Walking the Line: Taking the Next Steps

The darkness faded into daylight but the storm had only begun to bring the flooding, I was completely robbed of my humanity and isolated from any communication with civilization.  The heat of August melted into September.  There was nowhere to go even when the National Guard showed up, my daily routine was to walk two miles hoping the Red Cross would be there to find drinking water, and maybe some food rations, I had to catch rain water and drain the hot water heater for water for hygiene.  The entire New Orleans area and the MS Gulf Coast had been destroyed, complete houses, families, businesses were either gone with only an empty slab remaining. 

 

It was sunrise to sunset hoping somehow someone would know I was still alive but I wasn’t sure because no one who stayed behind had a phone with a signal.  It was physically the worst situation I had ever been in, yet somehow deep within I knew I would survive and yes I know it doesn’t make since but I had a feeling of resiliency and hope.  I found that my Bible had been somehow saved so I thought why not read since there was nothing else to do. No I didn’t feel the Holy Spirit take over my body or anything but all I had was so many hours of daylight so I read the New Testament beginning with Matthew and ending with Revelations.  I couldn’t turn the 4 ft of water literally rivers flowing and I couldn’t turn that into drinking water or the 100 yr old Oak trees that fell into every other house destroyed 1000’s of homes all over the area.  It’s funny I didn’t consider myself the best Christian around but listen to me good as we say down the Bayou’s of South LA, ‘listen to me good” when I say God and I spoke well I could hear him speaking inside me not to give up and keep the faith that I would be rescued and eventually have an unusual, no Amazing Story to tell the world.  Now God didn’t do all the talking I spoke up as if he were across the table having coffee with me.  I would talk and talk and then there would be silence because God would speak inside me and as he spoke I listened, gained faith, grew stronger daily since now it was the second week in September 2005.  The voice inside turned words into hope and not that I would be spared but that I would live and live life abundantly, Now seriously I have no idea how or why I thought that but I deep inside there was a candle burning.  The first few days it was a glimmer of light, then as time passed the light inside got brighter so I began to write.  Not poetry or an essay or a sermon but I was writing what I was going to do when I was rescued, how I would survive much less thrive I didn’t know but I knew God was going to use me as a tool to help rebuild the world around me.  He would use my story and stories like mine as voices out of the darkness and into the light! 

    The Hurricane hit on August 29^th, 2005 I was rescued on September 26^th but still homeless till November 1^st.  Still I

was confused because even before the Hurricane I felt lost and my marrige of over 10 yrs was failing and I had yet to accept accountability. It was that moment when I started believing in myself and recognizing that I should look around at the Now and be thankful for wealth in abundance and Ionly  had at the present to  forget the past in the ”Secret” even though I didn’t even know what it was.  I continued to survive and move forward yet it wasn’t till later that I looked inside the darkness and turned on the light. It would be almost 2 years later when I would start searching, reading, and listening to others that were so much wiser than I was that they told me to tell my story proudly, admit my sins and trangressions.  It was then that I could hear in the distant  the Tiger inside roar with confidence and then I trully was excited to turn failure inside out and the I started to really “Walk the Line” to change my mindset in what seemed overnight.  It was then that I begain to thirst for learning without expecting a payday, and yet at the same time knowing that the Law of Attraction was working!  I now longer was accepting poverty in any area of my life. True I prayed for Financial Prosperity and at the same time realized that I needed much more like spiritual prosperity, mental and physical prosperity and more.  Plus all this time it was there for the taking once I believed in being thankful for what you have today and know that what you already have and don’t know was “Wealth in Abundance” beyond my wildest dreams.  Where, how, didn’t matter, the why, when was already there in layaway all I had to do was cash the check and poof?  I knew it  didn’t matter all I knew is that is was to be. I also knew that I had an incredible story to share with those that would listen, because remember when a Tiger roars, whispers, and speaks people will listen and they will hear about one man’s journey on how the Tiger began really “Walking the Line.”

 

 

 

~ by tigerharris on April 21, 2008.