Rough Around The Edges

denver panoramic

Hello friends and family.  I hope this evening finds you well.  I wanted to take a moment to explain a few things regarding the post I wrote on 1-6-19 regarding the 7 year anniversary of my Celiac diagnosis.  I have heard from many of you on the comments and privately through my blog contact page.  Thank you all for caring and reaching out!  Many of you have expressed concern for me.  Please know that I would never hurt myself.  I would never do that to my wife, my kids, or my parents.  I know it must be shocking to hear someone speak so openly, but that is how I am.  Those that have been reading my blog for awhile know that I speak the truth boldly and I don’t back down.  They also know that I love Jesus with all my heart.

I want you all to know that I care about each one of you as fellow human beings and I appreciate and value what you have to say regarding my writing.  You are my brothers and sisters and I am encouraged to know you all!  I know I can be rough around the edges sometimes.  Look, I’m from Denver.  I grew up in Littleton just a few miles southwest of the city.  I had tough friends and we went to a tough school.  Some of our friends were gang members.  I had to learn to become a fighter even though I hate fighting.  Then I ended up going to High School 35 miles west of Chicago and I encountered more fighting.  I grew up playing competitive sports and I’ve taken a few shots to the noggin while snowboarding.  Growing up like that toughens you up.

I’m not a pastor.  I’m not out here leading a church or shepherding folks.  I am just a guy who loves Jesus and I preach His Gospel because of what He did in my life.  Call me an evangelist if you like, but I’m just a normal every day guy whose had a very strange supernatural life, so I preach for Jesus.  He is the One who set me and my family free from evil and He saved my soul.  I will always follow Him.  I love you Lord!

If you are new to my blog, please know that I preach the truth here.  Although I appreciate all of the friends I have made through blogging, I don’t write for people to like me.  I write the truth, and sometimes people are not going to like that.  Truth is hard to hear sometimes, but it is always better than lies.  Those who know me know that sometimes I ask hard questions and sometimes I wrestle with God a bit.  Maybe it’s from growing up with friends that punched and wrestled each other for fun, or maybe it’s just a deeply inquisitive mind, but whatever it is I definitely wrestle Him at times.  I approach God with freedom and confidence like He invites us to do.  He already knows my heart.  I’m not ever going to hide it from Him.  I give it to Him raw and open and I allow my readers to witness it.  I won’t ever hide the truth I know I need to speak.  The Holy Spirit inside me wouldn’t allow that anyway!

So, sometimes what you read on my blog might be raw and hard to read.  Most everybody has been supportive when I write like that, but some have been judgmental.  Again, I write the truth on my blog and I will always be true to myself and I’m not going to be changing that.  If you ever find yourself having a hard time with one of my writings and you want to leave my blog, that’s okay.  No hard feelings.  Just know that I love Jesus Christ with all my heart.  He is my Lord and Savior and I submit to Him because He is King of kings and Lord of lords and He is Lord of my life.  I am not ashamed of Jesus and I will be serving Him for the rest of my life and for all eternity.  Amen!

The Lord drafted me into the spiritual war when I was 18 and my faith has been tried and tested many times and every time the Lord has made me victorious.  I am one of His soldiers and He always lifts me up again!  Remember, I’m not ever going to be a phony or be all polished up.  The Lord has used me for things like street ministry on Colfax in downtown Denver and casting out demons.  He has done amazing miracles in my life and I have a lot of phenomenal memories of what God has done since I started following Him in October of 1996.  His grace is sufficient for me and I trust Him!  I have no reason not to trust Him.  He has moved in power in my life time and time again!  I will never forget those angels or what He did for me when I stopped breathing!

That is my verse for the whole year by the way.  2 Corinthians 12:9.  I need to get back right and just refocus on Jesus.  He is the sole reason for this blog and I will continue to preach His message of salvation by grace through faith in Him.  Jesus is Lord!

Grace and peace to you all!  Thanks for sticking with me and thank you for your prayers!

“But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”  Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.”

2 Corinthians 12:9

 

Author: Ryan Callahan

Hello, and welcome to my site! I am an independent Christian author (One Man's Very Strange Supernatural Life), blogger, and evangelist for Jesus. My main goal with this blog is to help people come to know Jesus, help people understand the Bible, and to minister to a lost and hurting world. This site is about hope, new beginnings, grace, mercy, forgiveness, and love! I'm glad you are here, God bless you! Copyright © 2024 Ryan Callahan. All rights reserved.

45 thoughts on “Rough Around The Edges”

  1. sometimes people want christianity all wrapped up pretty and tied with a bow. but real life is raw, harsh, demeaning, cruel, hard. sometimes, in our humanity, we handle that well; sometimes we don’t. and it’s okay because God knows we are but human.

    raw honesty is a beautiful thing to see, especially when it’s hard … like looking at a magnificent piece of artwork that draws out harsh emotions – beautiful and raw.

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  3. i think it’s very hard to learn to let people be in hard places and to simply come along side them when there is seemingly nothing tangible we can do. we want more. we want to be able to measure our worth in a situation. but … sometimes … what is needed most is to simply accept and be.

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  6. Amen. I am glad that God can take our questions and wrestlings! And then He gives us a verse like He did for me last year, and for you this year. Somehow, in the midst of our questions, He is that all-sufficient One. Thank you for sharing your heart! Blessings and Prayers for you as you continue forward with Him.

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  8. By the way, what I failed to mention in my crazy long comment on your previous post, was that 2 days before this past Thanksgiving, my doctor told me I had skin cancer and that I needed surgery in the hospital under general anesthesia. And I panicked. Seriously bad. Part of why I panicked was because I have almost died from an anaphylactic shock reaction to general anesthesia in the past. I also panicked because this was the third time in my life that a doctor has looked me in the eyes and said “You have cancer.”

    The biggest reason for my panic was because I was afraid that God didn’t really love me. Because if He really loved me, why would I have cancer, again? And why would I need general anesthesia, again?

    But I survived the surgery on December 6 with no bad reactions to the anesthesia drugs. And on December 11, the doctor told me that he was wrong, the biopsy report said I did not have cancer. So yaay, God loves me, right?

    Then my husband and I got the flu really bad. Christmas was miserable. We are still recovering. But I have decided to believe that God loves me, no matter what happens. He has to love me, you know? Because Jesus is my Savior and my Lord, and because God is Love.

    So yeah, I am rough around the edges, too. And I worry when I see people hurting like you were hurting on January 6, because I have been there, so many times. I was there just last month. And I am in my sixties. I should know better. 😣

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      1. Thank you! And this reminds me, I need to write a 5 star review for your excellent book. Gonna do that right now…

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      3. You are welcome, Ryan. You deserve it. I just submitted a review. The message I got from Amazon was that it may take several days for my review to post. Hopefully it won’t take that long.

        Here is the review I submitted:
        I just discovered this author’s blog a few days ago, and I was struck by the deeply honest and unpretentious way he writes. When I saw he had written a book — and that it had to do with supernatural experiences leading him to believe in Christianity — I bought his book and read it immediately.

        I love this book and I believe every word in it is true. My family and I experienced something similar. The supernatural is real and extremely dangerous. Not something you want to play around with, which I found out the hard way when I was in my early teens. Thank God for complete deliverance through Christ Jesus the Lord!

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  10. I am new to your blog. I am encouraged by your openness and truthfulness. You are strong in the Lord. I like it when people are real and not hiding behind a mask pretending. God bless you.

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  11. God made you open like this. Thank you Ryan because we all need to be more like this at times. God bless you and your family now and always ! 🙏🤗

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  12. Bryan, this community I speak of as WCC (WordPress Christian Community) is a most interesting place to be. We have all been given a heart to share the Lord’s work in each of us. We praise the Lord for each one here, believing that He is has a ministry through this medium of blogging. Your special verse of His sufficient grace is one of our Scripture Tunes. Would you like me to send it to you? Blessings for your day.:)

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  13. Ryan, you have always expressed your feelings with complete honesty and I wouldn’t want you to be any other way. “You are God’s perfection, made in his image to be a one of a kind God expression, and every moment of your life is given to you with His excellent intentions”.
    You are a soldier of God, and I am so grateful…you are reaching people in numbers in His love and showing them the path to our eternal home. Thank you, Ryan, for your honesty and loving messsges, “God bless you”, Ry. Love you!

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  15. It’s very hard to find an honest person nowadays because people are too afraid of offending someone else. That’s why I love your posts so much! You are honest and hold nothing back! And I find that amazing and truly a God given gift. God bless!!

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  16. Pingback: 7 Year Anniversary of Diagnosis – Ryan Callahan's Blog

  18. Thanks for sharing so many important things of how you share your thoughts of the gospel of Christ. It is all too often that my memory takes me back to pulpit sermons that I have heard that did not go deeply enough into God’s Word, as I have found in each of your posts. Please keep up your good blog work. You never know when it will be that someone will drawn to saving faith in Christ, through “but few a words” of one of your articles.

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