What Jesus told me, Phillip Marshall, and Cam Newton

2 At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people  
gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. 3 The teachers of  
the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They  
made her stand before the group 4 and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this  
woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5 In the Law Moses commanded  
us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” 6 They were using this  
question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.But  
Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. 7  
When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to  
them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a  
stone at her.” 8 Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground. 9 At  
this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones  
first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there.  
10 Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has  
no one condemned you?”11 “No one, sir,” she said. “Then neither  
do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of  
sin.” John 8:2-11

One of my favorite beat writers for Auburn University football is  
Phillip Marshall. I look on in awe at ole Phillip on Saturday  
afternoons and mornings right as he works the media room right before  
Auburn plays. See, Mr. Marshall diligently strolls around the room and  
shakes hands and spills 47 years worth of stories he's accumlated over  
his prize winning career that has seen him rise to height of winning  
The Herby Kerby award and 29 other awards given in the state of  
Alabama Writers Association. The best story I've ever read by Mr.  
Marshall had to do with himself more than it had to do with Auburn  
athletics, which is a rarity for him since he goes out his way to not  
be the center of his writting. He told a story about him being a young  
wreckless man who had too much to drink and ended up eventually  
arrested after crashing the Huntsville Times car the newspaper had  
provided for him. This story is beautiful to me because he uses it to  
draw a line of how no one is perfect and how that mistake changed his  
life. From that day forward he no longer took a sip of acohol before  
driving a car. Every one has had that one moment in their life where  
they have made the biggest mistake of their life but the lord changed  
their life from that moment on. I made a huge mistake in high school  
my senior year that almost led to me being chained to the woodshop  
back in Clay County Alabama, where young small town hero's dreams in my beloved county go to die. For some unknown reason God found mercy on  this poor sinner and now I'm a month away from graduating from one the  
nation's top 50 universities. See god never takes a mistake made by us  
and lets it die, he uses it for the good of the kingdom, not only does  
he use it but he magnifies it. This world is a very dark place, and if  
you've ever tried to find your way through a dark room you have found  
it incriblely hard. Well to save us the trouble of stumbling, stubbing  
our toe, or outright running into walls god creates a light in us that breaks the darkness like the sun ends the pre dawn night. He uses us as a beacon of hope in darkrooms that light the way for others who are  
trying to find their way through life. Sometimes our lights aren't  
bright enough, they're not distracting enough people from making the  
mistakes we barely escaped from with our lives. So God sometimes sends  
people to up the ante, fuel our candles and make our light  
unavoidable. God has made no better example than the story in the  
above lines where the priests are foaming at the mouth to murder this  
poor young lady, but since god has told us that he is never changing  
he's repeated himself through history once more. Today their is a  
sinner, accused of stealing lap top, a blamed rule breaker that took  
money to play, and now an expelled (allegedly) student from the University of  
Florida. What other charges are the press going to throw at this man?  
What else can they say about Cameron Newton that has not been said  
already? They have dragged my fellow peer into the streets and have  
asked everyone to pick up their stones to take the life he has worked  
so hard to regain. Yes, he has fallen short of the kingdom of god, yes  
he has made some mistakes, but who hasn't? They accuse him of being a  
cheater where he has been deemed just about as clean as one can be,  
but yet bad journalists rise from the masses much like they did in John  
chapther 8 and much like the Jews that brought false witness against  
Jesus. Now the University of Florida breaks the law by releasing  
information about Cameron as student at Florida (allegedly), what else will Fox  
news, Espn, and the other journalists do to be able to throw the rocks  
of judgement and discouragement at someone who has moved past their  
past? They all sit back and wonder why does he still smile, how does  
our case fall apart when we present it, why do our witnesses mix up their  
stories. I'll tell you why because it's a man that kneels in the dirt  
that's drawing in the sand,and he's speaking to Cameron as they scream  
charge after charge. He says what have you done they haven't done  
before, be strong for I am here with you, and when that man finds the  
right time, when Cameron's light is the brightest, when the arms are  
drawing back to mangle, He will rise from the dirt and say " may he without  
sin cast the first stone", and as he goes back to finish what he was  
drawing there will be silence. Within minutes you'll hear the  
slanderous filth hit the ground just as the rocks did when the woman  
accusers walked away; and Just like Jesus told Phillip Marshall, myself,  
and now Cameron Newton, Go and Sin No More!