If I Had Sneezed

On this annual commemoration of Martin Luther King, I took my granddaughter to a local celebration. Today I learned for the first time of this speech. I'd heard parts of it before, but not in the context of surviving a life-threatening event.

On April 3, 1968, Dr. King gave his last speech before being assassinated. Before this speech, a couple of years back, while he was at a book signing, a demented lady stabbed Dr. King with a

How Not To Worry

Resurrection week is over, and now we're dealing with the aftermath. We all have to get on with our lives and figure out how this monumental event impacts our daily lives. 

Resurrection impacts our lives in more ways than we can imagine; for the hopeless, it provides hope. For those experiencing anxiety, it can calm them.  

In this story, place yourself in it as you do your daily walk, where you are mulling over what just happened. 

Getting Up There

"You can't help getting older, but you don't have to get old." Have you ever heard this quote by George Burns? I'm at the stage of my life where it seems many are dying; the pandemic has only compounded this. If they're not dying, many friends now have ailments that appear randomly. Stiffness in the joints, random pain in your foot or elbow, a nodule on your skin. My friend calls this old people s!@#!

Getting old will take a toll on the body. Apparently, aging, in and of itself, is not a cause of death. When most of us say that someone died of old age, what we really mean is that someone died as a result of an illness (like pneumonia) or as a result of an event (like a heart attack) that a healthy, stronger,

Am I Too Old?

Have you ever played Bananagrams? It's a fun word game of chance where the object is to be the first to use all your letters. There are 144 letters on tiles (similar to Scrabble tiles). 

Each person draws twenty-one tiles from the BUNCH. To start the game, someone yells SPLIT.

Then each person individually turns over their tiles and forms words. They can be vertical and horizontal (again, similar to Scrabble).  You may rearrange your grid at any time and as often as you like. Once a player has used all of their tiles to form words she yells PEEL and grabs another tile from the BUNCH. She uses this tile to create another word to add to their existing words.

When a Bronze Medal Feels Like the Gold Medal

The Olympics are over, and we're all adjusting to regular life again. As I watched the bronze match for men's tennis, one player wanted it more than the other. The favorite for the gold was in this match; he'd been defeated and now winning this match was his only chance at medaling at the Olympics, an honor that held so much weight. 

In some sports you play for the bronze - soccer, tennis, table tennis, basketball while in others it's automatically based on how you finished. The bronze match is, in essence, a tiebreaker with so much on the line.

The Year In Review - 2020 Edition

Hindsight is 2020. With that sentiment in mind, reflection for growth, I've decided to do this post. 

On New Years Day 2020, I had friends over for an old-fashioned get-together. Remember those? They are my favorite form of hanging out. The beauty of this day was seeing our children, all at varying stages,  playing with board games and talking with each other. The TV was off, and it was not missed. It felt like a scene from another time, and I thought this may be the start of a new tradition. Well, that won't be happening this year, thanks to Corona, but I'm not mad. 

Because as Corona reared its ugly head, I remember being asked what's one word that comes to mind as you navigate this new reality; I replied fortification. At the time, I felt I was being

When I Discovered Race

I shared my story of racial awakening with United We Pray well before the boiling point of racial inequity exploded in this country. Our stories vary, but if you're Black, the common thread is pervasive racism showing up in subtle and not so subtle ways. Despite the turmoil, the exhaustion, the calls to action in recent weeks, I as a believer in Christ remain hopeful, for it is in Him alone my hope is found (1 Corinthians 15:58).

I always say I discovered I was Black when I came to New York in 1978. For the first twelve years of my life, I lived in the Bahamas. We were a large family doing OK for ourselves. We could hire someone to do the cleaning and look down our noses on anyone in a lower position than us.

Discovering Advent

You, like me, may not have grown up celebrating Advent. You may not have ever heard about it until now. I became aware of Advent about 5 years ago, but I have not incorporated it into my routine until this year.

First, some background.  Here is some information on Advent that I discovered as I wrote this post:

Ezra Bible Study - Change: There is Hope

The last chapter of Ezra does not end as we would expect; instead, we see what happens when we truly make a U-turn and change. In this final chapter, there's a recognition of error, coupled with a desire to correct even though it affects their life choices. You see, these men had married women from countries that did not believe in God, which means these women also did not believe in God. God placed a prohibition of intermarriage with the people of heathen nations (Deuteronomy 7:1-6). This chapter ends with a reckoning, listing all the men that left their wives, but let's not oversimplify it. This is

When Giants of Faith Laugh

Both Abraham and Sarah laughed when they heard God's promise of a child to them. We often hear about Sarah's laughter; rarely Abraham's.

In Genesis 17, God visited with Abraham first and made a promise to him. This was after Abram and Sarai had taken things into their own hands whereby Hagar had a son with Abram. When this visitation happened, Abram was ninety-nine years old and Ishmael, Hagar's son, was thirteen. It was in this meeting that God

The Difference Between Hope and Faith

When my children were younger, I delighted in preparing their favorite meal. Though they had differing palates, whenever I promised to make macaroni and cheese, there was an eagerness that permeated the air. This delicacy wasn’t from the box; each ingredient was assembled into a bubbly, delicious covered dish. They couldn’t wait to sit down for dinner.

Looking forward to their favorite meal was hope. Simultaneously, because my children trusted me, they believed that macaroni and cheese would be ready at dinner time--this was faith.

Hope, in its simplest form, is defined as a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen. Faith is defined as complete trust or confidence in someone or something. The Hebrew word for hope, tiqvah, means something we hold onto. The Greek word for faith is pistis, which connotes faithfulness, conviction, and commitment, a reliance on God. Based on the definitions alone, hope and faith are often intertwined; hope is the soil in which we exercise our faith.

Seven Times A Day

As I was reading Psalm 119, I became fascinated by verse 164, which says "Seven times a day do I praise thee because of thy righteous judgments."

Recall that this is the longest chapter in the Bible with 176 verses, where practically every verse highlights the attributes of God's Word, all from the very personal perspective of its author.

The Word of God can literally save a life: George Wishart was the Bishop of Edinburgh in the 17th century. Wishart was condemned to death and would have been executed. But when he was on the scaffold, he made use of a custom that allowed the condemned person to choose one psalm to be sung, and he chose Psalm 119. Before two-thirds of the psalm was sung, his pardon arrived, and his life was spared. [Source: blueletterbible.org]

Back to verse 164 - what makes a person so emphatic in their declaration of praise? Well, one quick answer is already noted in the verse - it's because of God's righteous judgments. He has seen that God has always done right by Him; He has never left or abandon him.

What You Can't Cure You Endure

My phone rang while I was at the doctor's office. I immediately had an ominous feeling, and as soon as I dispensed with my greeting, I said: "What happened?" On the other line, I heard stroke, seizure, non-functioning, and hospice in a weary, matter of fact tone. My dear friend's mom is still in the land of the living for now, but she is pretty close to meeting her Maker. I hung up the phone prayerful, sad and hopeful.

When we traveled to Jamaica in December, we visited a close relative who was recently diagnosed with breast cancer but who appeared to have this struggle behind her. It seemed like all the conventional treatments were working, albeit slowly. But since December she had gotten progressively worse. While hoping for a miracle,

Will We Really Be Reunited When We Get To Heaven?

Yesterday I woke up to the news that Billy Graham had passed and my first thought was that he'd finally see Ruth, his longtime wife, again.

Currently, they are a number of people in my life that are elderly and/or near death and I keep thinking of the great reunion that will happen when they get to heaven. Then recently within our circle of friends, a family lost their second child at the age of three to a chronic heart condition. This is the same condition that took their first child at around the same age. That family is grieving but again, I keep thinking of the sibling reunion in heaven (among other things). And then I often ponder my mother's heavenly existence and if she has reconnected with her son (my brother) and other relatives.

The Missing Piece of the Puzzle

It was a busy week so on this particular Friday night we just hung out together at home. We didn't want to watch TV or a movie (again), so I went to my everything cupboard (every mom has one of these, don't they?) and pulled out an unopened Star Wars puzzle. As I looked at this 300 piece puzzle, I pondered how I came to be in possession of this brain teaser as we are not Star Wars fans. But here we were. We were going to put this puzzle together. We started on Friday night; I ran out of steam after four pieces but the Little One had a method for solving puzzles, so she stuck it out a bit longer.

Saturday was a full day for me. As I left the house I looked at that incomplete puzzle and wondered if and when it would be completed. When I came home Saturday afternoon, the puzzle had taken shape - the border was completed, and the empty spaces inside were being filled in. It was more than fifty percent done and I was impressed. It turns out, that the puzzle drew the other family members in so that they felt compelled

How To Respond to the Unkind Person in Your Life

Hurt happens. It happens to all of us, often when we do not anticipate it. It happens in families, it happens in friendships, it happens with co-workers, and we even hurt ourselves. The most confusing kind of hurt, though, is the hurt that happens for seemingly no reason.

Maybe for you, it's the customer service person who's supposed to be helping you out but keeps making everything more difficult with their attitude. This scenario rubs you the wrong way every time. You assume that kindness is a part of their job description without considering why they may be behaving rudely in the moment.

An Invitation to Participate in the Divine

Have you ever cried so much it felt like you couldn't cry another tear? I have. Has your heart been so broken you thought it would never heal? I have. Have the rifts in your family taken such a toll on you that you wonder if fellowship will ever be restored? I have ached for broken family relationships. Has the deep hurt of a child made you feel so helpless that all you do is cry? I have.

There are circumstances in life that are so unexplainable that force you to your knees with desperate cries to the One up above. "Why Lord, why?" "How Lord, how?" "Make a way Lord, make a way." "Heal Lord, heal." "Restore Lord, restore."

Book Review - She's Still There: Rescuing the Girl In You by Chrystal Evans Hurst

There was a time for all of us before life became complicated where we reveled in the innocence of childhood. For some, this might have been a brief moment in time for others it's a time that sits clearly in a favored space in the brain.

She's Still There: Rescuing the Girl in You by Chrystal Evan Hurst is a form of encouragement geared to women with the Bible as its foundation. It encourages each of us to take the time to search out what God is trying to tell us about our purpose. That little girl is part of who you are, so don't become discouraged with where you are in life but instead, as the author says, keep persevering. This book provides biblical principles on how to do so.

It is written in a very relatable manner yet in a way that captures your attention. As many of us struggle to find our purpose, Chapter 15 (my favorite chapter) says it like this: "Your job is not to find the answer that leads to a master plan or purpose.  Your job

You Can Always Begin Again

Kidstock/Getty Images

I either learned this song - Poor Old Michael Finnegan, as a child or when I had children and I sang songs to amuse and quiet them; I'm going with the latter. Here is the first of many verses:

There was an old man named Michael Finnegan,
He grew whiskers on his chin-negan,
The wind came down and blew them off again,
Poor old Michael Finnegan, Begin Again.

Writing About Writing a Prayer

Sometimes when we are stretched or challenged we become more beautiful. The assignment was to write a morning prayer and the only requirement was that it was 700 words or more.

When I initially wrote the prayer it was far less than the required word count. While my prayer was acceptable to God as He has no such requirement, the word count forced me to go deeper as if I was actually spending time in prayer with God. It revealed my heart as I started typing what was in me. My fingers were going faster than my mind as I thought about how my mom prayed every morning for us and how those prayers became the springboard for my own. There was no rhyme or rhythm just a heavenly desire to bring the important things to an Awesome God at the start of my day. As I wrote, I felt vulnerable yet renewed. And I thought if the simple requirement of a word count could make me pour out my heart on paper how much