Finding Melodie

"Losing. Grieving. Mourning. Loving. Living."

Keep Building Resilience Introverts

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Sending love to all the introverts who are building resilience in these pandemic times in the midst of heightened Zoom calls and other ways of working and living now that have become our norm.

Yesterday, I had six video meetings for work, including one that was a 2.5 hour class on African American theology, and would have had a seventh meeting if I hadn’t moved it to next week. My introverted self was pushed but I also built ‘muscle’ from those moments. And I found ways to help myself recover energy between meetings and during meetings, like turning my video camera off when needed, so I didn’t have to ‘be on’ visually, which gave me time to rest. I also closed my eyes during breaks and covered them with the palms of my hands to help my eyes rest and my mind rest with a darker environment.

Also sending a special holla to the Enneagram type 5 personalities like me, those “Inquisitive Thinkers” who have the least amount of energy available to offer to others out of all the other personalities.

I know what it takes to show up, manage your energy and make sure you got enough in the tank to finish out each day in front of you. Keep leaning into these times to grow and build more resilience and strength.

I was amazed yesterday at how God continued to sustain me…and in other moments, even though it seems I’m almost out of juice in my caboose. I read one Christian reflection about the type 5 personality and that when one is struggling or fearful because you’re at the end of your energy reserves and you have no more to give, to ask Jesus Christ, the One with unlimited resources to help you. He is faithful to give to you out of His abundant and unlimited supply and can pour back into you all that you need.

Selah on that.

Photo by Raquel Santana on Unsplash.

Featured Photo by Danielle MacInnes on Unsplash.

Got Me Feeling Emotions

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The past three weeks brought me more emotions than I anticipated the month of February would deliver. But often, that’s exactly what life is – Unexpected. Unrelenting. Upsetting. Unsure. But it’s also other things too – Good. Healing. Surprising. Sweet.

I found myself over the last 21 days walking with the Lord through some intensely deep and at times heartbreaking moments involving someone who once was a part of my life. What has comforted me most is knowing God saw those 21 days before I even entered them. He saw them. He saw me. He knows me and He knows how I would walk into this experience, first as the incredibly deep thinker I am and then as the uniquely connected feeler I am.

Both parts are special gifts He’s intentionally placed inside me. During the last three weeks though, sometimes I was like “God, being made like this, to be such a deep thinker and deep feeler is making this experience so incredibly hard to walk through. This would hurt less if I wasn’t wired like this.”

Eh, perspective.

I could imagine from God’s view those very gifts of being uniquely wired as a strategic thinker and highly emotionally intelligent very well helped me navigate the unexpected emotions and realities I had to face in this experience in a healthier way. I took an emotional intelligence test recently and it revealed out of a high-end score of 130 on the EQi scale, I scored a 124. Mercy. I’ve been made to acutely sense, understand, and communicate my emotions and the emotions of others very well, which shapes the way I move in the world. God made me a highly emotionally intelligent being. On purpose.

If I wasn’t wired in these unique ways as a thinker and a feeler, my experience of everything the last three weeks would have been, could have been so much more difficult. But as I reflect on how I navigated through the pain and the surprise, I realize I gave myself what I needed to work through the experience.

I prayed. A LOT. I talked to God about everything. And He listened to my hurt, my anger, my pain, my loss, and my recognition and acceptance that a move toward a finality I had never thought about or wanted would be necessary for me to move forward.

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Photo by Mohau Mannathoko on Unsplash.

I walked and I listened to myself move my feelings out of my body as my steps pushed movement into my feet. Movement sometimes helps me connect even deeper to what I’m feeling and I meet a lot of truth after some miles have been made.

I journaled and connected my feelings to my thoughts…which yielded 22 pages of reflection, emotion, and truth that helped me to let go and invited peace into my heart.

I processed with my inner circle and they prayed, listened, and comforted me with the kind of love and steadiness that only comes through authentic relationships.

I cried and I let myself feel what those tears had to say. Some of the saying was hurt. Some was disappointment. And some was the sweet release that’s given when forgiveness is offered in the midst of brokenness.

I rested in the strong foundation of wellness that I’ve built with intention into my life over the last year and three months. A foundation that poured into my health, gave me focus for what I hold high with value, and the purposeful actions that allowed me to love myself so well with self-care. That foundation was readily available for me to lie back on when my thoughts and my feelings were too much for me.

I realize that the gift of love gives us so much. It gives us beauty and unspeakable joy. But it also gives us the risk of being hurt. Because where our love goes also goes our hearts and our feelings and our emotions. Those beautifully invisible things wrapped in all three that are full of incredibly vivid color when we are so happy it feels like our hearts are gonna explode. Happiness emerges that etches itself in the sky blue backdrops of the best days ever, days that you want to last forever that feel like sunshine and embraces and good things you only dreamed about that finally happened and you want that feeling to just last forever because it was just that good.

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Those moments are SO GOOD.

But the days that unexpectedly come that are their foils feel so terrible, just as the good felt so wonderful. Sometimes love also means experiencing deep hurt. Opening yourself up to the happy and the joy may include more than just those things.

What I’m finding true for me is that I’m willing to risk for good love. I want to risk well. With wisdom, discernment, hope, and courage.

I consider this truth as I risk: “When has loving anyone ever exempted us from pain and challenges?” I’m learning that love doesn’t bring that hurt and pain. But caring for someone, opening yourself up to vulnerability, being willing to connect relationally to someone beyond yourself – that is where the chance to breathe in heartbreak can come.

And the caring is because we feel and we feel because we’re human. I’m learning to continue to live and lean more strongly into the sweetness of my humanity. For in it I’m seeing so much of who I really am. And I’m deeply loving who I’m discovering, tears, happy, beauty, and so much more.

Featured photo by Eye for Ebony on Unsplash.

MLK Reflections

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Note: I wrote these words January 21, 2019, for a special event at my job January 24, 2019, that honored the life of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. During the event, I spoke these words to 450+ colleagues, sharing ways that I see our organization reflect Dr. King’s dream for change today. 

As I walked down a short flight of steps in The National Center for Civil and Human Rights, the lights around me shifted from a crisp fluorescent to a subtle, light glow. It looked like I’d accidentally entered the back end of an exhibit.

Music and voices bellowed softly in the room, full of blown up images from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s life – and his final days.

I stood for a moment.

Martin Luther King Jr.

I wanted to take in what I was hearing and also seeing as I watched others process this experience.

It felt like a very sacred space. These were moments in time that stayed constant in their motion to honor a very special individual.

A man who gave much for the cause of Freedom, Oneness, and Diversity.

Dr. King was 39 years old when he left this earth. His life and legacy speak of the intention that he moved from. Considering his age and all that he accomplished through those 39 years makes me consider my own life.

I’m 39 years old and the more I live, the more I understand how critical it is to live with INTENTION.

Dr. King lived his life this way. Even when it was uncomfortable. Even when it challenged him deeply. And especially when it meant fighting for necessary change over lukewarm complacency.

You see, our choices make us who we are.

And we need those choices coupled with our intention because inward decisions lead to outward actions that have the power to change the world.

Dr. King changed the world because of his decisions and we’re here today to honor his incredible life and legacy.

MVIMG_20190124_105333.jpgAs I reflect on Cru and how this ministry continues to grow as a community passionate about connecting people to Jesus Christ, I see the power of intention at work in several places. One specific one is through The Lenses Institute.

Lenses is an initiative of Cru that exists to help the people of God fight for Oneness by influencing the way Christian leaders see, understand, and act in our ethnically and culturally diverse world. 

We hold several institutes around the nation in cities that include Los Angeles, Orlando, New York City, Phoenix, Lexington, Atlanta, and Raleigh.

As a facilitator and cultural consultant with Lenses, I’m honored to witness many in our ministry be changed by this experience.

Thousands have stepped into this five-day intensive that helps people understand cultural awareness and cultural identity. This happens as they examine their own individual journeys and also enter into the experiences of others from different ethnicities.

Awareness and identity in the area of culture powerfully shape who we are as believers in the Church and beyond the church’s four walls.

In those five days through Lenses, I get to witness people in our ministry willingly step into deep waters that include uncomfortable places and even difficult emotions, as conversations around race, power, and the gospel emerge.

These are people like you. People like me. People who lean into this opportunity to grow personally as they discover more of God’s heart for His kingdom.

People who begin to see God’s hand at work in the weaving together of their stories and the gift of their ethnicities to display the gospel brightly in this world.

People who are willing to enter conversations that help them understand the experiences, pains, and joys of their brothers and their sisters.

These conversations develop empathy, which gives birth to compassion that deepens emotional intelligence and relational trust – two gems that can help the road toward Oneness be paved just a little bit more smoothly.

In John 17 verses 17 through 21, Jesus prayed for Oneness for His disciples and for those who would later come to faith as a result of the gospel being spread. He prayed for us:

“Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.

And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.

I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”

In Oneness as the Body of Christ, we can demonstrate to the world that God the Father sent His only Son.

The unity of the Household of Faith displayed through men and women, from different ethnicities, cultures, generations, economic backgrounds and more has the power to change this world by showing the world such Oneness – in itself – is from God.

And He loves the world so much that He sent Jesus to the world to save it.

Dr. King understood the power of Oneness. It pushed him forward to walk with God in faith and invest his life with intention so that the lives of others would be changed.

Through The Lenses Institute, I see how our ministry reflects Dr. King’s dream for a better world.

A world where people could be respected as the image bearers God created them to be. A world full of promise and brimming with possibilities.

Last night, I read Dr. King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” and this quote by him grabbed a hold of me and wouldn’t let go:

“Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear-drenched communities, and in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty.” – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Because We’ve Loved Deeply

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The new year has begun. And while many of us are jumping with joy into our new goals, resolutions, and even relationships, others are navigating unexpected pathways into grief and mourning, due to the deaths of loved ones.

In one of my community of friends, I have several brothers and sisters who are mourning the recent death of a dear sister and friend in ministry named E. She battled cancer for quite some time and this past weekend she entered into eternal healing and the loving arms of God.

I met E one time, about three years ago.

nordwood-themes-162462-unsplash.jpgShe encouraged me with her heart for God’s kingdom and to see oneness truly happen in the Body of Christ so that the love we have could touch those beyond church walls. She is a woman who leaves an incredibly deep legacy of love, intentional living, and fruit that has borne witness to the power of the gospel of Jesus and God’s indescribable love for people.

She also leaves a husband and three young children, along with family members and a huge community of friends. People who are missing her deeply as the first few days of acute grief settle upon on their shoulders and the pain of the loss becomes a new part of normal.

I know that acute grief and that pain very well.

And from my own journeys of grief, I wrote these words and posted them on E’s CaringBridge site, as a comment to the post her husband wrote sharing that she’d passed away. My prayer for him and those mourning E is that they would be present with their grief. The grief has purpose and it is needed in this journey:

“A dear friend told me 10 years ago, ‘We grieve deeply because we’ve loved deeply.’ S, you and your children and so many others loved and will continue to love E deeply. Your grief is a unique and tangible reflection of that. It says with raised hands, ‘I loved someone, and it mattered, and there will always be something beautiful, significant and special about this.’ Grief shows us where the trees of love in our life have been planted. You planted deeply with E. That love will continue to grow in you and comfort you in the journey ahead. Sending my prayers from Orlando. I am so very sorry for the loss of your beautiful bride. Praying God’s comfort and supernatural peace in this time.”

For those who grieve please know this: you are not alone and as much as you want to let others into your journey with you, please do.

For those who know people who are grieving: choose to be present with them and encourage them. Love them and check in on them regularly. The lessons you see them learn in their grief could help you in future seasons where you too will enter the house of mourning as well.

Life is a gift and it is also finite. The days we have here on Earth will pass by faster than we can imagine. Living and loss are entwined together. We can learn much from both.

Nia

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I think of her and my breath still gets taken away. What if 21 years ago I was walking somewhere with people I love and a random stranger, a white male recently released on parole, ran up to me unprovoked and stabbed me in the neck and stabbed my loved one and then ran away? 21 years of my life as a black young woman would have ceased to exist. Because everything after that heinous moment would not have been. Every laugh that tickled up my vocal chords into the ears of those who love me, every new birthday, every moment growing more into this brown skin, every tear shed through struggles that made these melanin muscles stronger, every breath given from God that gave me more footing to see this world and love and discover Him deeply. Everything would have stopped at 18. It’s not fair that everything has stopped at 18 for her. It’s not fair, it’s not right, and I’m numb at times understanding and living out what it means to be a black woman in America…and the intersectionality that comes with it.

Nia, I remember you, little sister. I remember you. I want this to be made right. I want this to be better. #NiaWilson #sayhername

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What I Know To Be True

Just when you find that sweet spot in life, that comfortable place, that uncanny familiar, change comes in like a flaming bat out of hell and whirlwinds all your comfortable up. If you’re limited in your thinking you’ll fight it every way you can. But, if you’re ready to grow, you’ll embrace change like a new love and let it lead you to growth you could never dream of but always sensed you desperately needed.

What Do You Need to Find?

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