Customarily, toddler Barrett Golden is the star of the show taking pictures of himself on his mom’s phone. But on Monday, the 2-year-old Texas tyke used mom’s cellular to order 31 cheeseburgers from McDonald’s via DoorDash.
Instead of getting mad, Mom Kelsey Golden, whose Facebook profile says “I love Jesus first and foremost,” allowed the mirthful cutefulness of the situation to melt her heart like the melted cheese on those burgers.
“He usually likes to take pictures of himself, and so he was doing,” Kelsey says. “I thought I’d locked the phone, but apparently I didn’t because the Doordash came with 31 cheeseburgers.”
When DoorDash rang her door in Kingsville, Texas, Mom was very surprised by a delivery that she hadn’t ordered: $92 worth of hamburgers (including a $16 DoorDasher tip).
Immediately, she set about to find the culprit, her youngest smiling innocently and charmingly over hacking skills so advanced that even Russian blackhats took notice.
Mom has since “hidden” the DoorDash app on her phone, as well as the Amazon app.
Of his Golden Arches spoils, the little Golden boy only ate half a cheeseburger.
The rest, Mom says, were donated to the needy in the community via a Facebook community page.
“I didn’t know what to do with them.” Kelsey told KRIS 6 News. “He only ate half of one.”
Texas State Representative Briscoe Cain has suffered from Asperger’s and autism throughout his life but hasn’t let that stop him from being an unashamed Christian who stands for his faith in his work to create the Texas Heartbeat Bill, which prohibits abortion after a baby’s heartbeat has been detected in the womb.
“Yes, I mix religion and politics,” he wrote in a tweet.
Cain was recipient of the 2021 Malachi Award, given by Operation Rescue to recognize the person who advanced the cause of protecting the pre-born, for his role in creating the Texas Heartbeat Act.
The 37-year-old is a loving husband and father of five. His first name is in honor of his ancestor, American pioneer, Andrew Briscoe, who fought in the Texas Revolution as a part of the Texan Army and was one of 60 who signed the Texas Declaration of Independence in 1836.
Born with Asperger’s and autism, Cain grew up in Deer Park, Texas, raised by his father, a plant operator and his stepmother, an occupational nurse. His mother, a homemaker, taught him the value of hard work and commitment to his community.
“I, along with countless others who experience these challenges brought on by Asperger’s and autism, communicate and express myself in a way that’s different from others,” Cain told Capital Tonight.
He founded the Republican Club at the University of Houston-Downtown (UHD), the first pro-life law student organization in Texas.
The horror of seeing his uncle slash and kill his aunt and cousin metamorphosed into survivor’s guilt that tormented Joey Kelly throughout his life.
“Looking into his eyes, it was just pure evil,” Joey said, describing his uncle on the evening of the murders. At 12-years-old, he was at a sleepover with his 9-year-old cousin when it happened. “He was just completely determined to kill that night, and he was on a killing spree at this point.”
Uncle John was blind with rage. His wife, Joey’s aunt, was divorcing him and had obtained a court order to kick John out of the house. John showed up at 3:00 a.m. hell-bent on vengeance.
For his killing rampage, John is today in Huntsville Prison, and Joey suffers from survivor’s guilt, a post-traumatic stress disorder that stems from the fact that he survived and others did not.
Joey’s beginnings were idyllic enough. He accepted Jesus at age 7 when his older sister sat him on her lap and explained the Gospel.
“I remembered it clicking that God loved me so much and there’s nothing I can do to earn God’s love,” Joey recalls on an I am Second video. “It’s what he did for me.”
Mikey was not only his cousin; he was Joey’s best friend, and sleepovers were common for the Texas tykes.
The fateful night when he was 12 ended the innocence and delight of childhood. It also ended his faith in God.
Uncle John broke through the window and invaded the home. First he went upstairs where he hacked his ex-wife, Phyllis, mercilessly with a butcher’s knife. Mikey woke up Joey and begged him to help. Mikey, who was 9, watched helplessly as his father murdered his mother.
In his hellish altered state, the father turned on his own son. He tackled and stabbed him multiple times, slitting his throat – right in front of Joey.
Lastly, John came after Joey.
“He slams me against the wall,” remembers Joey, who raised his arms to protect his chest. “My uncle John tries to stab me in the chest. He actually ends up stabbing me through my arm. The tip of the blade just scratches my chest.”
Joey has scars to this day from the incident.
But then a miracle occurred. Joey blinked and suddenly he was 10 feet away from his uncle.
“It’s like God got him off of me just for a quick second and pushed me out of the way or something,” he says.
He looked at his arm and saw raw muscle hanging out of the slit. He pushed it back into his arm. There was no time to think. He ran from his uncle, who chased him.
“John, please stop,” he pleaded. “You don’t have to do this. Please stop.”
The little kid was able to elude the uncle. The next thing he knew, his uncle stopped stalking him and returned upstairs. Joey ran outside to the neighbor’s house and rang the doorbell 40 times.
It was 3:00 a.m. When the neighbor eventually opened the door, she screamed.
“Oh, my God! The house is on fire.”
Uncle John set the house ablaze, burning half of his own face in the process.
Uncle John survived and “looks the monster he is,” Joey says.
“I survived that night,” he says. “This feeling of survivor’s guilt is intense and has been with me for a long time now. It’s a real crappy feeling to know you’re the only one to live and others didn’t. I didn’t feel like I was a good kid or special kid. I didn’t do anything to deserve that. If anything, Mikey was a way better kid than me.
“It never made sense.”
Joey was furious at God. He would go into his backyard to curse God.
“F___ you, God!” he screamed. “What the F are you thinking? How could you let evil win in such a big way?”
He hoped to anger God. Maybe God would strike him down for his blasphemy. Then his inner anguish would cease.
Therapy did not draw out a favorable response from Joey, who growing up decided he deserved to act up.
“If anyone had the right to go crazy, it was me,” he remembers. “I got into partying, alcohol, and smoking. I was struggling from everything from depression, to post traumatic stress, to survivor’s guilt.”
Most of the time, he wore the facade of a happy-go-lucky guy. At least he could compartmentalize the torment.
In response to a stepdad throwing boiling beans on his kids, Billy hunted down the suspect and murdered him and his uncle.
“I was so out of my mind,” Billy says on a Tony Evans video, “My kids were my life. I wasn’t thinking rationally and reasonably. All I was thinking about was revenge.”
A year later, he was arrested and began a long sentence.
Billy’s parents split when he was only six years old. He was left to his dad’s care but wanted desperately to find his mom. He would walk down the highway looking for his mom. Eventually, he found her. She was a functional alcoholic.
As an adolescent, Billy met a girl and got her pregnant. He was happy to be having a boy, “even though I was just a boy myself,” he says. But the child was stillborn.
He had two daughters with the young lady, but he didn’t know how to be a father or a husband, and she left him for another man.
The new man abused his daughters and got arrested, along with his former partner (who was taken into custody for child endangerment).
Billy boiled with rage.
“I would begin to consume enormous amounts of alcohol,” Billy recalls. “I consumed whatever it was to take my mind off of its original state to keep from having to deal with these issues.”
When a couple of friends notified him that the perpetrator had been released on bond, “my next question was, where is he?” Billy says. “I made my way over to the condominium where this uncle and he were and I murdered them.”
Billy spent five years in county jail awaiting trial, ultimately taking a plea-bargain deal that gave him 30 years, reduced to seven if behaved well in jail.
Ultimately, he didn’t “behave well” in jail.
“I had so much hate, anger, and bitterness and resentment that would just roll into my life and other people around me,” he says. “I began to express my faithfulness to rebellion so much that in fact the other gang members started to recognize me.”
He liked the recognition and respect he earned by getting into trouble.
Transferred to a prison in Amarillo, Texas, BIlly got caught up in a gang riot that left one man in critical condition. The man was air-lifted to the hospital, where he lingered between life and death.
Three inmates who were supposedly “brothers” in Billy’s gang, fingered him as the responsible man behind the brutal beating. The warden called in Billy and produced the signed accounts accusing him. If spelled the death penalty for him. His only hope was that the beaten man would somehow survive in the hospital. Read the rest: revenge and redemption in Texas
Over and over again, Michaela Lanning came to sleep on Grandma’s couch, amid the piles of hoarded rubbish, toxic mold and asbestos on the ripped carpet.
“Dad was very disconnected, very sociopathic, very narcissistic, very addictive personality,” she says in a video testimony on her YouTube channel.
Without support, Mom kept getting evicted, which led to all sorts of confusion for the children and instability.
In the fifth grade, Michaela got bullied because she wasn’t doing the girlish things of other girls. She was just trying to deal with her mom’s anxiety attacks and make meals of popcorn.
“I would have to put Mom to bed, and I was terrified that she was gonna die,” Michaela remembers. “Like I would tuck her in every night, because I thought that would save her from dying.”
Her mom recovered from the breakdown, but Michaela broke down and began cutting herself as a coping mechanism in the sixth grade.
In the seventh grade, she developed dissociative disorder.
“I thought I was either dead or I was watching a movie,” she says. “I thought I was sleeping and it was a dream I was in. I genuinely was not coherent. I was not aware of anything going on around me and it was terrifying.”
Every day she was in the school nurse’s office and invented reasons to be sent home, usually because of a stomachache or headache.
In the eighth grade, she took classes online because leaving the house gave her panic attacks.
“Things were getting really bad with my parents,” she says. “One time my dad was watching my sister and I, and he chased us down the hall with a knife. Yeah, we moved back in with my grandma.
“My sister and I were sleeping in the living room on two couches, which were probably from the 80s. They were covered in dog pee. They were filthy; they had holes in them. That’s what we slept on for four more years. No bed, no bedroom, no dad, nothing.”
Looking for validation in high school, she “came out” as bisexual and later as lesbian. It was an artsy high school, not a football high school, and that’s where she thought she could find support and sort out the chaos in her mind.
As the founder of the Gay-Straight Alliance, she hung out with transgenders and related to all their confusion and was being heavily influenced to change her thinking.
“I felt all of those things and I, in my brokenness and my self-harm and my eating disorder and my anxiety, all of it was coming together, and I said yeah that sounds right: I’m transgender,” she recalls. She came out as a transgender man, told everyone she wanted to be called a different name, and started seeing a gender therapist
“But in my core I knew I wasn’t transgender the whole time. What I needed was a savior. It’s just I did not know that at the time.”
When she had a nervous breakdown, Michaela dropped out of school and dropped the transgender ploy.
Michaela is currently studying at Moody Bible Institute. In her sophomore year, she attended an “alternative high school,” where the druggies and pregnant teens are sent.
“I did not meet a single kid there that did not do drugs, or at least vape,” she says. She started smoking marijuana and met a friend who persuaded her to get pregnant so they could be teen moms together.
“She was the kind of person that goes out every single weekend and hooks up with guys and does things for money,” Michaela remembers. “I was just chasing anything that would fill my heart and make me feel better. I was like, ‘That makes so much sense. I should do that. I would love to have a baby.’”
George W. Bush will be remembered as the president who declared war on terror after the Twin Towers were blown up by Osama bin Laden’s airline-hijacking henchmen.
But a new PBS documentary reveals the early years in which the future 43rd president drank excessively and could only conquer alcoholism by turning to God, according to People magazine.
“He transitioned from a church-goer to a Christ-follower,” Bush’s childhood friend Charlie Younger says in American Experience. “He wanted to emulate the tenets and teachings of Jesus Christ, and he made a definite transformation there.”
It may seem difficult to believe that before ascending to the presidency, his life before age 40 was rocky.
After six years in the Texas Air National Guard and the U.S. Air Force Reserve, Bush leveraged his family’s influence and finances to launch Arbusto Energy in 1977, an oil and gas exploration firm.
But he felt immense pressure to make “a big strike” and began to stagger under repeated failures, which stood in contrast to his father, who became vice-president of the United States under Ronald Reagan in 1981.
“I’m all name and no money,” Bush said at the time, according to the New York Times. Hit by a fall in oil prices, Bush sold his energy exploration company to Harken Energy in 1986.
“I think his friends and family, when he was nearly 40 years old, were worried about what he was going to do with his life,” Michael Gerson, Bush’s former chief speechwriter, said. “He drank too much and he had very little direction.”
On his 40th birthday, the crisis came to a head.
“He woke up hung-over. He had overdone it the night before and he didn’t feel good. I think Laura (his wife) told him that he could’ve behaved better,” Younger says. “He just said, ‘I don’t need this in my life. It’s robbing me of my energy. It’s taking too much of my time.’”
At the suggestions of friends, Bush began to attend a community Bible study, a weekly session similar to a “scriptural boot camp.” He’d reportedly met with preacher Billy Graham during the previous year, who encouraged him to deepen his relationship with God. Read the rest: George W. Bush saved from alcohol.
When Seth Jacon Fenton searched for a stage name, he had only to think what afflicted him in grade school and what led to innumerable suspensions.
“Hyper” was the name he chose, which he uses with his last name.
Hyper Fenton’s unique mixture of hip hop and electronic music erupted on CHH in 2016. The Dallas native may be “Chilling in Dallas” (the name of what is perhaps his most popular song), but he hasn’t chilled about much. He’s been hyperactive since childhood.
Naturally, one gig is not enough for a man of boundless energy. He is the minister of preschool and children at his father’s church, Meadows Baptist Church, in Plano, Texas, immediately north of Dallas.
No doubt, he’s a hyper snowboarder. Pictured with his wife. Is she hyper too?
He’s also an actor. In fact, he studied acting in college, acted in plays throughout school, and “acted up” in the classroom. “Whether on stage or in the principal’s office, Seth was full of passion, hyperactive, explosive, many times impulsive,” his website says. “Seth had a yearning, a longing to dream, perform and to express himself.”
It was also in college that he fell in love with hip hop. When Moflo Music Production’s owner heard a song randomly from Hyper Fenton, he approached him about working together. The results: numerous singles and three albums — Kindergarten Dreams, Terabithia and Remembering Me.
The 27-year-old grew up in his dad’s church and accepted Jesus into his heart at age six. He loved Jesus but was drawn intensely to performing arts.
“It seemed that with Seth there were two things at war within him, a desire to Love and serve Jesus Christ, the God who saved him, and a desire to express himself through art and creativity,” his website says. Read the rest: Hyper Fenton Christian rap.
From age 6 to 16, Lisa Luby Ryan was raped by her dad.
Her mom flagrantly committed adultery, inviting numerous men into the home. Her dad was drunk most of the time.
“Everything about my childhood was just lonely, it was hard, it was not what a child deserves to have,” she says on an I Am Second video. “I wanted a different life than the one I had. The course I was taking was a crash course.”
Today, Lisa Luby Ryan is an interior decorator from Dallas, Texas, who lost a bid for U.S. Congress on the Republican ticket in November 2018. She submitted to three abortions before coming to Jesus, repenting of her sins and then later running on an anti-abortion platform.
Only Jesus could straighten out the chaos of her life and heal her of the pain stemming from her childhood.
But with so much trauma and confusion derived from her upbringing, Lisa found it almost impossible to escape the sins of her parents. She dreamed of having a stable family but found she attracted the type of men who would take advantage of her.
“I continued to follow in the life of finding men who were abusive — what I knew, abusive alcoholics,” she says. “All I wanted was to be loved. But being loved for me was to have a sexual relationship. I was willing to do anything to have that.”
She met and married a man but left him for another.
“All of the things that I had promised and wanted to never do to my children, I was doing. I was repeating that behavior,” she says. “I felt dirty, I felt shameful, I felt guilty. I didn’t want the life I had, I wanted to be different.”
She felt like she had hit rock bottom, so she called out to the Lord. “Ok Lord, I’m going to just trust you, and I’m going to share the desires of my heart with You, and we’re going to just walk this out because You are all I’ve got.”
Two months later she met a man, Jay, whom she felt was sent straight to her from God.
“He loved me and he loved my children,” she says.
But God interrupted the engagement.
“How can I heal you if your not willing to heal yourself?” He told Lisa.
That day, Lisa gave Jay his ring back.
“God has spoken to me personally and I have to trust Him,” she says. “I have to let Him be the husband I never had, the father I never had, because otherwise our marriage would have never worked.”
She entered Christian counseling with a woman named Joyce. They prayed together and cried together. Lisa began peeling away all the layers of hurt, guardedness and coping mechanisms
After many sessions, Lisa believed she was done. She had forgiven her parents and her ex-husband.
But she hadn’t forgiven herself.
It turns out that she still hadn’t dealt with her deepest darkest secret. During her senior year in high school, Lisa had an abortion.
As she confessed to Joyce, Lisa thought she was done. But Joyce, sensing in the Spirit that Lisa was not done confessing, just sat there praying.
Then Lisa broke down.
“Ok, I’m going to tell you one last thing, and then I’m finished,” she says. Finish reading about Lisa Luby Ryan overcame abortions.
Saying these words of grim humor, the doctor pushed the vacuum closer, sucking up legs, then torso, then the head.
Abby Johnson had been a Planned Parenthood director but had never seen images of the baby during an abortion. Today, she was pitching in to help the surgeon perform the procedure by manning the ultrasound.
What she saw made her cry. The baby wriggled and tried to escape the vacuum.
“They always do,” the doctor deadpanned.
Unplanned — in theaters now to coincide with the 40 Days for Life to mobilize prayer warriors outside abortion clinics — is the dramatization of a former clinic director who turned pro-life based on a book of her life.
Abby became the head of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Texas following missteps in college and out of a sincere desire to help women. She was born into a Christian family, but got attracted to the Planned Parenthood pro-woman propaganda at college club day.
First she volunteered. Then she had two abortions, one surgical, the other chemical. After graduating, she went on staff and worked her way up to director. During her tenure, she oversaw approximately 22,000 abortions.
Despite the trauma of her own abortions, she still clung to the ideals of the pro-choice movement — that is, until she saw the baby squirm and try to escape death on the ultrasound screen that guided the surgeon’s aim of the vacuum.
She fled to the bathroom and cried. Later, she walked down the street to the Coalition for Life’s office. She decided to resign. Read the rest Unplanned movie.
From time to time, her Muslim family members kept Wande Isola from going to church.
“When I initially gave my life to Christ and became vocal about my faith, it was met with a lot of tension,” the Nigerian immigrant says. “I had to make the decision to pursue Christ even when my family didn’t understand. I think many people don’t know how much opposition I had to face to follow Christ.”
At a time when there are calls to expand opportunities for women in Christian Hip Hop, the 23-year-old is exploding across the spectrum. The battles she has faced have prepared her for ones to come. She is currently working for Reach Records’ A&R Department, has dropped a number of songs and become the go-to female rapper for features.
Wande says she knew about Christianity in Round Rock, Texas, where she was raised, but didn’t understand her need for a Savior until she was a pre-teen attending a “Discovery Camp” in 2009 in Columbus, Texas. Only her mom was Christian and supported her decision.
“My mom was my ally throughout my journey,” she says. However there were seasons when I was asked to no longer go to church. There were also many times I was told that Jesus can’t perform miracles and can’t save and I was being brainwashed. I think my family environment forced me to be rooted in my faith and be unwavering in what I believe.”
As a teen, she struggled with typical American issues.
“One of my struggles was insecurity,” Wande says. “I struggled with the need to live for the approval of others. This desire dictated my decision making process and ultimately led to frustration and let down. I wasn’t always seen as someone who is cool or talented.
“I overcame all of my struggles of insecurity by filling my mind with the Word of God. I took my thoughts captive and my thoughts manifested into actions. When I reminded myself of who God says I am, I began to view myself differently.”
She double majored in journalism and public relations at the University of Texas at Austin. Ironically, it was her biology professor who nudged her towards her now-emerging career. As a freshman, she earned an A+ in his class and decided she wanted to be a surgeon.Her start in rap was a biology project: Wande Isola (continued reading here)
Tedashii Lavoy Anderson was out to make his mark at Baylor University. He strove to be responsible and do the right thing, to be well-liked in school, in sports and on the social scene.
Then this random guy walked up to him three months into his freshman year.
“Hey, I heard you talk about yourself,” he told Tedashii. “I heard the jokes you made, the things you laughed about, the stories you told about the weekend.”
“I gotta be honest,” he continued. “I think the Bible would call that sin. Sin is when you disobey a holy God. There’s a real place called Heaven and a real place called Hell, and I don’t know if you’re gonna go to Heaven. You need a Savior.”
Tedashii’s competitive side suddenly flared, and he launched into a tirade insisting no one should judge him, especially someone who knew nothing about his struggles and background.
“I kind of shoved him down out of the way. I didn’t mean to put him on his back, but I did unintentionally,” Tedashii recounted in a YouTube video. “I kind of stepped over him and went to class angry because here’s this guy telling me I’m not good enough.”
Weeks later Tedashii was kicked off the football team due to injury, lost his scholarship, lost his girlfriend, and saw his parents separate. As a result, he couldn’t pay for college anymore.
Then the same random guy approached him and shared the gospel with him again. “God wants to have a relationship with you,” he told him.
This time, there was a completely different response. “A light bulb came on. I felt like I got a hug from the Father. I just dropped to my knees on campus and prayed to God. ‘I get it. God, I need a Savior.’”
The random guy became Tedashii’s best friend, and later became the best man in his wedding.
He suggested Tedashii rap for the Lord, and the now-famous Christian rapper initially laughed if off. Only after the Spirit dealt with Tedashii did he whip up a terrible rap that evoked only laughter at a campus talent show.
It was a flop, but the infection had started, and Tedashii was intrigued by the possibility of spreading the gospel through the popular medium of hip hop. He’s now recorded five projects with Reach Records and hit #1 on Billboard’s Gospel Music. He’s on Lecrae’s Reach Record label. Tedashii also appears in videos with Trip Lee, KB and others from 116 Clique.
Also known as T Dot, Tedashii lives in Denton, Texas, with his wife.
In March of 2013, he lost his youngest son, a one-year-old, to a sickness the hospital couldn’t treat, and the untimely death triggered a crisis of faith that led to substance abuse and jeopardized his marriage.