Broken Links

By Michael R. Wiley

Alcohol, drugs, sex before marriage, divorce, lies, and feelings of condemnation: all these are ingenious attacks on Christians by Satan. He is the master of stealing, killing, and destroying. If you suffer from falling victim to Satan’s traps, take heart! Michael R. Wiley is a normal person just like you, and he too has been fallen prey to many of these traps set by Satan. Through Michael’s life, the author of this book, he shows you how to change your life by changing your mind-set on where you turn for answers. Michael willingly invites you on a journey with him to explore some of the hard roads he walked and the life mistakes that he made and how he dealt with them. He then gives you food for thought to try and help direct lost souls to God. Michael was once the epitome of a lost soul who shares his trials, tragedies, and eventual ultimate victories due to his faith in God. God’s awesome mercy and grace led him to wondrous, life-transforming truth, and he reveals his thoughts and feelings every step of the way.

Now it’s your turn to join God’s family or recommit your life back to him by

gaining control over your fleshly passions; recognizing damaging mind frames and turning to God to allow him to stop them from influencing your life; take up arms with the word of God, allow him to protect you from the devil’s evil plans; and ultimately refuse to live another day incarcerated by Satan’s evil schemes. Keep a watchful eye on your weary links while traveling the earthly paths engineered by Satan!

 

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 31, 2012
• ISBN: 9781477153536

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Copyright © 2012 by Michael R. Wiley.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

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

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

*Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, the N.I.V. (New International Version) Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society.

*Streaming Faith Daily Devotional, Streamingfaith.com/index.php/prayer/devotionals/keep-fighting/-Pastor Marquis Boone – June 12, 2012.

Rev. date: 07/14/2023

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CONTENTS

Chapter 1: That One Broken Link

Chapter 2: The Unsung Heroes

Chapter 3: Here We Go

Chapter 4: Ready or Not

Chapter 5: Here I Come

Chapter 6: The Saga Continues

Chapter 7: The Tests

Chapter 8: The Last Straw

Chapter 9: Another test . . .

Chapter 9: Another Test

Chapter 10: My Life’s Reevaluation

DEDICATION

I would like to dedicate BROKEN LINKS to my mother Brenda Wiley and my father who has gone on to glory, Michael Wiley. Mom, Pop, I know your personality is so much like mine that you have had you fill of life’s pain and struggles. I watched you guys intently, patterning myself after you. After all the smoke has cleared from the continuing tribulations of life, I know that you guys are experiencing the victories that come from the rebirth of my life in the name of GOD!

I love you guys, and I will forever be grateful and

thankful for everything you’ve done in my life!

CHAPTER 1

That One Broken Link

B EFORE WE JUMP in this book, let’s take the time to briefly dissect the word chain . What is a chain? A chain is simply a series of things depending on each other as if linked together. That is the definition directly from Webster’s Dictionary . When we think about a link in a chain, we typically think about the ones on bikes, necklaces, chain saws, swings, cars, or basically any entity that depends on a chain to successfully complete whatever depends on its chain to function properly. Or it can be anything that depends on strong links to ensure the functionality of the chain, which is responsible for successfully operating its moving parts. So needless to say, it is a pretty important component. Well, what happens when one single link in the chain is weak and eventually breaks? Now we’re talking about the whole entity, the entire bike, necklace, chain saw, swing, car, or even a machine in an assembly line, now non-operable, not being able to serve its intended purpose.

For the sake of importance and clarity, let’s take for example one of the machines in an assembly line used to make a car. I’m sure you’ve seen commercials or even documentaries on the manufacturing of cars where a huge robotic machine picks up parts with its moveable components and precisely places the part it carries in the exact spot it needs to be for the next machine to complete its job. When a single link in the chain of one of the moving components breaks, all of a sudden, we are talking about a possible catastrophic event, total capitulation. Can you imagine the chain reaction of cataclysmic havoc that can be caused all over the demise of one single weak link in the entire chain? It is mind blowing how all functionality and the successful completion of its job is now in jeopardy. In most instances, these machines probably cost multimillions of dollars. The single link in the chain may cost ten dollars to replace but maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars to humanly repair. How many links do you think it takes to complete the entire chain of one of those big robotic machines? Unless you’re in that industry, you probably wouldn’t know the answer to that question. I sure don’t know for certain, but the amount of links could likely be in the tens of thousands. You do the math.

I did my own survey and counted the individual links on my mountain bike. I counted 142 individual links in the entire chain. Like I said, mind blowing! Regardless, in any given situation on any of these entities, if one single link breaks (Houston, we have a problem!), then we’ve got a catastrophic event. Don’t even bother looking for the person in charge of regular scheduled maintenance, safety and efficiency checks. Just listen for the loud screech in the parking lot! Good luck finding anyone willing to take responsibility for that mess.

Sorry, folks, sometimes my mind begins to wander when I get carried away by the depth of a thought. Anyhow, back to this chain. Regardless of how badly damaged the chain actually is, I have to get off the bike and walk it home. You can’t ride a bike without the chain. Or you have to take the car back to a repair shop for costly repairs to replace the engine that blew out because the timing chain or belt broke, stopping the functionality of the oil pump. Oh, and how about this, you have to be taken to the hospital because the chain on the chain saw you were using snaps and the chain kicks back almost severing your hand. The links in a chain of an entity may be small and seem insignificant, but it is a very vital part of any given item that requires one. Often times the small and often disregarded individual links in the chain are the most important parts because they themselves are joined together to form the almighty chain. The links of a chain have the most crucial job of staying connected with each other. When each individual link is well cared for and successfully completes its job, the chain is given all the credit for working as it should. The links are never mentioned unless investigating the actual cause of the problem. Once the root of the problem is found, you’re only as strong or as successful as your weakest link, as the old saying goes. Think about the depth of that for a moment.

There are several parts of any given machine. Each individual part of a machine depends heavily on the next so that the final goal is obtained, just like on a football team. Hence, most people will understand that a quarterback will very rarely complete a pass if his center doesn’t successfully get the ball to him first when it is hiked. Furthermore, if his guard and tackles don’t do their jobs and provide adequate protection for the quarterback, the quarterback is left picking grass out of his helmet. So in essence, every part of a machine or even a team and his position can be viewed as a link.

Similarly, this is how we can look at our lives. We can take an in-depth look at all of our different parts and their functions, our personal characteristics, and the upbringing we had and see what functions our different links play in our lives when we put them together. What we see in the mirror every morning is all of our links put together forming our life’s chain. This all starts back on the day we were born. All the things our parents taught us, everything we learned in the streets, regardless of our mentor, those teachings, and those links will forever play a vital role in making us what we are. Day to day, we subconsciously depend heavily on these small links, making us who we know ourselves to be. That is why it is so vitally important that we run regular scheduled and consistent maintenance checks of our personal characteristics or links. We need to make sure we keep a vigil watch on our links, ensuring no link is weaker than the next or that one link may be about to break and needs replacing. Or even in a lot of cases, like in my life, without hardly any regular maintenance checks at all, after two or three links have been broken, it becomes almost impossible to backtrack and figure out where exactly was the root of the problem among all of our faulty links. Which link was defective? Suddenly, life becomes filled with downward spirals of broken link after link; soon, like me, you’ll be saying screw it. I will just worry about the few working links I have left. I will fix the problem later. Sarcastically speaking, I will just set this broken bike in the corner of the garage and ride my skateboard. Guess what, that bike ain’t going anywhere. Our broken bike/faulty links will still be there. There is no such thing as pushing them to the side. The world has a way of making us deal with our problems at one time or another; they don’t fix themselves. So when you’re ready to fix that old bike, it will still be there sitting right in the corner of the garage, dusty with spiderwebs and cobwebs. We haven’t gotten rid of it; we just set it to the side.

Being led by the Lord who wants to provide us with the structure and discipline we need to keep that cognitive, vigil watch on our personal life links ensures us that we will be aware of our surroundings, what we are doing, and who we are doing it with. With faith, God will make sure that as we grow older, our suit of armor distributed by him will make sure our machine is properly operating the way he intended it to run. When our machine is operating under God’s policy and procedure manual, we bring him glory and praise, and that’s what life is all about.

CHAPTER 2

The Unsung Heroes

T HIS PORTION OF the book has got to be the easiest and the most joyful portion of the book to write. As I write, I sit here with a huge smile on my face, thinking of the right terms to use in describing my parents from where my upbringing originated. I find myself facing a brick wall because I can’t think of any better words than those in my thesaurus to describe my parents.

Before I get into anything about my background and how I turned out as a person, I feel I must explain my upbringing as a child. First off, I will introduce my mother. My blessed mother, hands down, means everything to me. My mother has been very instrumental in my life, not just as a child but continuously for the past thirty-four years of my life. She is a kind woman, an exceptional woman with an extremely kind heart and a gentle spirit. My mother will give you the shirt off her back. It is my pleasure to introduce to you Mrs. Brenda J. Wiley.

In my opinion, she is almost considered subservient in a way. Allow me to elaborate on that though. My mother is an old-school woman, a southern belle if you will, born and raised in Beaumont, Texas. Down south, back in the ‘40s, if you can remember at all, the women were subservient then, at least more then, than now. Especially in Texas, the women there were the type of women that did everything asked of them without question or argument. That’s the kind of woman she was. In fact, that’s the way mothers of that time taught their daughters to be. My mother would take whatever it was that my father was dishing out for one reason only, to keep the peace. She was the peacekeeper of the family. Although my father would mess up a lot and even do stupid things or make stupid decisions, the family could always count on my mother to do the right thing, which was to concur with my father’s demands. Even if she didn’t personally agree with what she knew was the right thing to do, she would set aside her pride and her feelings and give the victory to my father’s ego, ultimately keeping the peace. As long as I was safe, nothing else was really important enough to stand up for, even if it was about the dreaded money issue. You all know how that one can wreak havoc in a family.

I read a book once called Woman Thou Art Loosed written by the dynamic preacher T. D. Jakes. (Sorry, another brain fart. Bear with me. It is a quick sidebar but extremely relative.) The book was written for women, but after reading it, it gives men a great perspective on what some women deal with and how they should handle it from God’s perspective. God’s perspective is all that should matter if you live your life according to his word. Anyhow, in chapter 9, entitled A Table for Two, a quarter of the way down page 104, it says that 1 Peter 3:1 states, Wives, in the same way submit yourselves to your own husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives. The book then goes on to state that this passage of Peter is not given to abuse women but simply to instruct them about what works well in the home. That scripture alone sums my mother up in a nutshell. In addition, just for confirmation, just a quarter of the way down page 110, the apostle Paul is ministering to women about marriage. He goes on to say that God says, I want the married woman to be concerned about pleasing her husband and vice versa. It then goes on to explain that by no means should that be translated as the woman should be locked in the kitchen and chained to the bed. Absolutely not! A few sentences later, it says that women’s responses of that statement should imply that there should be a concern for harmonious order in the house." I believe that women, without egos, have been blessed by God for that reason alone, to offset the pride of man, bringing harmony. Now I know that may not be an easy thing to do, but my mother was unquestionably a God-fearing woman and did just what God expected from her. She knew that Christ ordered all of her steps. Next to God, my mother was all about me and the welfare of our family. It seemed like ever since my existence, whatever was going on in my life that was affecting me also affected her. Without question, my mother would attempt to take any burdens I had and carry them on her back. She is just one of those people that would rather take your lumps for you and never expect for you to return the favor. If she could help you, she would.

Relationships and marriages have somewhat changed in today’s world. A lot of what was taught back in the ‘40s has been lost. I think the men and women of today will both concur with that. Times have changed, and it is not like that anymore. The women today have a bold voice that speaks loud. Not to say that women in the ‘40s weren’t assertive, they were just way more subtle in their approach to situations of that kind. They were conscious enough to be cautious not to make too many waves, so to speak. The women today are not really concerned about that anymore. Now that’s not necessarily a bad thing. I don’t like a woman that I can walk all over and boss around, anymore. Yeah, I said anymore. I’m not proud of that, but I will get into that a little later. The liberated woman can be a good thing. Women are very smart and extremely intelligent. And I have found that sharing a life with a woman smarter than me is rather refreshing. I can turn to my wife for answers that I know will be helpful if I hit the wall. It takes some of the pressure off having to carry the whole load all the time. Instead, we share the load. However, at the same time, I can certainly feel what the men of the ‘40s may have loved about the comfort in enjoying a quiet submissive woman: a woman who, instead of barking back and insisting we as men are wrong about something and are just as stupid as we look, would hold her tongue to a certain degree and allow room for the man to save face and to save some of his pride, eventually burying his head in her gentle, warm, inviting grips; that old-school woman was my mother. I can’t say enough about my mother. I will dread this day, but when God is ready to call her home, her life and legacy will be one well deserved. Today she exceeds what a good Christian woman is supposed to do according to the word of God. My hat goes off to my mother. She has done a wonderful job with me as far as I am concerned. I don’t have anything negative at all to say about her. We have had a beautiful relationship as I was growing up, and it remains the same today. I praise God for my mother. I could have been born to a mother with different types of values and characteristics. But to have a mother such as mine has simply been a blessing and a gift from God. And, Lord Jesus, I thank you because as I get further and deeper into this book, her ways and teaching, her kind soul, and her gentle spirit are the characteristics that ultimately end up coming out when I have been relieved of any pressure of any kind or have triumphantly succeeded in a problem that had been stressing me out for a long time. I believe it’s a gift God gave my mother. The ability she has to love others and care for them the way she does, as hard as she does, is simply a testament to God’s infinite power and grace.

Father God, again I praise your name for entrusting her as my mother. Today she’s still on the job. She always helps me to keep it together and focus when I’m about to get stressed out. I can always turn to her and not ever have to worry about being slandered and chastised even if I was dead wrong, which was mostly the case as you will see in the remainder of this book. She never told me how stupid I was or how dumb I was but instead offered kind words of advice. My mom always tries to find a way to help instead of hurt or always asks how she could help me. And if she couldn’t help, she would go on a nationwide search to find someone who could. I love her and her spirit, and I just want a piece of me to be like her. That way, I can spread that to my children and be that soft gentle voice inside of a man. That way, I know my three girls and my son can turn to me even when they’ve done wrong, and instead of always whipping them with a belt or with words, I can formulate a way in my mind to ease their pain and at the same time teach them a lesson on what they need to hear.

I love my mother so much. There is nothing in the world that I wouldn’t do for her. Once again, I just want to take the time to give all that I am to God and praise his name for lending her to me for the past thirty-four years.

After speaking so proudly of my mother, I am just as equally proud to introduce my father, Mr. Michael Wiley. Married to my mother on September 22, 1973, the two combined formed one heck of a team, with a dynamic combination of love, structure, discipline, God’s biblical teachings, and more love. My old man is a hard-nosed soul. To fully understand him and his impressions left on me, you have to know something about where he came from and what he was exposed to during his childhood years. Unlike my mother from the country state of Texas, during that same era, my father grew up in Watts, California. If you know anything about Watts, you are sure to know that it is one of the roughest sections of the United States. So rough that many different film makers in Hollywood, California, have made movies about life there. You know it’s bad if people will pay money to go see it but never set foot on those streets. Watts was filled with drugs, violence, gangs, hatred, and murder; everything we as parents strive to keep our children away from. No child deserves to grow up in dangerous conditions. My father grew up in that, without a permanent father in his life, making him a very strong man. What doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger, right? My pop went to one of the toughest high schools in that area, it was called Fremont High School. After managing to escape the dangerous, unfortunate grips of high school in Watts, he dealt with another raw hand in life when war broke out overseas and he was drafted into the army, going away to fight in Vietnam.

After returning from Vietnam (he called it Nam), he soon managed to position himself in the right place at the right time, to meet my mother. The rest is history! My mother and father felt they were made for each other. They fell in love. Three years after they were married, guess who they were blessed with? You know it! Yours truly was introduced into this life on September 20, 1977. Upon being faced with the responsibility of raising a child, the plan of action they formulated together was put into play.

Yes, I was planned. My mother and father were fully prepared to begin the journey. My father’s contribution to my upbringing was rough, mixed with love, but more rough than anything else. That’s what I remember most. Yet there was a method to his madness. Nonetheless, it was a hard reality that he needed me to see while at the same time protecting and providing me all that he could. Life, we all know, is by no means fair at all. He focused on life, reality, what it can possibly bring to you, how you need to handle it, and what will happen if you don’t handle it in a certain way. That’s the type of dude my old man was. When I messed up, he wasn’t the type to pat me on the back first. Instead, he would discipline me using a completely unorthodox method. First, he would tell me how stupid that decision was and how it could cost me everything I had worked for. He always found a way to relate everything to the hood, the way he grew up in Watts. Had he done what I just did in Watts where he was raised, he probably would have ended up dead or in jail. He was a hard-nosed guy.

It is also important to know that he was a Christian. He believed that Jesus Christ is Lord, and because of that, he believed that my discipline wasn’t ever over until he embraced me close and told me how much he loved me and how precious I was to him. How God had entrusted me to him. His methods were rough, but they worked. Soon after those tongue lashing and the warnings of what I could do to myself if I continue to act a certain way, he would sit me down and explain to me that he needed me to see how the world held no reserves to treat me wrong if it got to me before he did. He would kindly and gently rub my head, assuring me that he did what he did out of love. I didn’t quite understand that then because it hurt so much, but I sure do now.

Coming out of Vietnam, seeing what he saw, and hearing what he heard, he was very protective. Even though I thought he showed his love in a weird way, there was nothing I could really say because I felt his love for me. I knew he loved me. In short, he aimed to show me the absolute worst-case scenarios of how things could have possibly ended up. Looking back now, I can see how his methods helped mold me; they were tough love–type tactics. Some kids like me need that though because sometimes that’s the only language that child knows coming from rough environments. Children are not stupid. When parents mask things from their kids, telling them just enough of what they need to hear to know they are in trouble, I believe they are actually doing their child an injustice. Protecting their feelings, you rob them of a reality check that they desperately needed to learn. Children need to know how important it is to follow their parent’s instructions the first time. Not reliving the same incident three and four additional times. One of those times, the child might not be so lucky. I’ve got a good example to illustrate this. Wait, wait, wait (I know, here he goes again, right?). No seriously, check it out. We with children have all instructed our children not to stick things in electrical sockets. Even if you don’t have kids, you know this. We all certainly know the possible consequences, but they don’t. Now, let’s say you spot your child at the last second before and he or she manages to get a paperclip from somewhere on the floor and are about to stick it in an electrical socket. What do you do? How do you react? I don’t ever remember trying that as a child, but I am pretty sure my old man would have given me a pow-pow. Why? Because given the situation and how it could have turned out, that wasn’t a chance he wasn’t willing to take ever again. My old man had to make sure this pow-pow hurt. It wasn’t about abusing me, but about maybe saving my life. He simply created a psychological connection of physical pain with the electrical socket. Simply talking to me about something that could have been life threatening, like sticking things in electrical sockets, is not enough. That child is likely to do it again. Why? Simply because it didn’t hurt.

So many parents today want to spare their child’s feelings instead of teaching them the lesson. It’s simple. Kids correlate things together. If done the way my dad did it, showing tough love, the next time that child sees an electrical socket, eight of ten times he or she may understand and make the connection that the last time they put something in that hole, they got broke off. The child won’t want that pain again. In fact, they are scared of that pain. They then turn around to find something else to do. But when you spare the rod, you spoil the child, making it likely that the child will try the electrical outlet thing again.

This is the way my father was. He always said that before he lost me to the streets, drugs, or alcohol or any other bit of nonsense, he would rather take me out himself. My father knew very well how to adjust the discipline according to the situation. My mother and father provided a well-rounded family structure. I was their only child, so I got all of their attention. They were able to devote all their time and energy on me, and it paid off because I have succeeded with the grace and mercy of God. I have beaten the odds. I once heard of a statistic that states only 15 to 20 percent of the young black men coming out of the inner city of LA from rough neighborhoods and of meager upbringing won’t survive past the age of twenty-one years. Well, I beat the odds, and like I said over and over again, I owe my success to God and my parents’ teaching style. Whatever necessary methods my parents used together were successful. I know from where my blessings come, and I thank my Holy Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, for lending those two people to me. Without them, I would be nothing; with them, I feel I turned out to be a very strong, respectful, intelligent, responsible young man. And it is my duty to spread that to my children.

My adult life would start and depend on the upbringing of my parents. That’s just mind boggling. Who but God would have known that when I was a child of age two or three years, that I would be entrusted by God with three girls and a boy? I would have to teach them to live and survive and how to be a man and women of God. It’s an honor to be chosen by God to be a parent. The upbringing that I have had allows me to give them different perspectives of a Christian household, a well-rounded package of parental love for my children.

As the progress of this journey unfolds, you’ll see several examples and instances in my life that were wrong and immoral. I made some of the dumbest mistakes and errors, but in the end, going back to my roots, by the saving grace and mercy of God, and using my mother and father’s teachings and what they instilled in me, my eyes were eventually opened wide enough to realize where I went wrong and how I could do it better next time. Father God, I