10,000th post�A Milestone

8 years and 10,000 posts probably mean I spend far too much time on Aldeer and not enough time being productive with my work. Yet, I can honestly say that these eight years have been very good years because I have made some good friends and have had the privilege of meeting some of the finest people.

Aldeer is like no other online talk forum that I�ve ever seen. There is a true sense of extended family. Like many �brothers�, we will argue and fight sometimes, but I know that if I ever needed help or was in a bind there are men on here that would help in whatever way they could. And I�d do the same.

I�m proud to be part of a group of men where many hold true to Christian ideals and a true faith in our Lord & Savior, Jesus Christ. My life has been richly blessed by knowing you, by reading your testimonies, by reading your discussions, and by your prayers for me and my family over the years. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

I�m also equally proud to be part of a group of men where many hold true to the First Principles of America as envisioned and set forth by our early American settlers and our Founding Fathers; Men who are true to the Constitution and a way of life marked by Honor, Virtue, & Integrity. I see these men engaged in the political process in their local communities, their states, and our great nation and it makes me proud to have an association with you. Our American way of life, as we�ve known it, is vulnerable to the Progressive winds of change. But I know that we, the men of Aldeer, shall not be swayed and that gives me some hope that my children might be able to enjoy a great America throughout their lifetimes too.

Wikipedia and the Yellow Pages has NOTHING on the amount of information and advice that comes from the collective minds of the Aldeer brethren. I�m sometimes fascinated by the wealth of knowledge stored in the group and the amazing speed of quality answers to various and sundry questions from every spectrum of life. What a cross section of knowledge! From common laborer to doctor, from shift work to attorney, from retail to scientists and everything in between�we are a great collective horde of abilities, capabilities, and information. While we are all on different paths we uniquely share a passion for the great outdoors�ties that bind us together. And for the most part we have an understood equality on this forum�each man and woman has a voice and something to offer and is worthy of respect.

I can only hope that I�ve added to the goodness of Aldeer over these past eight years. And that leads me to a confession. I cannot really describe it in any way other that through my life story. For those of you who have known me from my �newbie� days I hope that you�ve seen me grow and change for the better. I was asked to share my testimony a while back as I was going through the certification process to become a foster parent. I had to write a "life story" and my testimony is adapted from that writing. Any milestone that I might write would be incomplete without that story being posted.

Thank you! May God Bless You and Yours!

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Michael L. Strayer�My Testimony, an Adapted Life Story

In 2012 I was asked to write out my �life story� as part of our Foster Care Ministry Training. I was asked to describe the memories, sights and feelings that have helped make me into who I am today. A life story, to me, is an opportunity to narrate my heritage and experiences as well as write out my vision and mission in life. I�ve adapted and condensed that 10 page life story into my Testimony of how God has worked in my life. I am thankful for this opportunity and I hope that all who hear this will take away a positive message.

My name is Michael Lloyd Strayer and my friends call me �Mike�. I am a native Mississippian; the oldest of three children. I grew up in rural, central Mississippi in Carroll and Montgomery Counties, in and around the communities of West, Vaiden and Winona. By rural, I mean in the middle of nowhere! When you have to use the crossroads village known as Possumneck, MS as a landmark�that is rural.

My beginnings of my life story is interwoven with rural, small town Mississippi and the local church and is typical of other formative years spent by many youth in the South. I grew up on a nice sized farm which consisted of Big Black River bottom land along with rolling hills and pastures west of the river. Our farm had a natural artesian spring and I heard stories from the old-timers in the area that the legendary train engineer Casey Jones would stop here to get the �finest water in the state�. This same spring was capped and supplied our water on the farm, as well as our livestock. I�ve never tasted better water, but I might be biased after all.

Life on the farm as a young boy was grand. Hardly a day goes by without my recalling the life and times spent there. We raised crops along with a large hog operation and a few head of cattle. As a child, I had hundreds of acres on which to roam and explore and investigate. Our family did not have much money, but we were not poor. My childhood was wonderful, even after all of these years looking back.

Any life story I tell must first start off with a discussion of my grandparents. It is most likely impossible to adequately express the foundational impact on my life that both sets of my grandparents made. I could speak of them for hours but I�ll summarize with this: Both sets of grandparents were devout Christians and lived out their faith daily. They had Christ centered marriages. I saw it lived out and it helped root Biblical truths in my heart. Looking back I see how their faith was at work then and how it has continued on as a legacy to me now.

My Mom and Dad carried on the legacy of a Christian, loving home. Early on, my parents taught me that right was right. When I did right I was praised and when I did wrong I was taught and disciplined. I was always treated fairly and when I deserved a spanking, well�I received one! My mother and father loved me deeply and provided for all my needs but not necessarily all of my wants. Farming families don�t always have a lot of money to provide extras, but still, I can see now how they sacrificed for my wants as well. I always had the necessities and more. Nana & Papa Strayer lived on the farm with us. Our family was close and my childhood is what I would describe as �wonderful�.

Growing up, church was my second home it seemed. Our closest family friends all went to that church. Where I grew up, church was the heartbeat of the community. My parents were leaders in the church, as well as a few of my school teachers. I �accepted� Jesus into my heart when I was seven years old. The instruction I received, the sermons I heard, the lives of faith lived out in front of me as a child are the root of my faith today.

Family farms took a beating in the late 70�s and early 80�s. We were faced with losing the farm or selling it. The spring of my 6th grade year, we held an auction to sell the farm and all the equipment. My whole world seemed to be turned upside down and everything that I thought was dear to me was about to be lost. I had so many questions! Why did we really have to leave? Couldn�t my dad and Papa fix this? Where would I ride my horse every day after school? Could I come back and hunt the creeks and fence rows for quail like I did so often? What about my school? I have to go to a public city school now? Will the kids like me? Wait, we are going to change churches too? It was too much, too soon and too fast. Over the summer my family was really great and they comforted me and did their best to help me process everything that was happening. I guess my dad and Papa hatched a plan for me to have a last great moment. The summer of 1981, just before we were to move to the new house in town, I had an adventure set before me that I eagerly accepted.

I was lucky to have an awesome paint horse was named Dixie. She was a very gentle and really good horse. I saddled her up and strapped on a satchel of food, water, and bubble gum for me�and sugar cubes for Dixie and headed north to a friend�s home and pasture about 10 miles up US Highway 51. I had 10 miles to think, 10 miles to cry, 10 miles to reminisce, 10 miles to accept that we no longer were to live at the farm. Me and Dixie�Dixie and I: A 12 year old boy on an adventure, alone. (Might be a good book one day!) I knew the way because I had traveled that road hundreds of times, but did I have what it took to go that far�a boy alone on his horse? I had butterflies in my stomach. I started early in the morning and stopped by every home I knew along the way and said goodbyes. I turned into our friends� home place late that afternoon and smiled as I saw my dad�s truck in the drive. It turns out that he, my mom and grandparents were all receiving calls from up the highway as friends would see me ride by. It still hurt, but through this trip I knew I had what it took to find my way in a new home, a new town and a new school.

Winona, MS isn�t a big town, only about 5,000 people in the area. In fact there were only 2 traffic lights and 3 4-way stops in the entire town. I made new friends, did well in school, and was active in our new church home. I still missed the farm, but I adjusted. Again, church was a very important part of our lives and was central to our community. Life was good, but things were slowly changing.

As the stress of life increased for my parents due to financial (and marriage problems that I learned of decades later), little by little that one-on-one discipleship I had known as a child began to slip away. Papa and I were best friends and his health had been declining and he died suddenly in December 1984. This was a huge blow to me and I as was grieving his loss my grandmother, Nana, died the next month in January 1985. Both grandparents gone within a month�they were literally my second parents. My mother�s parents lived a few hours away and we were not as close. The two closest people in my life, perhaps even closer to me than my parents and siblings, were gone forever. I blamed God for us leaving the farm and for their deaths. I was angry at the world.

As time went on, my parents seemed to be absorbed with other things and I figuratively and literally wandered. My relationship with my parents changed. My relationship with Christ changed. I was always taught to be good and do the right things, but as a teenager I was allowed a lot of freedom and consequentially I made many bad choices. My parents loved me but for some reason they decided to take a hands off approach with me. I struggled with my identity as many teenagers struggled�Who Am I? What Do I Believe? I was basically a good kid who did not make trouble, but I was doing things on my own without good direction. In high school I quit trying to make good grades and focused on being social. Bad choices after bad choices. I went to church but I was not walking with the Lord at all. It was smoke and mirrors. I knew all the Bible stories and even knew sound theology, but my life was a lie. My high school years were still good ones, yet they were awful at the same time as I was playing a dangerous spiritual game.

At age 18, I felt like I was truly on my own but lucky to have family backup if I needed it. I attended the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) from 1987-1991 and graduated in December of 1991. I enjoyed college, perhaps too much at times. Ok, not �perhaps�. Vast alcohol consumption, lots of experimental drug use, chasing girls, and living with reckless abandon at times. Bad choice after bad choice. I had nothing to do with God and hardly ever went to church. But since I had �knowledge� of God I assumed I was a �Christian�. Lack of direction, lack of character, lack of integrity, lack of discipline�the list goes on and on. Good kid walking in the world with both feet�and I was being devoured. I had zero fruit.

But God had not abandoned me. I met Holly, my wife to be, the summer of 1989 at the Northside YMCA in Jackson, MS. She was a day camp counselor who just so happened to have my sister in her summer group. My sister is a character. My life story would be incomplete without telling this tale: One day at the beginning of the summer Amy (age 10) was tugging at Holly�s sleeve saying �Miss Holly, Miss Holly�there is my brother, he�s a LIFEGUARD�Miss Holly�.(over and over)� She replies in order to get some peace �Yes Amy, I see him, he�s cute� Two days later Amy is leading 100 children to the pool for �free swim� in a chant that echoed through the entire YMCA campus �Holly loves Mike�Holly loves Mike�. At this point this is the first week of summer day camp and she and I had never even officially met and had never held a conversation. She walks into the pool area red as a beet and refuses to even look my direction. Amy is all smiles and was constantly trying to try to pull me over to her. The next day I took her a Dr. Pepper (because I noticed that is what she was drinking pool side) and apologize to her for my sister�s antics. A week later we had our first date. The clouds of my childhood and my teenage years seemed to fade away when I met Holly. It was very much love at first date and I knew within a few hours after our first date that she was the woman I wanted to spend my life with. Holly is a special person and has a wonderful heart and spirit about her. But neither one of us were walking with the Lord. She grew up in church too but was following my same spiritually dead path in her own life. Good girl being herself devoured by the world. My bad decisions had an impact on her�Oh how I wish I could go back and do things differently. Yet somehow she was blind enough to love me. After Holly graduated from Ole Miss, we were married in Jackson, MS on July 17, 1993. I guess my sister knew what she was doing after all.

Neither Holly nor I were walking with the Lord in our early years of marriage, even though we both considered ourselves �Christians�. We eventually found our way to Birmingham where she had family. God was at work in our lives, even when we were ignoring Him. We started attending church at Dawson Memorial Baptist in Homewood in 1996. Little by little I was being brought back to my childhood faith and Holly was right beside me. God blessed us with two wonderful sons and through that He made Himself very real to us. God used that blessing to draw us near to Him. My sons are a true gift from God and I have been blessed beyond all measure. Holly is a wonderful wife and mother. She loves me in spite of my obvious faults and shortcomings, she loves the Lord with her whole heart, and she loves and cherishes our children. God has been so faithful to me, even when I�ve had my back turned away from His presence for a number of years.

God promises that if you train a child in the way he should go that when he is old, he will not depart from it (Proverbs 22:6). His Word never returns void and I am living proof. My childhood and my influences of parents, grandparents, teachers and pastors helped root God�s Truth deeply in me. God brought me back into His presence and as an adult I can see that He was with me every step of the way. I have a relationship with Jesus, my Lord and Savior, that is growing every day and it is my hope and prayer that one day He will say to me �Well done my good and faithful servant!�

I wish my parents would have set better boundaries and had higher expectations with my grades. I wish they would have been much more intentional with teaching me about God and how to live a Christian life. Quiet examples are good, but sometimes a child really needs to have those deep and intimate heart to heart talks about life and God with their parents. I did not have those moments. I do not look back on my teenage years as bad, because they were good. But I see now that they could have been so much more. I can see where I started to drift away from what God had intended for me. I was rooted in faith but I wasn�t necessarily grounded. I see where I decided to turn my back to God of my own choosing. My drift raged on for another decade. I can now see how crucial it is for parents to pursue their children and to stay involved. I can see now how crucial it is for teens to stay focused on Christ and not become polluted by the world.

Because I now have children of my own, I realized that it was up to me to become a Godly husband and father and to be intentional in teaching my sons about the things of God. Holly and I felt God calling us to do something different a few years ago. He was calling us to home school Samuel and Caleb and to truly focus on being intentional parents so that we would train up our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. I was hesitant, but I spent time in prayer and God revealed to me this was in fact His plan for our family. Through home schooling my relationship with God has deepened and has grown. I understand for the first time the importance of leading your children to Christ and to teach and train them in the things of God as life�s essentials.

I fail and fall short often, but by the Grace of God I am lifted up. God is so much more than facts in the Bible, God asks us to taste and see that He is good and to take refuge in Him (Psalms 34). As God often does, He has a master plan that he reveals to us bits and pieces at a time. God called us to a new church home a little over 3 years ago to help fulfill His plan for us. We loved Dawson and we were comfortable there. In fact we were too comfortable and we felt as if we were not growing spiritually and were stale. We stepped out on faith and began visiting different churches. God led us to Briarwood. He led us to a very special Family Life Class. It is here, at this church and within this class that I really became a Christ follower rather than a Christ know-about-er. Thank you!

Through the outstanding teaching and training we have received, God has laid it on our hearts to be the hands and feet of Jesus in our daily life and He led us to the Foster Care Ministry through Briarwood. God is equipping us to reach others. As our church strives to be a church that is Christ-centered, Gospel-driven, and Spirit-filled, our purpose it that our own home is being slowly transformed into a place that resembles that same vision and mission. We have much work to do, but that is our purpose. There are many children out there that are need of a safe place where they can be loved and receive respite, healing and care. God is calling us to be a home where that can be accomplished through Him. Breanna and Bella have been gifts to us over these 2 years. They have left us now and I�m unsure of where this journey will lead us, but I�m confident that I can do all things through Christ Jesus who strengthens me.

Our society and culture today is engaged in a very real and true spiritual war. We all sin and fall short of the glory of God; however there is a moral decline in our culture that has reared its head in every aspect of society. Hollywood profits from pure filth and trash. Our schools are filled with anti-God curriculum and the kids are being indoctrinated with ideas that are outside of God�s plan. The sanctity of human life is disregarded as there have been more than 50 million lives aborted since Roe v. Wade. Evolution is taught as proven science instead of theory leading many young people to question the Bible as true and accurate. Churches have begun to accept and teach false doctrines and are watered down all across the country. There is proliferation of drug use, violent crime, and greed and corruption that is growing with each passing decade. Divorce and infidelity within the institution of marriage are eroding the family. Children are being abused, hurt, neglected and used at a level that is almost unbelievable. These are just a few examples of the world in its downward spiral that really hurt my heart because my sons are going to face many traps, tricks and challenges as they grow older. It hurts my heart to know that many other children are about to experience such a harsh reality too. From my perspective, there is a void in Godly legacies being left by Christian fathers and mothers on which children today can follow. I pray for a revival of the Spirit in the churches and the homes all around our country. There may be voids and cultural dysfunction around us; however, for me and my house, we will serve the Lord! I am committed to leaving a lasting legacy of Faith, Hope and Love for my children and grandchildren to follow.

To me, a life story is a story without any ending. A life story isn�t just a recollection of the past or a list of facts about the present. A life story continues on and encompasses the future. A life story is a legacy that will carry on over generations, either negatively or positively. A life story isn�t complete at one�s death, but it lives on through our families and those close to us. Hopefully my life story will never be completed. My hope is that my sons and any child that I may care for in the future will see Christ in me and that will help shape and mold them into men and women who love God with all their heart, soul, mind and strength. And in doing so they might love others as Christ loves us and the legacy of faith will continue on and on and on. I have Hope in this. This is and will be my life story.

Samuel, Age 14


Caleb, Age 12

Good job !

Great read from a great man. Thank you for all that you share on this site. I feel confident that your posts have led or brought many people back to Christ.
When I read your posts, I realize that I should be doing more.

Write that book Brother. You have a way with words that can strike a persons soul. Thanks.

Great read Mike. God bless and keep on posting.

May God continue to bless you, Mike.

Might as well get my 90th post in. WooHoo!

You are good man Mike!! Thanks for sharing

Awesome read!!

Wow what a post. God has truly blessed you straycat! I enjoyed your testimony. Your quiver is full!!!!!!

GREAT POST!

Mike,

Once again a great read from a man whom I admire so much. It seems to me that God has blessed you with wisdom that far exceeds your age.

My prayer is that God will continue to bless you and to use you in His kingdom work.

Thanks so much for sharing!

Congrats

Mike that was an awesome post and I concur with the others above that it comes from an awesome man. It is obvious reading those words that Christ is in charge of and at work in your life. Reading your posts always seem to brighten my day and I thank you for posting your thoughts. One of these days I would love to have the chance to pick your brain while sitting around a campfire.

Thanks for sharing your testimony and vision. I pray God will bless you with many more opportunities to share Christ's love for this fallen world

Great post straycat. You share a powerful message and aldeer is blessed to have you. I always enjoy your posts and admire your faith. Congrats and Hotty toddy