Easter Sunday this year was special for many reasons. Most importantly, because as Christians we celebrate that Jesus rose from grave. The day was even more special since I got to celebrate with my two precious children, Roan and Mary Morgan. I am blessed they have true hearts for God and His word at the young ages of eleven and seven. […]
Yesterday I got up early and decided to grab my laptop and head down to Starbucks to write. For me, writing is so personal that I prefer the confines and quietness of my home so I can find that internal place of solitude I need to take my soul to draw out the words and feelings I want to transfer to a computer screen. I refer to it as “getting into my zone.” Other times being around others helps stimulate me to recall people, places or emotions I want to capture. Besides, I meet some interesting people at Starbucks. […]
Pastor Steve Berger got my attention this past Sunday when he talked about sacrificial giving. Pastor Steve, the Senior Pastor at my church, Grace Chapel in Leipers Fork, TN, (http://gracechapel.net) just completed a four-week series, Reverse the Curse, on how to handle the resources that God has entrusted to our stewardship. The first two weeks were about tithing (giving ten percent of gross income), the third week was about offerings (the people or missions we support above our tithe), and the final week was about sacrificial giving. It was the final week that really caught got my attention. […]
I’ve been asked countless times over the past 16-months “Are you crazy? Why are you writing a book about the affair and extortion attempt? Don’t you want to forget everything that happened and hope everyone else forgets it too?” But writers write, and I need to tell the parts of the story that the media didn’t capture, or chose to leave out. Sure, there is the tawdry public story that everyone thinks they know – the story of an affair between a state senator and a staffer with the spice of extortion thrown in. The public details answered the “what”, but not the “why.” In fact, the story is much larger than even me. […]
Two years ago my life was quite different. Compared to today it is dramatically different. Back then, I was serving my ninth year in the Tennessee legislature and my third as a State Senator. I chaired of one of the Senate’s most powerful committees, was a husband and father and held a bright political future. All that came crashing down as a result of a series of unfortunate circumstances, brought on by many poor decisions that began with me. The political life I coveted began unraveling when a guy, Joel Watts, attempted to extort $10,000 from me saying that he was the boyfriend of McKensie Morrison and he had a disk with pictures of McKensie and me. McKensie was one of my interns, the one I was having an extramarital affair with. Watts threatened to turn the disk over to the press if I didn’t give “them” money. There were no pictures of Morrison and I and I knew it – just a handful of pictures of McKensie she had asked me to take of her. One of many regrettable decisions I made. […]