The Ride

By Tia D. Buchanan, PhD

His presence gives me a sense of dread. All of the shadows turn what would be their heads to look at him as they take flight to his lead, following him like a king, but he is not the King. He is the evil invader. Before me, the land seems to go on. Cities of wealth with food piled high into the sky. Everything is enveloped in flashing blue light. Abruptly, a horrendous vision blazes over top of the seeming illusions of beauty. Everything swiftly explodes into mounds of rotted garbage, decaying and destroyed. Everything is dead. The food is putrefied and decomposed. The evil invader is no longer beautiful and full of glory. He is left broken, horrid, and more horrific than any nightmare I have ever seen. I can taste the scream of horror in my mouth. My breath is caught within my chest. I feel like I am suffocating. I cannot make a sound. Ringing echoes loudly in my ears. I hear screaming. I hear moaning. I hear anguish, and I am trapped!

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jun 16, 2016
• ISBN: 9781512732160

Tia D. Buchanan, PhD

Tia Buchanan is a National Christian Counselors Association licensed clinical Christian counselor with an ASC criminal justice, BA theology, MA human services, MA professional counseling, MA Christian counseling, Certified Six-Sigma Black Belt, and Doctorate Christian education. Currently obtaining an MS forensic psychology. She counsels adults, adolescents, and children, and teaches second and third grade Sunday school. She is an artist and writer, having written stories since second grade. As a person with ADHD, dyslexia, and dyscalculia, she uses her gifts and education to inspire others with learning disabilities.

Book preview

Copyright © 2016 Tia D. Buchanan, Ph.D.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.westbowpress.com

1 [phone]

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-5127-3215-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-3216-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016903188

WestBow Press rev. date: 06/15/2016

9390.png

Contents

Dedication:

The Surprise

The Offers

The Special Agent

The Choice

Departure

The Ride

Message from Dr. Tia Buchanan

Dedication:

"…I had a dream…I was captain of my soul…" (LeCrae, 2011).

God, Thank YOU for taking the lead, and not letting me sink.

To my husband, Hubert W. Buchanan, Jr.,

Thank you for your unrelenting support in ALL I do…

…and never judging me when I sound ABSOLUTELY insane…

To my children,

May you ALL be a child of the Light for Christ before the world of what is TO COME.

With all of my love,

Your mom (no matter how far away, how long apart, and no matter who has kept you from me).

To my family, I LOVE you ALL and am blessed God placed you in my life in different seasons.

To ALL children who have people tell you: …You are nothing…Not smart enough, or Cannot be a success… The devil is a LIAR! I am ADHD, with Dyscalculia, and Dyslexia. With GOD ALL things are possible to him (or her) that believes. God WILL equip you for His works…beyond even your imaginations. Be stubborn, be hardheaded, use your powers to serve GOD. -Dr. Tia D. Buchanan, 2015.

The Surprise

H i everyone! This is me, Sarah ( in the green dress ) and my family: my dad John, my (younger, but just as tall) brother Sam, and my mom, Maple. We are a Hispanic-Native-European-American family. My dad is Hispanic and Italian. My mom is Native American and Irish. I have dark-auburn-brown straight hair, an olive skin tone, and dark olive green eyes. My brother, Sam, has dark brown curly hair and brown eyes. I am ten years old, and in the fifth grade. Sam is in the fourth grade. We live in a small city on the East coast in the United States of America.

To tell you a little about myself, for fun, I like to hang out with girls and boys. We often play different kinds of games with each other. With other girls my age, I enjoy playing dolls, playing dress up with my friend, Molly, cooking desserts in our kitchen, and riding my bike. I have friends who are boys my age. We like to play baseball and get dirty in the mud after a rainy day. With all of my friends, I play Red-Rover, Dodgeball, and Kickball. I like to hang out in my tree house that I built (almost) by myself where my brother Sam, (who picks his nose a lot) is not allowed to go since it is my quiet place. Sam has his own quiet place in his room. I do like to spend time with my family, but I sometimes like to be in my treehouse where there is a "No Boys Allowed" sign. I enjoy playing basketball, video games, riding my bike on wood trails outside of our house, and reading. I like studying weird science, creating art, and learning weird history facts. On Saturdays, I play baseball and basketball with my friend, Marty.

Today, I arrived home from school with NO homework! I finished all of my responsibilities, you know, clean my bedroom, make my bed, clean up my bathroom, and help mom in the kitchen with the dishes. (Mom says some parents call those chores). Since I finished my responsibilities, and have no homework, I have a relax day. I like relax days after a long day at school.

FAMILYFOUR500DPI.jpg

Around dinner time, my dad comes home from work, VERY excited. He bursts through our door, throws his coat on the banister, and, rushes in to say to everyone, Guess what! I have a surprise for you all! We are going on a special trip!

Trip? As in, vacation? Okay, he has my attention. Enthusiastically, I put down my coloring book and crayons. I sit up grinning wide eyed and I ask my dad, What trip? Where are we going to go?

My dad owns a micro-systems corporation. He tells us that he had a visitor at his workplace today. A very special agent came in to see him out of the blue. This agent told him …There is a trip we have been invited to go on…Everyone in the world is supposed to go on this trip…and the trip is to a place called Paradise! Out of his pocket, he pulls a brochure with beautiful pictures of a mountain scene on the edge of the ocean of the bluest water with red sand. Dad says he spent time with the special agent in his office to ask her different questions. He says he asked the special agent How much does it cost to get there, and GET THIS, she must have been a crazy woman, because she said It is FREE!

WOW, FREE! Does that mean we are going to go dad, huh, does it mean we are going to go? I smile ear to ear, (as the older people sometimes say when kids smile broadly). I hope he says yes. Trips are SO much fun! One week, we went camping in Colorado, and another week, we went white water rafting in the mountains! I