Felicia Sanders is MY Hero

Felicia Sanders was the mother of Tywanza Sanders. Both Felicia and her son were in the Bible study with Dylann Roof when he began to shoot the people there with a gun he had brought to the meeting. Tywanza was killed in front of his mother. Felicia survived. At the bail hearing for the shooter, Felicia said the following words:

“We welcomed you Wednesday night in our Bible study with welcome arms. You have killed some of the most beautiful people that I know. Every fiber in my body hurts and I’ll, I’ll never be the same. Tywanza Sanders was my son. But Tywanza Sanders was my hero. Tywanza was my hero. … May God have mercy on you.”

Nadine Collier, daughter of victim Ethel Lance, said:

“I forgive you. You took something very precious away from me. I will never get to talk to her ever again. I will never be able to hold her again, but I forgive you, and have mercy on your soul. … You hurt me. You hurt a lot of people. If God forgives you, I forgive you.”

Wanda Simmons, granddaughter of Daniel Simmons, said:

“Although my grandfather and the other victims died at the hands of hate, this is proof, everyone’s plea for your soul, is proof that they lived in love and their legacies will live in love. So hate won’t win. And I just want to thank the court for making sure that hate doesn’t win.”

Breaking Point

all the crap I have 2 go thru
just to keep sanity on my menu
they're pulling me here
they're pulling me there
they act like I am unaware

because very human has a breaking point
but if they're lucky they make it to His spiritual joint
there 4 life won't
put them 2 their breaking point

i know Jesus will b
my stop sign 2 insanity
because I know He
loves me
even when He was hung on that 1st Xmas tree
they lie
i cry
my Savior please rescue me

because every human has a breaking point
but if they're lucky they make it 2 His spiritual joint
there4 life won't put them 2 their breaking point

U C, what they don't understand
is, my King is a superman
& by my side He will stand
& hold my hand
& guide me 2 sane land

because every human has a breaking point
but, if they meet Jesus, @ His joint
they won't reach their breaking point.

-Nu Creation

The Long Saturday

Rough Draft Pt VIII

Brokenness

Our Master has established by clear example and plain teaching that we are to “take up our cross and follow Him.”³⁹ Jesus did not shy away from the coming crucifixion, but simply asked for God’s will to be done.  Even in simpler matters, Jesus did not pursue a life of comfort, but rather suffered the hardships of life amongst the poor, manual labor, even homelessness; not to mention the constant interruption by crowds, the annoying and constant pestering of the authorities, and the heartache of identifying with the broken.  As it imitated His example, the early Church was also well acquainted with suffering and persecution, poverty and discomfort.

Life in the suburbs is certainly not without problems, but the suburbs exist as a monument to the Western quest to eradicate discomfort.  It is in the pursuit of the consumerist vision of a better life that we have left the Cities to build strip malls and sub-divisions.  Individually our fear of poverty and violence, and our discomfort with laborious cross-cultural exchange, has pushed us out of the neighborhoods where we might encounter them.  Corporately our desire for Church Growth has led us to endorse these cultural trends as a way of welcoming larger numbers of people into our buildings; we are offering them the upwardly mobile life they are seeking.

                 

The unfortunate situation in the Evangelical Church today is that many have seen the upward mobility of suburban culture as something to imitate, and the church has often baptized such a mindset.  Our Master, on the other hand, modeled for us a downward mobility that we were intended to imitate; a life in close proximity and service amongst the least and lost; living in intimate community with those suffering, fatherless, divorced, diseased, addicted, paroled, or simply just incompetent, ugly, smelly, stupid, and boring.  A mature Christian is one who understands this and lives accordingly.  Too often in our churches we insulate and isolate ourselves in ever bigger homes, ever safer neighborhoods, and send kids to ever better schools yet are still considered ‘mature disciples.’  This is a failure in the discipleship process.  As we learn to live under Jesus tutelage, we should find, welling up within us, an attraction to those places where we might encounter hunger, danger, injustice, addiction, oppression, or poverty.

All four of these discipleship implications could actually be summed up in St. Paul’s words, “in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.”⁴⁰ The above are four battlefields where the Kingdom is waging war against the demonic powers at work in Western society, and the evangelical church.  These powers have manipulated our minds, our behaviors, and even our political, economic, and social systems, to bend human action toward the pursuit of self.  A disciple of Jesus contends with that unholy trinity of materialism, consumerism, and individualism; no longer acting on the belief that accumulating stuff, fulfilling desire, or looking out for number one, are methods of gaining a blessed life.  Our ultimate aim and purpose here is not to neglect the suburbs, as we have the City, but rather to point out the radical implications for discipleship that our theology of Church Growth has brought about.  Our commitment to suburbia is simply the vehicle for discovering those implications.

Corrie ten Boom

Corrie ten Boom and her sister were sent to Nazi concentration camps for giving help to Jewish people during the holocaust.

Corrie stood naked with her older sister Betsie, watching a concentration camp matron beating a prisoner. "Oh, the poor woman," Corrie cried. "Yes, may God forgive her," Betsie replied. And, once again, Corrie realized that it was for the souls of the brutal Nazi guards that her sister prayed.

Job's Comforters

Wrestling God....

So this is a once a year appearance of Tamy to the blog...but here I am for a few thoughts...

I truly feel as if I have wrestled God lately, he has been bringing me through something that at first I just wanted to run away from or be healed of. However through God's grace I am seeing the beauty of this struggle and even slightly thankful for the experience. I am not sure if it is over yet either as I am finding only he really knows, and sometimes that is a comfort and sometimes that is for me terribly frightening.
I am a passionate woman who has surely tasted of the goodness of God and I would love to report that I don't often forget that but in times of hardship I am someone who has seen the mighty hand of GOd only to doubt it when in the wilderness. I too like the Isarelites have seen the Red Seas in my life parted and then grumble and complain about no food or water in the desert and have often thought I would be better in my previous situation than in the current. The wrestling I have done as of lately is primarily due to my own desire for control and tendency to worry instead of trust. At one clear moment in this trial I remember thinking that I just did not want to do what God was asking and I just didn't want to trust but...to whom else can I go cause He has the words of eternal life. I felt stuck cause I desperately wanted out of my situation but I could not turn my back on my Lord cause I have seen the things he does and the beauty that follows His purposes. I also could not pretend that I am surrendered when in fact I am not, that false living would be even worse that turning my back on him. So it was in this time that I called in the big Guns ( those spirit embodied friends of mine that at scattered to the four corners of the world) to please pray and for insight, and I do not know that it was in those conversations that I heard from God. Those conversations instead provided the safe place to wrestle, those friends love me and point me back to the fact that God to loves me, and anything that he is doing will be for his beautiful purposes. God has been showing me his beautiful purposes in this trial, and I am seeing that sometimes the thing that we hate and try to rid ourselves of is the very thing that God uses to reveal himself in. My paradigm for viewing life and more importantly God in this life is changing. I am being liberated from control and worry, (the lenses that I often view things from) but it is deeper cause in my desire for control and when I worry I have seen God as desiring to be in control and wanting things his way. So there was this sense of God as task-master instead of father, lover, friend. He is faithfully showing me His love and most often this happens through my kids. They are so assured of my love and their importance to me, they are confident when they approach me and ask for whatever they want, they have no problem interrupting me or climbing all over me while I am talking or doing something. This for me is a small illustration of the Fathers desire for us to approach him, and in my response to my children, the way that I love them and can't stop it no matter what they do, I just love them. This reveals His heart towards us...

I can not really explain all that I feel Him doing, I truly feel like chains are being broken in my heart, I taste of the coming freedom from all that would seek to capture my soul. The way that I see God, my service to him, my life lived with friends and strangers is all changing somehow that I can't explain. The glasses that I am used to wearing I am taking off and I am in the period of time where my eyes are learning to adjust but if I patiently wait I will see clearly again.

The Solution is Serving God

As I start my regime next week, I am prepared for what the old chemo pros call “the hump”, which is the second round of chemo. From there I will almost be half way and can set my mind on the good things to come. I decided that while I am going through this, I am going to try to the best of my ability to make new friends, encourage others, and let God use me in this place. I am not doing this because I am noble, but because I know that it is the solution. Happiness and peace are a byproduct of right living, and being of service to my fellow man has always helped me to somehow forget about my problems and be momentarily freed from the bondage of self centeredness.

Click on the title link to read more...

Courage

Click on the title link to read a story of a friend of mine...

(This is EJ's mother, for those of you who met him on the youth trip)

Paul tells us that God works all thing for our benefit. This woman understands that when Paul says 'all things' he means 'even cancer.'

May we have courage like hers.

Reflection on a Hymn

Did e'er such love and sorrow meet?

'Love hurts,' so the saying goes.

Why?

I had a conversation with a friend yesterday about community, how the notion of it is attractive to all people and yet the reality of it often frightens people away from it.

To love is to know and to be known. Intimacy and vulnerability are two sides of the same coin.

To be vulnerable is to expose your weaknesses to another; and to do so in a fallen world is to court betrayal and loss.

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This sheds greater light on just what it was that Jesus sacrifices for us, and what it is that He accomplishes on our behalf.

He lived in a community of divine love where this vulnerability and intimacy carried with it no taint, no threat of violence or fear of deception. There exists within the Godhead a complete selflessness without the need for protection, submission and surrender without mistrust, service and sacrificial love without suffering. All is love, and all is joy!

He left this behind to come to a world that knows only the faintest glimpses of love, our best loves are merely glimpses of shadows of the real thing. We love, even when we love truly, with one hand on our wallets. We love, if we love at all, with a contingency plan in the back of our minds. And so Jesus came, vulnerable and offering this same intimacy with us, that He shared with His Father. A baby in a blanket, laid in a feeding trough in a poor town, born to a single mother from a small people who were oppressed by one of the largest and most powerful empires in human history. Vulnerable. A man, naked, even his skin has been flayed from his body, put on display before the crowds of the capital city, pinned there, unable to escape, or to move. Barely able to breathe as he is nailed to wood, exposed. Vulnerable is not a strong enough word.

(Take a moment here and close your eyes, imagine yourself being stripped naked and tied up spread eagle in front of City Hall; imagine yourself being captured by a serial killer and being tied down as he prepares to go to work on you. Or even, less gruesome, imagine that you are to stand before a large crowd and proclaim your love for someone who doesn't know how you feel about them and you are unsure of their response. That feeling is complete vulnerability.)

Is a young man who professes love to a girl in front of the entire school vulnerable? God has become more so!

Is an animal being prepared for vivisection vulnerable? God himself has undergone such treatment!

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It was our own weakness that he accepted, our own evil world that He exposed, and the shame heaped upon this Good Man was born without retribution, and so was revealed for what it was, our shame.

It is His very weakness and shame that allows us to enter into His strength and glory...

Atonement

I got a phone call the other day while I was at work; my son Zane had said some nasty things to my wife. She told him he was getting soap in his mouth.

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My kids do this thing that is really frustrating, but also makes me very proud of them; they fight me when I have to punish the other ones. If Zoe is in trouble, Zane will tell me, 'You're mean!' and throw toys at me...

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So my wife is in the middle of preparing Zane for his punishment when Zoe jumps in.

"Mama, I don't want Zane to be sad, so would you put soap in my mouth instead?"

It is at this point that she called me...

What do you do in a situation like this? When your five year old re-enacts this most central act on behalf of her brother? Made me think through some things about what the Father was thinking and feeling, on how Jesus was motivated, on gratitude...

Acts 5:40

They had them flogged.

Trust, Pain, and My Father

Had some real deep conversations this past week with some friends:

What in my life has hurt me?

How have I experienced rejection, alienation and abuse?

What am I afraid of?

Do I still feel the effects from these things?

Where do I find it hard to trust people?

Where do I find it hard to trust God?

Are these emotional scars and painful experiences directly related to the places where I mistrust my heavenly Father?

(Check out Floyd McClung's book The Father Heart of God)

Heaven Help Us!

"...the scripture always bends towards the oppressed and the marginalized. Beginning in the Torah—take care of the widow, the orphan, the stranger among you. The story is written by oppressed minorities. And it continues, no room in the inn, they follow Jesus because they are hungry. The story always goes towards the underside of the Empire. I think it is sometimes hard for the American church to understand the Bible because we are the Empire. We are the ones in power, the ones with wealth. I think in some settings that's why the Bible has such little power."

Rob Bell (emphasis mine)

Encountering Homosexuality

"I'm Bisexual because men have always hurt me. They have always used me, AND something bad happened to me when I was little." A young girl stated. She was about 17 years old.
"Do you mind me asking what happen?" I asked.
"My brother molested me when we were younger and threatened to kill me if I told our parents. I've been date raped before too. I've never been any guys number one. I've just had a lot of guys treat me bad, so I've decided to become bisexual."
"Well girls are just as capable as boys are to do those things to you. With exception of rape, I think." I said in reply to this young girl.
"I just want a guy to worship me, I want to be it." She said.
"If you wait long enough he will come." I said. How do you encourage a girl that will spill all her junk in the first hour of meeting you. I didn't get it. Choosing to swing both ways was just as easy as choosing to change her underware, it seemed. I don't want to discount the things that have happened to her and maybe if they had happened to me I would be bisexual right now too. So I decided to ask her if she has had any girlfriends since deciding to be bisexual. She said that she was looking into a potential girlfriend. But most of the night she was talking about how hot this one guy is or how hot this other guy is, and she seemed so confused. I was sad for her.
In the time I got to talk to this girl I also got to meet this guy who was 19 and was gay. He was and odd guy and he had really long hair, and really long fingernails, but everything else was pretty masculine. The subject of first loves came up and he had one at one time, his first loves name was Rusty. I had asked him if his first love had been a man or a woman, to which he replied that it was a man and that he never remembers being attracted to girls. Execpt one and this was back in 6th grade. This guy would just talk and talk, and it didn't matter what he would talk about, he could talk about anything. I just listen and I asked lots of questions and I tried not to zone out. I wanted to be attentive. I was just trying to do the God thing in my first encounter with a gay person since I have seen the movie "Rent". The thing was I thought that these guys were neat and weird. I didn't know what else to do besides listen. Which in some cases is the best thing to do. I was not trying to be the religious judgmental person. I wanted them to leave knowing the love of Christ. I hope that they did, I hope that I was a good influence on them, and especially on that girl. In spending time with these people at this party I went to I also saw the importance of staying close to God. There are a lot of things you can be exposed to when you hang out with people that don't know the Lord. And this was a safe party not drugs or boose involved. I just prayed the best that I knew how and listened as much as i could and hoped that there would be clarity to the confusion they were living in. We are called to be lights in this dark world.