”JESUS, thank YOU for ALWAYS being there for each one of us!”
(Part TWO)!
There’s a line in one of our original songs entitled "Take My Life" that sums up the true story you are about to read. The line goes like this, "Looking back on time, I can plainly see, all of the things You had done for me... even though I was walking so far away from You." How about you? Looking back over your life, how many times has The Holy Trinity swooped in and rescued, or redeemed, you from potentially terrible situations, even though you may have been walking far away from Jesus Christ at the time?
If you recall the beginning of our story, written in last month's blog post and mail-out to our subscribers, Keith reflects on the deeper purposes behind a series of hardships he faced during his time at Ferrum College. Years later, through forgiveness and faith, Keith realized these events were spiritual tests designed to strengthen and increase his character and faith, in God. Continuing now, to additionally encourage readers to reflect on and recognize God’s redemptive power and faithfulness in their own lives, Keith tells of the escalated attacks and deliberate attempts to tarnish his reputation that coincided with a spiritual awakening—all connected to “the why” behind what happened when teammate Rufus Murphy saved him from a full-on physical attack, the night he was “Rescued by a Real-life Super Hero”.
Trying to put together what had happened so unexpectedly on an otherwise normal weekday evening as I was leaving my girlfriend’s dorm just before curfew, I was baffled by the idea that two shadowy figures would come running at me as adversaries, but I was even moreso grateful for my friend and teammate Rufus Murphy’s divine timing and presence to intercept such a threat against me, and in the nick of time. What could have been really bad for me turned out to be really bad for my attackers, thanks to this real-life super hero and real Black Panther. Themes of faith and redemption will soon become tied to the serene yet symbolic scene.
So, when it comes to talking about “the why" behind what happened, when it happened, I did not have the slightest clue at the time. In fact, I was just as unclear about exactly “what had happened”, that came as an all-out attack on me, as I was about the reason for “why” it happened that I was attacked that night. However, looking back on it all, I can now tell you that, just as my eyes slowly adjusted so I could see “what was happening” in the dark that night, my spiritual eyes began opening so “the why” BEHIND “what had happened" would come into view in the weeks to come.
Immediately after the incident had taken place my mind became flooded with questions, the first being, "Why would two fully-grown men in their mid-thirties, whom Rufus nor I had seen on campus before that night, want to attack me and in a manner that, as both Rufus and I agreed, seemed to be pre-planned?" Though puzzling, the answers would slowly begin to reveal themselves over the next few weeks, as I would find myself on the receiving end of another unprovoked attack.
Three weeks or so after the foiled attempt to attack me in the dark of night, one of our teammates, as we were all walking back to the locker room after a practice, speared me with his helmet in the middle of my back from a full sprint. As much as I had the right to retaliate, and as much as my other teammates were mad at the guy for doing it, none of the coaches saw what had happened. Meaning, it was my word against his, I could not run the risk of being called into the coaches office and charged with anything, especially something as stupid as fighting with a teammate. I chose not to risk all I had been working so hard to achieve.
You see, the reason I wanted to attend Ferrum College to begin with was due to the stellar reputation of Head Coach Hank Norton, a college football coaching legend who was widely known as an almost Gestapo type of disciplinarian. So, retaliating against a teammate would have meant immediate dismissal from the team, something that I was not going to allow that guys emotional struggles to cost me, as I had mentioned, what I had worked so hard to achieve. Making a Ferrum football team's roster was extremely difficult, an achievement that I was not going to relinquish for anyone or any reason.
Though painful as both the night time attack and the "spearing" incidents were they proved priceless to my stealthy search for who and why these things were happening to me. As bad and unfair as these things were, I can honestly say, with classes, daily football practices, traveling for games, study hall and other activities at that time, what I was experiencing of the attacks did at no time consume me. So, I did all I could do at the time, I kept my ear to the tracks during football practices and kept an eye open during classes and my times around campus to see if I could find any other clues.
One of my biggest breaks came when a trusted teammate came to me in the locker room after practice one afternoon and said, Keith, keep your eyes open, I've overheard "a defensive back" and the teams senior physical trainer talking, for some reason they have it in for you. Shortly after my teammates warning, and a week or so later, my roommate, one of our team's linebackers and I woke up on a Sunday morning to find that someone had poured a fifty gallon trash barrel filled with water under our dorm room door, resulting in a solid inch of water standing throughout our entire room.
When I woke up that morning, I did not think to look down at the floor before getting out of bed, hence, when I put my feet on the floor I suddenly found myself standing in the extremely cold water. The campus is located in the mountains of Virginia where by early November it was already pretty cold. Just so you know, with each incident, I would stop by my student advisers office and tell her what had happened. Just so happened, she was married to a member of the football team's coaching staff.
The final attempt to damage my character came just as we had finished playing our last game of the season. After the final game of our season the third and final attack against me would come when those same two guys on my own team falsely accused me of stealing my home jersey. It was the most horrible feeling I had ever had in my life to that point.
Why? Even though I wore the jersey to and from our home games, it was not mine to keep. Like the helmets and shoulder pads we were issued, the jersey was the property of the College's Athletic Department. Therefore the theft of the jersey was an offense committed against the school. Far worse, however, was the deliberate attempt by two of my own teammates to kill, steal, and destroy the good reputation that I had worked for years to achieve.
Though I was not mature enough concerning spiritual matters at the time, in the coming years The Holy Spirit would reveal to me that the attacks on my character all took place just after my precious grandmother had sent me my first Bible. Not only that but, enclosed in the Bible was a hand written letter telling me about a vision that she had received on night late of me preaching God's Word to large crowds. Years later, as I grew in Jesus Christ, I realized that this incident was perhaps my first substantial spiritual attack; unclean spirits of false accusation had come to steal the Word of God that my grandmother had spoken over my life. Here is how my being accused of stealing my home jersey happened.
On the day after our final game of the year, everyone on the team reported to the training facility on campus to clean out our lockers and turn in all of our gear. Just a day or two later, and much to my surprise, I was called into the coach Norton's office and told that a member of the team had reported seeing me steal my home jersey. I felt as if horse had kicked me right in the stomach. I explained to the coaching staff that I had turned in my jersey, along with the rest of my equipment, to the team trainers.
After about an hour the coaching staff let me go. I will never forget the heaviness and frustration that consumed me for weeks afterward! I knew I was innocent of course, but I could see that the coaching staff was not so convinced, or at least I felt that way. All I could think of was how everything that I had done to win the respect of my coaches, and especially Head Coach Hank Norton, for whom I admired greatly, had all been destroyed with just one lie.
I remember quietly making my way around to certain members of the team asking if they had heard of anyone finding the jersey. After a few days I was approached by our defensive team captain, who informed me that he had heard who had my jersey, and that the thief had taken it because he was angry at me about something, but what was it? It was something that I had not given a single though to that entire time. You see, during that semester I had spent quite a bit of time with a very attractive young lady, and I soon learned that one of our team members had a crush on her, an extreme crush. That was where the problem became difficult!
Why? He and the teams senior physical trainer had become best friends early on that season. And according to the entire coaching staff the team trainers were off limits to the players; much like diplomats from foreign countries, they had complete immunity from us. We could not touch them physically or accuse them to anyone; to do so meant immediate dismissal from the team or at the least harsh penalties. As my mom would have said, "the two guys had me over a barrel and they knew it, in fact, they were hoping that I would retaliate!"
I would like to tell you that the matter was resolved diplomatically and in short order, but sadly it was not. The teammate and senior trainer that had actually hired the two guys to attack me, dumped the water under my dorm room door, speared me in the back and had stolen my home jersey never came forward, and there was no way that I was going to file a complaint- which I later discovered was exactly what they were working so hard to get me to do. I simply washed my hands of it all and went my own way, no matter how much I, and several of my teammates by that time, were tempted to do otherwise.
Do you see how much damage one false accusation can cause? In my case, it could have cost me both my hard-earned reputation as a football player and my place on the team that I had loved and worked so tremendously hard to be a part of. At that time playing at Ferrum, and especially under Coach Hank Norton was my world, a dream come true.
You might enjoy knowing that, about five years later, a band that I was touring with was scheduled to perform about fifty miles from my college campus in the city of Roanoke, Virginia. One morning while we were in town, a band mate and I drove out to the campus at Ferrum just to walk around the stadium and visit the awards room. Before we left the campus that day I thought, by some long shot, head coach Hank Norton might be at home, and drove up to his house and knocked on the door.
Much to my surprise, coach Norton answered it. When he saw me, he smiled and invited me in, and we must have talked for an hour about all of the things that happened the year we won our division's national championship. It was a season that we will never forget. Just before I got up to leave, I asked coach, "you do know that I did not take my jersey, don't you?" He replied, "Shealy, I knew your heart son, I knew you could have never taken any thing.
It was then that he smiled real big and said, besides, you earned something that no amount of money in the world could have bought and no man can take away from you. You walked away from here a national champion; you walked away with a ring!"
As I stood up and made my way to the door coach Norton reached up, gave me a big hug, and said, "You know you still have a year of eligibility left." At that I smiled real big, hugged his tree stump of a neck again, got back in my car, and drove off. The ride back to our hotel that day was perhaps the lightest that I had felt in years. I had finally been released from the weighty chains of having been misrepresented and falsely accused in the eyes of the one person that I had loved and respected the most at that time in my life, Coach Norton.
Yet again, as the lyrics explain in our song, it's nothing short of miraculous to see all of the ways God is able to display Jesus Christ's redemption in our lives, personally... "Looking back on time, I can plainly see, all of the things You had done for me... even though I was walking so far away from You."
All of us in the Toward The Mark Family pray that this testimony serves to encourage you to take inventory of your life, to call on The Holy Spirit, and the two of you together look back to review and recall all of the things that God has done for you... even though you may have not been walking very close with Jesus Christ.
*********************
WHERE TO FIND US (Be sure to check for any TTM resource specials mentioned in the notes with each post.)
- Our Website: https://towardthemark.com
- Sign up for our newsletter: Keith@TowardTheMark.com
- Order Keith's first audio book, "Letters From The Front": keith@towardthemark.com/lftfbook
- Order Keith's second book, "Overcoming Intimidation": keith@towardthemark.com/overcome...
- Rumble: https://rumble.com/user/KeithAndBrenda
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KeithShealysTowardTheMark/
- Email Us: keith@towardthemark.com
-
To drop us a line:
Toward The Mark
P.O. Box 1152
Yorktown VA 23692-1152
-
To support us through PayPal:
- The music in the Keith Shealy and TTM’s inventory is not for sale but is made available by request for a financial contribution to help us in the ministry… mp3 or CD compilation projects like “Between The Lines” and “Toward The Mark” are currently in stock.
**********************
#PressinIN #towardthemark #Vision #PursuitOfOnenessInGod #SecretsWeFind #BetweenTheLines #ReadingGodsHolyWrittenWord
**********************
"Dear Father God, in the precious Name of Jesus Christ, the King of kings and The LORD of all lords, I lay my life at Your Feet. I come before You, confessing that I am a sinner, and I ask for You to forgive me of all my sins - those that I know I have committed, as well as those that I am not even aware of. I ask that You come into my heart and be my Lord. I lay my life, and everything in it, at Your Feet, and ask that You please take me and begin to change me to be like YOU. I ask that You redeem the time that has passed, and allow me the opportunity to become exactly what You have predestined me to be, from before the foundation of the earth. I commit my life to You now, and thank You for receiving me as Your own. In the wonderful Name of Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God, I pray, Amen." And AMEN (So be it)!
WELCOME HOME!
If you have just prayed this prayer, we want to congratulate you for making the greatest decision that you'll ever make! By accepting Jesus Christ, or rededicating your life to Him, as your personal Lord and Savior, you have begun the wonder-full process of being grafted into the family of God, and we welcome you "Home" to God's Family. We would also like to invite you to contact us so that we can send you information that will help you begin growing in your relationship and daily walk with God. We would encourage you to begin attending a Holy-Spirit-filled, full-Bible focused church right away.
We advise you to begin reading The Holy Bible daily, whether you understand it or not. Always remember, God's written Word in The Holy Bible is LIKE NO OTHER BOOK that has ever been written! When we rendezvous with The Person of The Holy Spirit as we read what God has written there, it becomes stored in our heart for The Holy Spirit to access it to bring to our remembrance. You will find that the Scriptures will become applicable to whatever you are going through, at any given time!
There are wonderful Bible teachers that can, especially early in your walk with God, help you to receive good teaching and encouragement right away. Though informative, those Bible-teaching programs are never to be a substitute for close relationships with people who love and serve God. At times, the transformation process that you have now begun will be difficult, and you will be tempted to go back to your old ways of living your old life. It will be during times like these that hanging out with strong Christian friends and mentors will be crucially important. There really IS strength in numbers! (Selah)
And remember... growing in Christ-likeness requires us to keep purity of focus, and remain steadfast, immovable, and uncompromising in the faith of Jesus Christ... and, now more than ever, no matter what, Keep PRESSIN' IN! You might consider using our book OVERCOMING INTIMIDATION, the special life-changing keys to defeating hindrances that have kept many of God's servants from walking with the confidence and authority that Jesus Christ died to provide for us! Ten chapters include:
;
|
|
Run to the Roar!
|
The Counterfeit Boldness of Presumption and Pride
|
Fear of Death
|
For Thou Art With Me
|
Boot Camp
|
The Whole Armor of God
|
The Overcomer
|
Victory
|
Salvation
|
Welcome Home!
|
To help you further your fight to victory through the battles that confront every one of us in these turbulent times we live in, get your copy of our book, "OVERCOMING INTIMIDATION." In this 10-chapter book of keys for overcoming fear and intimidation, Keith lays out practical ways by which you can emerge victorious in your pursuit of fulfilling your calling and opportunities God intended for you. Accomplish your God-given dreams and become triumphant over seemingly impossible hindrances keeping you from reaching God's full potential for your life, in God!"OVERCOMING INTIMIDATION"
available at TowardTheMark online.
Your Servants in Christ Jesus,
sums up the reason Keith stepped out in faith to focus on reaching the lost and strengthening believers everywhere, through Toward The Mark, Inc. Keith and Brenda's prayer is that you will be encouraged and edified by the Secrets from God's Word that Keith recounts in our written and recorded products.
This blog message, along with the complete collection of original podcasts, songs, blogs, books, CDs, and other Bible-based resources from Toward The Mark is made possible by the faithful prayer and financial support of our wonder-full Family of Sponsors. We'd like to invite you to come on-board, to become a part of the Family as well, by becoming a monthly financial partner. Your support will go toward fulfilling our God-given calling to help provide effective, contemporary outreach tools that are available to everyone, the churched and un-churched alike, all who desire to know more of the Love, Truth, and full-Gospel salvation of Jesus Christ. We invite you to partner with us, as we, "press Toward The Mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus (Philippians 3:14)."
Toward The Mark Podcast on our TTM Videos channel on YouTube … Let’s talk about making New Year Resolutions the Right way,
and know we’ll Come Alive and Thrive in 2025!
Mail tax-deductible contributions by check or money order made out to:
Toward The Mark, Inc., P.O. Box 1152, Yorktown, VA 23692-1152.
Thank you in advance for sowing your financial seed into the fertile soil of this ministry! We pray God bless you with a 100-fold return for your generosity!
Visit TowardTheMark.com website | Connect with TowardTheMark on e-mail.
Keith Shealy and TowardTheMark, Inc has been serving God and His people since 1980. For anyone who wants to sow a financial seed into this work, "Showing GOD Big in a world that sees Him small", we invite you to securely give through PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=Z8REL84ZKMT8Y knowing it's "Not because I desire a gift: but I desire fruit that may abound to your account (Philippians 4:17)." We keep pressing TowardTheMark!