Unexpected Miracle

 

I’ve felt it since I was a little girl. It always caused stomach pains and headaches. I could feel my fear- anxiety- at an early age and it affected me strongly.  I could not comprehend at that time that my anxiety of being sexually abused at the time was literally causing stomach pains. I figured I just had a sensitive stomach, and so did everyone else.  My parents would regularly take me to the doctor to get me checked out, to see if we could get treatment.  Even my dad, who was the one abusing me, seemed to be concerned about my stomach, and he could not put two and two together.  As an educated woman who has lived long enough and now learned about emotions and their impact on our bodies, I can clearly correlate my stomach/digestion problems as a child to the abuse I was experiencing at the time.   

As I grew up, I continued to experience extreme anxiety.  In college, when I was a single mom, it was especially bad. I felt at times that I might, literally die from anxiety. I knew it was also impacting my physical health and that it could someday actually cause significant heart issues.  I have worked out, gone to church, and worked on getting enough sleep, all in an effort to ease my anxiety. However, I always felt that it was just who I was- an anxious person- and it was something that I ultimately just had to live with.

This all changed one day in church.  We had been attending our new church for several weeks at the time. This church is different from the rest. The pastor actually listens to the Holy Spirit and allows the spirit to lead the services, or “gatherings” as they call it at our church.  It is exciting and inspiring.  Since we have been attending there, I have become closer with and more knowledgeable of God. 

One Sunday morning, right after one of the worship songs, Pastor Kris announced that he thought there was someone in the room with debilitating anxiety.  He said the anxiety was causing nightmares and was completely overwhelming.  I instantly become emotional, and thankful, as I knew he was speaking to me.  I had recently been promoted at work at the time and was completely overwhelmed and consumed with anxiety. I so desperately wanted to feel better, but did not realize it was possible.  “If that’s you, God wants to heal you today.”  “If you believe God can heal you, place both of your hands on your head right now and I’m going to pray for you.”  I knew in that moment that the Lord was specifically referring to me in that room and I was ready to be healed. The instant I put my hands on my head and we started praying, I immediately felt the spirit move through my body. It was an electric feeling that started at the top of my head and traveled down to my legs.  I immediately started crying.  They were not tears of sadness, but it felt as though the anxiety was literally washing away with my tears.  I knew in that moment that I was being healed- that God was doing a miracle.  I also immediately felt an all-consuming, unexplainable peace. I felt like a new person in that moment.

As I was driving home after church, I thought to myself that I was excited about the new me, but a part of me also wondered if this feeling would stick. I wondered if I would feel that same normal anxiousness driving into work the next morning that I always felt.  I believe that it is totally natural and human for us to question God sometimes.  God’s word tells us about Thomas, who walked beside Jesus and still questioned the resurrection until he could see the proof with his own eyes.   I believe Jesus gives this insight into human character by telling us about Thomas.  It is ok to question and to wonder.  We would not be human if we didn’t.  Even after a miracle, it’s ok to wonder if it is real.  We are human, after all, and God created us to be inquisitive. He also created us to trust, so once we’ve started questioning, it is important to redirect ourselves to a place of trusting God, even if it is hard to do.

To this day, almost seven months later, I can honestly tell you that God truly did heal me of my anxiety that day.  I no longer drive to work each day with an overwhelming feeling of dread and worry, worried about what the day may bring and whether I will do a good job as a leader.  Do I worry sometimes and have moments of anxiety during the day?  Ff course! A certain amount of anxiety is healthy, as it keeps us motivated to work hard.  However, that all-consuming, debilitating anxiety that I once had, which I had for many, many years, is gone.

I am praising God every day for this miracle.  As small as it may seem to you, it is huge to me.  It is a wonderful example of his amazing love for me. I do not deserve it, but it is there.  He loves me and cares for me each day and he has done the same for you- will do the same for you- if you let him.

Nostalgia

I am dripping with sweat and very thirsty. It has been about 20 minutes, I am pretty sure, but I am almost there.  If I can stay on this lawn chair for just a while longer, I should beat out my brother beside me who seems to be equally sweaty and thirsty. I know I can hold out longer than him.  This is our regular summertime game- the one where we see who can stay on the lawn chair the longest. Before we started the clock, we’d prepare our space with all the snacks, drinks, magazines, books, and whatever else we needed to occupy our time so that we could hold out longer than our competitors. 

I do not even remember what the prize was. Maybe just bragging rights? Either way, the thought of it now cracks me up. It honestly seems very boring, especially for little kids.

We were creative kids.

Our bunk bed was the stage, and we were the actors. My brother, The Prince, would ride into the room on his Star Wars AT- AT Walker to save me, The Princess, from the Evil Witch, my sister.  I loved playing the princess and she equally loved playing the witch. Or maybe it was the other way around? Either way, we were thespians in our own right, and we continue to love performing arts to this day.

My Red Wagon was transformed into a covered wagon by us placing two milk crates on either side and covering the crates with a towel. We would place our dolls inside and take them on a long adventure.  We would even walk all the way to the grocery store a couple times as a group of kids while pulling the wagon.  We decided we really were pioneers and I was Laura Ingalls Wilder. I mean, isn’t this what all Oregonian kids did during the summer?

My best friend, my sister, and I would ride bikes everywhere, but they were not actually bicycles. They were horses. We would ride all day and often pull our “horses” over and give them water from the hose.  We would feed them grass from the yard- because- certainly they were hungry and thirsty from all of that riding around!

We would make mud pies after rainy weather, which was often… because…Oregon. 

I will never forget the Barbie house that my mom and sweet aunt made for my sister and I and our cousins.  They spent hundreds of hours constructing 3-foot-tall houses out of real materials- wood, carpet, tile, and wallpaper.  They made working lights in each room out of Christmas lights. The rooms were designed to be tall enough for the dolls to walk around in them and for all of the furniture to fit easily.  They were master pieces, and we had the privilege of playing with them for several years. 

We would think of anything and everything to fill up our time on those long summer days.

Thinking of these memories causes me to wish we could have those times back again, to a certain extent (minus all the trauma, of course!).  I wish we could have the pre-cell phone life back again. Let’s be honest, kids these days would lose their minds if they tried to compete in the Lawn Chair Game without an electronic device.  As much as I love technology and all that it has helped us with, there is a part of me that wishes we could get back to the days where we did not have to look at a cell phone, tablet, or other device once every 15 to 20 minutes (or more!).   I am determined to help us all with this terrible addiction and distraction.  Let’s get back to seeing each other and spending quality time with each other. I support you in your mission to work on this and I need your support, as well.

We got this!

Shameful

 

I am a pacifist.  I honestly do not understand how people who believe in Jesus like me do not think the same way as I do when it comes to using guns or any weapons- or when it comes to the idea of war, in general.  Isn’t Jesus a pacifist? Did he not say, “blessed are the peacemakers?”  If this is true, why do so many Christians believe in owning and using guns so much? I seriously hate guns.  I hate they even exist.  The only purpose of guns is to cause death. Of course, people use them to disarm and disable people in order for them to be detained, but, for the most part, guns are meant for total destruction and pain. I hate them.  Every single time I hear about another school shooting, I think again about how much I hate guns.  The incident that happened this week in Nashville is no different.  A shooter ended six innocent lives and destroyed countless others this week.  The reports are saying she was transgender and there seems to be a ton of focus on that, but I am wondering what her gender or sexuality has to do with any of this.  It has nothing to do with it.  An old high school friend was interviewed and reported that she was happy in high school and caring and essentially that this was completely out of character. Her parents have reported that she was receiving treatment for a severe mental disorder and that they did not think she owned any guns. 

What is the answer to all of this?  It is difficult to say.  Many Christians will say that we just need to pray, that the world is broken, and that this is the result of that. This is all true; however, we also can- and must- take other actions that would help. Why have we become so complacent as believers that we choose to pray about everything and do nothing else? If we are to pray without ceasing anyway then why are we taking actions on anything at all in general?  Why not just pray for a cup of coffee, rather than pour a cup?  In other words, we should be praying throughout the day anyway, and we take actions along the way based on how we want our day to go.  So, why not act in these moments? In the things that really matter and can make a huge difference in the world?  There is a huge amount of untapped world-changing potential that exists in each of us.  I truly believe we will be held accountable to Jesus in the end, not just for what we did, but also for what we did not do.  For the actions we could have taken that would have helped the world but that we chose not to take.  In this situation, many Christians are choosing to focus on the shooter’s sexuality rather than on what we can and should do about the gun problem in America.  Shame on us. We need to do better.

Real Love

 

I drive or walk by the Market House in Fayetteville most days of the week, either heading to and from work or during my daily exercise routine.  At first glance, it's a beautiful, historical building.  However, I immediately start to think about the true history of it and the horrible things that happened there.  It’s a national landmark, where the constitution was ratified. It was used to sell household goods and town hall meetings also often occurred there in the past.  The website Visit NC notes it was a place where “occasionally” slaves were sold, and mostly because of indebtedness or liquidation. 

Of course, Visit NC is trying to advertise the Market House as an attraction, where they are encouraging people to visit and, as a result, this would potentially benefit our community financially and socially.  Thus, the language they used to describe the history of human trafficking that occurred there is watered down.  Were those kind of slavery sales less evil?

If you do not live here, you may not know that there has been an ongoing debate about whether to tear down the Market House because of its dark history. In 2020, Ahmaud Arbery, a Black man, was murdered by two White men while he was jogging through the neighborhood after they figured he was the guy that had robbed some people and thought it was their business to perform a citizen’s arrest and ended up killing him. Shortly thereafter, George Floyd was murdered by the police. Just as what happened around the country, our city erupted in protests afterward.  The Market House naturally became a focal point for our protests in Fayetteville. It made sense that folks would protest directly at the building, considering what had occurred there.  I completely understand that people want to get rid of it. The city should either tear it down or they should honor the families of those trafficked there by turning the building into a slavery memorial. Period.

One day, during my lunch break, I noticed there were two groups of people protesting on either side of the building. One group representing each side of the argument.  I decided to try to encourage the group on the side that I supported and to snoop over at the other side to try to hear their arguments. I thought maybe I could try to understand more where they were coming from.

Based on my physical appearance, of course, the Market House preservation supporters assumed I was on their side.  As a White woman wearing workout clothes in the middle of the day, I’m sure I looked like a total Karen to everyone else. First, I walked to the protesters side and spoke some words of encouragement to them, signed their petition to tear it down. I then walked over to the other side.  As I got close to the table, an older gentleman stood up from the table and rushed around it to come speak to me.  He asked me if I would like to sign his petition.  I politely told him that I would not sign it and proceeded to explain why. He, of course, argued that great historical moments had occurred there, but he acknowledged that maybe “a few” slaves had likely been sold there.  I told him that, if even one person was hurt or killed, that there should be, at the very least, a monument created to honor the family of the victim(s).  He didn’t have a response for that.  I also asked him if he knew about Juneteenth.  He didn’t know what it was.  I explained that it is a holiday celebrating the emancipation of all slaves in the United States.  I know that you’re probably thinking the Emancipation Proclamation freed the slaves, but, unfortunately, all slaves in the U.S. did not receive the news at that time. It took another two years for the last group of slaves living in Texas to receive word that they had been freed.  So, on June 19^th, 1865, slavery officially ended.  We observe this day throughout our country in multiple states, but it has not been formally made as a federal holiday.  Hopefully, that day will come soon. Over the past couple of years, my family has celebrated it, and we plan to every year forward.

The fact that we do not officially celebrate this day in America and that so many people don’t even know about it is sad to me. 

After explaining Juneteenth to the gentleman, and after asking him to watch a couple Netflix shows on the topics of this holiday and on systemic racism, such as “13^th,” it was time for me to leave.  He seemed to have a shocked look on his face as I walked away.  I truly hope he was listening and that he did some research on his own after that. I doubt I changed his mind on the issue, but at the very least, hopefully he learned something new. 

The bottom line for me is that, especially for Christians, in all things, our love for others must guide us in all our steps.  In every decision we make, love should rule.  What does love look like in this situation? Is this building more important than people? Is it showing love by ignoring the horrible past of the Market House and not honoring the families of those hurt there?

I recently looked up the word “love” in my Bible’s concordance.  Where some words in the Bible have 5, 10, or 20 references, the words “love” and “loved” have hundreds.  There are boundless references about how to love others in the Bible, and they are possibly the most used words in it.  I do not think this is a coincidence.  God is showing us that, in all things, we must love first.  Even if that love feels uncomfortable to us, even if it means we have to give something up that is of value to us, or even if it means we have to view something differently than we have in the past.  When we love others sincerely, we must seek to understand their pain, try to understand the reasons behind their actions, behind the pain, such as protests, and do our best to be helpful.  It does not come easy because we are all human and naturally selfish.  I ask that, if you are a Christian, because you have a higher responsibility than others to show love, you always consider what love looks like in everything you do.  This world will be a much better place for it. 

Phil 2:3-4 “Do nothing out of selfish or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of others.”

Painful Reality

When I was dating my daughter's biological father back in 1999-2000, my grandfather, who was in his late 80s at the time, would not allow my boyfriend into his house because he was a Black man. That was my first personal experience with blatant racism that I can remember.  It was very hurtful.  I decided that if he was not allowed in my grandparent's house, then I would not go either.  When I became pregnant, it hurt even more. Now, my grandfather was not only denying my boyfriend from being included in the family but he was essentially denying my child, his own flesh and blood, from being included, as well.  Out of protection for my daughter, I would not step foot into my grandparents' house.  It was hard to believe that my grandfather felt this way.  Grandma tried to talk to me about it and tried to apologize, knowing it was wrong, but realizing there was nothing she could do to change his mind. 

After Harmony was born, something changed.  Somehow, after seeing his beautiful great-grandchild, Grandpa felt remorseful about how he had acted.  Tearfully, he apologized and said he knew that how he acted had been wrong. I will never forget seeing Grandpa hold my baby girl in his arms and the joyful look on his face! 

It meant a lot that a man his age was able to change his mindset.  I told him that I forgave him- and I truly did.  Not too long after that, he passed away. 

Racism is so ugly and painful. When we have loved ones with racist beliefs, it's difficult to accept that reality.  We wish they didn't think that way and we never want to label them as racist. However, it's important to call it what it is and call out the elephant in the middle of the room.  Acknowledging racism is the only way to truly fight it.  Could you imagine if an oncologist refused to accept a diagnosis of cancer for her patient? The patient could die because of her refusal to acknowledge the truth. What do you think happens to others when we deny the pain they experience? The pain that some of us cause?

I am so thankful that Grandpa's eyes were opened before he died. I wish he could have seen things differently throughout his life.  I am not saying that he was a terrible person. He was a very funny and kind person to me as a kid growing up.  I spent many hours playing card games with him, watching the Young and the Restless with him and Grandma, and laughing about funny jokes.  This character flaw that he had did not make him a bad person overall.  We all have good character traits and bad ones, right? Our flaws do not define us. I just wish he could have experienced the richness and fullness of life that happens when we love all people, not just those that look like us.  He missed out on so much because of his inaccurate beliefs about people.  

I felt compelled to tell this story because maybe there is someone out there that does not realize what they are missing out on in life by limiting themselves in this way. Maybe you have chosen to not get close to anyone outside of those that physically look like you.  If you are choosing not to spend time with someone specifically because of the color of his or her skin, you are missing out on so much and you may not even realize it.  I would encourage you to step outside of that fear and work at creating friendships with people of all racial and ethnic backgrounds. We have a limited amount of time on Earth to love others as God wants us to. True love looks like this. It doesn't stay locked in a particular looking box that we build up around ourselves.  My hope and prayer is that you step outside of that box and truly experience life the way that God intended for us.

She's Baaaack!

Well, it's been some years, folks. It's been some years (almost 5!!) since I last wrote in my blog and stopped sharing some of my life with you all. Why did I stop, you ask? The same reason we all stop doing many things in life, sadly.  It was because of fear. I worried about what others would think too much. I was posting some very personal stories and was worried about what my readers would think. Instead of worrying about people, I should have been focused on what God wants me to do and that is to share his love with you all through the gift he has given me, which is the ability to write.  Here's the thing, I am planning on writing some more in this blog, but I have some even BIGGER news to share. Are you ready for this? Ok, here goes....

I have FINALLY started writing my book, y'all.  Many of you don't even know this has been a dream of mine for years to write a book, but for some of you, you might find this exciting. I will share later what/who has inspired me to finally get going with this, but I am choosing to share this news publicly so that I can have some accountability partners. As much as I love to write and have a dream to do so, with everything else going on (working full time, raising a husband and two kids, etcetera, etcetera (yes, I used that fun word twice on purpose, and yes, I said raising a husband), it is actually something that I need support and encouragement with so that I stick to it.  In other words, I need you, my dear reader, whoever you may be. 

So, all of this talk of me pursuing my dream begs the question that I'd like to ask you. What is it that's stopping you from pursuing yours?

Missed Opportunities

While visiting a water park over the past weekend with my family, we happened to be standing in line behind a very thin young man.  He was painfully thin; so much so that we could see his spine.  We carried on our conversation amongst ourselves and acted silly in line, as usual.  We joked around, sang, and danced the new "running man." The young man and his friend seemed to turn around a few times and laugh with/at us.  I didn't think too much about him and his friend, but I did wonder to myself a little about why he was so thin.

After a while, I overheard him speaking with my husband.  He randomly told my husband that he has had or currently has cancer- it was not completely clear.  Regardless, it was heartbreaking to hear it.  He couldn't have been more than 18 years old.  The conversation was brief and everyone went back to enjoying their respective company and going on the slide.

As we were standing in line during the next ride, and discussing whether we wanted to purchase the additional "fast passes", or whatever they are called, which would get us through the lines faster, it crossed my mind that we should buy such passes for the young man from the last line and his friend.  I use the term "crossed my mind," but really, after looking back on that moment, I realize it was actually God speaking to me.  You see, I let that thought "cross my mind," but I ended up not actually pursuing it, even after we randomly came across the same young man a little later at the park.  Thousands of people were at the park that day and God gave me a second chance to help bless that man, but I didn't take the opportunity.

I believe that life is full of these God-given opportunities to bless others.  We can either listen to that voice or we can ignore it and just move on with life.  My family and I still had a great time at the water park, and I'm sure that young man and his friend did, as well.  It's not like God needs me in order to bless others...right? To be sure, I missed the opportunity to show that man a clear example of God's love by giving him even more of a fun day by buying him a "fast pass."  It's simple, quick moments like this that occur throughout our lives, which can define our lives.

I have decided that I don't want to miss these opportunities any more.  Any chance I can get to show God's love, I want to take it.  After this experience, all I can do is pray for this young man and pray that he survives the cancer, but it would it would have been so amazing to show him how much God loves him, is proud of him for getting out, and wants him to enjoy life.  

We can practically show God's love to others every single day if we choose to.  All we have to do is listen and act.