A letter to Spencer

Spencer,
Congratulations - you earned your degree Saturday! Dr. Gresham presented it to your family - there were so many of them there to see it happen. Your friends in Europe are building coffee shops and naming them after your songs - I know you would love that and you would love to play there. I'm not even gonna lie, I miss you buddy. I miss your smile and your music and your passion for life. You were always an inspiration to me, especially at the end. How you kept that positive attitude and outlook when the rest of us were beginning to lose hope I will never know. Thanks for being you and thanks for touching my life. I love you Spencer.

My favorite Spencer song:

I Trust

This hope that sometimes I don't feel
This hope that sometimes I don't see
I trust will carry me
I trust will carry me
This hope that I don't see

This love that I could never earn
This love that I just don't deserve
I trust will carry me
I trust will carry me
This love that I can't earn

This grace that's somehow kept me here
This grace that's somehow kept me here
I trust will carry me
I trust will carry me
This grace that's kept me here

Love = Live = Give

I'm fired up, so get ready for this. Last week was Idol Gives Back on American Idol. I taped it and watched it tonight. I watched as images of poverty-stricken people flashed before my eyes and I became angry. There are children who don't know what it means to live in a safe neighborhood. There are children who are raising their brothers and sisters ALONE because all of their family has died. There are children who have a disease that could easily be prevented by a net and pill but don't have that option because their family can't afford it. There are families being torn apart by disease and lack of resources. It makes me absolutely SICK to see these images and hear the stories of these people and know that I live in a country where we pay professional athletes millions and millions of dollars a year to play a sport while there is a mother across the world who sits anxiously next to her malaria-stricken 18 month old baby girl as she fights for her life because the mother cannot afford the $10 net and $2 pill it would take to keep her family safe. There is something EXTREMELY wrong with this picture. The ridiculousness of this situation really hit me tonight. I want to do something. I NEED to do something. I need to get involved and help these people. Nothing gets under my skin more than seeing people in despair. There is so much that can be done to help these people and it goes beyond just loving them. Christ called us to love, but He also called us to live. He called us to live as He lived, and if I recall, that means living life with those on the margins on society. Living is an action. Living involves meeting the needs of those around us and giving of what we have to make sure that happens. I am so tired of those who say they want to see the Kingdom of God being lived out here and now and in the same breath say "oh that's too bad - how horrible" to the images and stories of those who are in desperate need of a dose of life and turn and walk away. I am challenging myself to love, live, and give. I want to love those around me and see them as the people they are, not the problems they have. I want to live life alongside those who are desperately crying out. I want to give of myself and my possessions to help those in need. I challenge you to do the same - I want to see the Kingdom come to life. "Be the change you want to see in the world."

Life and Church, not to be confused with LifeChurch

Life. Life is full of experiences. These experiences help make us who we are. Today I ate lunch with a couple of older ladies from work. I got to spend 30 minutes listening to them tell stories from their life experiences and I loved it. One of them told me that when she was in about 5th or 6th grade she was eating dinner at a friend's house and Martin Luther King, Jr. came to dinner and ate with them. My mouth hung open when she said that. I cannot even imagine how cool it must be to be able to tell people you ate dinner with MLK as a child. It was that story that made me realize what an awesome thing life is. Every day life is filled with experiences. I want to soak up life in every possible way and experience everything that I can. I want to be able to tell stories one day of the experiences I have had. Life really is short and I want to be able to look back on my life and see that I have soaked up as many experiences as possible.

Church. What defines church? Is it a building with a steeple that people enter to attend worship services weekly, monthly, or yearly? Or is it a group of people living out the Kingdom in community? I like to think of it as the latter. I don't think it's up to a building to define a church - it's up to the people. Too often people allow 'church' to be bound to the definition of a building with a steeple used for worship services. To me, 'church' is much more than that. Church happens when the Kingdom is lived out, whether that is through showing love to a deprived child, feeding those who are hungry, or worshipping freely with people who look different than you. The church building may be the place where worship services occur, but 'the church' is the people living out the Kingdom and portraying the Gospel. My heart, passion, and desire is to see more of 'the church' occuring outside of Church.

Grace

Grace. Dictionary.com defines it as "the freely given, unmerited favor and love of God." Unmerited - it wasn't earned and it isn't deserved, yet it exists - freely. Tonight was our Tenebrae (or Good Friday) service at church. This service never fails to impact me deeply and tonight was no different. We spent an hour in the darkness, the only light being the slight lights on the platform and the candles along the wall. The cross stood before us, draped in black cloth and holding the Christ candle. The choir sang and we sang and the narrators read to us. We were reminded of the beauty of the gift of love and grace of Jesus. We were guided through the Scriptures that narrated Holy Week to us and two things in particular stood out to me tonight. The first was that the Temple was being used for acts other than its purpose. Those acts stood in the way of what Jesus intended for the Temple. Have I allowed myself to be used for purposes other than those He has in mind for me and do I allow myself or those things to stand in the way of His will for me? The second was a statement made in the narration that went something along the lines of "Christians need to live a faith that isn't afraid of the dark - a faith that isn't afraid to doubt and fear." That concept just hit me fast and hard. Is my faith afraid of the dark or does it avoid it? I like to think I live a faith that is afraid of the dark but I know sometimes I don't. Another concept hit me fast and hard this week. When I was a young child, I used to be so upset around Easter and wonder how in the world the people back then could have possibly seen Jesus as someone to be crucified and how they could hurt him. It hit me fast and hard this week that had I been in the crowd when Jesus walked the earth, I too would more than likely screamed "crucify him!" You see, Jesus was different. Jesus brought this whole new concept that people weren't used to - loving those deemed unworthy. Jesus shows up and people begin to see how he lived and they didn't like it. It was different, strange, and to some - wrong. Do I do well with people telling me the way they think I should live? Absolutely not - therefore I have no doubt I too would have been among the mockers. This realization hit me fast and hard again tonight in the service and I cried. It breaks my heart to know that I am just a breath away from being among those who mocked and beat Him. Grace. Do I deserve it? Did I earn it? Absolutely not. Do I still receive it? Somehow, I do. How deep the Father's love for us indeed.

You make me smile

So this post will probably be pretty lame, but work today was crazy (what else is new) and I just need a reminder of the things in life that make me happy, therefore this post is more for myself than anything. Without further ado, my "happy list" (in no particular order).

Babies. Laughter. Football. Fall. Beaches. Guitar Hero. Time spent with friends. Serving others. Conversations. The laughter and silliness of children. Family. Animals. Sunny days. Cool summer night drives with the windows down. Music. People. Sauced. Historic neighborhoods. Discovering new things about the city. Having no agenda. Barnes and Noble/Borders/Library reading time. Paint It Yourself Pottery. Getting palm trees in the mail. (at least one person will get this...)

That should do it for now. Sometimes one just has to de-stress.

Fulfilling the Dream

Sunday is the most segregated day of the week. "You go to your church, I'll go to mine." "You worship with 'your' people, I'll worship with 'mine.'" There is nothing more exciting to me than seeing those walls come down and the lines blurred and people who are different embracing one another and worshipping together. That is just what happened tonight. My church has an ongoing relationship with a predominantly African American congregation here in the city. It all started about 2 years ago with a forum my church hosted on racial relations within the church. It was that forum that opened our eyes to the possibility to bond together under the shadow of the cross and ignore the lines society has placed between us, for it is under the cross that those lines are gone and we are one body. Everytime we worship together I can see and feel the Kingdom of God. It is God's desire that we would learn to love one another as brothers and sisters in Christ and see one another only as He sees us - precious and invaluable. My pastor said it right when he said that it is time to stop saying "I'm a black Christian or I'm a white Christian and start saying I'm a Christian who happens to be black or white." In the eyes of God, "there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus." (Galatians 3:28) The choirs of both churches joined together at the end of the service and sang a GORGEOUS and powerful song entitled "Total Praise" by Richard Smallwood. I had chills - not because the song was gorgeous (which it was), not because the words are powerful (they are), but because I saw a glimpse of the church as it should be - bonded and worshipping openly together. The service ended with everyone joining hands and singing "I Need You, You Need Me" - another powerful song. Last month, my church received the honor of marching in the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day parade with Fariview Baptist - an experience I will never forget. I firmly believe it is a glimpse of the Kingdom and life as it should be when our congregations meet together, whether in worship or to bear witness to the steps in fulfilling the dream - the dream of a family and bond which knows no race.

Hello

Well training has come and gone and I am now a full fledged Child Welfare Specialist. I have 9 cases, which is a fairly average amount for a new worker. My first three days I got so overwhelmed I was wondering what I had gotten myself into. Today was better. I am actually getting excited to really get into my job and get involved with the families. I know it is going to be hard and there will be times I will get discouraged and overwhelmed, but I have decided to take the good with the bad.

In other news, I moved into my apartment and it is fabulous. :)

That's all.