Oral Roberts University

I am currently majoring in Church Ministries  via the Distance Learning Program in, which I have both The Old and New Testaments, The History of Christianity about the various theologians from the first- century to 21st century, including both their positive and negative effects on Christianity,  I have also studied both exegesis and hermenuetics in order to be able to know what the original authors of the books of The Bible intended for their writings that were inspired by the Holy spirit to not only mean for their  original readers, but what they intended the scriptures to be understood by their readers  in the 21st century,. I have also studied Seminar in Theological Research, Pastoral Ministry Skills, and also how to plan and grow churches from the ground up. I'm currently studying, psychology, communications, and sociology in order to help congregation members to overcome spiritual, mental, and physical challenges in their lives.  I am 42 years old and have been out of school since I graduated in 1988. This is a very exciting and exhilarating time in my life, because I am going to be majoring in Christian Ministries and Theology, so that I can be a servant of Jesus Christ. All that I want to do with the rest of my life is to serve others and to spread the uncompressed gospel of Jesus Christ. Even though all I am paralyzed from the neck down I have the faith that I will be able to not only graduate, but to be able to graduate at the top of my class. The classes that have taken to this date thus far include,• Pastoral Ministry Skills (LCHM 306 UG) • Introduction to Evangelism (LCHM 335 UG) • Survey of Old Testament LIT (LBLT 110 UG) • Survey of New Testament (LBLT 120 UG) • Whole Person Assessment (LGEN 099 UG) • American Government /Politics (LGOV 101 UG) • History of CHR II Medieval Church (LTHE 462 UG) • Hermeneutics Principles /Biblical Interpretation (LBIB 306 UG) • Systematic Theology I (LTHE 313 UG) • Systematic Theology II (LTHE 314 UG) • Sprit-Empowered Living (LTHE 103 UG) • Teaching the Bible (LCHM 305 UG) • Christian Worldview & Culture (LHUM 103 UG) • Contemporary Theology (LTHE 444 UG) • Reading/Writing in Lib Arts (LCMP 102 UG) • Introduction to College Math (LMAT 099 UG) • Math & Society (LMAT 151 UG) Plus I have also recently completed successfully, Introduction to Christian Education (LCHM 304) and Divine Healing (LTHE 402).

A reflection that I had on my life in Jesus Christ

As I sit here and reflect on Sunday's church service and the dramatization they put on it made me realize the totality of what Jesus Christ did for me when he went to the cross at cavalry and gave his life for men. I realized that everything I had ever said or did that was not in line with God's word was forgiven and to be remembered no more. In my heart and mind I instantly was made aware that as myself being a man of God everything that I think, say or do to any other human being needs to be a reflection of Jesus Christ, so those that are lost, don't believe or are backslidden would accept me witnessing to them about Jesus Christ. Then their hearts would be open and their minds would be willing to process their thoughts, words and actions Christian/child of God manner. I am so thankful for Jesus Christ knocking on my hearts door so that I would be able to open my heart and mind to his ways. His grace and mercy are sufficient for everyone no matter what we have thought, said or did in our past prior to his invitation to salvation. For those who are reading this now that I've never thought or been told about the Lord Jesus Christ you're not reading this by accident, but you are reading this because it was ordained for you to read this before you were born. Just know that he loves you no matter what you have done. Open heart and mind and he will be sure to forgive all of our sins. God bless to all.

" Without a test, you don't have a testimony! Here is mine!"

The day my destiny began to unfold was on September1, 1970. My parents, my brother Mike and I started on our journey called life. My father was in the navy for the first ten years of my life. He would go out to sea for seven to ten months at a time. Then when he was home he would go to the chiefs club and drink himself into a drunken stupor. My mother was the head of our family and took on the roles of both mother and father. My mother took care of the finances, and every other matter that would come up every day.
We moved around for the first ten years of my life all over the east coast. My father retired from the navy when I was ten years old. Then we moved back to Maryland where I was born. Then when I was fourteen my father decided he want to be a father, but at that point I was already raised up by my mother and I didn’t need a father then. Over the next four years I went threw high school and was introduced to the wonderful world of girls. I went from girl to girl searching for the love that my father never gave me. I was also turned on to alcohol and narcotics, which lead to a fast paced lifestyle.
I had been introduced to these guys who were in this gang called “Sharp” which meant Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice. We would get drunk and when we ran into the Nazi Skinheads we would beat them up, because they were racist and they would spread their racial garbage all over downtown Baltimore.
When I was 19, I got into some trouble for having in my possession a deadly weapon, so I went before a woman judge and she sentenced me to 3 years in the Department of Corrections, but then suspended 2 years of my sentence and only ended up giving me 1 year work release. Once I was in jail after 2 months she gave me a sentence reduction and I only had to serve 7 months. I learned my lesson and never ended up in jail again.
I was faced with a addiction to alcohol that I started out with a six pack a night habit to where I was drinking eight to ten pints of beer with three or four shots of whiskey mixed in.
I was turned onto hardcore rock music along with the tattoos. I got my first tattoo at the age of twenty in 1990. I then was getting tattooed at least once or twice a week. I was going to tattoo conventions once or twice a month with my tattoo artist. As long as I went to the conventions with him he would do my tattoos for free. I was in all the tattoo magazines and became friends with the photographers. Whenever I went to a tattoo convention they would take pictures of my tattoos that had not been photographed. At the tattoo conventions I would walk around the convention floor from booth to booth checking out all the artist tattoos even if I didn’t know them. While I was walking around the convention floor people would ask me if they could take their picture with me. I also would be walking with a beer in each hand and if one beer ran out someone would bring me a new beer and give it to me saying,” here have this beer you are walking lopsided. I would enter the tattoo contest for the best over all tattoos and would always come in either first or second place. The first tattoo convention that I entered into was the AmJam in upstate New York. I entered best over all male people’s choice I won the contest with only having both of my arms tattooed and also only my back with black and grey ink. The trophy that I won for that contest was four feet tall and I also was given a plaque for my own to keep.
Over the next four years I would travel all over the United States going from tattoo convention to tattoo convention becoming well known for my tattoos that I had collected. Then in May of 1994 I went to the Frankfurt, Germany Tattoo Convention. When I went up on stage for best back tattoo and took off my shirt from being in all of the tattoo magazines the crowd went wild when they saw my back. When I went back down into the crowd they treated me like I was a rock star. After the convention I went up to Holland for ten days I drank more beer in those ten days then I had drank in the previous thirty days. We went into the coffee shops and picked off the menus of marijuana and beer in every shop. And even though I was stoned and drunk out of my mind I remembered everything I did. I flew back home and slept the whole trip home. When we landed in New York I woke up and we raced to the next plane that took us home to Baltimore. During that flight I was green the whole way home from being hung over from the previous two weeks of partying in Europe. Once I was back home I continued getting tattoos and partying with my friends.
Then on June 29th, 1994 my life was changed drastically in a split second when I went to the Biohazord, Sepultura and Pantera concert. I was in the mosh-pit slam dancing and then I went up on top of the crowd surfing it forward until the crowd had pushed me forward up to the front of the stage. The security guards that were at the front of the stage pulled me off the crowd and dropped me to the ground. They then picked me up and escorted me out of the venue. Once they took me out of the venue I went up a couple steps then they pushed me down. I stood back up and they said, “Do you have a problem?” and I replied, “No I don’t have a problem!” Then the security guards said to me, “You do have a problem now!” then they proceeded to put my arms behind my back, slammed me down on the ground on my head breaking my neck. I was yelling,” You broke my neck,” You broke my neck!” but they kept beating me up. Then they picked me up by my arms and my legs. When they picked me up my head dropped causing the bones in my neck to slip over top of each other cutting my spinal cord rendering my body paralyzed from the shoulders down. They then carried me the length of a football field with my head bouncing around destroying my chances of ever walking again. Then they dropped me face down in a mud puddle and said, “Now get up and walk!” after that they walked away from me back into the venue leaving me there by myself unable to yell, get up or let alone even move. At least I had enough strength to turn my head one more time to lift my head and lay it back down to prevent myself from drowning myself in the puddle of mud.
The last thing I remember was the paramedics came to me and I told them what happened and told them that they had broke my neck and all I could say was,” call my mom.” About six hours later I came to in Shock Trauma while they were screwing screws in the side of my head to attach a weight onto my head to pull my neck and align the bones in my neck so they could do surgery to fuse the third and forth vertebrae together.
On July 1, 1994 my body began to burn like I was on fire from the middle of my biceps to my fingertips and from my sternum to my toes. It was a pain that was so bad I wouldn’t even wish it on my worst enemies. They tried giving me several different types of medicines to stop the pain but nothing worked. After about one week they fused my neck together they put to clamps on my neck that held the third, forth and fifth vertebrates mouse great mouse great together.
For the next two months I was in Shock Trauma. I was on a ventilator for the first two months post injury. I was not able to eat solid food or even drink any fluids for the first two months after my injury. I became depressed and closed the curtains to my cubicle and turned out the lights. I also refused my visitors and didn’t talk to any one except my mother or my brother. They had me on a Stryker frame bed. They would turn me on the bed so that I would be facing the floor. I would have to be facing down for two hours at a time. They used this bed because I was at a high risk of getting lung infections and skin breakdowns. I was on this bed for two months. The nurses would sit under the bed and do their notes so they would keep me company because I despised hanging there alone.
About six weeks into my injury they started to wean me off the ventilator. I was off the ventilator for about one to two hours a day when this gentleman, John Merry, came to visit me in the hospital. Prior to his visit everyone who was able bodied were telling me everything was going to be all right, but their words didn’t carry any weight because they weren’t living in my condition. John Merry’s words however carried a comforting message that gave me hope because he also was quadriplegic like myself. It gave me a sense of peace knowing that I wasn’t alone, that there are other people like myself.
After his visit I was off the ventilator for eight hours the next day. Then I was in a glorified nursing home that they called a transitional care unit to be weaned off the ventilator for two months. While I was on the unit the nurses were supposed to turn me every two hours so I wouldn’t get a break down, but they didn’t turn me properly so I ended up with a break down the size of a six inch round saucer and it also went down to the bone. My mother was with me one day while they were cleaning me up and she smelled an odor coming from the wound. She asked them what they were doing and they told her that they were cleaning me up. She asked them if the Doctor had seen the wound and they said that the Doctor knew about it. A few hours later I was rushed to the emergency room with a mucus plug in my lung, which in a way was a blessing in disguise, because my mother was able to contact Good Samaritan Hospital so they could accept me into their hospital to do my rehabilitation to recover from the effect’s of my spinal cord injury. They said that they would allow me to come to the hospital so I wouldn’t have to go back to the nursing home. They also said that they would do the needed plastic surgery to heal the wound on my back.
I had to be on bed rest for four weeks following the surgery on my back. Then I was also in the hospital for another month to complete my rehabilitation I was finally able to go home again on December 8,1994. My nurses physical and occupational therapist, respiratory therapist, and a few of my Doctors threw a going home party for me the day I was released, it was so nice of them to think enough of me to throw me a party and give me gifts.
The night I went home it was a good thing that they threw that party for me, because it tired me out. I was really anxious about being home without having a call light to call the nurses for every little thing I needed. About 10 days after being released from the hospital I was back in the tattoo shop getting a tattoo of a heart with a banner that had MOM on it. It also had a gold crown with jewels on it on top of the heart.
On December 18, 1994 my friends held a benefit to raise money to help pay for my health needs. There were 10 bands that I had seen prior to my injury that played music there. Also 3 of my friends who were tattoo artist each raffled off $500 tattoos for $50 a chance. The best band that played that night was Biohazard who played at the concert where I had my neck broken. There were several hundred people who came to my benefit. My friends or should I say the people that I thought were my friends would push me into the back of the concert venue out of my mother’s sight and would give me various types of marijuana to smoke along with beer to drink. I thought I had a really good time that night, until about a week later when I ended up in the hospital.
I was in my hospital room when I started having breathing problems. I was complaining that my breathing was getting worse when all of a sudden Drs’ and nurses were running franticly in and out of my room. They had to start helping me breath with a Ambu bag , while cutting my throat so they could put a trachea in my throat. They then sucked out of my lungs what seemed like a gallon on mucus. Once I was stable they moved me to the I.C.U. unit. I was in the hospital receiving I.V. therapy using high-powered antibiotics to battle the infection that was in my lungs due to not being able to expel all the smoke from the marijuana.
After I got home from the hospital it was another eighteen months before my law suite was settled. It was just enough time to get acclimated to the house I was living in before my injury. Once I received my settlement checks I decided to move to Orlando, Florida. I bought a single floor home in Lake Mary Florida for my mom and I to live in and start my life over. Once I was in Florida I hired Donna Draves to be my attorney. She then aided me in changing the zoning code on a building I had bought to open a tattoo shop in downtown Orlando. It took me nearly a year to get the zoning codes of the building changed before I could open up my tattoo shop.
In late summer of 1997 in the month of July on a hot summer night I started having trouble breathing so I had my mother call 911. When the ambulance got to my house the paramedics gave me a breathing treatment and put me on oxygen. I told them to take me to ORMC but in route to the hospital my lung collapsed so they had to take me to Florida hospital North. They put me on a ventilator and got my lung to inflate. They didn’t have any ICU beds available so they transferred me to Florida Hospital South under the care of Doctor Haim. I was in ICU with a tube down my throat to help me breath. After two days they took it out and moved me up to the seventh floor. I was up there for about a half hour when I coughed up several golf ball sized blood clots. They had to rush me back to the ICU and put the tube back down my throat because I couldn’t breath on my own. They had to do a procedure called a bronchoscopty to drain the fluids and remaining blood clots out of my lungs.
They had me in the hospital for another two months while they cured the lung infection. They moved me to a transitional care unit for another two weeks to get me ready to go home and so they could remove my trachea. I was home for several months before I continued working toward getting my tattoo shop opened. I decided that the name of the shop would be called the tormented soul tattoo asylum. The shop was open for about two and a half years.
In January of 1999 I took my mother, my best friend Marco and myself on a ten-day vacation to Hawaii. We flew out on Sunday morning at 7am. We flew three hours to Dallas and then we had a two-hour layover. Then we flew another nine hours to Honolulu, Hawaii and then had another two-hour layover. Once again we flew another hour to the big island. We finally picked up a rental car at midnight and got to the Hilton Waikoloa village at two o’clock in the morning Hawaiian time which was five o’clock am eastern standard time. We woke up at 8 am and got ready and went out to breakfast at 10 am. After that we went to Blue Hawaiian Helicopters and booked a fight that was two hours because we flew over the whole island. We also enjoyed eating at the five restaurants that were on the sixty-two acres that the resort laid on. One of the fondest memories of the trip in fact in my life will be the day we took a whale watching boat trip, because my best friend Marco was picking on my mother saying she was going to get sea sick. Actually he got seasick and was green for the whole two hours we were out on the water. Sad to say he was supposing to film the trip and all he did was look at the bottom of the boat.
When we got back to Orlando, Florida we went out to dinner to talk about all the fun we had on the trip. I was thinking about moving into a bigger house so I decided to have a painter come in and give me an estimate. He came over to my house to give me an estimate on how much it would cost for him to paint my house. When he came to my house he brought his bible with him because my mother told him about how I was injured. He came over one evening so he could give us the estimate. That night my mom was showing him around the house and telling him where and what we wanted painted. Once he was done with his estimate he came in my room and prayed for me. I accepted his estimate so he began painting my house. After about two weeks of painting my house and witnessing to me about Jesus he asked me to go to church with him on a Sunday.
The following Sunday my mother and I went to church with him. We went to church and on that Sunday Benny Hinn was preaching his last sermon at that church, because he was moving his ministries to Dallas, Texas. We were in service for over four hours and it felt only like we were in there for 15 minutes. So I went home that day and said to the painter let’s do this and gave my life to the Lord that day. Then the very next day I went down to my tattoo shop and told them that we were no longer in business. The tattoo artist was very upset, but I had already made my mind up. Then I locked the doors and then I closed the business for good.
I then started to attend church on a regular basis. I had never felt as alive as I did when I started serving the Lord. I was in the process of getting my right knee tattooed right before I got saved. The tattoo artist who was doing my tattoo came over to my house a couple days after I gave my life to the Lord. He asked me when I was going to let him finish the tattoo and I told him that I was never going to get tattooed again. I then had an epiphany, I realized that when I would get tattooed I would feel the pain and now knowing that Jesus lived in me so when I got tattooed I was hurting Jesus, because he could feel the pain.
In January of 2000 my mother and I started attending The Masters Touch International Church under the leadership of Bishop Mark Chironna. Since the first Sunday we attended service I have been under his leadership. By his teaching I have a firm foundation in Christ I would not be half the man I am today without him. Over the next nine years under his leadership I have been molded and shaped into a vessel that is being used to spread the gospel and to uplift while enabling the gifts God has given us so we can fulfill our destiny to the full potential God has for us.
In the fall of 2005 I took my mother, my sister, my niece my best friend Marco and my self on a trip for ten days to the island of Hawaii. While we where there we flew over the island in a helicopter. We flew over an active volcano also we flew out over the coast and saw the grey whales. We also went out on a whale watching boat and saw a whole bunch of grey whales. After getting back to Orlando about three days later I ended up in the emergency room because I got pneumonia from the plane flights.
While in the emergency room they had to do emergency bronchoscope. Then I was in the hospital on heavy-duty antibiotics for ten days. They let me out on the tenth day at 11 pm and I got home and finally got to enjoy a peaceful night at home in my own bed. I was healthy for the most part up until I went in to the hospital for them to try to control my chronic nerve pain. They put me on 75mcg of fentanyl, while also giving me morphine and xanax for anxiety. The combination of drugs made me fall asleep and when my sister came in to the hospital at 10 am she said to the nurse that I wasn’t breathing like I normally do. She told them to call respiratory immediately and when they got to me they tested my oxygen level and it was only 35%. I was literally one or two breath away from death. The three doctors rushed into my room and they all three tried to intubate me and they cracked six crowns in my mouth before finally getting the job done on the third try. Three days later they decided to put a trachea in my throat so that I would always have an airway in case of an emergency. I was in the hospital for nearly a month because after they put the trachea in I got pneumonia and had to be on IV therapy. I then realized once again how much Jesus loves me, because by all rights I should have been dead. As usual he stepped in right on time and proved himself strong and true to his word.
They sent me home and over the next several months it seemed as soon as I got home from the hospital I was turning around and going back in. In February of 2008 I was in the hospital because of a respiratory infection. Then one night I fell asleep and went into a coma because my brain swelled. The doctors waited a day to see if the steroids they were giving me for the swelling were going to work to eliminate the inflammation. Then they decided to do emergency brain surgery to remove a piece of scull to make room for the swelling while also taking a piece of brain to test for the cause of the swelling. By the time they got in to test the piece of brain whatever they thought was wrong was gone, because all the test they did came back negative, to this day they still don’t know what caused my brain to swell. We all know why they didn’t find out why my brain swelled , because Jesus stepped in and cured any illness or disease that was in my brain before they did the surgery.
For the rest of 2008 it seemed like I lived in the hospital. I had a break for about six weeks, before the next time I went into the hospital. I had an encounter in February 2009 with Jesus Christ. I had fallen asleep about 10 pm and woke up face to face with Jesus. We started going over all the good things that I had done in my life and then we moved on to all the bad things I have done in my life and as we were talking I could see the hurt that I had caused him with all my drug usage, alcoholism and promiscuity. I had never felt as sad as I felt at that moment knowing how much hurt I had caused him. He then said to me, “But my son my blood has washed you white as snow welcome home.” Then he hugged me and I felt his love and virtue flow into my body which caused my tattoos to become like water and run off my body onto the ground. My spine quickened and became straight allowing me to stand on my own two feet for the first time in almost 15 years. It was such a great feeling to be totally healed. He then said, “ But I’m not done with you on earth so I’m sending you back because there is more work to be done.”
When I came to I was in my bedroom and on the television it said that it would like to change the channel at 2 am. It was on the news channel MSNBC and it changed to the God channel. Thus confirming that it was a true encounter with God.
Than a couple of weeks later I was getting ready to go to church on a Tuesday around 3 pm and my oxygen saturation level would not stay up at the level it needed to be without using 5 liters of oxygen continuously. I woke up the next morning and got ready for my doctor appointment that I had at 10:30 am. I was at my doctor’s office at about 11 am when my heart started pounding and my chest felt like it was going to explode. My doctor had to call the paramedics and they took me to the emergency room with a code level called cardiac direct. Once they arrived with me at the hospital they took me in and they made me wait in the hallway for a room. After about 30 minutes they took me for a CT scan and when I got done there they had a room for me. I laid there for about another 8 hours while they ran various test to see what was wrong. They then sent me to Lucerne Hospital to I.C.U. unit to further run test. All of a sudden my blood pressure dropped to 60/30 and they could not get my blood pressure to go up so they gave me 9 bags of fluids forced IV. My blood pressure still would not come up so they gave me some steroids and some blood pressure medicine. Finally my blood pressure rose too levels that were perfect and at levels that it had not been in years. Then there still was a problem with my oxygen level so they gave me oxygen a long with more steroids. After about 10 days my oxygen level rose to the numbers it needed to be. In fact it rose to 97% and maintained there without any other oxygen. I don’t want to sound like I am taking God’s miracle working power for granted, but as always Jesus stepped in and made me healthy and whole as he always has with any other illness that I had in my life.
Then I was allowed to go home. Without any steroids or extra oxygen to use during the day. I have now started a disability ministry with the blessing of my Bishop at our church and have embarked on a journey with Jesus Christ to help everyone I can to enable them to fulfill their destiny to the full potential that God has for them.

A invitation into my life, my testimony, my destiny in my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

From Victim to Victory with Jesus Christ is about the trials and tribulations one goes through when they face a tragedy like the one that I faced on June 29, 1994. In a split second I went from a 23-year-old able-bodied young man to a quadriplegic paralyzed from the neck down unable to do anything for myself. My body was not mine anymore, but instead it was almost like I was in a battle with my body from my shoulders down. On July 1,1994 my entire body was thrown into turmoil when my body turned into 165 pounds of unbearable, unimaginable and torturing pain that felt like I was doused with gasoline and then lit on fire. Every waking moment seems like I am facing some Form of test to see if I have the strength to defeat the test that is in front of me or to cave in and give up, however, the devil did not know that I am to stubborn to  give up on life.With all I have learned, experienced and have gone through on the road of life I have been molded from a indistinguishable
mound of clay into a child of God ready to fulfill my destiny. My purpose or should I say the platform that I have been given to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ is my wheelchair, my paralyzed body, and mind filled with the knowledge I have gained  about my personal Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Due to the fact that my name given to me from birth is Brian Cross, which without Christ having given of himself, being crucified on, the Cross at Calvary, and being resurrected on the third day all of humanity would be destined to be in hell for eternity. Thank God first for Jesus Christ, His one and only begotten Son. Second, for the Gospel of Jesus Christ and all that it stands for and finally there is the Cross bore all our sicknesses, diseases, infirmities and sins that have been wiped away. God bless all those whose paths cross mine while reading this blog. Know this if you are reading this right now that it was ordained by God before you were born.