God's Living Miracle
Dear Family and Friends
I would like to tell you a story about a little boy that was greatly impacted by the love of Jesus Christ. This little boy was born on May 31, 1991 into an amazing family that loved and served the Lord. Every Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday he could be found in church because his parents made it a priority to instill in him the importance of a relationship with Jesus Christ. Unfortunately, this little boy was like most little boys at his age and thought church was boring. The only reason he went was because his parents made him, which led him to believe it was where he was suppose to be on Sunday Mornings, Sunday nights, and Wednesday nights.
There was another reason the little boy didn’t enjoy church. While in kindergarten the little boy’s parents and teachers noticed that he was falling way behind in school. All the other students understood the material while he had no clue about any of it. His parents thought it would be a good idea to hold him back a grade thinking he just needed a little more time to understand the material. However, in his second year of kindergarten the little boy was still having a very hard time understanding the class curriculum. Therefore, his parents decided to take him to a doctor to see if they could figure out exactly what was going on with their son. After the little boys test came back negative for ADHD and Dyslexia the doctors suggested he be tested at school for a learning disability. It was very unusual for a child to be tested for a learning disability at that age but by the favor of God and the persuasion of the parents they made an exception to test this little boy. Once he took the test the results showed that the little boy had an auditory processing learning disability. That means the he had a very hard time learning how to read and write. When taking a test the little boy did a much better job when someone would read the test to him rather then him trying to read it on his own.
Once the little boy was taken out of classes with his friends and placed into the special education program the little boy felt inadequate and dumb when it came to school. As he got older he began to hate school with a passion. Although this he loved life and getting into anything and everything he did not feel like he could amount to anything because of his inadequacies. Whether it was the other students making fun of him for being in special ed. or just not being able to understand the material. He barely made it through elementary school and was very fearful about going into middle school. However, something would happen in middle school that would change the rest of his life.
In 6th grade the little boy was still in special education classes and was still telling himself that as soon as he could he would drop out of school and never finish high school and didn’t even think about college. However, in 2003 during the month of October God began to deal with this little boy’s heart. For an entire month this little boy fought with God in his spirit about his bitterness, his hurt and his anger. God began to show this little boy that he could not do anything apart from the amazing love of Jesus Christ. On October 29, 2003 for the first time in this little boy’s life he truly saw and understood the gospel of Jesus Christ. Not only did he see and understand what Jesus did for him, he also put his Faith into the person of Jesus Christ.
The moment he put his faith into the person of Jesus Christ he saw life differently. He did not see school as a burden but an opportunity for God to receive glory. He did not see the people making fun of him as his enemy but an opportunity for the amazing grace of Jesus to be seen. This little boy’s school was no longer his prison but his mission field. Every day he got up and went to school with a joy in his heart that surpassed any other joy he had ever felt before. This little boy wanted to make a difference for God’s glory and God’s kingdom. He began to work extra hard in school and by the time he got to 8th grade he had tested out of the special education classes. The boy continued to work hard throughout high school and ended up completing all of his core classes early, which allowed him to take electives his senior year. The boy who once thought he was never going to graduate from high school not only graduated but also was accepted into a university.
The little boy that once felt inadequate and dumb never thinking he would even graduate from high school had graduated and entered college in the fall of 2010. The struggle in college was the same in high school for the little boy but by the grace and power of God that little boy made it through another chapter of his life and graduated from Liberty University on May 10, 2014. That little boy is standing before you today reading this letter because that little boy was me! Just as Joseph in the book of Genesis told his brothers who sold him into slavery, “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive” (Genesis 50:20 NASB). I Joseph Brown stand before you as God’s living miracle. Before I could act different I had to see things differently. God is the one that made the change in me and what Satan could have used for evil against me God had a greater plan and used if for His Good! =)