Airtel Adom Praiz 2015: How would you react if your mother died on her way to church?

It was in 1985. A social worker, Gladys Lee Walker, was eager to get to church -a place where she found spiritual support as she raised a son, Hezekiah, alone.

But on that day she didn’t make it to church building. Gladys collapsed and died.

The news hit 21-year-old Hezekiah with great force. The kind of force that turns many into disbelievers.

His father had walked out on his mother years before the tragedy. Now his mother had literally walked out of the living, leaving the young man stranded in a community noted for crime.

"I was working at Xerox in Stamford and quit my job," he was quoted as saying in the New York Times. "I did not wash for days. This went on for two months. In 72 hours, I was about to get thrown out of our apartment. I had no money left”.

“And then I prayed. When I finished, I sat down and wrote the song 'I'll Make It.'"

You can write off his inspired gusto as the kind of things you say to make yourself happy in the face of a tragedy.

But 30 years from that statement of faith encapsulated in lyrics, the facts, stats and influence justifies the boyish confidence on that dark day in 1985.

Hezekiah Walker has 14 albums, two Grammy Awards and an internationally-recognized ministry. His church, established in 1994, has given hope to drug addicts, the suicidal, the poor and prostitutes.

The East New York section of Brooklyn reportedly experienced a 30% drop in crime rate in the church's first year of evangelism.

Today, the boy who lived in America’s version of Ghana’s Sodom and Gomorrah has sang his life out of poverty in the Brookyln projects.

His hit singles and lyrics are heavily perfumed with a theme of praise. It is little wonder that in Ghana like in many other countries where his songs reach, ‘Every Praise’ stands out as probably the most loved.

It is because praising God in your most difficult situation is not a patented Hezekiah Walker formula. It is the way to go, presecribed by God as a prelude to see his mighty arm work salvation in times of great strife or struggle.

And for the current challneges Ghana is going through, a night on September 12 with Hezekiah Walker could be a great moment of praise to shrug off a sense of hopleness.

And say the same words Hezekiah muttered through his clenched teeth, "I'll make it."

Story by Ghana|Myjoyonline|Edwin Appiah|[email protected]