GHTWCHT

Yes indeed, like it was often mentioned by those from the last generation… “God helps those who can’t help themselves.” I remember my dad saying that from time to time and right now, that’s how I feel. That takes me to the reason for this article. I’ll tell you the part that I can and leave your imagination to do the rest.

So, you will notice the header image has Guy Penrod in it. The photo gallery below has a few random pictures that I took on Monday night at the CEF Faith & Family Night, Featuring Guy Penrod. It was the “major” fundraiser for this calendar year and a LOT was riding on its success. The expenses for the event were nearly $6000 and we were praying for at least 1000 souls to join us and give from loving, willing hearts. Personally, I was praying for an offering of at least $25,000. You see, we did not sell tickets and were walking in faith, believing for a significant offering. The offering that night was about $10,000 less than that, but God brought value to the event and our ministry in other ways. Oh, and I am NOT ungrateful for the offering that we received that night, by the way.

Regarding the intangible value that God showered down on us, there are a couple of things that I do not feel appropriate to discuss in a public space like this, but I can tell you about these:

I truly believe that God orchestrated the whole of this event, from the beginning to the end… and what is yet to come. You see, this whole thing started as a conversation over coffee with my friend and brother, Dr. Jerry Drace. That “idea or hope” evolved over a few months into a brunch meeting in the Franklin, TN area with Guy Penrod, and his agreeing to do the event for us.
I am glad that we did not sell tickets. As I looked around the crowd, I realized that some of them may not have come if they had to pay for a $25 or $30 ticket. There were a lot of senior citizens who were possibly living on a fixed incomes. The offering had lots of $1’s and $5’s included, so I think this shows my premise to be accurate.
Guy Penrod was a huge encouragement to me personally. I don’t want this point to sound sappy or like a tired old man looking for sympathy, but… I confess that I had grown weary over the last several months… kind of beat down by life and the devil. I am sure that many of you can relate. When you get downtrodden, the devil smells blood in the water, so to speak. He will attack you and dredge up all your struggles and failures to discourage you and try to stop you from even moving forward with the Lord. He even tried the same trick with Jesus in Matthew 4:3 if you recall. So, we certainly should not be shocked when he tempts, twists, and trifles with us!

Back to Guy Penrod. I will just say this… I have not been around very many people of his notoriety and the few that I have been around could easily be abrupt and rude, even puffed up. You know what I mean. However, every interaction that I had with Guy was filled with patience and grace. The day of the event, he was helpful and purposely tried to serve US as a ministry. He spoke highly of CEF and was gracious to me on the stage to the point that I was overwhelmed. If you were there, you know what I am talking about. May God richly bless him for his gentle and careful demeanor… amen.
Lastly, we discovered a very cool thing during the course of the day. Guy’s mother-in-law was with them and she told us that she used to help teach a neighborhood Good News Club when she was younger. On top of that, Guy’s wife said publicly that she believes she came to accept Jesus through the influence of that club.

So, to wrap this up, Monday night was a wonderful, unusual, and meaningful night. Guy, if you ever stumble upon this little article, God bless you and thank you for serving CEF of Greater Jackson so well. We appreciate you more than we can express. Enjoy the pictures below. I’ll be posting some more later as I am expecting some actual 35mm digital pics in the near future, taken by a friend of our ministry, L.J. King.