Tonight’s post has more to do about me personally than about my songwriting. It is about how I feel about my relationship with God and how it helps me carry myself through life on a daily basis.

I was sent a message by my best friend Marlon and when I read it and it got me thinking so I decided I wanted to say a few things that have been on my mind as of late.

First, God is such an important part of my life. I find the older I get, the more deeply I realize how much I need him. I often call on him in prayer and ask for his guidance and his help along life’s path. Even though I don’t have a formal church to attend, I consider myself very spiritual. This has not been the life I envisioned for myself when I set out on my own at seventeen, especially the past several years, and God is probably the only reason I persists in living.

But even with all of the negatives that have somehow entered my life, I have grown stronger as a person and in my closeness with God.

Finally, I want to share a story with you that I have personally carried with me since I was 14 years old. It is a story about my former Boy Scoutmaster, Robert King and a lesson he taught me way back when I was just a kid.

He once told our troop a story about his son Danny being on a hunting trip in Ball Play Swamp, which is in the Northern part of Alabama. Danny decided he needed to take a nap and get some rest. While he slept, another hunter entered the area he was in and as he slept, the hunter took a position not far from him.

It was at this time that Danny rolled over in his sleep. The hunter saw him but thought it was a deer and fired his pumpkin ball rifle, hitting Danny square in the chest and collapsing one of his lungs.

Mr. King recalled that Danny remembered seeing the man run away when he saw what he had done and so he decided then and there he needed to try and get to the main road and find help. But his injury was severe and was forced to crawl to even move. Nearing exhaustion and having lost a lot of blood, Danny finally made it to the road. As a last ditch effort, he threw himself out of the woods and into the path of an oncoming car.

It was an ambulance. The man who shot Danny had gone for help and not just ran away.

Here is where the lesson I learned came into play.

When Danny got to the hospital, he was in pretty bad shape. He had lost the use of one lung and also an enormous amount of blood. When Mr. King arrived, the prognoses was not good. He decided to go to the chapel at the hospital and pray.

He arrived alone and got down on his hands and knees and said a prayer to God. He told us about this prayer and I have remembered it throughout my adult life. He prayed and asked God to do his will and whatever the outcome, he would accept it as a Christian and move on. I cannot help but stress the affect this has had on me and my relationship with God. It was my first lesson in life where someone I admired so much and who I always thought was in control of every situation, was willing to step back and just let God do his thing.

Danny survived this ordeal and has prospered since. He followed his father in his career choice as an Attorney. Daniel B. King’s law office is in the same building as his Father’s, who I am sad to say, passed away several years ago.

I have made every effort to follow Mr. King’s leadership and not pray for help when I feel I need it most, but instead I just ask for God’s will to be done. I figure he knows better than me what is best.

Anyway, I’m going through a pretty tough time right now and I hope you too will ask God to work his will on me. That way, I know all the right things that need to get done will get done right.

Thanks for sticking with me through the story and please remember that no matter what comes at you in life, God knows a way to help you through it . Thanks to Marlon for sending me the email that got me thinking about all of this in the first place. I’ll be glad to send it to you as well if you write me at jim@jimbrowning.com.

Love you all,

JIM