hesitate to allow Him to have the lead. But He’s the only one who knows the dance.
I’m reading my Bible more than ever…studying it even. I definitely need to pray more and have heart to hearts with The Father more regularly but I still feel so unsteady, unsure of myself. As though stepping out on an icy lake and hearing all of my surrounding areas make cracking and pop noises with each and every step. Every little thing I take personal. Do people not ask me to pray because I’m such a train wreck all of the time? Am I that damaged I’m beyond a happily ever after? Is that confidence I once carried so effortlessly lost forever? Just because I’m a Christian it doesn’t mean I can’t struggle with these things. It’s real. And it sucks. I just want to be totally honest in all that I write to you. Right now the season is changing and I feel so overwhelmed. The once defeated strongholds have returned and either they’re stronger or I’m just weaker but either way, this is where I am today. I’m right there at the spin cycle of my life until further notice.
The one thing I do know for sure though…as my Pastor says…”In closing….I’ll share this one last thing.” The one thing I KNOW for absolute certainty. Bitterness will NOT be allowed here. If you completely get what I’ve been saying in this blog or another, hold on. Hold on with me…The bright side of being shifted or uprooted is the fact YOU WILL EVENTUALLY LAND SOMEWHERE. Take THAT moment, even if it’s but a moment. And breathe it all in….and just get ready.

SELAH,
CHERyL~