What Is Heartfelt Guidance?

 A Call to Spirit-Led Healing

Whew, this is a heavy topic. Well, not so much “heavy” as it is important to give you a full picture without boring you to tears.

Ok, so here goes…I was born in South Dallas, Texas in a little village called Oak Cliff. My parents were young and divorced when I was one year old. My father and I moved in with my grandparents and he was a long-distance trucker at the time. It was a chaotic home, with not a lot of structure…but it was all I knew and I loved it.

Three years later, my father made a significant choice in life to become a born-again Christian and subsequently began seminary school to become a preacher. At the time, the church we were attending had started a small private school a few years before. They offered to allow me to attend their pre-school and this move changed everything. A few years later, my father remarried a woman he had met at our church. Fast forward, thirteen years later I graduated from this same private school. I think it’s important to point out that the church and school were a part of the Independent Baptist denomination. This was a very legalistic environment with no room for any other ideas. Because it was indoctrinated in me from both school, church, and home…I too believed the same.

When I was twenty-five, I got married and had my first daughter. A few years later, we welcomed our second. I loved our family, and I loved our life. Up until that time, I had not made any significant strides to forming a future although I had bounced between 4 different colleges pursuing a communications degree. To put a point on it, when I met my wife I was jobless, carless and homeless…with no prospects of a successful future. Once my first daughter was born, I decided to grow up and become an “adult”. For the next few years, I dove head first into the IT industry. Fast forward 4 years, and I was making multiple-six figure income, we lived in a huge house on a golf course, our children both attended a prestigious private school and we both drove luxury vehicles. As the sole bread winner, I was driven to excel in business and more was never enough. In 2004, I started my own company in the same industry. Unfortunately, 4 years later we got caught up in the economic downturn and lost everything. This stress culminated into divorce and breaking up of my family. These were the worst years of my life. As a cliché, I began to drink heavily to numb the pain. I stayed intoxicated from Thursday evening until Monday afternoon every week. As a single person, I dove head forward into a lifestyle that I had never been a part of and had no thread left of the convictions I had been brought up with.

Eventually, I used my experience and skills to land a lucrative contract working for the Saudi government. This led me further into a land of luxury and materialism that I had always been envious of. At one point, I had over 100k in cash just in a shoe in my closet. I was miserable and felt my health was failing.

Eventually I remarried and we worked together to get back to a sense of normalcy. While we were attending church every week, it just felt like a worthless ritual. I complained about it often, but my wife remained faithful and steadfast. She spent an hour every morning alone reading her Bible and praying.

Years later, all of the children were grown, and we moved away into the country. Because of our success in business, I had almost 100% freedom to do anything I wanted 7 days a week. So, I bought a new truck and just drove around every day. I began to listen to sermons on YouTube as a drove. I did this for a couple of years.

One day, while driving…I had a random thought shoot into my head and I couldn’t shake it: I had heard the phrase “Christ-like” more than a thousand times in my lifetime and yet I didn’t really know what it meant. And at the same time, Luke 12:48 “To whom much is given, much is required.” became imprinted on my mind. I started taking online classes to get back to basics and to achieve a full knowledge of my own belief system. What stood out to me was “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

I realized quickly, that more the majority of my adult life I hadn’t done one or the other…not really. My online studies eventually grew into my earning my masters and doctorate in Theology. During this time, I began to focus on the underserved in our county. I have worked with multiple shelters, food pantries, and gave where opportunities arose. I even started a construction company where I hired only homeless, Disadvantaged, inadequately served, Unprivileged, Neglected and deprived people and gave them a chance to earn a living. In our first 6 months, I generated $200k in projects for these guys.

I think the take-away is this…Everyday I get up and start to think about how I can help others today. This was previously the most foreign thought for a shallow, selfish, materialistic individual like myself. Heartfelt Guidance has come from this passion. While I have spent the last few years working on the physical restoration of those in need, I recognized that their emotional and spiritual needs were just as hungry.

Dr. Lanny R Morrow II