Stephen Pursell

Hi, I'm Steve Pursell, thank you for visiting the site, I hope you are blessed by the poems. I was born in Nuku'Alofa, Tonga, in the South Pacific, when my parents were in the Peace Corps there. I was only a year and two days old when we moved back to the states so I was raised in Oroville and Palo Alto California, USA, mostly Oroville. I now live and have a very small part-time local and internet personal training business, Temple Body Fitness in Oroville, California, USA.

I began writing poetry as a young man of 19 while in college at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona, USA. I had gone there to play football and get my education and lived there from January of 1987 until October of 1998. In those early years the poetry was mostly romantic in nature as I dreamed of certain girls I liked along the way on my journey. Throughout most of my twenties the poetry stayed mostly romantic but seemed to improve in quality and became less interested in the use of rhyme. But then in 1997, at age 29, I had a time of real crisis in my life that drove me to really begin to cry out to God in great earnest. I re-committed my life to the Lord at a whole new level and received an anointing for the ministry. Overnight the poetry became a real outlet of expression, prayer, praise to God, and prophetic insight and commentary. I wrote a fair amount in '97 and '98 and then put down my pen for awhile. I am sad to say that I cannot find much of the poetry from that window of time.

I was still having a lot of problems and in 2001 I had a bad brain chemistry reaction to an anti-depressant medication and did some very uncharacteristic things and fell behind the law and was sent to prison. This began my most prolific period of writing the poetry. By the time I finished serving my sentence in 2005 I had written nearly two hundred poems from behind the fences, razor wire, gun towers and foreboding walls of prison. Prison was a very difficult journey but while there I saw God do many miracles and I had the honor of suffering much persecution for the name of our Glorious King, the Lord Jesus Christ. Since that time the poems have come less frequently and I still write when inspired but at this time do not intentionally seek inspiration to write. There are couple dozen other poems that are not on the website yet.

The poems are initially being published in India, first in English and then in Telugu and Sanskrit, two of the Indian languages. My friend and partner, Elisha Jonnalagadda, a pastor there who also cares for orphans and the elderly is doing the translation and publishing work. Elisha's wife Suneetha is a gospel singer and together they are also composing music to some of the poems. The songs will be sung to the Lord and will be recorded and produced on CDs, MP3s, Youtube, etc. The primary goal of the books and songs is to build the Kingdom of God by blessing the beautiful people of India first, and then beyond. However, any initial proceeds the poetry books and songs generate will go to the funding of a project building orphanage for children in India with a long term vision of building more all over India and the world in impoverished areas. The project is called Lion of Judah Homes for Children, your prayers and practical and financial support for this project would be much appreciated. Lion Homes directors' board also includes Elisha and myself. Elisha and Suneetha also run a magazine called "Witness for Christ."

As you read the poems, I pray you are touched by the spirit of our Beautiful Creator, The Lion of Judah, and blessed with an experience of his indescribable beauty and love and challenged to go deeper in God. Some of the poems have content that I might not agree with today but they are an honest record of where I was at during the time they were written. So, in the interests of transparency, and I have not tried to edit out all of my imperfections.

I hope that this site also can be used of God also to illuminate the realities of the great injustice of the court and prison systems of America, and especially California. In my thorough nine year experience of the courts and the prison system, it is abundantly obvious to me and all fair-minded and compassionate individuals who are intimate with the history of me and others like me, that the injustice is severe. The courts and prison system are willfully, and for corrupt profit, oppressing many gifted children of God with beautiful gifts to offer their communities and treating all who have mistakes with the law as if they are totally unworthy of any respect or honor whatsoever. And that is a horrible miscarriage of Justice, which is one of the foundations of the throne of God according to Psalm 89:14: " Righteousness and justice are the foundation of Your throne; Mercy and truth go before Your face."

This site and all the poems and the uses of them are dedicated to the Lord Jesus Christ and his eternal Kingdom of Light. I offer special thanks to my late spiritual father and mentor Jack Schisler, a true apostle, who planted in me a seed of true Kingdom life that I gladly can never be free of.

- Steve Pursell

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First let me acknowledge that the ultimate source of these poems is Jesus Christ, at least anything good that is in them(all flaws are mine alone), who is the Creator and God in the flesh. Without Him I cannot take another breath or have any inspiration to make anything of beauty or any true value in any way. This site and the book are dedicated to Him and His Kingdom. As the steward of these poems I want to also acknowledge and thank several people for their contribution to the the journey of the Godpoems making it onto this site and into the book:

My mother, Dr. Willene Pursell, for her love, prayers and support throughout my life which so mightily contributed to me being someone who could write these poems, for her collection and safe-keeping of them while I was in prison, for her generosity in gifting to me the computer on which I work, and for funding their publication.

My dear friend and partner, Elisha Jonnalagadda, for offering to publish the poems and doing all the work to get them from the internet into the books.

Carolyn Murphy, for getting many of the poem originals into type and onto paper, thus simplifying the process for later stages of the journey of these poems to get from within me out onto this site and then into the book.

May the whole of creation be blessed by the goodness and selfless work of these fine people as these poems are published with the intention of blessing God's people and his plan to fill the universe with his indescribable Love, Beauty, and Glory. In Jesus Mighty Name! Hallelujah! Amen.

-Steve Pursell