"Black people get to say the n word but we can’t, they must be racists against themselves."

"Why do black people get their own special scholarships and programs?  If we had them for white people, we’d be called racists."

"Think it’s hard being black?  Try being a white male in America today."
"People just need to stop being so sensitive."

"Slavery ended 150 years ago."

"My grandpa wasn’t racist, he was just raised that way."

"I just feel sorry for kids who are mixed…it’s not that I have a problem with interracial marriage."

I really wanted to avoid this topic because honestly, I feel like it is hardly ever beneficial to discuss.  Like many other hot topics, people are not usually interested in examining their hearts to see if they are where they should be, they are interested in defending their long held views or personal beliefs.

But I can tell you this, if you have said any of those statements at the beginning of this blog, you don’t get it.  I’m not calling you (or your grandpa) a racist.  I’m not saying you have a black heart and are looking to obliterate certain ethnicities off of the face of the earth.  I believe that at your heart you are a loving, good willed person who, in regards to this very deep seeded and very sensitive matter, have some misconceptions about the way things really are today.

Ten years prior to the year I was born, it was still illegal in several states for a black person and a white person to marry one another.  Today, I have been happily married to a black man for nearly 10 years.  We have two very mentally healthy, intelligent, and racially well adjusted boys.  I have three siblings who are black.  I have family members on both sides that are married to Hispanics or blacks.  We have a black president for Pete’s sake.  I am thankful every day for the progress that this country has made in a very short time in regards to race relations.

But don’t fool yourself into thinking that it is gone.  I have still been called a nigger lover.  My husband has been called a nigger.  My children have been called niggers and half-breeds.  We have received printed flyers for the Aryan Nation in our mailbox. My husband, who is a law abiding citizen and minster of the Gospel, has been pulled out of his car at 2 a.m., frisked against a wall and had dogs called out to sniff for drugs as a cop accused him of throwing marijuana out of the window.  My younger brother who has cerebral palsy had a school mate stand over him as he laid on the ground and tell him “I don’t like black people.”

I’ve been told that I don’t seem like the type to date (or in my case marry) a black person.  My husband has been told that he is very well spoken ‘for a black man.”  People poorly imitate a stereotypical black dialect out of the blue as they talk to us sometimes, and whenever it is dark, I prepare myself to cringe because without fail someone always makes the “where are you Alfred, I can’t see you” joke.  People make offensive jokes to our faces because we don’t seem like the type to be offended (whatever that type is).  We were once invited to dinner by a woman who over the dinner table told this joke in front of our then two or three year old son - “How are black people and apples alike?  They both look good hanging from trees.”  And she actually thought we would find humor in it.  How are we supposed to respond to that?

My point is not to convince you that you or your loved ones are card carrying members of the KKK (which still does exist by the way).  I’m not trying to convince you that racism is just as prominent today as it was 50 years ago.  And don’t think that I am saying that just because you are white, your spouse is white, and your whole family is white that you are a racist.  Heck, I am white and am not a proponent of white guilt.  But what I am trying to convince you of is that in your vehement denial that racism is still an issue, you seem ignorant and insensitive to real issues that black (or whatever other minority you choose to include here) people still have to deal with, sometimes on a daily basis.  Don’t make comments implying that people just need to “get over it” or “stop being so sensitive.”  How would you feel if you were in a predominantly black environment and as they hurled insults or subtle innuendo your way or at your loved ones, you were told to just chill out?

This is obviously in response to the whole LA Clippers/Jerry Sterling fiasco.  And that is just what it is - a fiasco.  The man is immoral.  The girl who recorded him is immoral.  His wife is immoral.  The fact that you can be recorded in the privacy of your home and have it used against you is ludicrous.  Black rappers are making comments about white people…they are immoral too.

So here is the bottom line that we have been taught since we were five years old, “Do to others whatever you would like them to do to you. This is the essence of all that is taught in the law and the prophets.” Matthew 7:12

Don’t be surprised to see immoral people act in immoral ways.  But also don’t defend immorality and wave it away as imaginary just because you yourself haven’t experienced it.

Several years back I worked as a group home manager for adult men and women with physical and mental disabilities.  In an effort to make their lives as normal and as positive as possible, I made sure that we, as a staff that was supposed to enrich the lives of these people, integrated them into the local community, taking advantage of any recreational and educational programs that were available to us.

One of the women that lived in the home, let’s just call her Sandy, was as sweet as she could be.  She was a forty year old woman with Down’s Syndrome and her life revolved around two things - Disney princesses and cats.  So when a local high school was playing host to a nationally recognized cat show, Sandy was the first to hear about it and make a specific request to attend.  It was such a big deal to her though that just going by herself would not have sufficed - she had to share the experience with her other seven housemates - anything less simply would not have provided the visiting cats with the respect that they were due.

So Saturday morning comes and Sandy puts on her tiara (I’m not even kidding - she really did), her Persian cat sweatshirt, and packed up her tattered Special Olympics tote bag with cat magazines, coloring books, and a stuffed black cat she had named Spooky.  We packed up all eight people plus 3 staff (including myself) into our big old van and headed up to the high school.  We paid the minimal fee to get in the doors of the fairly large gymnasium and snapped pictures of Sandy and her roommates in front of aisles and aisles of colorfully decorated tables and cages containing nearly every type of cat you could imagine (even a Mr. Bigglesworth-esque hairless one).

This is where roommate #3 enters the story (I don’t know why I chose the number three, just go with me here).  Let’s call her Casper the Friendly Ghost.  I’m calling her Casper because she also was as friendly and as sweet as could be, however, she did not speak.  She couldn’t talk but occasionally throughout the day, she  would go through spells that sounded like a mix between a ghostly moan and a shriek.  Typically she would do this as she walked around the house or sat in her chair and rocked.  As far as we could tell, she was never in any discomfort or anything, it just seemed to be a way that she either released stress or expressed herself.  Usually this sound started off small and grew to a noticeable but not disturbing volume.  On occasion it would get louder but was still controlled.  On very rare occasions, however, it would become like a fire engine siren that could not be soothed or quieted.  Unfortunately for Sandy, Casper chose Cat Day 1999 to display the true vocal range she was capable of.

About half way through the first aisle, Casper began her quiet moan.  It wasn’t a big deal to us (we were used to strange looks from passersby and the noise itself), so we just continued on.  Even Sandy, who was taking the whole experience VERY seriously, was not bothered by the noises coming from her friend and woman who lived in the bedroom next to her.  It was just Casper being Casper.  The cats, on the other hand, were not as tolerant as her moans grew to a volume level that we would consider slightly louder than normal.  

As Casper walked past the cages, one by one, her high pitched noises were upsetting the hoity toity felines.  It was like she was a cat whisperer and she was breaking some sort of terrible news to them as she passed.  In response to whatever vibe she was sending their way, they responded with noises of their own.  Some just made these low guttural noises that sounded like drunk dogs growling.  Others meowed pathetically and several even screamed (I don’t know what else to call it, but it’s that same sound you hear coming from alleys during that special time of the year when Tom Cats are out sewing their wild oats).  This mixture of noises proved to be the impetus that launched a somewhat calm morning into utter chaos.

Casper shrieked even louder - propelling her to full blown engine number nine status.  Casper’s roommate covered her ears with her hands and began yelling at Casper to “Shut the heck up doggonit!”  Another gentleman from the home, who had Intermittent Explosive Disorder (yes it is as bad as it sounds), insisted that he was just going to go on ahead without anyone else and wait in the car (which was parked on the far end of the parking lot).  When he was asked to wait for staff to go with him, he got very belligerent and grabbed a cat magazine from Sandy’s hand and threw it over an aisle - thus upsetting yet another one of the gentleman who lived in the home who spat on the ground and began yelling (although he was deaf so what he was yelling was actually not able to be deciphered).  Any semblance of control that we had as staff, was quickly vanishing before our eyes.  So when I saw an uptight looking woman with an official looking name badge walking towards us with a scowl on her face, I knew she wasn’t going to be offering us her assistance.  I wanted to stop her before she got to us and let her know that we were going to beat her to the punch and would work on getting everyone out in a way that was as quick and as peaceful as possible.  But she made it to us and before I could say a word she said, “I’m very sorry, but we have had several owners and guests complain that you are upsetting the cats.  We are going to have to ask you to leave - we will refund your money at the door.  I am so sorry.”  I wanted to tell her that she had no idea that she was about to be a LOT sorrier, but actions speak louder than words.  When Sandy heard, “I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” all you-know-what broke loose.  She actually screamed and smacked the woman on the back of the calf.  Why she bent down and chose to smack her there, I’m still not sure, but it was hard enough to make a sound loud enough to be heard over the shrieking cats and Casper.  She wailed and cried that she didn’t want to leave.

I’m not sure what cats do when they are embarrassed or afraid so I’ll use a dog reference and tell you that we tucked our tails between our legs and tried as best as we could to get all eight out of them out of there before they gave any of the emotionally weak animals heart attacks or physically assaulted any more cat fanciers.  We tried everything from stern voices to bribes of soda and candy.  By the time we got everyone back to the van safely, we were sweaty, exhausted, and frazzled.  Casper kept it up for a good hour, Intermittent Explosive Man got one good whack in on the rear window with his elbow and then calmed down.  Casper’s roommate continued with her verbal jabs and had even worked up some tears…”Why do I have to leave the gosh durn cat show, Rhonda!?  I didn’t do no durn yellin!”  And poor Sandy just sat and stewed the whole way home, looking at her cat magazines and fiddling with her tiara.  When we got home, she went to her room, refused dinner or snack and didn’t come out until morning.

I tell you all of that to get to this one, very short point.  The next day when Sandy’s sister called her on the phone and asked her how the cat show was, she responded and said, “It was kind of crazy at the end but the cats were B-U-tiful” and then she went on to describe all of her favorites that she saw.

I know Sandy wasn’t a child, but she had the heart of one.  If every day I could look at all of the crazy things around me that are happening, acknowledge them for what they are, and then move on and focus on what is good, my life would be so much better.  Today I am going to try and reset my mind and be more like Sandy.

“From the lips of children and infants you, Lord, have called forth your praise.” Matthew 21:16

“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things.” Philippians 4:8

It’s very hard for me to not dwell on my past failures, when it comes to weight loss.  As a matter of fact, sometimes I just listen to what my husband tells me to do because I have become so emotionally unaware in regards to my abilities that were it solely on my shoulders, I would have myself convinced that I could do nothing.  He has way more confidence in me than I have in myself.  He can see things more clearly regarding weight loss because his brain is not clouded by years and years of failures that have seared themselves into his psyche, telling him that this is just another futile effort that will fail.  He can look at things realistically and logically.  My emotional side fights and rebels against it, but he is right.  It can be done.  

My usual response to his overwhelming optimism is a snippy, “I know it CAN be done.  But I also know me, and chances are I won’t do it.”  It’s like I get mad at him for having confidence in me.  But like I said, once your brain is set on past failures, it is very difficult to overcome those feelings.

But there are a few things to remember.

1.  Our feelings don’t mean jack and are definitely not an indicator of truth.  You may feel like you are not ready for something that God is calling you to do, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t.  You may feel like the man or woman you are with is good for you but that doesn’t mean they are.  You may feel like you won’t stick to a plan long enough to achieve success, but you can.  Try to get out of your own head and just act on the facts.

“The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.  Who can understand it?” Jeremiah 17:9

2.  Everyone fails, but people who succeed have persistence.  I ran across a quote by Calvin Coolidge that sums it up well.  He said, “Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not: nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not: the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.”

“And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.” Galatians 6:9

3.  God can change the way you think, but until you are there, just do what He tells you to do.  God’s wisdom much higher than our own.  The Bible is full of instruction that we know will get us to Heaven.  But do you believe that it is also full of instruction on how to live a good life while we are here?  It talks about everything from how to use money, to how to raise kids, and yes - even how to take care of our bodies.  Follow these principles and He promises that you will have a more abundant life.

“I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” Romans 12:1-2

My mind is still not where it should be.  But it is definitely better than it was even a year ago.  Today marks 32 days that I have stuck to my current plan.  I’ve been tracking calories, walking, and drinking a lot of water.  I don’t even know if I’ve lost weight (because I have not stepped on a scale), but I am considering this past month a success and continuing on.  Even the smallest steps forward are better than standing still.  At least that's what my husband says.

As I am writing this, it is well into what you would call the wee hours of the morning.  Not sure where that phrase came from…the wee hours - but regardless of it’s origin, for the second night in a row I am finding myself forced into being awake during them.  My one-and-a-half year old has fallen prey to a sinus infection and a lovely pair of ear infections.  And despite a visit to the pediatrician, regularly scheduled doses of Ibuprofen, Tylenol and antibiotics, hugs, kisses, and lots of rocking, I feel helpless in my ability to bring him comfort.  He just repeatedly allows himself to be almost lulled to sleep and then with any movement is jolted back into the reality that , “oh yeah, three of the five holes in my head are inflamed and throbbing.”  As a parent, all I want is to bring him comfort.  I just want to take away his pain so he can rest.  But my human limitations can only let me get him so far.

Feeling helpless is a terrible feeling.  How many of these statements can you relate to?

Well as I am listening to my son starting to stir yet again, and yet again my heart strings and emotions are being pulled in different directions for him, I am overwhelmed with the fact that as much as I long to be able to bring him peace, God wants the same for me and He wants the same for you.  But HE doesn’t have limitations like I do.

I had a post all set and ready to go and then my editing program froze up and everything was lost. Maybe that was a sign that I was being too wordy.

I was being too wordy because I spent a long time explaining what contentment is, what it takes to be content and some things that can rob us of contentment. But honestly, most of us know all of that.  So today is going to be short and sweet.

You know that you are more fortunate than most people in this world simply because of where you were born.  If you are a Christian, you know what a great thing you have waiting for you after this life is over.  If you are not a Christian, you know that whenever you are willing, you have something greater waiting for you.

There are times that it's okay to be sad, upset, or want more for yourself, but on a deeper level if you still feel as though you can't be happy and content with what you have, then you just need to do some serious soul searching and figure out why God alone isn't enough for you.

Your life was never intended to be perfect. If it was, there would be no need for you to want something more. Stop searching for the perfect relationship, the perfect job, the perfect kids, the perfect home, the perfect clean bill of health, or the perfect financial situation. They don't exist, and if they did they still wouldn't bring you true contentment. 

Start searching to do everything (and I mean everything) to God's glory and not your own. If you do this, I guarantee you that you will not be stressed and worried all the time, but you will find you're closer to the ideal situation that you're searching for anyway.

This lesson took me a very long time to learn but I do think that I am doing relatively well at being happy with what I have.

If you are having a hard time with being content, I would say to first just pray and ask God to help you to be content. And then just go out and start serving other people. If you focus on others, God will focus on you.

"Godliness with contentment is great gain." 1 Tim. 6:6

It seems like local churches today suffer from one of two problems.  Either they have bloated bank accounts with money sitting in accounts not serving any spiritual purpose or they spend so much money on non-spiritual things like maintaining the building, bills, or updating the parking lot that they barely have enough (if any at all) to be able to fulfill the financial responsibilities that the church has actually been commanded to do like caring for needy members and spreading the gospel.

Really we, as individuals, typically struggle with the same two issues.  Either we are greedy and don’t give anything to anyone or we spend so much of our money on non-spiritual things that we have nothing leftover to give.

So what are some questions to ask yourself that may help you determine if you are greedy or not?  Here are just a few:

- Do you help other people who have needs or are you always the recipient?
- If someone asks you to borrow money (and you have it), are you quick to tell them no because you      know they won’t pay you back?
- Do you get upset, jealous, or judgmental when you see other people succeeding financially? 
- Do others regularly joke about your stinginess or “extreme frugality?”
- Are you a republican?  Ha. Just kidding - I couldn’t resist that one. 

If those apply to you, then you may be a greedy Gus as my first grade teacher liked to say.  And if you are a greedy Gus…that’s not good.  It’s actually really, really bad.  

People often say that Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed because of loose sexual morals but that was not the whole story.  In Ezekiel 16:49 you can see that the sin of Sodom was much different than what we always hear.  “Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.”

In Luke 12, there is a story that specifically talks about a man who was rich who just kept building more and more barns so that he could store all of his goods.  He told himself that if he stored them up, he could take it easy in the future and just eat, drink, and live the good life.  But God had different words for him.  He basically said, “You fool.  Tonight you can die and then who will get all of your stuff?”  Then God tells us that the person who stores up money for himself is not rich towards God.

Now on the other hand, if you find that you spend $100 a month on movies, video games, shoes, stuff for the kids sports (or your own), or on Starbucks but yet when the collection plate at church is being passed around you throw in a ten dollar bill, your priorities may also be misplaced.

In the Old Testament the law required that each person give 1/10th of their possessions and money right off of the top.  Today we aren’t bound to the idea of tithing, we are supposed to give from our hearts.  That is not a loophole to permit us to give less.  If we find that we don’t give much, then maybe our hearts aren’t where they should be.  How much better is the covenant we have with God now than it was back then?  It seems to me that a tenth would be the least we could give.

We love to point to the story about the widow who impressed Jesus by giving just a few cents.  We quote this story to show that as long as we are giving cheerfully, God is pleased with our offering.  But we get nervous and start dancing around the issue when it’s brought up that the New Testament church sold all of their stuff and had community money that was shared among everyone.

I hate to be preachy (I know that surprises some of you) but all I’m saying is that I don’t want to stand before God on judgment day and have him ask me why there were people in my spiritual family who suffered while I had money that wasn’t being used.  I don’t want to have to try and explain why I was able to take three vacations a year while people in my community had malnourished children.  And I definitely don’t want to have to explain why it was that when it came to my money, what He wanted was just not my first priority.

So what does this all have to do with worry?  Well I hope to get into that next week with the last one on this subject that I’ve been thinking about…contentment.

So until then, find someone who needs help and help them.  Give to your church.  And vote democrat. (Aaaand queue the hate mail). Ha.

I have been poor.  I’m not talking about the kind of poor where you can’t afford to take the annual summer vacation or buy those cute shoes that are on sale.  I am talking about the kind of poor where you can’t get to a medical appointment because you can’t scrape up enough change for one gallon of gas.  I’m talking about the kind of poor where it’s snowing outside and you don’t have a coat that fits or shoes that properly protect your feet from freezing.  I’ve gone without meals to make sure that my kid had food.  I’ve accepted groceries from others when we couldn’t afford to buy our own.  I’ve taken government help.  I’ve spent nights in a dark, cold house because the electricity got turned off and I have had to fill gallons of water at my sister’s house and bring them back so that we could wash dishes and brush our teeth when our water was shut off.  We’ve been sucked into the payday loan cycle and we’ve pawned things for a quarter of their value so that we could have basic necessities.  So when it comes to being able to identify with people going through financial struggles, I feel confident in saying that I can hang with the best.  I don’t say that to brag or to gain sympathy, I am only saying it because what I am about to say is probably going to tick a lot of people off.  And if it does, I want to be able to clarify that I WAS THERE.  I know from first hand experience how it works.  I know the mentality and I know the excuses that come along with poverty.

I also want to qualify what I’m about to say with the fact that I am not talking about having brief financial setbacks.  I believe that those are things that happen to everyone at some point.   For the sake of my point today,  when I talk about being poor, I am referring to people who ALWAYS seem to find themselves in financial emergencies or CONTINUALLY live under the weight of striving to meet even the most basic of needs.

If you wake up every day struggling and stressing about where the day’s provisions are going to come from, if you have a  heaviness on your shoulders all of the time due to the innumerable bills and obligations that you are failing to pay off, or if you are constantly feeling like forces of nature are working against you to keep you from getting ahead, I am going to say that there is a pretty good chance that you are not seeking God the way that you should be.  This is not ME talking or some right wing conservative opinion either (I am no fan of Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity - trust me), this is straight out of the pages of the Bible.

Matthew 6:33 says, “but seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”  When it says “these things,” it is referring to the verses directly before verse 33 when it is talking about not being anxious (or worried) about what you are going to eat and drink or what you are going to wear.  In this passage God promises (and remember that it is impossible for him to lie) that he will provide you with these things.  So why do we sometimes find ourselves in a situation where we don’t have them?  It’s because we ignore the qualifier.  He says that all of these things will be added to you if you seek His kingdom and His righteousness FIRST.

When I was poor, I went to church at least twice a week.  I didn’t drink, swear, lie, steal, or cheat on my husband.  I was a nice person.  I read my Bible.  Shoot, I even taught Bible studies.  I prayed a lot.  I prayed on my face at times begging God to change my circumstances.  And many times I was met with what seemed to be God’s silence.  I was confused, I was desperate, and sometimes I was just angry.  My life was on hold because I felt I was incapable of functioning fully until my physical and material concerns were met.  I just didn’t understand why things were the way they were. 

What I didn’t realize was that we were kidding ourselves.  We weren’t putting spiritual things first.  We may have said we were and we honestly may have even believed it at the time, but we weren’t.  My husband’s three jobs, which started with good intentions to help us get out of debt, kept him from his family and all spiritual events and activities.  From 6 a.m. to after midnight six days a week, he was at work over an hour away.  I was so wrapped up in my loneliness and problems that I felt I had nothing to offer to others.  I was dishonest with my husband.  There were times when I would sneak and buy cigarettes when we didn’t have money to pay bills and he had no idea that I was even smoking. We neglected to show hospitality to people because we were embarrassed of our home and thought that a simple bologna sandwich and some Ramen noodles would not be an appropriate offering to anyone.  We only gave to our church or to others from what we had leftover.  Giving was not a priority…I mean what did we have to give, right?  We weren’t applying Biblical wisdom to our finances (a whole other study could be had on that) and we borrowed from one place to pay off another.  And as a result, we strived and strived and strived to get ahead and just treaded water for a year.  And then we were broken.

Due to our misplaced priorities and (keeping it real) financial irresponsibility, we hit a low point that forced us to reevaluate our priorities.  We hit our faces and opened our hearts and prayed to God NOT to give us money or a certain job, but to just strip us bare and start over.  We asked him to just use us for whatever purposes He wanted us for.  We prayed that if that meant being poor, we were OK with that as long as we knew it was where HE wanted us to be.  We realized that putting God FIRST was not a passive, easy thing to do.  It was an extreme lifestyle change that sometimes was scary and looked down on by others who didn’t’ share our spiritual outlook.  My husband quit two of his three jobs immediately so that he could focus on what was truly important and he later ended up quitting his full time job in pursuit of full time prison ministry.  We made it a point to force ourselves to give to others first, even if we felt like we didn’t have it to give.  We struggled against our natural inclinations to do what seemed wise in our own eyes and purposefully applied only Biblical principles to our lives.  And as a result, God fulfilled his promises.  The next thing we knew, we were finally o.k.

What good are you doing with what you have?  The Bible says that He who is faithful in little will be faithful in much (Luke 16:10).  Do you share what little you have with others who are in need?  Are you like Able who gave God from the first and best of what he had or are you like Cain who gave to God from his leftovers?

Are you looking to fulfill the things in your life that YOU want or are you open to God’s will for you - even if it seems to be leading you somewhere you don’t want to go?

Where is your money going now?  Are you spending it on feeding your own addictions? Enabling ungodly lifestyles of others? Inappropriate entertainment?  Why do you pray to God and ask him to provide you with money that is ultimately going to fund things He wouldn’t approve of?

We aren’t rich now.  We still come to the end of the month and find ourselves really having to be careful about where our money goes.  But boy is life different.  We no longer stress about the where the money will come from to pay for things that come up - we know that God has it taken care of.  Time and time again He has proven that to us.  It’s just like He said in the book of Matthew…put ME first (before your own desires, before your job, before each other even) and I promise I will give you the things you need.  That truth has always been there, it was just our own blindness and stubbornness that was holding us down.  And living in that truth has relieved us from so much bondage and worry.

“He provides food for those that fear him.“ Psalm 111:5

“Once I was young, and now I am old. Yet I have never seen the godly abandoned or their children begging for bread.” Psalm 37:25

I have been poor.  I’m not talking about the kind of poor where you can’t afford to take the annual summer vacation or buy those cute shoes that are on sale.  I am talking about the kind of poor where you can’t get to a medical appointment because you can’t scrape up enough change for one gallon of gas.  I’m talking about the kind of poor where it’s snowing outside and you don’t have a coat that fits or shoes that properly protect your feet from freezing.  I’ve gone without meals to make sure that my kid had food.  I’ve accepted groceries from others when we couldn’t afford to buy our own.  I’ve taken government help.  I’ve spent nights in a dark, cold house because the electricity got turned off and I have had to fill gallons of water at my sister’s house and bring them back so that we could wash dishes and brush our teeth when our water was shut off.  We’ve been sucked into the payday loan cycle and we’ve pawned things for a quarter of their value so that we could have basic necessities.  So when it comes to being able to identify with people going through financial struggles, I feel confident in saying that I can hang with the best.  I don’t say that to brag or to gain sympathy, I am only saying it because what I am about to say is probably going to tick a lot of people off.  And if it does, I want to be able to clarify that I WAS THERE.  I know from first hand experience how it works.  I know the mentality and I know the excuses that come along with poverty.

I also want to qualify what I’m about to say with the fact that I am not talking about having brief financial setbacks.  I believe that those are things that happen to everyone at some point.   For the sake of my point today,  when I talk about being poor, I am referring to people who ALWAYS seem to find themselves in financial emergencies or CONTINUALLY live under the weight of striving to meet even the most basic of needs.

If you wake up every day struggling and stressing about where the day’s provisions are going to come from, if you have a  heaviness on your shoulders all of the time due to the innumerable bills and obligations that you are failing to pay off, or if you are constantly feeling like forces of nature are working against you to keep you from getting ahead, I am going to say that there is a pretty good chance that you are not seeking God the way that you should be.  This is not ME talking or some right wing conservative opinion either (I am no fan of Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity - trust me), this is straight out of the pages of the Bible.

Matthew 6:33 says, “but seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”  When it says “these things,” it is referring to the verses directly before verse 33 when it is talking about not being anxious (or worried) about what you are going to eat and drink or what you are going to wear.  In this passage God promises (and remember that it is impossible for him to lie) that he will provide you with these things.  So why do we sometimes find ourselves in a situation where we don’t have them?  It’s because we ignore the qualifier.  He says that all of these things will be added to you if you seek His kingdom and His righteousness FIRST.

When I was poor, I went to church at least twice a week.  I didn’t drink, swear, lie, steal, or cheat on my husband.  I was a nice person.  I read my Bible.  Shoot, I even taught Bible studies.  I prayed a lot.  I prayed on my face at times begging God to change my circumstances.  And many times I was met with what seemed to be God’s silence.  I was confused, I was desperate, and sometimes I was just angry.  My life was on hold because I felt I was incapable of functioning fully until my physical and material concerns were met.  I just didn’t understand why things were the way they were. 

What I didn’t realize was that we were kidding ourselves.  We weren’t putting spiritual things first.  We may have said we were and we honestly may have even believed it at the time, but we weren’t.  My husband’s three jobs, which started with good intentions to help us get out of debt, kept him from his family and all spiritual events and activities.  From 6 a.m. to after midnight six days a week, he was at work over an hour away.  I was so wrapped up in my loneliness and problems that I felt I had nothing to offer to others.  I was dishonest with my husband.  There were times when I would sneak and buy cigarettes when we didn’t have money to pay bills and he had no idea that I was even smoking. We neglected to show hospitality to people because we were embarrassed of our home and thought that a simple bologna sandwich and some Ramen noodles would not be an appropriate offering to anyone.  We only gave to our church or to others from what we had leftover.  Giving was not a priority…I mean what did we have to give, right?  We weren’t applying Biblical wisdom to our finances (a whole other study could be had on that) and we borrowed from one place to pay off another.  And as a result, we strived and strived and strived to get ahead and just treaded water for a year.  And then we were broken.

Due to our misplaced priorities and (keeping it real) financial irresponsibility, we hit a low point that forced us to reevaluate our priorities.  We hit our faces and opened our hearts and prayed to God NOT to give us money or a certain job, but to just strip us bare and start over.  We asked him to just use us for whatever purposes He wanted us for.  We prayed that if that meant being poor, we were OK with that as long as we knew it was where HE wanted us to be.  We realized that putting God FIRST was not a passive, easy thing to do.  It was an extreme lifestyle change that sometimes was scary and looked down on by others who didn’t’ share our spiritual outlook.  My husband quit two of his three jobs immediately so that he could focus on what was truly important and he later ended up quitting his full time job in pursuit of full time prison ministry.  We made it a point to force ourselves to give to others first, even if we felt like we didn’t have it to give.  We struggled against our natural inclinations to do what seemed wise in our own eyes and purposefully applied only Biblical principles to our lives.  And as a result, God fulfilled his promises.  The next thing we knew, we were finally o.k.

What good are you doing with what you have?  The Bible says that He who is faithful in little will be faithful in much (Luke 16:10).  Do you share what little you have with others who are in need?  Are you like Able who gave God from the first and best of what he had or are you like Cain who gave to God from his leftovers?

Are you looking to fulfill the things in your life that YOU want or are you open to God’s will for you - even if it seems to be leading you somewhere you don’t want to go?

Where is your money going now?  Are you spending it on feeding your own addictions? Enabling ungodly lifestyles of others? Inappropriate entertainment?  Why do you pray to God and ask him to provide you with money that is ultimately going to fund things He wouldn’t approve of?

We aren’t rich now.  We still come to the end of the month and find ourselves really having to be careful about where our money goes.  But boy is life different.  We no longer stress about the where the money will come from to pay for things that come up - we know that God has it taken care of.  Time and time again He has proven that to us.  It’s just like He said in the book of Matthew…put ME first (before your own desires, before your job, before each other even) and I promise I will give you the things you need.  That truth has always been there, it was just our own blindness and stubbornness that was holding us down.  And living in that truth has relieved us from so much bondage and worry.

“He provides food for those that fear him.“ Psalm 111:5

“Once I was young, and now I am old. Yet I have never seen the godly abandoned or their children begging for bread.” Psalm 37:25

If I am going to tackle my demons, it seems like the most simple way to get started is to just start with the biggest, most obvious one and work my way down, and as far as demons go, this one is my Legion.  At times it fills me up and almost takes me over completely, making my head spin in circles and causing me to start twitching like the little girl in the Exorcist.  I know that I’m not alone with this one either because after reading people’s Facebook posts, providing an ear to people around me who need to vent, and just observing people here and there, I am convinced that almost all of us have let ourselves be eaten up with worry at some time or another.

I am a natural worrier.  I don’t know if the fact I’m the oldest of seven kids has anything to do with it (maybe I inherited the overly protective mom gene).  Maybe it’s because I think I know better than everyone else and when they don’t listen to me it stresses me out.  Maybe I am a pessimist disguised in an optimist’s personality.  Whatever the reason, I am an expert at it.  I have truly perfected the art of worry.  My kids, my brothers and sisters, my parents, my church, my marriage, lack of money, health, politics, the future, the past, am I making the right decisions - you name it and if I allowed myself, I could obsessively worry about all of that garbage all day every day.

Starting at the most basic of truths though, the first thing all of us worry warts just need to accept is that worry really doesn’t change or help anything.  As a matter of fact, it just cripples your ability to see clearly enough to efficiently take care of the problem you are concerned with in the first place.  It puts you in a bad mood, it causes physical and emotional discomfort and in my case, it puts extra pounds on my hips and butt every time it rears it's ugly head.  And honestly, it usually causes the problem to seem bigger than what it really is anyway.  

There are no positives to worrying.  None.  But yet it seems so right.  It feels good to cry and yell and wallow in the misery that is potentially hovering right around each corner.  It gives us permission to not act and it allows us to stop any forward progress.  It gives us something to talk about, to think about, and to garner sympathy from.  In a way, it is just easier to worry than it is to do what needs to be done sometimes.

In the New King James Bible the phrase “fear not” is used 11 times.  The phrase “do not be afraid” is used 48 times and the phrase “do not fear” is used 51 times.  Wow.  That’s a lot of reminders to not be afraid.  If I told my 8 year old something 110 times, I think it’s probably something I felt pretty strongly about.  And most of these are commands, not suggestions.

Tomorrow (hopefully) I am going to start with a worry trigger that is huge.  Tomorrow it's all about money - one of the most common and easiest to worry about.  I think as far as anxiety goes, this one has been both my most intense struggle and my most rewarding victory.  I have finally learned to handle it in a healthy way.  God knew money would stress us out, that's why He has a TON to say about it.

So until then, here is a good verse that I like to repeat to myself when I am freaking out over something.  I hope it can help you as well!  

“Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid; for the Lord God is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation.” Isaiah 12:2

This hiatus in blog posting is one of those rare ones that has not been caused by a guilty conscience or feeling of embarrassment due to my lack of effort.  I have actually been doing pretty well.  As a matter of fact, I’d say that I’ve been doing very well.  Both my husband and I are going on three straight weeks of healthier eating and exercise.  That may not seem like much to most of you, but in the past, two weeks has been the point when we fizzle out.  So an entire extra week is good.  And this is the first time in a long time when I have incorporated exercise…so that is good as well.

I’ve not by any means turned into a gym rat - my husband is the one who is in the gym before 7 am on most mornings (gag), but I have been consistently walking every day.  I even bought some new tennis shoes…and if I am shoe shopping, you KNOW I mean business.  I loathe shopping in any and all forms.  The past few days I have even noticed that I am able to walk further and faster without getting lower back spasms (which was a big issue for me previously).  It’s the small things that are keeping me going  since 1. I have yet to notice a difference in the way my clothes fit and 2. This time around I am not weighing myself regularly.  I’ve done it weekly in the past and have felt discouragement rather than motivation from the results - even if it was a loss.  This time I might do it monthly…or I might just tell myself that as long as I am doing what I know to be healthy and good, I won’t let the scale control me.  We’ll see.  Chances are I will have to look.

Back to the reason for the hiatus.  I’ve had some form of writer’s block or something.  I feel as though I’ve said all that can be said about my struggle with dieting and weight loss.  Not that I have mastered anything or become an expert on my own brain and how it works, but I have exhausted the basics.  I can journal about my bad days and good days…but that’s not interesting reading.  I’ve not felt strongly one way or another about things to write about.

My best friend has a blog.  Hers is a real blog.  She’s like filet mignon and I’m like Salisbury steak (which I love by the way).  She’s been getting around 10k hit’s a day for the past few weeks.  Including you, I have about 10 (without the k).  OK…maybe a few more than that, but I’m no Wordy Woman (shameless plug here - www.awordywoman.com).  But anyway, she did something crazy.  She prayed about her blog.  She prayed that God would increase traffic to it and that He would lead her in her efforts to know what to write about.  Once she did that, her page hits more than doubled in one week.  God is nuts.  He even controls the internet.

I really enjoy writing this blog.  I find it cathartic. I also feel like it gives me a chance to connect with people who have the same issues I do on a lot of different levels.  When I started it, I did use the tag line, “shedding emotional, physical, and spiritual weight.”  I feel like for the first year I mainly focused on the physical weight part.  I am going to take a play from the Wordy Woman’s play book and pray about it but I think the next step is going to be tackling some of the spiritual and emotional baggage this year.  It’s all tied together anyway.

I’m excited to get back into writing again.  It might be a few weeks before I post again or it might be tomorrow.  I’m going to just have an open mind and an open heart and see where God leads it.

Thanks for sticking with me this far (all 10 of you)!