Moments Worth Mentioning

When a patient walks in escorted by a police officer, instead of her loved ones.
When she walks in with metal shackles instead of shiny jewelry.
When she is wearing an orange jump suit instead of designer jeans.
When her reputation proceeds her before you even meet.
When she is presumed guilty before given a chance to be proven innocent.
When she complains about the pain in her leg and it doesn’t compare to the grief of a family that no longer has a wife and child amongst them.
When the rolled eyes and hushed whispers are hard to ignore.

In that moment, in that instant, when everyone around you is passing judgement… what do you do? What do you do when its cooler to act a certain way? What do you do when you are sitting there looking into her eyes, doing her a service?

Therefore, let us stop passing judgement on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in the way of a brother or sister.
~Romans 14:13

We have all been mad at someone before. Maybe it was a friend, a coworker, a parent or a stranger on MARTA. We all handle the frustration in different ways, but what it boils down to is that someone has done us wrong. Sometimes these are major events in our lives, other times minor blips on the radar that only cause us short term frustration. Regardless, the anger can make us do crazy things…

What happens when you become mad at God?

Being that God is kind of a big deal, the frustration and anger can consume you. There is nowhere to take your complaint, no support group, no easy resolution. All you have is you and Him, and a relationship that exists only by faith. And lets be honest, fighting with your faith can be slightly overwhelming.

I have a tendency to avoid confrontation. God was no exception.

I can remember the exact day when I made the decision to be mad at God. The choice came after I received an email from my then sunday school teacher. I was in the very beginning stages of what would be a horrendous several months as I navigated the path of filing for divorce. Our friends and family were hurt and upset by the news and everyone wanted to give their opinions…. including our sunday school teacher.

He was upset that we had not come to him earlier and was making a last ditch effort to “help”. Instead, the email came across as very derogatory and he made some very hurtful accusations. I was appalled by the judgmental comments that he, and so many other Christians, were making. Everything that I had come to love about the Southern Baptist Church was now being thrown in my face with a very hurtful hypocritical spin. I was done. Well done.

I questioned my faith like never before. I couldn’t understand why a God that proclaimed to love us would lead me down such a hurtful and sinful path. I wanted nothing to do with religion at that point. I can easily say that I went almost two years without looking at a church or even a Bible.

The events that lead up to realizing that God and I needed to make amends are a little too personal to share with the entire universe via the blogsphere. But what I can say is that it was a moment in my life that I will remember forever. He made it so obvious that I had no choice but to listen, no choice but to realize that I needed a little Jesus in my life. Above all else, I realized I could be forgiven.

Sometimes we just have to lose some things before we can learn to appreciate them. That goes for car keys, a pair of shoes and maybe, just maybe….. God.

A stereotype is a type of logical oversimplification in which all the members of a class or set are considered to be definable by an easily distinguishable set of characteristics. The term is often used with a negative connotation, as stereotypes can be used to deny individuals respect or legitimacy based on their membership in a particular group.

Earlier this week I experienced the harsh reality of what it is like to be judged and lumped into a group of people. I can honestly say that I have not had much experience being on the “other side”of the stereotyping, and this was the first time that the reality of who I am was brought to the surface. My first reaction was to crawl under a table and hide. I felt the tears well up in my eyes as the anger and hurt consumed me. How could someone be so careless with their words? How could someone that I care about feel that way? Why does every great quality I have get overlooked because of one single characteristic? How could a Christian be so unforgiving? Why does my past have to effect my future??

I want to challenge all of us to think about how, in our everyday lives, we judge our friends, our neighbors, our peers. We issue snap judgements on peoples clothes, their jobs, their skin color, their actions and their backgrounds. We may not say anything or take action, but we think it. It is easy to say that we aren’t biased and that we wouldn’t change our actions based on a stereotype. But, honestly, we all do.

Stereotyping goes way beyond race and gender. Consider conversations you have had about people from the next town, another department in your company, supporters of other football teams, and so on.

What I realized through this is that education goes a long way. It becomes more difficult to pass judgement when a characteristic has a face. I am praying that by getting to know me and understanding my story, the opinion has been changed. It will be a personal challenge for me to walk from this day forward knowing that whether or not I like it, I will have a label. A label that no matter what I do to better myself, learn from, or try to push into my past I will always have it. A label that may limit the people who are willing to be apart of my life….

This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.
1 John 1:5-7

Life inside the TeePee….

We may not have boys lining up to take us camping or fishing…

Or have boys that will take us out to dinner… ya know… for hot dogs and what not…

But, what we do have is the freedom to spend our Sunday afternoons any way we want. =)

The relationship I have with my dad is so complex, and has been through many phases.  At times the relationship has been very strained.  Somewhere between the tear filled long distance phone calls and the hugs in airports my dad and I found our way back to each other.  He will always be the guy in my life.  

So… 27. Really? I’m not sure that number really fits.

Its interesting to me that what we may have planed for our lives and what actually ends up happening can easily be extreme opposites. It is easy to see yourself in the future with the typical life, living in the typical house, with the typical white picket fence… and then life happens. It is so easy to question the space that exists between our dreams and our reality. How in the world did we end up here?

I definitely had a different idea of what 27 would look like. As I was walking down the isle at 22, I was sure that five years in the future would find me wearing the hat of wife and mother proudly. Instead, the hat I wear these days comes with a side of independence and accomplishment that I have gained as I have navigated my way down a different path. The thoughts of a domesticated life at this time seem so distant. And back then, the idea of being happily single at 27 would have been comical. It is amazing what a few years and a few life experiences will do to change your perspective a little bit.

I think about all of the wonderful things that I would have missed out on had I stuck with my original plan. The friendships, the experiences, the places seen and the lessons learned would most likely never have come to be. I’m sure that there would have been other things that would have occurred that I would have happily scrape booked about… But who is to say what those things would have been? And how do you compare your reality with “what might have been”? You don’t. Instead, you count your blessings and thank God for allowing a second chance to get it right.

I fall asleep at night at peace knowing that my plan and His plan are not always the same (or even close). And personally, I am pretty happy to give up the burden that comes from worrying what the future may hold.

So, here’s to my 27th year. I can’t wait to see what is in store for the next 12 months. Just when I think it can’t get any better… it does.