Transformation: The Great Encounter

By Kenneth L. Lacey

As in the Bible days, God still specializes in the amazing!

Jamisty (name later changed) is the main character who as a young girl grew up in a small Southern community where she has her first supernatural experience. She later moves to the Mississippi Gulf Coast with her family. As a powerful hurricane barrels toward the Gulf of Mexico, G

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trilogy Christian Publishing
• Release date: Jul 19, 2022
• ISBN: 9781685568887

Kenneth L. Lacey

Kenneth Lacey started writing earnestly after he gave his life to Jesus. He has written two other books: The Magnificent Joy of God and Journey Out of Darkness - He Lights the Way. He also has written numerous poems. Kenneth's goal is to display love and a willingness to live a life of service to others.

Book preview

Dedication

I dedicate this book to Jesus, my Lord and Savior; my mother who has always believed in me even when others may not have, as well current and future Christians around the world.

Preface

Writing a book can be a challenge, especially when you are working a full-time job. I actually started writing this story about five years ago. I didn’t want to write just another nonfiction story; I wanted to write an exciting fictional story that demonstrated the miracles of God in the Bible are still possible today. Sometimes, there were long periods of time when I was too lazy, exhausted, or nothing was revealed to me. Yes, the devil used trials, tribulations, and negativity to stop this book from being written, but God’s message to me would not be denied. He put people in my life who encouraged and cheered me on every time I encountered them. I prayed and requested guidance from God each time I prepared to write; so, although this story is fictional, I wanted it to stay true to biblical principles. Through faith and determination, God gave me the inspiration to complete it when He was ready for it to be released. Although one of my main tasks was to entertain the reader, the ultimate goal was to give believers encouragement in their walk, and unbelievers a chance to discover the power, love, grace and forgiveness that comes with accepting Jesus as the leader of their lives.

Acknowledgments

I want to thank God for revealing this story to me. He has given me the words and the vision; I’m forever grateful for all his love and blessings. I would like to acknowledge my wife, mother, children, brothers and sisters and the rest of my family and friends who have been such an inspiration in my life. Special thanks to the pastors and ministers, as well as my brothers and sisters in Christ who attend Daystar Family Church; they have provided invaluable spiritual guidance and fellowship for over a decade. In particular, I want to acknowledge those who have obeyed God by speaking into my life over the years and continue to fill me with encouragement with God given prophecies (you know who you are). I even want to thank the naysayers; though Satan’s goal was to use them to dissuade me, I was actually driven to prove them wrong. Thank you, Trilogy, for giving this fictional story a chance to entertain and draw many to Jesus.

Transformation: The Great Encounter

Chapter 1 – Time Capsule

Darkness slowly descended on the luminescent landscape; reminiscent of sugar cane syrup slowly flowing over a stack of hot pancakes. The quietness of the night was frequently interrupted by the familiar harmony of chirping crickets and croaking frogs; music to ears of some, but quite a nuisance to others. It was the middle of spring; a global pandemic was spreading rapidly around the world and the weather on the Mississippi Gulf Coast was already beginning to heat up. It appeared the summer of 2020 would be another really hot one. Thirty-eight-year-old Jakina, formerly Jamisty, lay sprawled across her bed in deep thought and fervent prayer. She thought about the amazing ways God had used her in recent years and then begin to reflect back into the past. So, as she continued to lay there, she vividly recalled what she had experienced over five years earlier and how she arrived at this point in her life.

The year was 2015; at that time, she thought her life couldn’t get any better. After ten years of hard work, the fruits of her labor had begun to show amazing results. She had just released the most successful album of her career; it was blowing up the charts and everything looked amazing. She was on top of the world and living life to the fullest. She rejoiced in the luxury and all the perks of being in the limelight; she had made it baby! However, as Jamisty would soon learn, this was just the beginning of something much greater; the new album and its success paled in comparison to what she would experience in her future. As the old adage goes, ‘The best was indeed yet to come;’ even though at that time, Jamisty didn’t think it could get much better. Yes, she had all the trappings of life as a successful artist. She lived in the Blue Lagoon area on the west side of Biloxi, MS in a beautiful, spacious twenty-four-room mansion right off the Gulf of Mexico with a deck that overlooked an Olympic sized swimming pool shaped like a ‘J’. The deck also provided spectacular views of sunset on the beach. Within a few minutes she could drive to numerous events and locations across the region; she was also able to travel and go shopping at locations all over the world in the spur of a moment in private jets. Life was one big party after another, that is until she had an encounter which would change her life forever.

Chapter 2 – Humble Beginnings

As Jakina continued to think about how things were back in 2015, she flashed even further back to her humble beginnings as Jamisty and how she arrived in this world. She thought about the experiences on the way to her present; her