My post today is related to something I had not yet written about on my website. I lost my wife, Sharee, a bit over ten Months ago to cancer. In late 2024 she was diagnosed with stage four liver and pancreas cancer. The year was a blur as thing progressed fairly quickly. My wife was the rock that gave me hope and kept me focused on what mattered most. Well she lost the battle, and went home to be with our Lord.
When I met my wife in 1987, she helped me grow past my troubles, and in time she helped me create a relationship with Christ. Something I never before had, and this is what helped me change my ways. When I met her I felt a renewed sense of life and again joined the human race as a participator not just a bystander watching the world pass by. However, when she died, I almost found myself falling away. Not from Christ, but from people in general. It was nothing new for me, because that was the state of mind I was in when I met her. Yet falling away from people would have been the first step of falling away from Christ. Something that led to be the lost man she met years earlier.
It was in the early “80”s when a previous marriage fell apart. Long story short, our son Kyle died suddenly, which led to unforeseen problems. Unforeseen, because I was not walking with Christ so I had no understanding of how to truly handle the troubles flooding into my life. My wife was never the same, and things just deteriorated in our marriage. We separated, and I ended wondering around the country. I would stay in a place long enough to work a few Months and then leave town without notifying anyone. Sometimes I would leave without even collecting my last paycheck. I figured if I wasn’t going to give a notice why collect the check.
For the next six years I kept getting an urge in my heart to just go. This was long before I accepted Christ in my heart. Oh I knew Him, but didn’t have a relationship with him. Today I know my uncomfortable feeling came from me trying to run from Him. I would begin feeling uneasy and just pack up my backpack, chose a destination, and start hitchhiking from place to place. Working for awhile and then start hitchhiking again.
The only thing I ever had that I cared about in those days, was the backpack that had some cassette tapes of music for my Walkman, an old poncho for rain or to make a lean-to with. A mess kit, a compact fishing pole with some hooks, a bar of soap, a toothbrush and toothpaste, a few changes of socks and underwear, some jeans, a few shirts, and one set of nice pants and a dress shirt I would wear when I needed to apply for job when my money ran low. I hate begging. (Yes the backpack pictured, is the one I carried around America with me)
If I needed money I would just get a job as an auto mechanic, a carpenter, a cook or even a dishwasher. Jobs were easy for me to get in those days. I was young, in great shape, and not picky. After my wife passed away on July 12, 2025, I again had strong feelings of just wanting to get away. I didn’t, but the urge was there. Today I am doing good, and while I have moments of feeling down I find myself looking to Christ, who gives me the strength I need to put one step before the other. I know now the feeling I had was the same feelings I had in the “80”s as I wondered from one end of the country as I desperately tried to get away from feelings I was too weak to confront.
After Shree died, I started to fall into depression and again I was allowing my feelings to bring me back to the lost soul I was many years ago. Then at the end of one of my morning quiet times a few Months ago, as I was praying for the strength I needed to move forward. the Lord reminded me of something I had long ago forgotten. Something that took place sometime around 1985. As I look back I now know it was God who led me to Columbus, because HE was still trying to reach me. Since the day I gave my heart and soul completely to God I have looked back at many instances in my past when the timing of certain things happened which were of such importance, I now know God was intervening so I would wake up to His calling. Yet time and time again I would momentarily respond, just to fall back into my old ways. So in “85” HE led me to Columbus Georgia.
This is where an old friend, Larry Gilliard, lived. I met Larry in the mid “70”s while I was still in the service, stationed at Ft Benning Ga. So here it was almost 10 years after I first met Larry, and I was hitchhiking from Texas to Columbus Ga. When I arrived, he was the first person I looked up. Without hesitation, Larry, and his wife Mary, invited me to stay with them. He knew I was broken and needed a good friend. Being a good man of God, Larry was truly interested in bringing me to Christ. When he picked me up I learned he was now a pastor of his own church.
For the next couple of Months I stayed with them, and even publicly gave my life to Christ. I truly thought I had been saved, because I began to change. Yet later I realized I hadn’t, because I never had a true relationship with Him. No one walks away from Christ, you are either His or just a pretender who goes through the motions. Many new followers believe they are saved, yet our Lord Jesus reads the hearts, and even His anointed can see the truth. Larry was a true anointed Saint, and he knew that I was still holding out.
Well one day when we were eating lunch at a restaurant, I had recently gotten a job at, and he again attempted to reach me. Larry told me that I reminded him of the character in the Eagles song, “Desperado”, which they introduced to the music world in 1973. He told me that the original definition of a desperado was not what Americans believed it is. Instead, the true definition was derived from the Latin word, “dosperare.” Which means to despair or to lose hope.
“Here is a short deep dive into the genesis of our modern day word, Desperado”. The word involves a fascinating blend of languages and cultural shifts: Latin Root: It traces back to the Latin desperare (to deprive of hope), which is also the root for the modern English word despair. English Coinage (c. 1600): While Spanish has the adjective desesperado (meaning hopeless/desperate), English speakers adapted and shortened the obsolete noun desperate into “desperado”. It was likely created to sound more emphatic and impressive. American Wild West Association (19th Century): Although the word was used in literature in the 17th century, it was popularized globally during the 19th-century American frontier. Because so many outlaws and bandits were considered to have “nothing left to lose,” the term naturally became synonymous with a reckless, hopeless criminal.
Well the character in the Eagles song is a loner. He was living day to day like I was. Surviving day to day with no love in his heart. Like the character in the song, I too had hardened my heart. I refused to come in from the cold, regardless of how uncomfortable I was from living the way I was. He said that without love I would one day die from lack of feelings if I didn’t wake up.
He went on to explain that it’s not good for a man to have no one. To walk away from everyone, regardless of how some people may have treated me, was not the way to heal from the hurt I was feeling. All I was doing was making my heart harder by the day. He told me, that the world is full of men who had hardened their hearts just to become lonely bandits or renegades. The final destination of such a person, he said was not good. Just an eternity separated from the ONE who truly loves us. GOD.
We had a good long talk that day, and I really felt like he hit a raw nerve. He also told me to read Proverbs 18:1, and heed the advice in it. Later I read the Proverb, and I can see why he told me to read it, because I was isolating myself from people. Something that I still seem to do from time to time. When I do, I know I need to go to Christ.
He rages against all wise judgment.”
Proverb 18:1
Truth is I never allowed Jesus into that certain room in my heart where I kept things locked away. Thus I refused to let the love of Christ sink into my heart as much as I thought I had. Or maybe he just got too close to the truth and I was afraid of the unknown. It was so much easier to be alone, than to let others become part of me. For many years in my life that was true, I refused to let anyone in to that part of me that was angry over so many things.
I always believed in God, and that Jesus is the only way to gain salvation. However, it took more trials, more disappointments, and more tragedies in my life before I finally gave Him the key to that one room in my heart that held all the anger I had inside. My friends advice did eventually sink in, and once I truly understood how my own inability to love others, or to allow others to love me was stopping me from allowing Christ into my heart. That’s when I finally began to have a soul changing relationship with the lover of my soul.
Isn’t it amazing how we can listen to the lyrics of songs and paste them on those we know. It’s as if the person who wrote the song knows us and what makes us tick. Personally I think we can listen to most songs and, depending upon how we look at them or what part of the song rings more special in our ears, we will see our friends and relatives in them. I guess that is why Brother Larry saw me in that song. To him, I was the true definition of the Latin word that desperado came from.
It has now been over 40 years since that day, and today I know there are Christians all over the world. like Larry, who are praying for me to get beyond my troubles. So when the Lord reminded me of that time in my life, I knew I would be OK. I got up and dusted off the feelings of wanting to run away, and dug deeper into my studies and have since grown stronger that I was before. I am not in despair, nor have I lost hope, for the One Who died for me has promised to continue the good work HE has begun in me, and one day I will be reunited with my wife and together we will forever be in the presence of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
I ask all who have problems they cannot get past, hates they can not let go of, and disappointments they feel the cannot face, to give them all to Christ, for in HIM is true hope. I pray that those who have ears to hear, will hear what the Spirit of the Lord says, and call upon His name.
Amen
Below are the Lyrics to the song, and a video of the Eagles performing it.
The Eagles
Don’t you draw the queen of diamonds, boy She’ll beat you if she’s able You know the queen of hearts is always your best bet
Now it seems to me, some fine things Have been laid upon your table But you only want the ones that you can’t get
Desperado, oh, you ain’t gettin’ no younger Your pain and your hunger, they’re drivin’ you home And freedom, oh freedom well, that’s just some people talkin’ Your prison is walking through this world all alone
Don’t your feet get cold in the winter time? The sky won’t snow and the sun won’t shine It’s hard to tell the night time from the day You’re losin’ all your highs and lows Ain’t it funny how the feeling goes away?
Desperado, why don’t you come to your senses? Come down from your fences, open the gate It may be rainin’, but there’s a rainbow above you You better let somebody love you (let somebody love you) You better let somebody love you before it’s too late””””
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