Tag: pain

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We Need Rescue

James. Randy. Brian. Cedric. Jason. Quinton. These are the names of men I love. Men who are my father. My uncle. My cousins who are like brothers. My brother. Men whose blood and love runs through my veins. Men who are my family. Men who are black.

My daddy left this earth 11 years ago. The others have found a way to thrive here.

It’s hard to survive on this earth and it takes just about a pure genius to thrive here.

One day I hope to marry a black man and one day I just may have a black son. I haven’t even met them yet and I worry about the trauma and loss that can come with their blackness when it’s hard to survive on this earth.

The type of trauma and loss the families and friends of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile are walking through like a steel fog that refuses to lift.

It’s hard to survive on this earth. It’s hard to survive on this earth.

And it takes just about a pure genius to thrive here.

I want to believe the sheer weight of humanity means something today in 2016. I want to believe that we can be more intentional to preserve life. I want to believe.

The city of Dallas is rocked this morning by deep grief and inconsolable tragedy. Five police officers are dead and several more injured along with two civilians, ambushed by a shooter who “said he wanted to kill white people – especially white officers,” because he was upset about recent police shootings.

AtlantaMy mother spent nearly 30 years of her life serving as a civilian employee with the City of Atlanta’s Police Department. She assisted heads of police, loved and encouraged the officers and absorbed the losses of those killed in the line of duty as if they were our own family.

Black people, blue uniforms, we all have the common gift of hearts that beat and blood that moves through our bodies. Humanity ties us together.

But the loss of human life in these recent incidents feels insurmountable. Their heartbeats no longer beat and they were valuable. The people they beat inside of were valuable. People made in the image of God, with purpose. People woven into the story He’s written for this world.

Race is the conduit through which much pain and offense channels its way into our lives. This struggle is bigger than race. The very nature of our souls is the conversation topic on this table.

Souls that get blinded and lose heart. Souls that don’t detect and remember another person’s humanity. Souls that need rescue.

We all need rescue. God is the only one who can bring us out of this.

It’s hard to survive on this earth. It’s hard to survive on this earth.

And it takes just about a pure genius to thrive here.

In this difficult time in our nation, I invite you to mourn with those who mourn, with the families and friends left in the wake of these deaths. A heart-wrenching journey the loved ones of Christina Grimmie and the Pulse victims continue to walk through. An agonizing journey the loved ones of Lane Graves are experiencing because he was lost too.

Orlando

Lament with sorrow for the overwhelming loss of life in these shootings. Life is a gift God gives us.

Lament with sorrow for the tension and pain existing between communities of color and law enforcement. Decades of distrust and injustices keep people on the offense on both sides.

Lament with sorrow for the hate and bitterness that led human beings to take the lives of other human beings.

Lament with sorrow that left to our own devices humanity has no hope in this world.

Turn your lament into thanksgiving that God is our hope. He works through the details in disasters to redeem, restore, and heal.

Keep praying.

It’s hard to survive on this earth. It’s hard to survive on this earth.

And it takes just about a pure genius to thrive here.

For my black brothers, I see you. Don’t lose heart even though you have every plausible reason to. I want things to be different for you. I want you to be safe. I want you to be safe. 

For my black sisters, I feel you. We’re scared for the black men and boys in our lives and we’re tired of mourning the ones we lose. There’s a special fortitude in our DNA. Maybe God placed that in us for times such as these. 

For my non-black friends who stay in this heaviness with us as if this grief were your own, thank you. Thank you for really viewing this through lenses that push you beyond your own experience and beckon you to enter the black narratives we’ve been writing about our story for hundreds of years. The narratives that yell in bitterness and sorrow, ” This IS what is happening to us! Do you see US?”

For my non-black friends who don’t understand what’s happening in your news feeds on social media and why many of your black friends are angry, choose to enter into this with us. Choose to be willing to understand. Read the news. And not just the news you know. 

Think about your father, your uncle, your cousins, your brother. Make it personal to you and then you can see why it’s personal to us.

#AltonSterling #PhilandoCastile #DallasPoliceOfficers 

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My Shepherd Said Goodbye (Pt. 2)

Our pastor, our shepherd had left us. He’d said goodbye and we didn’t know what all of this would mean for us and the future of our church.

His unexpected departure came as a result of moral failure in his life. The combination of these two words bring utter devastation and unimaginable consequences.

As humans, we want to be good. We want to make the right decisions. We want to be moral. But we’re limited and we’re broken in our humanity. There will be times when we make choices out of our limitations and because of that brokenness, these choices will fail us and those we deeply love, influence and care about.

Pastors are shepherds at heart. By definition, their role moves them at their core to guard, guide and tend to the spiritual well-being and development of the people around them. They’re hard wired to speak the truth in love. They constantly invite us to consider the unlimited grace and healing God offers to surrendered hearts.

But who will shepherd the shepherds? Who do they go to when they need protection from darkness and evil? Who do they open up to in vulnerability when their hearts are heavy and their competency can no longer surpass the deficits in their character?

Outward behavior often connects to inward struggles. These struggles tap into deeper parts of our stories where well-hidden pain, inadequacies, secrets and even traumas continue to reside as backdrops to our adult selves.

These struggles are real and they are significant.

Sometimes our shepherds, our leaders, our influencers will fall and fail. We are not immune from falling and failing too.

But grace says they, along with us, in our own stories of brokenness and failure do not have to stay in failure. Grace pulls us up and provides arms of strength we can lean into as we walk the road of recovery toward healing.

Grace never condemns.

Grace never gives up on us.

Grace always gets down into the muck and nasty mire of our lives and offers open hands toward freedom and forgiveness.

My former shepherd knows grace very well. He says that he’s been marked by grace and he’s telling his story so that others can know that grace is freely available to them too:

[vimeo 87745090 w=500 h=281]

This post is part two of three where I will share more of my experiences through this loss and what I’ve learned about God, his church and his people.

What does grace mean to you? Do you find it’s easy to give grace to others when they fail? Is it harder to give grace to yourself when you fail?

*Sharing is caring. If you know someone who would be encouraged by this post, please share it on your social media profiles.

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When The Bottom Falls Out

We live in a world where the bottom falls out.

The regularities and relationships of our lives collide violently with change, and sometimes these collisions produce abrupt endings.

2013 was a year of deep collisions for me.

In May, my pastor of eight years unexpectedly resigned after disclosing a crushing moral failure on his part to our church’s elders team. Four months later in September my beautiful grandmother Lena suffered a heart attack and died unexpectedly. Three weeks after her death, I was hit from behind while driving home from work and the accident totaled my car and required six months of neck and back rehabilitation.

October also signaled the abrupt closure of Restore Hope Orlando, a local community center where I invested my heart, my tears and my prayers into the lives of elementary and middle school children for four years. Post-traumatic anxiety from the car accident along with a blanket of grief from my grandmother’s death gripped me through November and December. The experience caused me to wonder if I was on the brink of an emotional breakdown.

December also brought the awareness of significant transitions taking place at my job of 12 years. Several people I developed close relationships with would be leaving the organization the following spring. Leadership changes were on the horizon as well.

Life felt unstable and I was in turmoil on the heels of so many collisions and changes happening at the same time. My world became this concentrated funnel of pain. The bottom fell out. Grief simply overtook me. Mourning peered over my shoulders. The reality of loss ached in my soul until numbness set in and my goal each day was just to make it through that day.

The residue of grief created splinters in my spirituality. I’d spent 14 years of my life following Jesus. But the hell cascading all around me like millions of fiery darts began to shake up my theological surety. Almost two years later I’m still dealing with these splinters.

In pain you begin to ask questions. Pain clarifies things. There’s no room for the fake or the flimsy. These questions come out of you from a place that doesn’t even need an answer right now, you’re just compelled to get out the words that form the “why” “how” and “who” causes of your pain.

Over the next several weeks, I’m going to unpack each of the specific collisions that affected me and how my life changed as a result. I’m curious: what collisions have taken place in your life in the last two years? How did these collisions affect you? 

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Finding Melodie

We are inclined to search for things that we lose. I feel I’ve lost parts of me – maybe even all of me – in the waves of unique losses and deep pain that etched themselves into the fabric of my soul during 2013.

Deadened emotions and numb feelings place their victory flags in the fertile ground of the heart. Fragile flesh and bone try their best to cope with the shock of intense things: deaths of loved ones, physical traumas, sickness and illness, damaged relationships, wrestling in theology and wondering is God really good.

Unspoken questions linger like musty cigar smoke, pungent in the soul, sticking to you:

Why is life so hard?

Did that really have to happen?

To me?

Where is God in all of this hell?

Real questions. True questions. Human questions. A non-stop march of change continues upon the calendars we make for lives, calendars that really should be written out in pencil and not pen. Something is always erasing what we thought would be what we wanted with those we chose to do them with.

The presence of pain continues to ebb and flow in and out of our lives.

Philip Yancey says that pain is a gift from God. In his book “Where Is God When It Hurts?” he writes: The pain network (in the body) deserves far more than token acknowledgement. It bears the mark of creative genius.”

I agree with him. Pain tells me that something is wrong, something is not right and I need to be fully aware in this moment about this pain. Pain can come physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually and relationally. The pain alerts me to pay attention to ME. It whispers in my body as it stings its gift of awareness, “Melody you are hurt. You are bleeding. You are broken. You are burned. You are wounded. Listen to me. Listen to ME.”

Keys
Writers need new spaces for their words.

One way that I embrace this awareness of my pain is by writing. I’m creating a new space for my words in this world through this new blog, Finding Melodie. In this place I will explore and converse with you on themes that include losing, grieving, mourning, loving and living.

I’ll unpack these themes via weekly blog posts. As I pull out my feelings in these experiences I pray for authenticity and vulnerability with you, my readers.

I am on a journey that’s years in the making. A new chapter is being written for me and about me. The gift of my words changing me will be beautiful to witness. The gift of them changing you will be a sweet honor that I welcome with anticipation. Buckle up for the ride. Let’s get ready to find some melodies and hopefully, a bit more of ourselves.