Posted on by She Who Rises

Looking for hope?

There’s a song filling every corner of my brain lately. It’s soft and somber, yet Gravity swells with emotion.

It paints a picture of us individually, worried, and stressed out over the details of life. Whether frivolous or meaningful, beautiful, or devastatingly painful, together they create an enormous weight, distracting us from what really matters and wearing us out day to day.

But what really matters?

Hope.

Not in things or changing circumstances. But, hope in a promise. And a hope that promises are kept by those who make them. Really, one person in particular. But back to the song.

Seeing all of your stress and struggle, God says, “Come up here with me. I want to show you something.” And clasping your raised hand, pulls you upward, from the ground through the atmosphere and beyond space and time, to the peaceful spot at his side. Sitting high above it all with your creator, you see what God sees.

High above the joy and the pain, you see beauty and order and process. And you realize that there’s more to all of this than you can see from your small corner of your world.

There are whole galaxies and universes upon universes being formed from nothing, stretched, destroyed, and re-formed anew. There’s an unknowable number of creatures, big and small, traveling carefully plotted paths that still, somehow, include a million options for them each to consider.

Complicated, yet there is a distinct order to what looks like chaos from down below. And it’s managed by one person, the one holding your hand right now.

… Sovereign … you are …

This part of the song stays on replay in my quiet moments.

Sovereign is a word that I know but rarely use. So I had to hit the dictionary to refresh my memory on its meaning and, among its definitions, found that it means: to possess supreme or ultimate power.

As in, one who has ALL of the power.

As in, the buck stops here. ✋🏾

It’s something to remember when you turn your attention back to the details of life. It’s something God has demonstrated in all manner of ways: here on Earth, in the heavens, in the Bible, and likely, in your life too.

That power, that reason for hope, is in these simple promises, from the only one who can always keep them:

I got this. And I see you.
I got this. And I’m with you.
Believe. Don’t doubt me.

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A hard lesson

Have you ever had to learn a lesson the hard way?

Maybe, as a child, you couldn’t contain your fascination at the flames dancing atop the stove, that is, until you got burned. I bet those flames lost their appeal real fast.

At the start, the thing, whatever it is, doesn’t seem dangerous, maybe even manageable. But eventually, we learn that what we see could only be the tip of the iceberg, and it usually is. There’s often a whole mountain beneath the surface. Unfortunately, the experience that comes with this discovery usually involves some broken bones, aka consequences.

In my journey with Jesus, I have sensed a guiding force that kind of taps me on the shoulder when I get too near dangerous terrain. It often signals me to “wait” or directs me to change course. Sometimes, it’s a gut instinct, other times it’s a still small voice that I don’t really hear with my ears, but sense somewhere within me. For years, I didn’t pay attention to either.

I thought I was wise enough to thoroughly assess every situation and make my own decisions. Most of the time, I thought those nudges were my fears trying to keep me from living. Just as often, I discovered that I couldn’t have been more wrong.

By ignoring my gut and what I now recognize as the Holy Spirit’s leading, I was headed straight into a disaster, something that could ruin my life.


Case in point, the day of this car accident, I knew that I needed to stay home. I had felt the nudge to get more rest. I had worked until the wee hours of the morning. But I still felt pressure to make it in, albeit around mid-day. I was extremely tired, too tired to be driving, especially in snowy and icy conditions. But I did it anyway.

In the end, I totaled my car and got a concussion. Thankfully, I was the only person impacted, and my insurance covered everything. God absolutely took care of me. Medical bills were covered, rental car paid for and eventually, even got a new (to me) car paid for in (mostly) cash. I was struggling through some intense migraines but was told it was temporary. I had reason to hope. I was enduring the consequences of my own stupid actions while witnessing God’s faithfulness all at the same time.

Now, almost 5 years later, I’m still struggling with debilitating migraines, and some serious cognitive issues that I wasn’t even aware of until a few months ago, but now seem plain as day when I look back over the years. It’s been tough… I can’t lie. Some days, I feel like I’m drowning.

I have often blamed myself. I mean, it is entirely my fault. But blaming doesn’t fix it. I beat myself up, too, but that doesn’t help either. I hold all my questions and complaints from God until I collapse, unable to stand up under it all. I think, “Why would God want to hear any of that anyway?” Though, I’m sure God already knows.

I can’t begin to know why God allowed things to go this way. And I have no idea what I might gain by this prolonged suffering from a God that makes all things work together for my good. But I have noticed something worth mentioning.

He hasn’t left.

That guiding presence, the admonition to wait, that still small voice hasn’t evaporated from my days. It’s still leading – sometimes to bed early, away from overexertion, to time with him – in his Word, to the right doctors and specialists. I didn’t expect it, but I’m learning a hard lesson about God’s faithfulness. I’m learning that it’s constant, even in the face of my own failure.

Posted on by She Who Rises

Afraid? God isn’t.

A few years ago, while walking down a hallway at work, I felt a sharp, gouging pain in my body that made me cry out. Instead of copying the documents in my hand, I was paralyzed by pain and leaning on the nearest wall for support. Out. Of. Nowhere. It was the same sharp pain I felt while laying in bed a few nights before. Both times, it took my breath away.

That pain was my introduction to a mysterious mass that had formed undetected within my body. It led me on a journey to the offices of more specialists than I can remember, an endless stream of blood tests, exams and scans, a $200 ambulance ride from an imaging center to the hospital across the street (don’t ask), and finally, a successful surgery 6 months later.

By then, so many people had seen me at least partially-naked that I wondered whether I should have been getting paid. Thankfully, in the end, the mass was completely removed and non-cancerous. And though it wasn’t the only source of pain, removing it took care of most of it. Now, nearly 8 years later, I am relieved to say that it hasn’t returned.

I don’t think about that time in my life too often these days. But it was the first thought to cross my mind when a friend randomly texted me a song a few weeks ago. It was Ty Tribbett’s – If he did it before … Same God.

It’s a hella hype, upbeat gospel song from the early 2000’s whose point is clear and simple.  It’s this: if God took care of you before, well guess what? God will do it again. Why? Because he’s the same God today that he was back then.

I had heard it randomly a week or two before for what may have been the first time in years. As soon as I saw the link with the song title, the lyrics came to me in an instant and I had a burst of joy. It was an unexpected, but welcome infusion of hope into my day; a reminder that I desperately needed.

I got a concussion in a car accident a few years ago. I thought the symptoms were on their way out, albeit at a snails pace, but over the last year or so, they have come back with a vengeance. It’s had real impacts on my ability to work and just exist on a daily basis. And low key, it has been stressing a sistah out!

Debilitating migraines, cognitive fatigue and a host of other symptoms have been so much a part of my days that it’s  been hard not to wonder if this is what the rest of my life will look like. In the haze of a stabbing, eye-watering migraine, I’ve wondered, is this my new normal?

The idea alone is terrifying.

But that song reminded me of something that God had been showing me little by little in my quiet time with him: the wind and the waves. 

If you haven’t heard the story, Jesus had just finished feeding a huge crowd of people, well-over 5,000. He had taken a little boys lunch and multiplied it until it was enough to feed thousands, and leave a whole lot of leftovers. It was a huge miracle. His main crew, the disciples, had witnessed and been part of it all.


Immediately after this spectacle, they found themselves on a boat in the middle of a ferocious storm. With dark skies above them and heavy waves crashing against the boat, they were in a state of panic.  And Jesus wasn’t there. He had gone to a private spot by himself to pray. He had promised to join them later, and true to his word, he did.

In sheer terror, they looked out across the waves and saw him walking toward them. Not on the beach, but on the waves themselves!

They thought they were losing it… or that it was a ghost… or both. But Jesus assured them that it was him, and with all kinds of chill, proceeded to stop the storm and calm the waves – another miracle. Astounded by their little faith after seeing him feed all of those people only hours before, he asked them, “Why did you doubt me?”

There’s more to the story, but being reminded of this moment between the disciples and Jesus brought me back to my own struggle and the song.

I’d been through a scary health situation before, hadn’t I? This was a new scenario, but no less serious.  And really, the details are the only thing that’s different here. Jesus didn’t change. He’s just as capable, just as faithful, just as concerned and on top of things as he was back then. And even though I’m afraid, that doesn’t mean that he is.

Whether it’s on an operating table or in a storm-battered boat, he’s here and he’s got me. He’s faithful. I have my own experience to prove it, and the disciples’ too. If he did it before, then he’ll do it again. Because he doesn’t change.

I don’t know exactly how all of this will turn out. But I don’t have to follow my feelings or let fear beat me down. I have reason to hope. He’s the same God now as before. My problems haven’t stumped him before, and they won’t now. Neither will yours.

💜

Posted on by She Who Rises · 1 Comment

The Answer

As I write this, my heart is in turmoil. Have you ever been stressed out over something important that you had forgotten? Maybe it was your keys or where you set your wallet down last, or the time and place of an important event.  It could be anything really. But because it’s important to you, and possibly to someone else too, you rack your brain trying to remember it before something happens that is worse than forgetting.  Right now, I am having one of those moments and it’s a long one.  

What important thing have I forgotten? The moment when it all clicked. The moment when I realized the why behind God’s obsession with the hardheads of the bible and, by extension, me. I would love to lay out the order of every epiphany that I had, day by day, and build to the final day when it suddenly all made sense. I’d love to do that. But whatever I would come up with wouldn’t be true. And while a part of me cringes to write those words, another part shrugs in surrender, recognizing my limits as a mere human.

It’s a hard thing to accept. Even as I continue to search for a memory in the background of my mind, I am considering the possibility that maybe there wasn’t an “Aha moment” at all. Instead, maybe it’s a slow realization that I am still working out even now, as I continue to experience God’s partnership in my life. And maybe being certain about any of it will never be as important as knowing God’s why.

The why is a simple one. It’s love.  It sounds trite, I know. And maybe you’ve heard it all before. I’d love to have built the tension to a fever pitch and then, at its peak, dropped that bomb on you, bringing a sense of awe to your day.  But… life is already complicated enough. And when you think about it, doesn’t it just … make sense? I mean, for what other reason would anyone be so committed? It’s love in all of its simplicity and wonder. 

As I read about the humble beginnings of God’s chosen people and their stumbles toward maturity in a world that is still cold-blooded, I also saw a God of action. I saw a God who showed up, got angry and doled out severe consequences, yet stayed long enough to clean up messes and offer reassurances along with many promises.

I can’t say that love was ever the first thing that came to mind when I thought of God. I knew about God’s sacrifice. I knew the verse “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son” of John 3:16.  But I didn’t grow up thinking that God loved me.

Like many people, I thought God was to be respected and revered, if not outright feared. Love wasn’t part of the equation. I don’t know when it all changed. I don’t know the exact moment when I began to see God as a friend, a confidante or as someone who loved me. But when I asked God to help me remember so that I could write this post, eventually a singular memory rose to the surface of my mind.

I have lived in a handful of cities over the years. Their locations are often how I remember certain chapters of my life. Important memories are stored in my mind based on where I was living and what I was doing with my life at the time. But this memory is so fuzzy that I can barely place it. Yet, while I cannot remember the usual details that would add depth and meaning to the image in my mind, what I do remember, quite vividly, is how I felt.

For an entire day, out of nowhere, I was filled to the brim with what I can only describe as joy and an intoxicating feeling of love for absolutely everything and everyone that I encountered. In fact, I was bursting with it. Imagine a brown version of Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music, preferably Audra McDonald, singing and dancing through the streets of your nearest metropolis. That was me, on the inside, at least.

I can’t tell you what day it was, whether I was in college or at a full-time job, whether it was winter or spring. I can’t even tell you the events of the day. Truly, what I remember is the feeling. It was like every person, every creature, even the sun above had a beauty and perfection that I had never noticed before. When I passed people on the street, I saw them as breathtakingly beautiful and full of promise. It was as if everything excited and inspired me and I relished seeing it all with new eyes. I was in complete, joyful awe.

To be clear, I had no idea what was going on. My analytical brain couldn’t produce reasons for the shift as it was taking place. But sometime later, long after the feelings of that single day had faded, I would come across this verse, along with many others, that would give shape to that unusual experience. “The Lord your God is with you, the mighty warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing (Zephaniah 3:17).”  Eventually, I would realize that on that fuzzy day, I had been given a gift. I had been given a brief glimpse into the heart of God and it was filled with love for absolutely everyone.

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