The Main Thing...

 

Did you know that the average person endures 50-60 distractions within a single work day?

This weekend it occurred to me that every year I post content on New Year’s Day hoping to help set the tone for the year, but that I never actually circle back to check in with my readers. This led me to the sad truth that we don’t often check in with ourselves.

The very same day my best friend made the statement, “it is as if I went into a trance…I honestly cannot tell you what happened”. It sounds so disturbing to be able to look back over a week, month, year, of your life and not remember the types of details that you would never expect anyone to forget. But honestly, some people can’t clearly remember yesterday!

This time last year I posted a piece called Remembering our Resolutions in which I implored my followers to remember that we will never see the same day twice. 

 No matter how long we live, today will never be today, once we see tomorrow.

Every year people make New Year's Resolutions and Vision Boards and 6, 12, 24, 52 weeks later, they find themselves right back where they started, not because there's anything wrong with resolutions or vision boards, but because there is no true resolve to make good on promises to ourselves. We operate in a constant state of distraction.

Look at the statistic above; 50-60 distractions within a single work day. Fifty distractions is equivalent to a single distraction every 9.6 minutes, when statistics show that any major distraction requires an average 23 minutes to regain focus. This means the average persons’ work day is riddled with interference. So much so, that in 2024 TeamStage Project Management reported that companies lose out on 720 hours a year per person working. Seven hundred and twenty hours!! With the standard 40-hour work week totaling 2080 hours per annum, NOT including time off, that means only 2/3 of the average employee work day is spent focused and on-task.

So, take this concept out of the office and apply it to your everyday life wherein you have work, kids, spouse, family, health, hobbies, friends, etc.…how can we ever get anything done if we don’t focus?

Everyone loves to quote the Bible out of content, and this often includes Habakkuk 2:2. You always hear write the vision and make it plain…

What you don’t often hear is the part where Habakkuk 2:3 says,

A vision without action is merely a thought, and no thought can stand up to the level of distraction in our lives.

I don’t believe in New Year’s Resolutions, but I do believe in progress…change, and change doesn’t happen without work. So, this year, instead of setting a resolution and hoping it comes to true, write it down, take small, active steps, and CHECK IN WITH YOURSELF knowing that at the appointed time, it will indeed come true. If you get distracted, that’s okay, return to your vision. Instead of bouncing from one thing to another and letting more time pass without progress, let’s keep the main thing, the main thing and take this journey one day at a time.

 

  

HAPPY NEW YEAR!! 

#2025

Follow Me as I Follow God

@RevealingRuth

Remembering Our Resolutions

I've never believed in New Year's Resolutions.

Call me crazy, a skeptic, and any other number of things, but I have never understood waiting until January 1st to make the changes that you've known for months needed to be made in your life. I realize now that this is not what New Year's Resolutions are actually about. A resolution, by definition is to make "a firm decision to do or not to do something". So, if New Year's Resolutions were actual resolutions, then why do most of them fail by Valentine's Day?

Yesterday I saw a message repeatedly...so many times that I actually posted it myself, but with a caveat.

Everyone who posted this message did so for the same reason that they posted 11/11/11 and 2/2/22...because they wanted to highlight that day as special, but it's not. None of our days are particularly special in the way that they our presented in the above message. Every moment given to us by God is just as special as the last. So instead of pumping up 12/31/23 or 123123, I admonished my followers to remember that we will never see the same day twice. 

No matter how long we live, we will never see today again, 

and this moment will never return to us.

Every year people make New Year's Resolutions and Vision Boards and 6, 12, 24, 52 weeks later, they find themselves right back where they started, not because there's anything wrong with resolutions or vision boards, but because there is no true resolve to make good on promises to ourselves. We are in a constant hurry to do more, not realizing that it makes us less and less effective. Our issue is one of sight, NOT vision.

When Vision Boards and New Year's Resolutions are made, there's a focus on the end goal - where I want to be. What I want to do. How I want to look or feel...but none of these things are instant. You can't go from the mailroom to the Board room in one fell swoop, the same way that you can't lose 100 pounds in 6 weeks. Change requires CHANGE - a clear target and consistent, decisive actions necessary to hitting that target.

Habakkuk 2:2 is arguably one of the most quoted scriptures, but it has no context without Habakkuk 2:3. Everyone wants to hold on to, "write the vision and make it plain", but that is only the beginning of instruction. The scripture says, 

Then the Lord answered me and said:

“Write the vision
And make it plain on tablets,
That he may run who reads it.
3For the vision is yet for an appointed time;
But at the end it will speak, and it will not lie.
Though it tarries, wait for it;
Because it will surely come,
It will not tarry.

We want the fruition of the vision, but we don't want to do the RUNNING necessary to make it happen! A New Year's Resolution with or without a Vision Board is nothing without ACTION STEPS!

The Ten Commandments supported God's vision for the world. They were written on tablets and they have to be practiced every day, so why wouldn't there be everyday actions that connect to your resolutions and the attainment of your vision?

Our problem is that we want instant gratification. If something doesn't happen quickly, we lose sight of the vision and start focusing on what's directly in front of us. We forget that the scripture says that though it tarries (may take a while), WAIT FOR IT; because it will SURELY come!!

NOT MAYBE, SURELY 

but we have to do the work!

God promised that He would withhold from us no good thing, so if what you are resolving to do is within the Will of God, then why wouldn't it come to fruition? Do you honestly think that you have the power to change the Lord's Will?

This year, why don't we skip the resolutions and put together a real plan? Instead of putting our faith in and focus on what we see immediately before us, let's commit ourselves to showing up for ourselves EVERYDAY (not just January 1 - February 14) and do the work necessary to remembering our resolutions.

Follow Me as I Follow God

@RevealingRuth

Understanding Forgiveness

This week I found out that my “good sis” has been moving real foul behind my back. I mean some rock bottom girl code violation, AND spiritual damnation type stuff. The type of stuff that we’d write off, along with her, as unforgiveable. So much so, that as I was being increasingly more exposed to the drama with her, my pastor, whom I am convinced, through no desire of his own, has personal conversations with God about me, posted this.

My mother, who would have no thought of forgiveness for this former friend was the voice that God chose to tell me about this post, which he captioned, “forgive one another, as God has forgiven you through Christ".

- Ephesians 4:32

WARNING!!

CONTROVERSIAL OPINION LOADING…

So, here’s the thing. Anyone who knows what I’ve learned about this “friend” over the past month would certainly want to throw her in a trash can and close the lid. But what part of God and the Christian walk is that?

Now admittedly, my Julie says that I have “limitless” grace, and my Qiana referred to me as “nonconfrontational to a fault” but aren’t both of those things (in most instances) evidence of God’s seed taking root in our lives? I mean some things just truly are above us – and we have to let them rest however they might in God’s hands, because the reality of the matter is that GOOD SEED ALWAYS BEARS GOOD FRUIT. And we should all desire to bear the absolute best fruit for the Kingdom.

The problem is what we allow to take root in our spirit.

The people involved in all that I have learned this week and over the past month are all “spiritual people” in spiritual position, but this reminds us that even people in spiritual position are humans who fall short.

Now certainly, there is accountability required, and all the more so for those in spiritual positions, but what does that have to do with the harmed or offended party? I have said a million times and I will continue to say – I don’t have to go to God with or for anyone, having neither heaven nor hell to put anyone in.

So, why not forgive?

Most often the first issue is a misunderstanding of forgiveness and a presence of emotion. When you see things like babymomma/babydaddy drama, the unforgiveness is rooted in emotion. Someone who was hurt has not yet healed and so they continue in a traumatic cycle of acts and events that prevent both forgiveness and forward movement. But God gave me this week’s revelation at a time when it wouldn’t hurt me…so why not forgive? Because the second issue with forgiveness is the fact that we often forget that forgiveness is for us, not the person we’re forgiving.

My Pastor’s post challenges us to see others as God sees us, and God sees us in many ways, I believe. The Bible speaks of the goodness God sees in us, but it also refers to us as inherently flawed humans – “sinners from birth”. Certainly, both are true. Every “good” person has some bad deep within them and every “bad” person has some good. The differences manifest themselves based on what we allow to take root in our spirit. Because my bearing good fruit brings glory to God, I have to be careful what I allow to take root, weeding my spirit constantly, and as Paul says in I Corinthians, I buffet my flesh daily to keep it under subjection, because the same way that I can’t go to God for you, there is no one who can go to God for me. That’s what forgiveness is about!!

About letting go of the judgements that we place on others and allowing God to take up the fight. It is His place to deal with these people the way He sees fit, and if there’s one thing I know for certain – God don’t play about His children!! The same way that mother’s will say, “I’ll fight a kid!” when their child is being bullied…God feels the very same way about us!

We all reap what we sow, and we are all held accountable for our knowledge and actions. I personally want to reap the goodness that I have placed in the earth and want to be held accountable for rightdoing instead of choosing wrongdoing. So today, I forgive not only because I have been forgiven, but because I understand what that means.

To anyone involved in the horrendous acts revealed in the past week or month, know that this is not a pass for your wrongdoing, this is a courtesy call to tell you that I’m not the one you need to be worried about.

What’s done is done, no matter when or where you did it. Be it done in the light or dark, nothing stays a secret forever.

To those reading this who struggle with forgiveness, know that it’s not as hard as you think. Pray for God to take the hurt out of it. Once He soothes the sting, the path forward proves much smoother.

People always say, “I can forgive, but I won’t forget”. GOD DOESN’T WANT YOU TOO!! Your memory is a protective mechanism in your life. God allows us to remember so that we know what’s good for us. If you burned yourself and you forgot what being burned feels like, you’ll burn yourself again. The act of being burned by an iron, fire, or hot stove, taught you to put boundaries in place that prevented you from being burned by those things again.

BEING BURNED BY PEOPLE IS THE SAME WAY.

You erect or adjust boundaries that prevent it from happening again.

Forgiveness says, “I love you. I pray for the inherent shortfalls of your humanness the same way that I pray for my own, BUT DON’T COME OVER HERE WIT’ ALL THAT!!”

You can’t come back across a bridge that you set fire to as you crossed it. God gave me this memory to keep me safe from you. You won’t get to burn me twice BECAUSE I UNDERSTAND FORGIVENESS.

Follow Me as I Follow God

@RevealingRuth

Losing my Religion

Today, I was making my breakfast and while I may not have solved the problems of the world, I was able to pinpoint an arguable root – commitment…or rather, a lack thereof.

I was scooping grapefruit into a bowl when it hit me how difficult we make things for ourselves by explaining them away with excuses. For example, when I talk to people about portion control, the excuse is often that weighing food is too much work.

Is it though ?

I spoke with someone recently who has been mandated to lose 40 lbs. and only has 90 days left to do so. I gave 3 very simple rules:

1. Stop pouring
2. Stop using your servingware
3. Read labels

Everything we eat comes with a serving size. If your cereal says that a serving is ½ a cup, why would you pour it when you can just as easily use a measuring cup to scoop it out of the box? Along the same thread, why use a spoon when you have no idea how much food that spoon holds?

We make excuses when all we really need to do is admit that we don’t want to follow directions.

I have been asked a million times ‘how’ I don’t have sex, not why, but literally how, as if there’s some algebraic equation to abstinence. Yet what bothers me most is that as quickly as the question comes up, it’s just as quickly dismissed with the vocalized revelation, “oh, well you are really religious”.

Am I though ?

 

On many levels I am probably one of the least religious people you’ll meet! The problem is that people spend more time listening than they do studying.

NOT ONCE IN THE BIBLE DO YOU SEE JESUS USE THE WORD RELIGION!

Yet man has spent so much time listening to other men that they confuse religion with faith - often perceiving the two to be synonymous. They are not.

 Faith is defined in the bible, religion is not, reason being – religion is a man-made construct.

In Hebrews 11:1 the bible defines faith as “confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not yet see” (NIV). What do any of those words have to do with religion? Which Merriam-Webster defines as “a particular SYSTEM of faith or worship.

Religion is how we get off track in our faith.

We get so tied up in trying to fit into the system, that we forget God never intended for us to fit in!

Every week different churches said to be of the same religion do things in absolute contrast to one another. Some do a weekly communion, some do so monthly. Some pass the collection plate multiple times while others do so only once. Some have devoted followers to an upright man of one wife, while others follow a shepherd whose wife, mistress, and children all sing in the same choir.

God didn’t sanction this foolishness!

He has given us clear orders based on the biblical definition of faith, because where you cannot find a definition of religion in the bible, what you can find is the statement, ‘according to your faith’, nearly 100 times.

According to your faith there are tasks that Jesus performs in the bible and tasks that He asks believers to perform.

I’m not out here abstaining from sex because of religion. NO ONE IS! If religion kept you pure there wouldn’t be sexual immorality - perversion, adultery, and fornication in the church!

I am eating healthy, being more active, and abstaining from sex because of my commitment to God, my faith, and myself.

I am committed to eating better and moving more because I have confidence that it will heal my body. I abstain from sex because I am confident that the promises of God are still true and that His values never shift, even when ours do.

People joke about laying down their religion all the time when they seek to willfully make bad decisions, but you have never once heard anyone talk about laying down their faith. In fact, we fight with every ounce of our being to hold on to it.

So, just so that you don’t get confused and we can all be clear about why I do what I do, let’s agree that today, I’m losing my religion…and maybe you should too.

Let’s commit to the type of bold faith that moves God to issue a bold response!

Follow Me as I Follow God

@RevealingRuth

The Wrong Order

How many times have you gone to a restaurant and let the stranger at the next table order for you?

 

Confession: I contacted a MatchMaker earlier this year…and even though I decided not to engage her services (to the tune of 12 matches for $11,000!), now she won’t leave me alone.

While considering this week’s content, after 3 more texts from said MatchMaker, it struck me how much dating is like a game of darts. In developing that idea, I started to compare the concept of “dating” to that of “courting”.  Not everyone understands how very different these concepts are and why we all need to get clear on just what they mean.

Listening to a friends Facebook Live post provided further clarity when I heard him say, “when you don’t know what you want people will tell you what you want.  If you let other people order for you, most times they’ll order some stuff you don’t want to eat, and they’ll end up eating because they ordered what they like”. 

That got me thinking! Where I was planning to write about the difference between courtship and dating, it seems far more important to address the issue of intention and church-forced relationships.

We all know people who have been forced together by the church either by family ties because their parents/grandparents decided they should marry, or because somebody got pregnant and they needed to “correct their mistake”.  Unfortunately, pregnancy isn’t the type of mistake that you can “correct”, and the last thing you should do is compound that mistake by making an even bigger one.

I would have never guessed that I would be old enough to know people (in my age group) who have been married 2 and 3 times. The institution of marriage isn’t the issue, because I also know people, in my age group, who have been married more than 15 years; people who have spent more than half their lives together. The problem isn’t the table where you sit, the problem is how your order is being placed. Courtship is not the same thing as dating without the sex. Dating is a buffet of appetizers to be sampled until you grow tired of the selection. Courtship is the slow roasted pig at a luau – it takes time to perfect, and without it, the luau wouldn’t be a luau.

Darts are a silly little game we play, usually in the same space as where alcohol is being served, poor choices are made, and other games are being played at the same time. Dating is the exact same way. We make poor decisions based on chemical, biological, and emotional impairments, leading us to play games that not everyone signed up for.

There is no required investment. Neither requires any real skill or dedication and there is no specified, anticipated outcome. It’s just a bunch of impaired people taking aim at what someone else decided should be the target, assuming that the bullseye is the same for everyone.

There’s no real competition, because there are no stakes. You’re just throwing at a wall to see what you can hit. It doesn’t even require any real level of focus. Think about how many times you’ve seen someone hit the bullseye when they weren’t even paying attention. This is the same way that people end up married to someone new every few years.  It might look like they won, but the world is full of fake winners, lost in the game because they spent all their time focused on the wrong target.

Every holiday season our social media is flooded with photos and videos of marriage proposals between couples who will never make it down the aisle. For those who actually do, spring and summer brings hashtags like #SheGotChose #LuckiestManAlive, or #TogetherForever.  They make this big elaborate show of the where, when and guest list just to flood your timeline with a completely different person five years later.

The problem is that they never agreed on the bullseye. People who are interested in dating believe the bullseye to be marriage, when those who believe in courtship know the true victory is in staying married. That victory requires skill.

Proverbs 12:27 states that “the lazy hunter does not roast his game, but the diligent feed on the riches of the hunt”.  Plainly stated, you only place value upon that which you work hard to obtain.  If all you want to do is date, understand that there’s nothing wrong with that. Not everyone desires to be married, but those who lack that desire should focus their attention on others who share their thinking.

With so much emphasis placed on courtship and marriage, Christians seldom admit that there is a value upon every season of life – being single, being engaged, being married, and even being divorced. The problem is that when you don’t know what you want, somebody in your life is going to tell you. It’s up to you to decide – how many times are you going to sit down to a meal that you have no desire to eat?

Follow Me as I Follow God

@RevealingRuth

A Resolution of Grace

I've never been one for New Year's resolutions, but I feel like this year presents a fairly rare opportunity. The fact that January 1, 2023, is the first day of the week, month, and year calls for a collective resolution.

Galatians 5:14 charges us to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. Unfortunately for people like me and the majority of my inner circle, we don't often remember to do that. We have long forgotten how to honor ourselves in answering this charge. We are all our own greatest critics, picking apart what we've done vs. what we feel could have been done given our talent, intelligence, determination, and a million other things. We have forgotten how to extend ourselves the same level of grace and understanding that we give to others.

If someone in our life makes an earnest effort to accomplish something that turns out great, albeit unexpected or short of goal, we are swift to praise them with all the love that we have, but we pummel ourselves when facing the same. Let's all resolve to put this to an end.

Yesterday during our final brunch of the year, my best friend gave me a special planner that God instructed her could only ever be used for sake of self-love and my sound mental health. I cannot put anything into this planner that has anything to do with work or anything that might stress me out. It is to serve as a constant visual reminder to pour as much into myself at least monthly, as I pour into others daily.

Both she and God know how much I need this as a physical reminder that can literally stare me in the face from the mount, I gave it in the corner of my desk.

You may not have a constant physical reminder, and you honestly may not even need one, but do us all a favor, as you set forth on your New Year's resolutions, add this one to your list

 

Remember that you cannot pour from an empty vessel. In order to have enough to give others, you must save enough for yourself.

So, when you set those hard-to-reach targets like massive weight loss goals and savings targets for this week/month/year, know that not every goal will be reached when you planned it, but God's timing is perfect. He will bring all things to pass just as He has designed them whether you like it or not.

Until that happens, love yourself so that you'll have what you need to love others. That is the ultimate goal of His design.

May this new year find you all in good spirits, great health, and one day closer to pure happiness.

God Bless! Welcome to 2023!

Follow Me as I Follow God

@RevealingRuth

New Mind, New Grind #2022

Confession – I’ve never believed in New Year’s Resolutions. I don’t understand the concept of knowing that something needs to change in your life and waiting until January 1^st to make it happen. I also don’t understand the new walking out/into posts on Social Media.

Aside from the fact that compartmentalizing life by the turn of a calendar simply doesn’t work, these things give no respect to our personal history or journey. There is this thought that we need to burn it all down, or “throw the whole year away”, but no year has been all bad. Aside from the fact that you were given life every single day, there were inevitably blessings that came along with the burdens of that year.

Matthew 5:45 says that “the rain falls on the just and unjust”. That means that the good, the bad, and the ugly are all a part of the plan that was written for us long before we ever took a breath.

So, after the volcanic eruption that was 2020 and the slow burn of hot flowing lava that turned out to be 2021, why don’t we just work to clear the ashes, acknowledging that in order for a new thing to live, old things must die, BUT that doesn’t mean they never had value.

I was literally TODAY years old when I realized that I only posted to this blog ONCE last year! Last year flew by full throttle! 2021 was an absolute rollercoaster for me just like millions of other people, but I have to acknowledge that without the lows, the highs would have never been possible!

A few months ago I needed a new throw pillow for my bed and instead, I opted for this pillowcase

that reminds me to resolve DAILY to focus on today because just like Matthew 5:45, Matthew 6:34 is the absolute truth – tomorrow will worry about itself because every day has enough trouble of its own.

It's time to be renewed in our thinking - New Mind, New Grind. That's the way to make 2022 our best year yet!

We live in a world where instant gratification is the only gratification and enough is never enough. So my suggestion is that we all take a moment and decide that if this year will come with resolutions, resolve to give yourself a bit of grace. Don’t focus on your shortcomings or negativity of any form. Focus on the beauty of the moment and the promise of God. Live today as today and let tomorrow be tomorrow, because whether it rained or shined – you are EXACTLY where you are supposed to be right now.

Follow Me as I Follow God

@RevealingRuth

2021: An Open Letter

Every year we look to bloggers, influencers, life coaches and especially our spiritual leaders, for optimism at the top of the year. We want to believe that every year will be better than the next, just by virtue of changing dates on a calendar. Pastors create sermons about all the incredible and dynamic things that will make up the coming year in order to give hope. I understand why this is needed and I’ve been guilty of doing the same. I usually want my first post of the year to be high vibe inspiration to conquer every goal you have left over from last year. But what happens when that same goal is leftover from one year to the next, to the next, and the next…until it’s too late to achieve it?

I realized today that we often mistake inspiration for a state of being when it is more so a state of becoming. We think of the state of being inspired as something we are, instead of acknowledging that it is just the first step in the process of what we wish to become.

This January 1^st, I want to remind you that time waits for no one, and there is no such thing as arriving. We are always in a constant state of movement. We can claim that it’s always forward movement, but more often than not, it’s a series of side moves, or active stagnation. We’re always doing something, but our actions aren’t actually getting us anywhere, if we don’t move to advance.

So, this year, instead of a usual blog post, you’ll get a little more of an open letter – a small insight into where I am, how I got here, and how I think it can help us all to move forward.

 

My friend is in the hospital. On life support, she is currently enthralled in the greatest battle she has ever faced, and she has been for a month now. Diagnosed with Covid back in November, in the hospital all of December, and now on life support as we enter January – arguments vary. Some would say that she’s dying, while others argue that she’s fighting for her life. All as we pray and wait.

For me, since speaking to her mother about her condition, those have been the three words that resonate with me most – ‘pray and wait’. I think that these 3 words can often be self-debilitating for believers. We spend our time praying and waiting when we should be praying and working.

Alone with my thoughts, reflecting on our time together, I realized that I have known this woman for 9 years. We’ve shared moments, milestones, births, deaths, and disagreements, but last night I realized that she has never shared her dreams. I have no knowledge of her desired “life’s work”, and even more sadly, though my dream has remained unchanged all these years, it has also remained unachieved. Where we can all agree that 9 years should be long enough to accomplish anything, some live 90 years without ever having done so.

So, instead of inspiring you to conquer a world that is as yet unconquerable, I would like to challenge you to commit to FORWARD MOVEMENT! Never again should any of us make the mistake of believing that a spark of inspiration is all it takes. A spark of inspiration led me to write a book 15 years ago that is still unpublished today.

It is time for all of us to FOLLOW THROUGH. If we can’t find the wherewithal to do it for ourselves, maybe we can do it for all of those that were lost before they had the chance to.

This year, instead of screaming ‘New Year, New Me’, pledge to simply keep moving – forward. Dedicate yourself to the series of small steps that are necessary in the accomplishment of any goal. Work to actively advance, before your chess piece is knocked off the board.

Follow Me as I Follow God

@RevealingRuth

Reshaping Molded Clay

 

It is as much a secret as it is common knowledge that I absolutely love Will & Jada (Pinkett) Smith. Over the years, they have seen a lot of press surrounding their relationship, and even more around their parenting style, but what I saw today cemented, for me, what makes them truly awesome parents.

I feel that they are actively moving the needle in the tearing down of long held beliefs about ownership as parenting within the Black community - what it means to bring life into this world and the nurturing of that life into adulthood. I would also go as far as to say that they directly, yet however unintentionally, are working to change the narrative around black parenting, while inadvertently, uplifting a biblical argument about parenting that has been, as yet, unconsidered.

In a special episode of Red Table Talk Father’s Day couch edition, Will Smith made the statement, “I saw how much I was making, and forcing, and pushing the things that I wanted and… I had a real epiphany on how bad a person will hate you if you keep forcing your wishes onto their lives.”

His statement immediately made me realize just how much, historically, black parenting has been a largely audacious and borderline egregious affront, not just to parenting as an institution, and Christianity, but to the God-Man relationship overall.

See, as Christians, a lot of people like to use the Bible as a weapon as much against other people, as we should use it against the devil! You know the ones. The church mother or revered “Bible scholar” who always seems to have a scripture at hand to use against you in trying to make you do what they want you to do. The ones whose view may not be as objectively upright biblically speaking, as it is acceptable practice based on religiosity.

The late Bishop of my former church used to always say “you so heavenly, you ain’t no earthly good”. My attention to language and tone allowed me to understand his meaning long before discovering the Johnny Cash song.

If we are called to be fishers of men and to live Christ-like as the very definition of Christian, how dare we attempt to use God’s Word as a force of hand to make someone else be to us, or for us, what we decided they should be. It’s disrespectful to God!

Isaiah 64:8 says, “yet you, Lord, are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter;

we are all the work of your hand.”

(Black) parents have got to stop asserting ownership over people that simply do NOT belong to us! All things (people, property, and otherwise) belong to God! We are merely the safe keepers of that which He entrusts to our care.

My daughter is my daughter only because I was the vessel chosen by God as the means of her entering this world. I can give her everything that I have, to bring her up as an upright and decent, Christ-like human being, but I do not get to decide what that looks like for her. I went through an entire college life and applied to law school based on a vision that my father built for me, decades before, based on who he decided I needed to be in this world, in order to be of value to my race and lineage. I had to be the one to do the thing that no one else in our family had ever done. Oh, how much more burdensome his promptings would have been, had he been a “Bible scholar”.

By weaponizing our Bible knowledge against others, what we fail to do is realize that we are also using the bible against ourselves, making everything relational toward us instead of relational toward God.

God is supposed to be at the center of all of our relationships, not our flesh-driven desires.

As a young mother, allowing for my daughter to find her voice in the world, I would throw Proverbs 29:15 at her all the time, “a child left to their own devices will bring shame upon their mother”. Not their father or anybody else, their mother…and you ain’t gon’ make me look crazy in these streets!

Again, so quick to weaponize the Word, not realizing that it is much more a boomerang, than a baseball bat.

No use of God’s Word as a weapon comes without ricochet. You are inevitably going to feel or experience some unintended pain or discomfort of your own because you have placed yourself at the center, within God’s space of your relationship, and not the space intended for you.

I had to grow in The Word to realize that I was beating both of us up with that scripture. To imply that my daughter would shame me, was to imply that (1) she would go into the world and act foolishly, while also implying that (2) I had not properly prepared her to thrive outside of my presence.

When will (Black) parents learn that there is so much freedom in just letting God have His due?! It’s like getting to be a small child again – you don’t have to take on the burden of responsibility that was never intended to be yours. This is God’s stuff! Not mine. But (Black) parents, and especially (Black) mothers will take on the burden of their children’s decisions, especially their sons, UNTO DEATH!! Literally, because this Walter Lee (Raisin in the Sun reference) Syndrome ever-present within the Black community will kill you!! IF you let it.

Let me tell you a secret – the choices of your children, especially your adult children,

ARE NOT YOUR FAULT OR RESPONSIBILITY.

PERIOD!

Will made an incredible point in admitting that our children are not ours. “They are their own people. I am not going to preconceive what you need to be. There is a real arrogance in that.”

Just as you once desired autonomy as an individual, your children deserve the same. Stop trying to reshape clay that the Lord has already molded.

Follow Me as I Follow God

@RevealingRuth

Lackawanna Blues

My parents used to fight a lot.

That’s not a value judgment on them as people or as a married couple. It’s just an observation. An observation of how seventeen years of marriage can look to a fifteen-year-old girl.  It looked…bothersome, as though they loved each other deeply, into absolute annoyance.  I remember being in high school thinking that they stayed together only for me and my brother.  That the moment I left for college, they would divorce.  They never did.  They went on bickering with a smile for another nineteen years, until my father passed away and my mother lost her best friend.

It’s strange, the one movie quote that has stuck with me more than anything else comes from the movie Lackawanna Blues – “sometimes, a man and a woman have an understanding that no one else understands”.  That line summed up my parents’ entire relationship for me, and amazes me how much it reflects every human relationship in this world.  For me, their relationship made about as much sense as a bubble gum hat, but they were happy together.  I didn’t need to understand it because it wasn’t my relationship to understand.  It was their relationship, that I could learn from.

People say that girls grow up to marry their fathers. I live by a far more accurate truth – we learn what we want by watching our parents. My parents’ relationship worked because it was them, but that doesn’t mean that it would ever work for me.  In order for me to marry a man like my father, I would have to be just like my mother…which I am not.  We’re about as different as peas and carrots.

I’ve worked since I was 11 years old and my mother has worked less than 11 years of her life.  Yet, I have never seen her want for anything.  I can admire that my father did everything he knew how to provide for his family, and I appreciate him for that, but I could never be my parents. I remember my father once telling me that ‘parents sacrifice their dreams to the possibility of their child’s future’.  However eloquent his use of speech, I absolutely disagree. Nothing is more empowering for a child with dreams than to see their parents accomplishing their own.

The nature of your parents’ relationship is supposed to help you learn yourself; to teach you what you want and what you don’t want.  You’ll be able to pick out what works for you and what doesn’t work for you, how you are similar to your parents and how you are different; such that you should be able to figure out who you are and who you want to be in your relationships.

I learned enough from my father to know that he’s not the type of provider that I could marry.  He was a great man and an earnest financial provider, but I was an adult when he figured out how to truly be a dad.  When he realized that sometimes you just have to listen, and not speak.  That not everything warrants your feedback and opinion. I will never berate my father for being who he was.  If he weren’t who he was, I wouldn’t be who I am, but because of who I am…I could never marry a man like my father.

I need a man who understands the importance of communication.  I could never follow a man blindly in shrouded adherence.  To fall in line with him, step-by-step, for no other reason than him being the man of the house. This is not my idea of healthy submission.  It feels more like worship. 

I once asked my mother if she would truly, ALWAYS side with my father, even if she knew that he was wrong…. she said yes, she would always stand by her man.  That worked for her, it could never work for me.

I believe in submission, but I will follow my husband because I trust his leadership, not simply because he’s my husband.  I have to know that he’s not leaning to his own understanding, but that he’s walking in a word from God.  I don’t have to see it, but I need to know that we have a plan rooted in God's prompting.

Consider our Heavenly Father for a moment.  The kindest, gentlest, all powerful, all knowing God.  We don’t blindly follow Him and He sees everything from beginning to end!!  We will put our lives in the hands of a man and take ourselves out of the situation completely, yet we tussle with God in the execution of His plan, wanting to have a hand in everything that happens in our lives.

I don’t desire to know all that God knows and my husband doesn’t have to either.  I just need to know me, and I can assure you that whether he be like my Heavenly Father or my earthly one, I won’t be marrying any man that gives me the Lackawanna Blues.

Follow Me as I Follow God

@RevealingRuth

Worth Fighting For

In a previous post, Necessary Roughness, I made mentioned of a gentleman from my past. At present, I can recall myself and the gentleman in question discussing how he would always seek to be honest and forthright (whether I liked it or not) because “how are you going to trust me when you don’t know what’s going on?”

It didn’t take long for that theory to be tested. A few months into our relations, I was unknowingly pulled into a conversation wherein his ex-wife began to assert, what she believed to be, her position in his life. I never responded. I never questioned a thing. I didn’t need to. As she spoke, my mind trailed back to his and my very first phone conversation.

Our initial discussion, like others referred to in that same blog post, was unsolicited. I’d never asked him about the woman in question, so he was never under any obligation to even mention her. Although the two of us would not ultimately end up dating, I was able to see that the unsolicited moments of truth were a way for him to protect not necessarily what was, as much as what might be.

This man knew who he married as much as he knew who he’d divorced.

Proverbs 21:9 (NIV) says it is “better to live on a corner of the roof than share a house with a quarrelsome wife”.

What people often fail to realize is that everything you do in this life is most always in efforts of answering a question. In a relationship, people become misguided, often working to answer the question, “how much do you love me”, when the greater question is, “how much do you respect our union?”.

I can remember watching a Sarah Jakes and Toure Roberts video in which she said, “I’d had a love worth fighting for…literally, but I’d never had a love worth protecting”. That statement struck me.

I could recall accepting a man’s ring, having just months before, showed up to his ex-girlfriend's JOB, ready to bash this woman’s face in. This was a woman who had stalked us for the greater part of a year. I was livid with her for not respecting our space, our privacy, and our relationship, when the reality was that he had failed to protect our union.

He knew who we were dealing with and thereby, should have known the necessary measures to put in place to prevent the ridiculous and dangerous situations born out of their residual conflict. As adults, we often wander from one romance to the next, trailing behind us the weight of our former relationships. We like to play a game with ourselves and others, as if we have no idea why we are burdened and exhausted by the effort necessary to maintain successful relationships. The truth is that we are well aware of the weight that we carry. Whether we accept responsibility for the outcomes of our past relationships or not, we carry the truth of those relationships somewhere within our being.

The gentleman of recent note can carry the knowledge of our interactions with the weight of a feather. No harm was caused; no ill-will is harbored, and the remnants of our time together are in no way burdensome. Yet his ex, along with the woman who stalked me & my ex-fiancé, those were heavier relationships - the type that require deliberate unpacking.

I was so angry about this woman playing on our phones; being camped out in bushes across the street from my apartment; shining lights like Girl Scout signals in my bedroom window; showing up at events that we attended, and a host of other acts, that I never stopped to question where she was getting her information. That was... until he called me one night because she had him locked in her apartment.

There are some doors that are better left closed, while others require padlocks and chains....theirs was a door requiring chains.

This woman pretended to have car trouble so that he would bring his mechanic brother...with no car 😒 to her home to check things out. While waiting for his brother, he asked to use her bathroom, and she deadbolted him in.

Do I question the validity of his story? No.
Was he being honest? Sure.
Do I care? ABSOLUTELY NOT!

It does not matter how innocent you THINK your actions are; what matters is how your actions can be interpreted and received. He knew her well enough to know that the slightest interaction would invite continued, dangerously dysfunctional contact. At this point, if you can’t do it yourself, it is left to the police to rescue you, not the woman who served as the other party in the union you failed to protect.

When we are entering into relationship, we have to slow down long enough to see the forest AND the trees. God closes doors to unhealthy relationships not because He’s testing us to see how far the door will crack without being fully opened - God will never tempt you! He is giving you an opportunity to ransom yourself.

Release the burdens of your past. Otherwise, instead of being protected, you'll end up with a love worth fighting for!

Follow Me as I Follow God

@RevealingRuth

Fighting Together

My father once told me that there’s no such thing as a fair fight.  It took me 36 years to realize that I disagree.

A year ago, I had a very nasty fight with a particular person of interest to me, and Lord God, when I say that it got UGLY…it was ugly. It was so far beyond me, who I want to be or how I want to be in my relationships that I COMPLETELY shut up! Not shut down, SHUT UP. I stopped talking and started praying. I prayed that what the TRUE problem was in our discussion, that it would be revealed to us in a manner that could be rightly understood and addressed, because I knew that what we thought had caused our disagreement, was not what had led us to that moment, and in order to address the real problem, we had to be able to hear each other clearly enough to figure out what it was.

Whether we give in to its practice or not, there is only one way to hear something, and that is to actively listen. Understanding that the two are opposites, we as adults desiring to be in loving relationships, have to accept that you CANNOT talk and listen at the same time!  So, I shut up and did what we all should do – I prayed. I prayed over the broken communication that had led us to that moment. I prayed over the communication filters created by our pasts that had truly led us to that moment. I prayed over everything that stood between us, but beyond our understanding, because the wall of offense had been built long before that moment. The wall between us had been formed from remnants of past hurt that neither of us had taken part in working to heal. 

I prayed for us to see through what was said in pain or anger, and to live out the revelation of what fighting in a relationship should be. Then, when it was finally over, I prayed for God's guidance, and I sent him a very clear email about the types of engagements that I refuse to participate in. 

I get so annoyed when people say that fighting is healthy. IT'S NOT. 

To communicate effectively you, you will need to openly disagree, but in order to do so, within your relationship, there are a few things that you need to remember:

1.     A fight, by essence of its very definition, dictates that a battle take place, within which weapons are employed and there must be a winner. Why would you seek to use words against someone you love in efforts of winning a stupid fight? There’s enough that comes up against solid, Godly relationships - do you really want to help tear the two of you apart?

2.    When you chose to marry, or to date with intention, you took on the understanding that the two of you would become one. Proverbs 4:23 warns that we are to guard our hearts, for out of it flows the issues of life. Acknowledging and accepting that you don’t know what issues their heart has been forced to endure up to this point, you should guard the heart of your loved one in the same fashion that you guard your own. You should never be comfortable hurting anyone that you profess to love, no matter how you feel at the time.

And finally,

3.    In any disagreement between people who care about each other the most important thing for you to remember is that it is never you AGAINST them.

When I became silent during our disagreement, I was able to hear the wounds of his past that remained unhealed, and how even the smallest action could trigger an unfavorable response, because some of those wounds were still so fresh and tender.

After reading my message and getting a good night’s sleep, he realized the one thing that we must all come to terms with – when you care about someone, it’s never me vs. you, but us vs. the problem.

If we can listen, and pray our way to understanding, we can start to heal the wounds that build walls between us; the wounds that trick us into believing that we’re on different sides, when what we really should be doing, is fighting together.

Follow Me as I Follow God

@RevealingRuth