This past Saturday, I went to support a few local gospel hip hop artist I know at a Youth Explosion at First Mount Carmel in 5th Ward. There was also a guest minister named Pastor P, from this church in Sunnyside (I forgot the name of the church). I writing this because over the past few years I’ve been doing Holy Hip Hop, people who know me and know my past tend to question how or even why I do it. In the past, in particularly junior high, high school and college, while I went to church everyday, the church wasn’t in me. I knew the word of God, right from wrong, etc… but I continued to participate in activities that I shouldn’t have. I won’t go into depth about those but I will say, I was far from a saint. These days, when I’m out ministering and trying to walk the straight and narrow, I always run into people I’ve known for years. I’ve come to find out that people will label you by what you’ve done in the past, regardless of what you’re presently doing. The first few times it was frustrating. Then it became depressing. I had to pray for a way to overcome these negative labels that individuals would tag to my name. My Pastor told me that people will always try to tear down a man of God. Then he said to use it as a reminder of how far I’ve came. Secondly, use it as a testimony to show that people can change and will change if they submit to the Lord and simply allow God the opportunity to work in their lives. I was then directed to a scripture, “Let the redeemed of the Lord say so”(Psalm 107:2). I began referring to that scripture when being questioned. “I’ve been redeemed”, which I found out that surprisingly a lot of people didn’t know what that meant. I’ve been saved, converted, re-established, born-again. Now some understood that, which also opened up witnessing opportunities. Others who I believe were just “hating”, I didn’t have an answer for, until Saturday. Pastor P said, when them haters tell you something like, “You can’t represent for God because you sold drugs” or something of that nature, simply tell them….so. Every time they try to bring you down with your past, tell them…so. He was basically saying that the scripture said, “Let the redeemed of the Lord say….so”. The crazy part about it is that, it works. The next day, I was in a situation where I was talking about the Lord and my background came into the conversation. I was like…so. People can’t respond to “so” and it leaves them speechless, which allowed me to finish what I was doing. I said all of that to say to anyone who is saved by grace, don’t be discouraged or even depressed and frustrated like I was when trying to live right but your past seems to keep arising. Tell them haters “so” and do what you have to do…ya dig…Peace & Blessings!