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1. I CAN DO BAD GOOD
ALL BY MYSELF!
Discovering Every Sacred Treasure in You

3. D E D I C A T I O N
-TO MY BIRTH PARENTS, Moses and Mary Anderson for raising me
in the fear and admonition of the Lord. Your love and wisdom in placing
in me the belief that I can be all that God has called me to be is the wind
beneath my wings.
- To my “One Son” Antonio: God truly answered my prayers when he
sent you down from heaven to me. You are truly a “man child” and one
of God’s best. It’s so easy to love a son as special as you are. Your hugs
and your beautiful smile have always given me the reason to know that
love never fails.
-To my sister, Deborah E. Singleton for being the world’s best marketing
guru, confidant and friend. Thank you for catching the vision and
running with it.
-To my Grandmother Alice B. Anderson for passing down to me the
generational mantle of prayer and intercession to move heaven and earth.
-To Pastor Jacqueline B. Schaffer for being the first to prophesy that
there was a book in my spirit. God bless you for speaking forth that the
book had wings and would fly to the outermost parts of the world.
-To Bishop Charles and Evangelist Deborah Gibson for covering me in
unconditional love, blessings and wisdom during the most difficult times
in my life.
-To Pastor Yvonne Brown for always being the umbrella that shielded
me from the heat of the desert places.

4. -To my Forever Friends, my immediate and extended family, Church
family and the families and Staff of Kingdom Parenting for your
wisdom, encouragement and presence in my life. God Bless You all!

5. C O N T E N T S
Introduction.......................................................................vii
Chapter 1 When “I Do” really means “I might”................ 1
Chapter 2 Heed the warning signs! ................................... 5
Chapter 3 History Lessons...............................................11
Chapter 4 Ignorance is Bliss ……. Really? .....................15
Chapter 5 What is your worth? ........................................19
Chapter 6 The Power to Walk Away...............................24
Chapter 7 Compliments without Commitment................29
Chapter 8 The Final Exam ...............................................33

7. vii
I N T R O D U C T I O N
OR YEARS, WE HAVE heard the cliché “I can do bad all by myself”.
After hearing this repeated over and over for years on end, it finally
dawned on me that as the prophet of my own life, I did not have to live up to
that cliché’ of doing “bad” just because I was in what most people considered
to be an “unfortunate situation”. Through the years, I have learned that God is
a limitless God. If there are any bars holding me back, it’s only because I have
allowed the bars to be erected in the first place and I have the power to break
free any time I want to.
If you are a man, woman, young lady or young man reading this book,
either you have, or you will find yourself in a situation where you could allow
life’s situations to either destroy you or build you up to who you are destined to
be. You are not limited to how others see you. What matters most is how you
see yourself. If you always define yourself in terms of what you cannot do,
what you cannot become or where you cannot go, you will never do anything,
become anybody or go anywhere. Whether you are the victim of betrayal from
an individual, or a survivor of life, you will soon discover the treasures that are
buried within the core of who you have been created to be. It is truism of fact;
adversities only come to make you stronger. Now use that strength to
overcome the giants in your life and live!
F

9. 1
Chapter 1
When “I Do” really means “I might”
NOW PRONOUNCE YOU Husband and Wife. You may kiss your
Bride.” With those familiar words, she moved from the state of being
single to being married. As she stood there with a look of bewilderment
anxiously awaiting the passionate kiss of her now husband in this new season
of life, she met the reluctant stare of her mate who hesitated to give her the kiss
of holy matrimony that she waited her whole life to receive. She silently
questioned him with a look of “What’s wrong?” for a few moments as he gave
her a half-hearted salute as his new bride. That moment always lingered in the
recess of her mind as she stood in front of hundreds of gazing eyes. This would
only be the beginning of the long road ahead.
After the reception, they went away to begin their honeymoon. If
honeymoons are an indication of what the marriage will be, boy oh boy was she
in for a rude awakening. Every day of their honeymoon, they argued and
fought more during that week than they did over the course of their two and
one-half year courtship. In spite of her efforts to put her best face forward and
ignore what she was feeling in her innermost being, one question always
remained in the inner recesses of her mind, “What on earth did I get myself
into?”
“I

10. I Can Do Bad Good All By Myself
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Maybe this isn’t the story of your marriage, your current relationship,
or any of your past experiences. But as sure is the sun is in the sky, you know
someone that has walked down the aisle of marital bliss (seemingly) only to
have those hopes and dreams of a happily ever-after to be no more than the
click of a shutter captivating what ended up being only a moment in time. With
alarming rates of divorce, separation and broken families, how do you make it?
How do you pick up the pieces and move on? It’s hard enough making it in a
home with two incomes, so how do you move from “two becoming one flesh”
to actually becoming “one” with a torn version of yourself again?
Despite the challenges that love and relationships bring, there is an
ultimate plan from God that allows us to move past the hurt of betrayal,
infidelity, lies and deception into the “land of milk and honey” that God
promises to all of his children. When you get to the point that you realize that
”the promises of God are Yea and Amen to the glory of Christ Jesus” (2
Corinthians 1:20) you will realize that His promises are not contingent upon
one person. If that person does not fulfill their obligations or commitment to
you, the promises of God will not fall to the ground. The Word of God says in
Isaiah 46:11 that “God will summons a man from a far country to fulfill His
purpose.” What the spirit of God wants us to realize in this passage is that His
purposes will stand, and if the arm of the flesh fails us, He will raise up
someone who is fit for the challenge. God has a worthy companion for you, but
you have to wait on the timing of God and make sure that the mate that you
receive is sent from God and God alone. If not, you will be settling for a cheap
copy of the original that God has planned for your life. No matter how real
something appears to be to the unskilled eye, a discerning eye can pick out a
counterfeit every time. Your spirit is designed for a certain kind of mate.
Because God is the manufacturer of us all when we belong to Him, only He can
determine the appropriate compliment to your original design.

11. 5
Chapter 2
Heed the warning signs!
HEN WE LOOK BACK over the situations and events of the past that
did not turn out favorably in our lives, we can see a clear pattern of
warning signs that the Spirit of the Lord has shown us. The problem with that
is, because our flesh wanted the thing that the Lord showed us was not the best
for us, we trudged along in our own strength to obtain it anyway. Many times,
we have been down the road before and know that there is a pothole there.
Time after time, we stubbornly (not ignorantly) keep driving on that same path,
then shake our fists when the pothole causes damage over and over again. I
would dare to say that the pothole is not the problem………
Despite the title of this book, there are parts of us that do not want to do
anything by ourselves. It is built into our nature to want to belong to a group or
to someone else. That’s why in the book of beginnings, God said, “It is not
good for man to be alone, I must make a suitable helpmate for him.” We get all
excited about the prospect of belonging to another, but neglect to focus on that
all too important part of the scripture in Genesis 1:18 when God says, “I will
make a suitable helpmate ….”(emphasis added). We personalize the “I” portion
of that scripture to the first person singular part of speech and take it to mean
that it is our job to make ourselves suitable for someone else. That’s the part
that gets us in trouble.
W

12. I Can Do Bad Good All By Myself
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Satan is crafty in his ways and studies us before he sends the person
that will captivate our attention and tantalize our flesh. He will send someone
with all of the characteristics that you like and make sure that somehow your
paths cross at just the “right” moment in time. I personally like a man that has
large biceps, and when he embraces me, I like to feel his pectorals against my
face as I bury my head in his chest. Now when I met someone that had all of
those characteristics, I thought I had the one! The sound of wedding bells
almost drowned out the fact that he was emotionally unstable, explosive in
anger, a functional alcoholic and a poor manager of finances. WOW! Despite
all of those warning signs, if I did not ask God for the grace to walk away, I
would have had a nice chest to lay my head on while he was apologizing to me
after putting my head through the wall!
Warning signs are not pleasant to acknowledge, but absolutely
necessary to heed if we are to obtain what God has for us. The devil will
always attempt to send the counterfeit before the original comes, in hopes that
we will accept the bait on his line and miss the ultimate reward that God has for
us. When we have a true relationship with God, He will always send warning
to let us know that we are leaving His perfect will for the will of the flesh. You
may be saying, “How do I know when it’s God and when it’s me?” The litmus
test for this question is this: When you have to compromise what God has told
you to do in order to get or keep the thing that you believe God sent you, this is
a prime indication that you have a counterfeit and not an original. The person
that God sends you will not make you choose between living holy and having
them in your life. To take it a little deeper: If your life-living was holy and
pure enough to draw him to you, why would he try to get you to disobey God
just to be with him? Why would he ask you to give up the very element in your
life that is the core of your being? See, Satan is anti-christ, anti-holy, anti-God.
When you have a wolf in sheep’s clothing, it will appear that they are living for

13. I Can Do Bad Good All By Myself
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love and concern for us, we will go through the process that will lead to the
eventual termination and death of the thing that draws us away from God.
Looking further in that same passage of scripture in James 1:17a, reads “Don’t
be deceived, my dear brothers. Every good and perfect gift comes from above,
coming down from the father of the heavenly lights.” The nature of God is to
always put us on the path to receive his very best. Always remember, if we are
to obtain anything from the Lords hand, we will have to do things His way!

14. 11
Chapter 3
History Lessons
S THEY SIT ON THE couch engaged in deep conversation, she gazes
into his bedroom eyes and inquires, “How many women have you been
with besides me?” As she awaits his answer with a sense of uneasiness, but
unconditional love, he looks back at her and says, “You know, to be honest
with you, I really don’t know.” The evasiveness of his answer sends her mind
into a plethora of questions that she wanted to ask, but could only imagine the
answer to: “Is fifty too much to trust him? He couldn’t mean more than that,
could he? Surely he can’t mean hundreds? Is he safe? If I can’t trust him to
tell me something as important as his past, can I trust him at all with my
future?”
In general speaking terms, it has been said that “History is a good
predictor of future events.” It has proven to be true in the study of social
events, and if you look back over your life honestly, it has proven to be true in
your life as well. It is sad to say that despite this seemingly clear observation of
events, many people have fallen – and continue to fall – victim to this truism of
fact.
Like the young lady in the opening paragraph of this chapter, how
many of us have asked the difficult question, but accepted a less than honest
A

15. I Can Do Bad Good All By Myself
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answer in hopes that your relationship with him or her will be different than all
the rest? The truth of the matter is unless that individual has been gully-washed
in the blood of the lamb, went through a process of deliverance to destroy the
soul-ties that have been created from past relationships and is living under the
Blood of the Jesus, you are setting yourself up for a “drive-by” if you enter into
a relationship with such a person. If there is one thing I have learned along this
journey called life, it is that morals are wonderful attributes to possess, but they
can be easily corrupted in the one who is open prey to the devices of the devil.
If your potential mate or loved one has not given their heart to the Lord and is
not covered in the blood of Jesus, your relationship may be Satan’s next
smorgasbord!
In delving deeper into the importance of learning from your History
Lessons, you must come to the realization that the past can be overcome, but it
cannot be denied. Even in a medical setting, they ask you your family history
to assess the likelihood or unlikelihood that you will develop or have to combat
certain kinds of diseases. The more advanced terminology for this biological
occurrence is called genetic predisposition. In its most basic sense, it looks at
how your genes – the basic units of heredity – play a part in whom and what
you become in life. In the context of this chapter, is our genetic makeup the
end of all things, or is history the end of all things? Are we doomed to repeat
the events of the past without the hope or ability to expect a different outcome?
The answer is that things don’t have to be this way, but if you do not learn from
the past and set up measures to guard against the seemingly inevitable
repetition of events, the outcome will be quite similar to the one that came
before it.
In the medical profession, when your genetic predisposition indicates
that you are headed in a certain direction medically, they use preventative
measures to guard against the development of that particular disease. In life,

16. I Can Do Bad Good All By Myself
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and in relationships of any kind, you must do the same thing. For example,
have you noticed that the subsequent personalities of the individuals you have
dated or had sex with in the past are similar to the personality of the person that
you engaged in sexual relations with for the first time (as a virgin)? For
example, if the first person that you had sex with was a “player”, have you
noticed that the people that you have dated after him possess that same
character trait? If the outcome was not desirable, then why do we keep setting
ourselves up for the same type of person with a different name?
If you don’t take time to study the lessons of history, you will find
yourself with the same kind of relationship getting the same results if you don’t
learn from your experiences. Romans 15:4 reads: “For everything that was
written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance and
the encouragement of the Scriptures, we might have hope.” In essence, we
have to know what has come before so that we can learn from it. Get to really
know the person you are spending so much time with. If you are looking to be
in a serious relationship with this person, watch their day-to-day conduct: How
do they conduct themselves in their everyday affairs? Do they pay their bills on
time? Do they pay their tithes and offerings? Do they take care of their
children without having to be threatened with incarceration if they don’t? Why
did their last relationship not work out? How did they treat their former spouse,
girlfriend or boyfriend? These are all key questions in examining the history of
the one that is entering your life. It does not matter if they are coming into your
life as a business partner or a life partner in marriage. History may not be your
favorite subject, but in the school of life, it needs to be your best subject if you
desire to allow the events in your life to make you better, not bitter.

17. I Can Do Bad Good All By Myself
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18. 15
Chapter 4
Ignorance is Bliss ……. Really?
HE GENERAL UNDERSTANDING OF “ignorance” is believed to be
the fact that someone is unaware of something. Ignorance is defined as:
unawareness or lack of knowledge. If there is anything detrimental to the
wellbeing of any challenge, task or feat that you take on in life, it is ignorance:
Not knowing something and moving in a direction that would turn out
differently if a certain thing or fact was known.
However, for the purposes of this chapter, I want us to examine the
things that we try to ignore when we DO have knowledge of them. Looking at
the verb form of ignore, it yields a totally different meaning. To ignore is
defined as: to pay no attention to, close the eyes to; turn your back on; or to
discount. Now this changes the whole tenor of the way we understand this,
now doesn’t it? Let’s look a bit deeper.
When you look in retrospect to the events and relationships in your life
that made you want to kick yourself, it is most likely that there was something
you knew about the relationship that was a little fishy, but tried to ignore. You
knew the person had a problem with being faithful in the past, but for some
reason you thought you could change them. Or maybe you knew they had a
problem with alcohol or other drugs, but because he/she was able to go to work
T

19. I Can Do Bad Good All By Myself
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everyday, make a decent living and drive a nice car, you believed that the
drinking wasn’t really a problem. After all, alcoholics don’t fit this profile (at
least you thought) and he/she seems to be doing alright for themselves. From a
woman’s perspective, because he came from a home where his father beat his
mother mercilessly and you notice that when you get into a heated discussion,
you find yourself standing close to the door just in case the behavior that he
witnessed during his childhood is triggered in him and he chooses to act on it at
your expense. Somehow you find it in yourself to rationalize it away and say to
yourself, “Well, he promised that he would never hit me, although I’m afraid
for my life when we argue because he looks like a ferocious beast ready to
pounce on his prey.”
After looking at these or a myriad of other scenarios, you try to ignore
what you see and proceed with the relationship anyway and hope for the best.
Unfortunately, one thing is bound to happen: the behavior or the situations that
you try to ignore (close your eyes to, or turn your back on) end up staring you
in the face with no possible way of escape. Truth has a wonderful way of
causing us to look at the very things that we try to sweep under the carpet in
hopes that one day they will get better. You see, the difference between
“ignorance” and “ignoring” something that is in front of you is the fact that the
former means that you really don’t know something. The latter means that you
know something exists, but don’t want to accept it to be true. In my years of
living on God’s green earth, I have found this one thing to be true: the things
you ignore or hope will disappear or resolve themselves without confronting
them are the straws that break the back of any relationship. It is rarely true for
individuals to spontaneously wake up one day and say, “I have a problem”
without first being faced with the negative outcomes of his/her behavior.
Am I saying that you have to confront every little nit-picky situation
each and every time in hopes that it will change the person for the better? NO!

20. I Can Do Bad Good All By Myself
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Emphatically NO! That type of vigilance will cause everyone you know to run
with terror when you look like you are walking in their direction. What I am
saying is that there are things we know before we walk into a situation that we
think we have the power to change or make different on our own. If he was
slapping you around before you really got serious – or she was criticizing every
single thing you did from day one – what makes you think one day he/she is
really going to change without some deliverance and behavior modification? If
he/she doesn’t see their behavior as a problem, why would he/she want to get
help to fix it? I simply want you to walk away from this chapter knowing that
there is no magic wand for deficits in you or your loved one’s character. There
is hope for change, but if you are working harder at changing the situation than
the person who actually needs the help, you are setting yourself up for
heartbreak down the line. Wise up! Pay attention to what is going on in the
relationship that is not healthy. If the issues are minor enough for you to accept
and stay for the long haul knowing the person's behavior may never change,
then the relationship is worth maintaining and you may choose to proceed with
the relationship. However, if you know in the back of your mind the issues are
deal-breakers if they are not corrected, then why invest your time and energy
into a bank with holes in it? Know your worth, don’t settle for less and
maintain your value despite the conditions of the market.
So many times when we are lonely and feel there is no hope for the
status of our relationship, we end up settling just for the sake of “having
somebody.” The conversation may be nice, and the companionship a way to
pass lonely hours, but what are you really gaining in the long run if everyday
you have to rationalize why it’s not as bad as it could be, or that at least having
somebody is better than being all alone? I have heard so many single people
shrug the advice of well meaning individuals who see the warning signs in their
loved one’s relationship by saying, “You’ve got your husband and a nice chest

21. I Can Do Bad Good All By Myself
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anything less than God’s best will catapult you into a new place of destiny and
fulfillment in God.

22. 29
Chapter 7
Compliments without Commitment
OU HAVE THE BEST mother in the world,” his father told him as
he wiped the tears from his six year old son’s eyes. Looking up at
his father he said, “Well, if I have the best mother in the world, why did you
leave?”
Many times, we have people in our lives that apparently see our worth,
but realize that either they are not able or willing to pay the price for the value
of who you really are. One of my former pastors told me never to allow the
compliments that someone paid me to cloud the fact that they are not willing to
commit to all of who I am. In short, this is a cop-out to the fact that “I see your
worth, but personally I’m not willing to pay that price. I love you, but not
THAT much.”
When you find yourself in a relationship of this kind, it’s easy to just
focus on the good things that he/she says about you while minimizing the fact
that you have given all of your love, resources and soul to a person who is not
able to commit to the level that you have. The painful reality of this type of
relationship is that you will end up bankrupt because you are always giving and
never receiving what you have been giving out in return. All withdrawals and
no deposits lead to bankruptcy. If you are not careful in identifying this pattern
“Y

23. I Can Do Bad Good All By Myself
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before it gets to this point, the damage will be so extensive that only the love of
God can bring the kind of healing that will allow you to move beyond the pain
to a place of peace and restoration in Him.
I’ve seen countless women and men in relationships with individuals
that dangle the carrots of empty promises before them day after day, week after
week, year after year and before they know it, they have deposited their entire
life into an empty pit. When they are asked the question, “Why did you put up
with that for so long?” they often reply, “He told me that things would get
better, and I believed him. I always believed that one day he would change.” It
is sad to say that for many, “one day” never comes. In the end, the individual
that did all of the depositing, all of the loving and all of the work in the
relationship ends up bankrupt. They become void of self-esteem, self-worth
and full of self-pity because although they received the compliments which
should have built them up in these areas, these "so-called compliments" were
just empty words, void of love and life-giving power that we all need. After a
while, the compliments become so routine that they go in one ear and out of the
other. Somewhere in the middle, the one receiving the empty compliments
asks, “If you really love me, why don’t you spend time with me? If you really
think that I’m beautiful, why don’t you show me?” And back to our opening
scenario, “If my mom really is the best mom in the world, then why did you
leave?”
I was once interested in a young man that gave me insight into the
thinking of a perpetrator of this kind of one-sided relationship. He told me that
the perpetrator studies the person he is interested in long enough to identify
what their weakness is. Whatever that weakness is, whether it is low self-
esteem, the need for male attention, or the need for affection, he would feed the
need just enough to get the person hooked on him. When he looked back over
his victims, he saw how he ruined the lives of so many women through

24. 33
Chapter 8
The Final Exam
EARS AGO, THE LORD gave me the following revelation: “For every
test, there is a Final Exam.” I asked the Lord what he meant by this, and
he likened it to being in school. In school, you take pop quizzes, chapter tests
and unit tests. Before you can move on to the next chapter, you have to
demonstrate that you have mastered the chapter successfully. He showed me
that the same things kept showing up in my life because I had not yet mastered
them.
I spent four years in the same test because I did not apply this principle.
Once I heeded the voice of the Lord, when the same issues kept showing up, I
had to realize that what I did before did not work, apply the spirit of wisdom to
the situation, then, PASS THE TEST!! As a result, I coined the saying, “Learn
the lesson, pass the test!” There are some tests in life that we do not EVER
want to repeat. Although we may pass the chapter tests, there is always a Final
Exam.
In studying for a Final Exam, there is so much information that if you
studied everything you learned before, you will never get to the test for
studying! What I learned and mastered in grade school through Graduate
School is the “art of study.” The key is to review the parts of the test that you
Y

25. 34
already know, but spend more time on the areas that you are not adept in. This
will afford you the opportunity to build up your weaknesses and add to your
strengths.
In my own personal life, I was challenged with repeating the test of
manipulation and deceit until I learned the lessons I needed to learn to pass the
test. In my former relationship, every time I would let him back in, he would
do well for a while, then go back out into the streets. I studied his manipulative
behavior long enough to recognize the pattern. Having done this, when the pop
quizzes came up, I was prepared because I saw it coming. For example, I
learned that somehow an argument would start on Wednesday of every week.
This led to limited contact and very little if any communication on Thursday,
which was the beginning of club night for the weekend. So, inevitably he
would go out and stay out late on Thursday, which led to an argument on
Friday. Friday and Saturday were automatic club nights, so there really was no
communication there. After church on Sunday was always make-up day.
Somehow the message would be about what one or the other of us was doing
wrong, which led to conversation and processing on what we would do
differently next time. From Sunday until Tuesday was the honeymoon phase,
then when Wednesday came, we would get on the merry-go-round all over
again. Only each time, it kept getting less and less merry.
Once I learned the pattern, I made it very difficult to be manipulated
into an argument on Wednesday night. This made it very frustrating for the
other party because they had to go back to the drawing board to find an excuse
to go to the club and do what clubbers do. You see, this is how we have to be
with Satan. He will continue to repeat the same patterns over and over again
until you frustrate his plans and make HIM go back to the drawing board
because his old tactics are no longer effective. If it’s the same kind of man that
he is sending to get you off track, stop falling for that trap every time. Do