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You Never Know What God Is Up To

5/31/2016

When my husband and I were dating, I remember walking around the campus of University of South Florida one night having one of those "lets get to know each other on a deeper level" conversations. At that time, he worked for a big cell phone company in Tampa and was pretty dissatisfied with his job. I remember him saying that he wished there was a way that he could be in ministry full time without actually being a preacher. Public speaking wasn't a strong suit and he did not want to deal with the unfortunate politics that go along with preaching sometimes.

For the next five years he worked in sales and then became a trainer for Dish Network. All the while, not feeling much deep fulfillment with his career. It all seemed rather directionless.

Fast forward another 11 years to now. He is a full time contract chaplain for two state prisons here in our city. He ministers to thousands of inmates in general population and on death row, and he preaches for a wonderful church that, comparatively speaking, treats the preachers the same as anyone else. There is very little of that negative stuff that he wanted to avoid back then. Wish granted.

Looking back, what we didn't know was that the five years he spent toiling in sales and training in secular jobs was not pointless after all. God had him there for a reason. Those jobs not only helped him to finely tune his speaking abilities (if you haven't heard him, the man can preach), but also taught him many invaluable skills on how to talk to people and get to the heart of what it is you want them to learn...a skill that is a necessity when counseling broken men on a daily basis.

Through his work in the prisons we have met many people who have changed the course of our lives forever. One man he baptized early on in his prison ministry impacted my husband spiritually in ways that can't really be quantified. The spiritual change that came about in him during those early years was embodied through his relationship with a young man in prison for aggravated burglary. They shared a love for the lost and both had an overwhelming desire to share the good news about Jesus to them. That passion bonded them as they worked together, my husband in the chapel and this young man in the prison yard. We actually gave our youngest son a middle name to honor that man and what it was that he represents in our lives. We are hopeful that he will be getting out of prison sometime this year.

There is another man that my husband baptized in prison. He was a gang member and after he was baptized slowly stepped away from that lifestyle. He was released and we didn't hear from him for a while. Then he called one day and became a member of our church. That man is now married to my sister and is still a faithful Christian. And what is NUTS is that when my husband was baptizing him all those years ago, neither of them had any clue that they would some day be brothers.

My husband and his dad weren't very close growing up. And he wasn't converted until he was probably 19 or so, so there wasn't a whole lot of mentoring that he received from older men, much less spiritual mentoring. So when a man who was old enough to be his father and was incarcerated with a 35 year sentence for aggravated murder became a spiritual mentor, God once again showed that you just never know how He uses circumstances to change you for the better. That man is being released from prison today after being down for 35 years. Tonight we are praying that the impact he makes on others outside of the walls of prison are half as meaningful as the one he made on my husband.

God will grant you the wishes of your heart (Psalm 37:4). But sometimes we just need to realize that the journey that we need to go on to get us there may be a long one that at times seems fruitless. God is always working - even when we feel like He is not. I truly believe that is why the Bible says that we should do everything as if we were doing it unto the Lord...because even in the mundane and unpleasant things we do in life, God can be using that to shape us and our circumstances into what He wants.

"Yet those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength; They will mount up with wings like eagles, They will run and not get tired, They will walk and not become weary." Isaiah 40:31

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How You Can Help A Friend Who Has Lost A Loved One

5/19/2016

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A little over three years ago my best friend and her husband lost their baby to SIDS. On the anniversary of his death I wrote the following post. Since then I have had many people contact me asking for it again. Today I've heard of several people who have lost children or loved ones. If you know one of them, I hope that you find this helpful.

Three years ago today Alfred and I's best friends lost their 2 month old son to SIDS. We were on our way to meet them for dinner at a local BBQ place when I got a phone call from Serena who just kept screaming, "I think we lost Azaiah! Please pray!" over and over. It took a few minutes to get out the story that they were getting ready to meet us when she found him unconscious and were waiting for the paramedics to arrive. We turned the car around and met them at the hospital where I, along with several others, sat and watched as my friend, who I have shared most of my life with, and her husband and kids had their entire world swept out from underneath them. For a week after that it was a blur. A blur of tears. A blur of funeral planning. A blur of helplessness in my ability to provide comfort. And a blur of people in and out who offered help and condolences.

I've watched the progression of grief for three years now. Most days seem o.k. from the outside but I know that they still have what we refer to as trap doors of grief. Things will just be going along smooth and then BAM - the floor falls out and the grief feels fresh all over again. I can see that my friend, who once thrived on busy social situations now feels smothered and panicky when surrounded by too many voices. Where there once was careful planning and ordering of each and every day, now there is a quiet realization that some things are just beyond our control. It's not something I can tell her I empathize with. But I feel like I have been able to find that place where if she needs me, I can be there for her.

I know that none of this is about me, but I do think maybe there are some things that I have learned in this journey that I hope might be helpful to other people who may be called on to be the support for someone close to them who suffers this loss.

For the sake of time, I'll just keep it brief.

1. Offer practical help immediately.
Just jump in. Don't wait for them to tell you if they need anything.

Help contact funeral homes and make funeral arrangements if possible. Don't take over and ignore the wishes of the family or anything, but just jump in and fill in some of the details that they honestly don't care about when grief is fresh. Offer yourself as the contact person for questions about flowers, the funeral dinner, organization of people bringing meals for days/weeks after.
Help take kids to find appropriate clothing for the funeral if necessary. Kids don't grieve the same as adults. If you have the ability to give the kids some time away at a park or something while grownups grieve the way they do, let the kids play. It doesn't mean they aren't sad.
If the wake will be held in their home, get some people together and go clean and prepare it for them. And don't ask them a million questions about their preferences. If some towels get put in the wrong closet, I guarantee you it won't matter to them. (And after the funeral is over and everyone leaves town, stick around and continue to help with laundry, dishes, grocery shopping, lawn care, shoveling, etc...)

2. Don't feel like you have to try and make them not be sad.
Being sad is totally appropriate. Just acknowledge the sucktitude of their pain and just be there. If they scream about how mad they are, don't try to talk them out of it. Just acknowledge.

3. Realize that life for them will never be the same.
Time doesn't heal all wounds. Time lessens the frequency of trap doors falling out from underneath you but the sadness will never go away (even if the person is completely spiritually minded and mentally healthy).

Be sensitive to the fact that while you celebrate Christmas, they may be sad that they don't get to watch their loved one open presents this year. Birthdays, holidays like Mother's Day and Father's Day, and anniversaries all take on a different meanings. Don't tip-toe and act like you aren't celebrating, but especially in the first few years, try to be aware.
After life-altering events like this, realize that your friends will change. Their interests, likes, dislikes, and even personalities will be altered. Instead of trying to get them to change back into who they were, embrace their new characteristics and learn how to adapt yourself.

That was not brief at all.
Like I said, I know this isn't about me. Azaiah's death brought about so many amazing things in the lives of his family and in the lives of many outside of his physical family. Maybe if this in any way helps someone, it could be just one more way that his memory can be honored.

"Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ." Galatians 6:2

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Self Fat Shaming

5/18/2016

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When I was probably seven or eight years old I was over a cousin’s house and an aunt looked at me in front of a room full of family and very loudly exclaimed that I was getting as big as a house. I wanted to cry and run out of the room but instead I chose to laugh and pretend like I thought it was funny.

I remember in eighth or ninth grade there was a boy at my bus stop who was asking everyone how much they weighed. When he got to me I very clearly remember being embarrassed that I weighed 145 pounds and I lied and told him that I weighed 130 pounds.

In college some girls were all sitting around talking about what diets they were doing. I wasn’t doing anything but felt like surely since I was the largest one in the room that if I wasn’t on a diet too, people would think…well, I don’t even know what I thought they’d think but I know I thought it’d be bad. So I made something up.

Then there's the driver's license. I think the majority of women at least round down, right? Some to the nearest 10...some to the nearest 50.

Even today, when I hear of someone who is succeeding in losing weight, no matter how happy I am for them, there is a small part of me that feels like slinking away from the subject for fear that they’ll say something like, “You can do it…it’s not that hard” or “All it takes is a little effort.” When I try and fail to lose weight, there is a deep sense of shame over the fact that I have been unsuccessful.

Weight loss is such a deep and multi-leveled struggle. It is never the same for every person. And because the root of the weight problem is not the same for every person, there is not one perfect way to fix it.

We listen to what works for everyone else, then we try it. It doesn't work for us so we feel like failures. We feel ashamed. We feel like we didn’t try hard enough. Another failed diet. Another genuine attempt to improve ourselves that is met with the reality that we just don’t have what it takes. We tell ourselves why even try? So we have a week or so where we just say screw it all and eat whatever we want. We gain a few pounds. The cycle continues. We are really going to buckle down this time. A different diet or supplement that worked for someone else. Or maybe the same diet again – just more strict this time. We try different variations of the same thing over and over again without even realizing it. And before we know it, we weigh more than we did when we first began.

So. Much. Shame.

The only cure to the shame is so cliché that it’s almost pointless to write about it and the only reason I am is because I know from talking to so many of you that it’s not just me. And sometimes just knowing that you’re not nuts is motivating in and of itself.
The cure(s) –

Don’t pay attention to other people’s opinions about what you are doing right and wrong. Find something that works for you. Even if (gasp) it means eating carbs on occasion.
Find your worth in something bigger than your body. I’d suggest God – but that’s just me.
Believe that you are worth the effort and hard work that it’s going to take to succeed, because no matter what the commercials or your best friend tells you, it’s going to be difficult at times and if you don’t feel like you are worth the fight, you’ll quit.
Stop setting goals that make you feel bad. If your goal is to lose 2 pounds a week and you go two weeks in a row where you only lose 1 pound and you feel like a failure, then maybe that’s not the best measuring stick for you to use. Try saying that you’re only going to eat 1500 calories a day. Then weigh in after a month and see if it’s working. It’s better to take a long time to lose it than it is to get so frustrated that you quit.

I know that the mind is a terribly hard thing to beat. It’s my biggest struggle. I have knowledge in my brain that my heart sometimes refuses to believe. But just because I don’t believe it doesn’t mean that it’s not true. There are certain things that if done, WILL work.

Just make positive steps forward. Then take another step and then another. And then another. It’s a long walk that I've been told gets easier the further you go.

Your walk is going to look totally different than mine. With every step tell yourself that there’s nothing to be ashamed of. There is no shame as long as you're trying, there's only shame in giving up.

Man, I am a cliché’ machine today.

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A Tale Of Two Racists

5/6/2016

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This is my family. Mom and Dad, seven siblings, three spouses, and three grand-kids.

My dad is the old white guy. My husband is the tall black one. Tomorrow they will be getting up in the morning and will head out together and hit up all of the local yard sales and garage sales they can find. This has become their Friday morning tradition.

My dad has loved and raised three black children and is helping spoil three grandchildren rotten – two who are biracial and one who is white.

My husband calls my mom, “Mom” and can frequently be found hanging out with his blue eyed, country born and raised brothers-in-law or holding his new baby niece whose skin is so fair that if you kiss her too hard she turns pink.

There was a time in my life when my dad and I got into screaming matches because he did not like the fact that I was hanging out with black people, and there was a time when my husband was militantly pro-black. I got the “I’ve got black friends but I don’t want my daughter dating one 'of them'” talk. And I’ve heard it told that 20 years ago my husband would’ve told you that all white people were out to oppress black people.

I could write pages about why I think each of them used to feel the way they did. I could write another hundred pages about why those views were wrong. But that’s not what this post is about. This is a Philippians 4:8 post (And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise).

People who you think would never change can. People who have no desire to change do. People who you dislike can become very likable. People who do not believe can become the most passionate of believers, and people whose hearts are hard can have their hearts softened and reshaped into better ones.

Don’t lose heart. Whether it’s you or someone else you know, people CAN and DO change all of the time. My family is a testament to the power of the gospel that changes lives - not just where people will spend eternity, but how they spend their lives here on earth.

Love God. Love each other. Everything else will fall into place.

“And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart.” Ezekiel 36:26

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