Posted on by She Who Rises

Faithing It

A few days ago, a friend sent me a meme that read:

“Does anyone else wish that Jesus would walk into your kitchen,  sit down with a cup of coffee, look at you and say, “OK, here is what we’re gonna do.”

My response? A GIF of Janet Jackson eating orange slices and saying, “It’s true though”. Because, really, who can’t relate to that feeling?

In a real way, the Bible gives us keys to living with wisdom and how to stay in step with God. But it doesn’t exactly provide a solution to every specific issue or challenge that we face. Thankfully, we have the Holy Spirit to help with that. 

But what the Bible is real clear about is the necessity of faith. Faith is the confident expectation of good. It’s believing that God keeps God’s promises. It’s based on trust, and both are like muscles. They need to be worked and stretched constantly in-order to be strong.

But pause… Who wouldn’t want God to break it all down?

Who would pass on God laying out the details of our future and how to move each step of the way IN ADVANCE? Not me. And, most likely, not you either.

Right now, I’m in a situation that worries me. This brain injury and everything that has come with it has me reevaluating what my future could look like, especially when it comes to how I will support myself. And it’s becoming clear that my current employment situation is no longer a good fit for a variety of reasons.

I’m holding on to my hope that it will all work out well for me. But, I’m not sure how any of the challenges along the way will shake out or exactly how to move.

If I’m being honest, it’s been scary, and a lot of the time, I feel pretty alone, though I know better. So, a one-on-one strategy meeting with an in-person Jesus would be welcome. But I know that’s not likely to happen.

In all honesty, I wish I didn’t need faith. Sometimes it feels like trusting God takes too much effort.

But then I remember my past experiences and the faith that I needed to get through them. I’ve dealt with things that were scary at the time that wouldn’t even make me break a sweat now.  And that realization reminds me that the strength that I have now is a direct result of the faith and trust I had to cultivate during those times.

Would I have the faith muscle that I have today, if I ever had that kitchen table strategy meeting with Jesus? Probably not.

I can now see that, without the scary, faith building experiences of my past, I wouldn’t be able to carry the weight of my current situation at all.

Or, more accurately, trust that God is helping me carry it and is guiding me through to the other side of this problem one step at a time.

Posted on by She Who Rises · 1 Comment

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

Just Stay … please?

I don’t know who needs to hear this, but…

You are not alone.


You are seen.


You belong.


You are needed.


You are no accident.


You were made with intention, regardless of what’s happened since.


You have a purpose, despite all the pain.


So, stick around a little while longer to see what it will be.


Decide to stick around for one more day.

Just one – one day at a time.

Every day.

And I promise you will get there, love.

Because, for real, you really are loved.

If you need a virtual ear, hit me up @ creatorskind@gmail.com 💜

Posted on by She Who Rises · 2 Comments

Another kind of genesis

Sitting on the edge of my bed, I rubbed my fingers along the imprinted letters on the hardcover bible in my hand. Within moments, I moved down toward the floor, knees first. With my head lowered in reverence, I spoke some version of these words:

‘God, I don’t believe that you would lead me wrong. When I open this bible, I am asking you to steer me away from any part of it that isn’t the truth. Steer me away from any part of it that comes from the minds of the men who wrote it and doesn’t represent what you want me to know. Help me to see what is true and ignore what is not. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen.’

Then I opened the book and started at the beginning.

By this time, my interaction with God had evolved from a desire for protection when I felt fear and help when I was running late, into a simple child-like wonder. Questions filled my quiet moments. From my first musings of the day to the fading thoughts before sleep, I pondered question after question and found exactly zero answers. These might sound familiar: “If God created everything, who created God? Does God have parents? Is God really a “he”? Why did Jesus have to die? And who sacrifices their own kid anyway?” I was cultivating a curiosity about God that was bordering on fever.

This curiosity wasn’t limited to Christianity. Along the way, I had learned about Christianity’s role in the African slave trade, and the various critiques of it as ‘the white man’s religion’ and a religion based on a book written by men. And as a result, I had become cautious, if not outright skeptical of Christianity. So, I did a little exploring. I made my way through some of the Quran in a feeble attempt to understand Islam and had a fleeting interest in other religions, like Santeria and Buddhism. But Sunday after Sunday, as I watched churchgoers in my neighborhood joyfully greet each other on my way to work, I felt a different pull. I wanted what they had.

In the smiling, sun-kissed faces of the people flowing in or out of that small church around my way, I wondered whether I was glimpsing the solution to my loneliness. I wondered if I was seeing a place where I could belong.

I didn’t ask my family. I didn’t know what their lives should look like exactly. But I saw their flaws up close and decided that they had missed the mark. I expected perfection.

My struggle with depression gave me a pre-occupation with perfection. I saw and was grieved by my own flaws and, somehow, came to believe that if I could fix them, happiness would swiftly follow. I didn’t know then that happiness was a fleeting feeling, not a permanent state. I fully expected to get to the bottom of this God-thing and amass the knowledge I needed to not only live, but live fixed. And so, the mingling of my loneliness, questions and judgments led me to that moment in my bedroom and that prayer.

Now free from the thee’s and thou’s of King James, I was quickly drawn in by the story-like structure of the passages in Genesis. It wasn’t completely new information, but in reading it from the source, and in common English, I could see nuances that I hadn’t understood before. Now, with firsthand knowledge, I could imagine the creation of the world and its inhabitants with a crisp realism that had felt unreliable before.

It all felt fresh and new, and I wanted to learn. Now I’d be lying if I said I read all of Genesis that day (LOL). But my curiosity would drive me to pick it back up day after day.

What I remember most about the experience of reading the bible with new, curious eyes was a sense of shock. As I read about Adam and Eve’s disobedience and subsequent blaming, Cain’s murderous rage, Noah’s drunkenness, and Abram’s cowardice, I was disgusted and perplexed that they would be written about in the first place. If you’ve ever seen the 80’s movie, The Never-Ending Story, you can imagine my puzzled expression as I looked up from the book to a God I could not see and said “What?!”

Again, I had questions. Why did God keep blessing these people? Coming face to face with these folks and their faults, I didn’t get what made them special. All I could see was how they failed most of the time. They failed at obedience, failed at being honest, and failed at holding themselves back from the ugliest inclinations, like jealousy and violence. At the time, I couldn’t see why God would want anything to do with them, much less actively intervene to make them prosper.

I didn’t realize that the story that Genesis was telling wasn’t really about them, at least not solely. Eventually, I would realize that what I was reading was God’s character on display.

I knew I was a mess. But honestly, in the moment, I thought theirs was a next level mess. LOL. I didn’t see myself in their problems, at least, not at first. What I did see though, was that I could never be God. I didn’t have the patience! I hadn’t even gotten to the midpoint of Genesis, and I was already through with the world.

God’s habit of patiently cleaning up their messes, picking them up and dusting them off, and blessing them again and again made little sense to me. But it wasn’t too long after this that my initial judgy shock blended with the mistakes and missteps of living in the world to birth a little empathy in my heart. Eventually, I would come to understand that I could look at how God treated the aforementioned folks as a lesson on how God could or would treat me. But then, I had another question, ‘Why?’

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