God's Redemptive Power

If you have an hour to spare, watch this Dennis Jernigan documentary called, Sing Over Me. What a testament to the power of God's redemption. God delivered Him out of darkness and truly set His feet on a Rock. And because of some real deficits in Dennis's own upbringing, he is growing a stronger family of faith. After watching the video, I considered his life and his upbringing and the things he faced in childhood and into his teen years. I was reminded again just how important it is to invest in the souls of our own children. This requires vulnerability on our part. But if we don't invest, someone else will and it may not be the healthy kind of investment. We must know our children while we have the chance and while they are right under our noses. We want to create the sort of home in which they are free to BE themselves, and to bring to us whatever it is that's on their minds. Before it's too late. We want to love them in a way that they can truly hear and not just in the way that makes us feel comfortable. Towards the end of the video, Dennis says he finally asked his dad why his dad was so distant. The dad said because his own dad was the same way and he just didn't know how to say, "I love you." Generational strongholds. If left unconfronted, the strongholds get worse with each generation I think. But when the strongholds are confronted, so much victory is available! Dennis confronted his strongholds.

If you don't know his testimony, a lot of what I am saying will sound of out of context... But here's the quote I thought was so touching at the end.

"Melinda and I decided early on we wanted all the kids God would give us. We had nine kids in ten years. When people say that I had those nine kids just to prove something, that's the furthest thing from the truth. You know why I had those children?  I wanted every blessing God would give me. He calls them a blessing and I wanted all the life he would give me. I felt so robbed of life for so long that I said when I got married, "Lord give us all the life you will."
-Dennis Jernigan

And here's the link to the video's website. It's available to watch online for free this month and then (I think) available for purchase on DVD:

http://www.singovermemovie.com

Here's a link directly to the movie:

http://www.singovermemovie.com/#!watch/c22pg