I’ve read at least a dozen blog posts today on the chaos taking place in Ferguson, Missouri. It seems everyone who has the ability to put their thoughts into written words has attempted to make sense of the senseless.

I sit in our church on a Sunday morning and I look around at the diversity of our church body and I smile. God smiles. It is His Church. We are ALL His children. ALL created in His image. The same diverse crowd that I worship with come to my home. All are welcome in my home. We eat together. We pray together. We laugh together. We do life together.

Why is “together” still hard for so many?

Why does America, land of the free, home of the brave, still have so much ground to cover when it comes to freedom and bravery?

Watching the events unfold in Ferguson and across our nation, listening to our President speak, I could feel it. The racial divide in America just grew wider. I hurt.

I have two teenage sons. The images of tears rolling down the cheeks of Lesley McSpadden physically pain me. My own mother died before her mother. The natural order of the universe is disturbed when a parent buries their child.

My 19-year-old daughter was followed around Walmart, across town, and onto her college campus by a man who ten days later allegedly kidnapped and murdered a girl she graduated with from high school; a girl that grew up in our neighborhood. I’ve imagined the pain of losing my child.

As a little girl in the 1970’s, living in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, I imagined I would marry a black man. I wanted mulatto babies. In my little girl mind mulatto babies had the power to erase the racial divide. Oh how I wish it were that simple.

My teenage sons are white. Nobody currently living in my house knows what it is like to be a young black male in this country. I do however know what it was like to be a 13-year-old white girl living in a trailer park in the south. I know the indignation that comes when a neighbor with three children of his own thinks the 8th grader across the street must be slutty and willing to sleep with him because, well, she lives in a trailer park. That man’s hands never actually touched me. My indignation lit a fire in me that led to screaming and yelling and choice words shared between me and his wife. For the two years we were neighbors, every time that man even looked my direction, I screamed at him.  I would suspect that Michael Brown’s indignation toward Darren Wilson was not so different.

Speaking of officer Wilson, I also hurt for him and his family. You see… my grandfather, the man I loved most in the whole world before my husband, was a police officer. He was kind and compassionate and he always gave everyone the benefit of the doubt. That man could find good in a skunk. When I was 10 or 11 years old, he gave the benefit of the doubt to the wrong person. Doing so led to him being kidnapped, shot, and left for dead at a construction site. The guy he trusted shot him with his own service pistol and stole both the gun and his police cruiser. That person just happened to be a young black male. I know he was a young black male because I saw the pictures, not because my grandfather described him that way. In fact, as I sat next to my grandfather in the weeks it took for him to recover, every word he spoke towards his attacker was filled with compassion. He questioned what the boy’s upbringing had been and what circumstances led to him making such desperate choices that fateful day. He questioned what he could have done to help the boy make different choices. My grandfather did not see the boy as a young black man. He saw him as a child of God.

When my grandfather’s ordeal happened, I was still a little girl with hopes of marrying a black man. And still, I sat on the side of his bed and begged him to “Be careful..”  I begged him not to trust. My pleas to my grandfather begged the question, “Should a police officer see young black men any differently than the trailer park neighbor saw a 13-year-old white girl?”

I no longer believe that mixed race children have the power to erase the racial divide. Heck, I no longer believe any one person or group of people has that power. What I do believe is that each and every person on this planet was created in the image of God. My God is a flippin’ rainbow! He shows NO FAVORITISM! It’s us humans who’ve messed everything up. It’s us who put people into little boxes with little expectations and say, “See. I told you so.” when they meet those little expectations. Michael Brown had little expectations when he approached officer Wilson’s police car. Officer Wilson had little expectations when he interacted with Michael Brown. The people who witnessed the whole mess had little expectations of everyone involved and in the end everyone was left saying, “See. I told you so.”

I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of little expectations and “I told you so”s. While I’m under no false pretenses about my ability to change the whole world, I do believe each and every one of us has the power to do something. I have to believe that. I have to believe that when I sit in church on a Sunday morning and experience not only the presence of God, but his pleasure in the diversity of His Church; that I’m witnessing the transformation of little expectations into big expectations. I have to believe that when I have the opportunity to tell a young black male (that I dearly love) that one bad choice does not define him, that I’m planting seeds of big expectations. I have to believe that when I see a 17-year-old black boy and believe that he has the exact measure of potential in him as my own 17-year-old boy, that I’m planting seeds of big expectations. I have to believe that when I thank a police officer for his service in front of a group of young people, that I’m changing expectations. I have to believe that this one big set-back in Ferguson, Missouri does not define America.

We still have so much ground to cover.

I challenge you today to let go of the “little expectations” you have for someone in your path. See that person as a child of God. See them as your brother or sister. Love your neighbor.

Mark 12:30-31  Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. … LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF. There is no other command greater than these.”

I LOVE football! Specifically, I love LSU football. GEAUX TIGERS!! There’s a famous run from a game LSU played against Ole Miss on Halloween night 1959. LSU was losing 3-0 and Billy Cannon returned a punt 89 yards to score the only touchdown of the game and clinching a 7-3 victory for LSU. I’ve seen the video at least a hundred times. It still makes me stand up and cheer. He broke 7 tackles along the way and ran the last 60 yards untouched.

In sharp contrast to that beautiful run, I have spent the last several years of my life either catching balls in the end zone for a momentary high or taking a helmet to the gut as I desperately look for someone to pass the ball to. High highs and low lows…

If you’ve followed our story you know that back in June, a two and half year season of misery came to an end. If you haven’t followed, click this link and catch up before reading on.

We partied. We celebrated. We cried and shouted for joy. We planned for the future. It was the highest of highs.

And then, last Thursday, October 23rd, our doorbell rang. Looking at my calendar I realize now that I missed my daughter’s school physical that morning. I shouldn’t have even been home to hear the doorbell ring. But I was.

My son announced that a man and woman in business suits were standing at our door. I was still in pajamas and I yelled for him to point to this sign outside of our door and tell them to go away.

As he opened the door they flashed badges and asked for me. They were investigators with the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division. Because I was honestly curious what they wanted to talk to me about and because I can sometimes have very blonde moments, I threw on a pair of pants and hoodie and followed them to their car. If you need to pause for a moment to laugh at me or make jokes about how dumb I was at that moment, feel free to do so.

Anyway. I sat in the front seat of their car with the door propped open and my foot hanging out and asked them what they were there for. They were here to question me about my husband and when I looked over at their clipboard of questions it became perfectly clear that they were trying to find something to incriminate him. They had tons of personal information about our family and had questions typed out about every paycheck I’ve ever received and my children’s inheritance and who we communicate with. I felt violated. Since June we’ve been holding the ball and waiting to run. Those two investigators showing up rammed us in the gut with their helmets. They knocked the wind out of me.

I quickly ended the “interview” and walked away from their car trying to catch my breath.

What? On Earth? Just happened?

Once my diaphragm was able to expand again, I read through all the documentation we have confirming that the investigation is indeed over. We have this very formal letter called a declination of prosecution. It includes one paragraph that I have read over and over.

“The U.S. Army has no intention of preferring charges or taking any other adverse actions against Lieutenant Colonel CC based on the lengthy and thorough investigation completed by the Criminal Investigation Division and the Eastern District of Virginia.”

Now I’m angry. The investigators have accessed our financial information and all of our personal communications for naught. They showed up on our doorstep. They brought with them fear and doubt that I completely let go of back in June. I had a choice. I could put on the skins of fear and doubt again or I could stand firm in the truth that my husband has been exhonerated and I could take the ball that I’ve been handed and run with it.

My ball? The gift I’ve been given to score with? I can write.

So that’s what I’ve been doing. I’ve been writing down every detail of our story and I’ve shared it with people that I believe will use our story to shine light in dark places.

In the last few days a couple of news articles have been released concerning the type of corruption that led to the accusations made against my husband.  If you’re curious… http://www.stripes.com/news/us/inside-washington-profiting-from-the-failure-of-the-army-s-intel-fusion-network-1.310697

http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_268798/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=r3iNWBzV

I don’t know how long this run will be, but I know I’m done being sacked and I’m not going to keep waiting for someone else to pass me a ball in the end zone. My husband is an extremely honorable man. It made him physically ill to see the access that government contractors had to the general he worked for. Our prayers since the day he stepped foot in the G2 have been for darkness to be exposed. John 1:5 The light shines in the darkness,
    and the darkness can never extinguish it.

I run.

Looking out the window at the beautiful fall day, I marveled at the brisk winds as they ripped the leaves off the trees in our backyard. The sky was overcast and the winds came in harsh swirling bursts that made little tornadoes of the leaves.

Immediately after thinking how much I love the beauty of fall I realized how disconcerting the exact same weather conditions would be in any other season. But now, at this moment, they are perfect and necessary.

The leaves being ripped away are dead. They have served their purpose of providing shade from the heat of summer. They have lost their green. By falling to the ground and rotting they will fertilize the soil and provide a foundation for the new growth of spring.

Before the new growth comes, the leaves must fall.

Every last dead leaf that has shaded us from the son, must fall.And so it is with life…

I look out the window and I appreciate this season. The leaves are falling. The soil is being fertilized. New growth will come.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

For everything there is a season,
    a time for every activity under heaven.
A time to be born and a time to die.
    A time to plant and a time to harvest.
A time to kill and a time to heal.
    A time to tear down and a time to build up.
A time to cry and a time to laugh.
    A time to grieve and a time to dance.
A time to scatter stones and a time to gather stones.
    A time to embrace and a time to turn away.
A time to search and a time to quit searching.
    A time to keep and a time to throw away.

A time to tear and a time to mend.
    A time to be quiet and a time to speak.
A time to love and a time to hate.
    A time for war and a time for peace.

Two things:

1) During yesterday’s pre-op appointment I was told that someone would shave me in the operating room in preparation for my hysterectomy.  Because the idea of some young soldier shaving my nether regions while I’m under sedation seems a little violating to me, I scrambled this morning to get an appointment for a Brazilian wax.  Holy. Freakin’. Cow.  As my Grandmother would say… it hurt like the dickens.  I would offer kudos to all the women who endure that pain on a regular basis, but I think a more appropriate offering would be the number of a great therapist.  You might be a masochist if…

2) After a frenzy of surgery-prep, kid-prep, gardening, cooking, laundry, and canning, I sat down and opened my laptop.  Guess what I found?  The prancercise lady is back!  And… she has a male friend.  And horses.  You are very welcome.

Side note… thanks for praying over me, the surgical team, and my hubby and kiddos.

WARNING: This post is graphic and not for the weak at heart.

There’s nothing quite like having a song stuck in your head and then realizing you have a platform to share that song.  Just about the time I thought my brain would burst with all the words I haven’t had an opportunity to put on paper in the last week, all the words started disappearing.  At some point over the last two days, in Ms. Pac-Man fashion, song lyrics started chomping away at all the beautiful things I planned to put on paper.  So, instead of having a brilliant opener to discuss the circle of life,  we’ll just have to settle for being fancy. 😉

Fancy or not, life is a doozy.  I’ve always been a big-picture kind of girl.  While pursuing my business degree I went the macroeconomics path.  When I begin a writing project I start with the overall theme and then fill in the details.  I rarely (if ever) catch the local news, but I can usually tell you what’s going on across several continents.  Being a big-picture kind of girl is downright painful at this point in history.  Humanity has watched in horror over the past few weeks as the world has embarked on a journey to hell in a handbasket.

War is everywhere.  Airplanes have fallen from or been shot from the sky.  ISIS may (or may not have) issued a fatwa ordering that all girls and women have their genitals mutilated.  The media is softening the perception of what happens in that process by calling it FGM.  I have nothing against acronyms.  But in this case, the acronym does not do justice.  It should be called what it is: Female Genital Mutilation. If it’s a foreign idea to you, click that link above and get educated.  It is barbaric and horrific and the fact that it still happens all across the planet just proves that mankind is still far from being civilized.

While chewing on all the big-picture ugliness I’ve been dealing with a few little-picture challenges.  For starters, our local school system has declared that the public schools can no longer meet the needs of our darling daughter.  The good news is that the county is going to pay for private placement at a local autism day school where her needs can be met.  Next, I’ve been pursuing a full-service publishing contract all summer.  It’s a long, drawn-out learning process and the biggest lesson has been that yeses to query letters do not always equal yeses to a book proposal.  I may have a business degree, but I do not like the business side of publishing and I’m kinda ready for this step in the process to be done already.  Lastly, a few months ago I shared that I had a biopsy done on my uterus.  This week I’m having the whole darn thing removed (my genitals will remain intact).  Over the last few weeks, as the world hopped in its handbasket, I’ve embarked on my own hellish journey.  My emotions have been all over the place.  Every little detail of life has been hard.

Lamentations 3:28-30 MSG When life is heavy and hard to take,
    go off by yourself. Enter the silence.
Bow in prayer. Don’t ask questions:
    Wait for hope to appear.
Don’t run from trouble. Take it full-face.
    The “worst” is never the worst.

I have talked to countless women who exclaim, “My hysterectomy was the best thing I ever did!”  When I ask them if they were sad or experienced grief before surgery, the common response is, “Yes.  It is so final.” or “Yes. I grieved the end of my fertility.”  With each of these responses I have resisted the urge to scream, “NO!! THAT’S NOT WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT!!  I’M GRIEVING MY BABIES!!”

If you don’t know, my first two babies are not here.  The last place I had physical contact with them was in my womb.  Losing that place where five of my babies became life is what I’m grieving.  I know that I know that I know that I am done having children. Just the thought of caring for a newborn makes me need a nap.  Besides, if our family were to ever grow again it would be through adoption.  No.  I’m not sad about losing the ability to reproduce.  However, I am incredibly sad that the only home my first two babies lived in will soon be gone.

In all my sadness and in torrential rains I showed up at the hospital for my pre-op appointment.  My doctor told me in June that surgery would be on August 15th and her nurse called me to schedule the pre-op for the 12th.  About halfway through the pre-admission process I learned that the surgery is actually scheduled for the 14th.  As I tried to mentally process how to get everything that I planned to do over the next two days accomplished in only one, I missed the name of the young soldier who asked me to follow her to her office.  I was still trying to sort out our family calendar in my brain when I sat across from her and she began to laugh-cry. Like that crazy kind of laugh-cry that makes you wonder if you need to quickly move far away from someone or prepare to tackle them.  Her outburst of emotion immediately cleared the family calendar from my mind and made me wonder what I was witnessing.  In response to whatever crazy look I gave her she said, “I’m so sorry.  I’m four and a half months pregnant and I just felt my baby move for the first time.”  And so it goes…. the circle of life.

Because I really do care about each person who reads what I write, I will be gracious and replace the song in your head.  You’re welcome.  And… you’re still fancy. 😉

My dear hubby has two history degrees.  When we discuss “historical fact” I often push his buttons by reminding him that everything we know about history is based on perspective.  And… there are other perspectives than the one we usually accept as “fact”.

For three years we have lived in a house I adore that looks out over the Potomac River.  Quickly after moving in I established a 3.5 mile walking pattern and a 1.5 mile walking pattern.  I fight routine in every other area of my life, but when it comes to walking, I’m a creature of habit.  I leave my driveway and head south and continue to where I make a slight turn to the east and then quickly turn north.  I walk along the river, turn west, and then back south to my house.  Whether I’m walking the short route or the longer route, I have always gone in the same direction.

Until last week.  For three years, this has been the view as I travel south at the beginning of my walks… And this has been my view when I catch my first glimpse of the river…

Last week I decided to spice things up and head north out of our driveway.  That decision changed everything about my walk.  I actually noticed a house that I can’t ever remember noticing before.  The same spot where I’ve caught my first glimpse of the river for the last three years, was now the spot where it slipped from my sight…

Little did I know that last week I would have to work really hard to see things from a different perspective.  My new walk was really just a launch pad for how I would have to get through the week.

You see…

On Sunday our vacuum cleaner died (while cleaning the house for dear hubby’s birthday bash/pig roast).  On Monday, our second refrigerator died (filled with leftovers from the pig roast/birthday bash).  On Tuesday, our empty breaking-the-bank house in Georgia went on the market.  On Wednesday, the engine light came on in our only family vehicle.  On Thursday, dear hubby pulled the code and discovered that we’ve reached the end of the lifespan on our Honda Pilot’s transmission.  By Friday, I was throwing myself a not-so-pretty pity-party.

And then… I took a beating from the Apostle Paul.  Paul and I have often had a love/hate relationship.  My coming back to Christ as an adult was a direct result of realizing just what a bad guy Paul had been before he met Jesus on the road to Damascus.  Jesus didn’t remind him of his screw-ups or ask him to do any sort of penance in order to be forgiven.  He simply told him to “Get up and go.”  That’s where my love affair started with Paul.  I’ve screwed up too.  A lot.  I required much grace and I was given much grace.  The flip-side of my relationship with Paul is that I think he has some serious issues with women.  His opinion that women should “Cover up and shut up.” did not sit well with me.  Until… I had a teenage daughter.

Even when Paul’s words bother me, there is one thing about his writing that is undeniable: The man had God-glorifying perspective.  While sitting in a prison cell that we can assume had no modern creature comforts, the man still managed to praise God and find ways to choose gratitude.  I have a confession, as hard as I try to be like Paul, I usually go the way of my walking pattern.  When walking through hard stuff, I have a tendency to see things from the most obvious perspective and totally miss out on what God is doing behind the scenes.  Please tell me I’m not alone!

But you know what?  God is always at work.

Long before we started draining our savings to carry two houses and while the vacuum cleaner, refrigerator, and transmission were all in good working order, my dear hubby and kiddos signed me up for a writers’ retreat at God’s Whisper Farm.  Today is day one of that retreat.

Here’s my attempt to be a little more like Paul, y’all:

I’m choosing to see green pastures and fur attached to farm animals as opposed to thinking about the dog fur I cannot vacuum off the floors in my house.

I’m choosing to be thankful that all the groceries I bought this week fit in the refrigerator in my kitchen and to be especially grateful that we have insurance that covered all the groceries we lost in our second refrigerator.

I’m choosing to turn up the radio and open the sunroof as I drive our new (to us) vehicle and not think about that bright orange engine light on the dashboard of the car in our driveway.

I’m choosing to be thankful that we had some savings that it made it possible to carry two houses for the last two months and to not think about how we will do it next month.

And… I’m choosing to see the next three days away as a date with my maker.

See.  It really is all about perspective.

Hoping that each of us finds countless opportunities to choose a God-glorifying perspective today.  Walk a new path.  Change history.  Count your blessings.  Give gratitude.  Rather than half-full, may your cup overflow.

Psalm 23:5… My cup overflows with blessings.

I’ve written before about my frustrations with “The Church” and it’s relationship with families that have children with special needs.  I’m not posting the links to those posts in this one because I included some raw emotions and I don’t want this to be a “bash the church” post.  Fact is: I LOVE THE CHURCH!  I love church.  I love communal worship.  I love a great sermon.  I love belonging to a group of people who share pain, victories, defeats, and faith.  I believe Proverbs 27:17 to be true.  We NEED to be surrounded by people who share our faith in order to grow!

All that being said, I do believe The Church (as a whole) has a loooong way to go in the way it cares for families in crisis.  I believe that if we as Christians are going to protest abortion, we need to support adoption and we need to support adoptive families after the fact.

Without saying anything more, I ask that you click this link and read what my friend Tara has to say on the matter.