Imagine you have a teenage daughter whom you dearly love, and one day she comes up to you and says, “Daddy, I am pregnant!”
How would you react? What would you do? Difficult to digest, isn’t it?
A Baby at 14yrs!
Well that’s exactly what happened to Bishop T. D. Jakes, one of the most influential preachers in the world, as his 14 year old daughter Sarah Jakes broke this tragic news to him. Can you imagine the storm of questions that would be running on Bishop Jakes’ mind at that point in time: How will I face the world? What would I tell my church? How could this happen to her?
Well, the good news is that the story doesn’t end here!
Here’s a video of Sarah’s testimony, you cannot afford to miss:
A good question to ask ourselves as we watch this video is, how do we handle the different kinds of mess that we face in our lives? Do we allow our circumstance to rule us? Do we backslide? Do we lose our joy, patience and love?
Guided Me Home
Sarah oversees the women’s ministry at The Potter’s House of Dallas and lives with her two children.
Sarah recently wrote in a post titled “Guided Me Home” on her blog about how God used her situation to guide her back “home,” in right relationship with God.
Here is an excerpt of how she puts it:
This is for you…You who chose to give up on your dream because you’re convinced the weight of your past will never outweigh the hope of your future. I just wanted to tell you something that I learned, something that remains true to this day….Find out who you are in Christ, allow him an invitation to live in the deepest darkest parts of your heart. When you know whose you are, you will without a doubt run into WHO you are. God doesn’t take into account the opinions of others before he decides whether or not to lend us grace.
God’s grace has seeped into the holes of crack houses, shelters, abortion clinics, jails, even the labor and delivery room of a 14 year old girl. God’s grace doesn’t consult the whispers’ of men because he knows their deepest, darkest secrets, as well. My life could have taken a detour that left me lost, but You saw fit to not just create a roadblock but also guided me home….
Dear GTH friend, you are not reading this by chance. Here is a word for you: “No matter how broken your lives pieces are, God can still make a masterpiece out of you, if only you could give him all the pieces.” Yes, you heard it right—No matter how bad your MESS is, your God is still capable and willing to turn it into a MESSAGE!