Category: Christian life

No Shame Sunday

Ami Beth CrossLeave a comment

~Them~

Four, five or six months ago I got angry. At church. A kind of fury that made me run, punch, and eloquently and scathingly preach; hurt. My angst took me away, on a journey apart from the Heavenly Water and back into the blinding Sahara. 

Feeling abandoned is my thing, when it blankets me in the Light not just the dark all I know is shame, guilt, and anxiety. 

Am I not lovable enough? 

I feel deeply left behind by my church. My people, my community, I love them and hate them in tandem. Where are they when I need them the most?  Do they not recognize me as lost as I slowly vanish into a whisper that no one can hear? Where is my church, my people?

~You~

My God, You declare that You do not care about this hurt and anger I feel towards You.

You care about me. 

You whisper soft winds blowing the sheer curtains in the wind wide open with Your Love. 

I still yell out my anger,  my fury, and my scathing words…because it feels like abandonment and abandonment is my thing. But Not by You~

Never by You. 

The sun cascades in, warming my face forcing the dichotomy to sync; that Love and hurt can co-exist. Immediately I don’t care if they are not perfect.  I am far from perfect, so an unfair expectation has turned my heart into stone and my blood frozen as February.

I realize that they are broken and bonded by a desperate desire to be wanted; just like me. 

~Reconciliation~

 My body fights back. My Mind slips into the Reckoning. My Heart shakes with fervor to rise above. Because even when the dark loses its light, there You are. In that, I choose to keep my eyes on the Prize. My Prize. 

You. 

I get ready on a sunny Sunday morning to come running past the doors of anger and into the loving arms of my church.

Stopping in my tracks, I feel a flicker ignite into a raging flame of a dormant fire inside me; my shame explodes.   It holds me still, stuck in an avalanche of guilt and fear of the loss of love, because abandonment is my thing.  I breathe deep screaming out that I am here, in my own time because I needed a minute to be lonely and angry.  

I stare down my reflection in the mirror, push back my head and grow myself tall; forcing shame out because I did leave~ but today I come home. 

Joy is miraculously replacing shame.  A reunion is on the horizon accompanied by a magnificent celebration in the heavens, as I run back into the loving arms of…my family. I hold my head high as I burst through the doors back into the loving arms of my family, my community; my bridge to You…

The earth shivers in delight, You hold my hand, embrace my journey back as I declare it to be a… A No shame Sunday. 

Ami Beth Cross 2.12.22

Ego-Me=God

Ami Beth Cross1 Comment

I had a dream.  Of telling my story in front of Journey Church.  I would pour my soul out about losing my two babies and many women would relate and run up to me and say “me too!”  I would hug them and say, “I know.  It’s so sad.”  We would cry, I would hug them and the story goes on.  I wrote a book, I told my story in front of hundreds and I would feel better at the end of the day.

The dream seemed to have come true.  I was asked to speak in front of Journey Church to tell my story of losing my two babies, Jaden and Zac.  But I couldn’t meet the requirements of the venue, I was going on vacation and wouldn’t be able to speak in front of who I thought needed to hear my story.  I was devastated.  I cried.  My ego was called out by God, He said, you aren’t on the course I want you on.  I called back, “but God, I want to tell my story.”  He said, “You already have, you wrote a book.”  I yelled back, “but I want to speak!”  He cried, “Your ego is too big.  I am bigger.”

It broke me, my heart, my story seemed insignificant.  I wanted to tell it at Journey Women, because I was certain that women needed to hear my story, that they would befriend my story and take my loss into their hearts as their own.  I knew I needed to tell it on a stage.  But God had another plan and I was too wrapped up in my own idea of how He wanted my story to be told.  I buried my need and held my dream in my heart.  I would tell my story on a stage…someday, right?

I lead a table at Journey Women Gather and only two women showed up.  They disappeared before I had a chance to gather them up and take them into the stadium where the other women were telling their stories, the ones I was supposed to be with.  I wandered into the sanctuary and found a single woman.  Alone, sitting by herself.  I asked if I could sit by her and she said yes.  I said ok.  We sat alone, together, listening to the ladies talk and the Lord work.  God nudged me and said, “ask her if she’s a mother.”  Um, ok. I don’t know this girl but ok.  “Are you a mother?”  I whispered in her ear.

“Yes.”

Then He brushed against my ear hard, “ask her if she’s had a miscarriage.”  WHAT?????  Are you sure God?  I don’t know this woman!  Are you SURE?  Yes, He said in my minds eye louder than I’ve ever heard Him.

“Have you ever had a miscarriage?”  I obey.

Eyes meet.  Tears collide.  She holds up two fingers.  Yeah well, me too, I think.  Me too, side by side burials.  Two.  Me too.

God says, ask her if she wants to talk outside.  The volume of the speakers blare, the sound of their words override what I’m afraid to ask.  But somehow I do.  “Do you want to talk?”  She nods.  We walk hand in hand outside to the vestibule that God had waiting for us from the moment she walked into Journey Church tonight.

We sat, we cried, we listened, we wept.  For our babies.  For our loss.  God didn’t want me to speak to a huge audience that my ego would have loved.  God needed me to speak to a singular person who I had no idea existed.  He needed me to tell my story to allow another to cry, to hear her tears that the world tells her that are not good enough.  For a world that says that miscarriage isn’t a loss that needs to be heard.  It’s a silent loss.  It’s a secret for us to keep. 

God told us that we are not alone.  That the anniversary I celebrate yet mourn on Sunday, the 10 year loss of my Jaden Hope, is a forever loss that needs to be heard.  But God wanted it to be intimate, to be between me and a stranger this year.  I listened, she told me her story, I cried, she spoke and we are forever bonded together.

Ego is strong, I am a victim of it, but God had other plans for me tonight.  He had a picture of me sitting with a grieving mother who has suffered as I have, one who needed to be heard, one who needed to tell her story more than I needed to be up on a stage beaming my story as I pridefully told my tale.  God said, “No”!  I have other plans.  I have a single person who needs you and you need her.

Because, God plus me equals trust.  God plus me equals truth.  God plus me equals a story that was meant for one  not many.  Because ego is strong, but God is Truth if we listen.  If we follow, if we hear the story we are meant to tell, to whom we are meant to tell it to in the moment it is meant to be told.  In that we are met with the breath of God, the Holy Spirit and the truth that is meant for us to live in the moment we are meant to live in it.

 

Imperfectly, Perfect

Ami Beth Cross1 Comment

My small four-year-old fingers are intertwined in her soft and silky long brown hair. In my ear, all I can feel is her warm breath as she inhales to sing another lyric of a song that makes every bone in my tiny body melt into her more. Love evaporates from her into me and molds me more into all that she wants me to be. The smell of her soft perfume permeates my senses and all I can do is melt into her and listen to each and every lucid lyric that comes from her soft mouth straight into my heart.

This is one of my first and very most treasured memories of my mother and I. In times of struggle and feelings I’ve lacked in self-worth, this memory has been one I’ve held on to many times throughout my life. The young remembrance of my mother’s love and her song all over me is really what I think of her when I dig deep into my memory bank. I haven’t thought of how clean our house was, what was served at dinner, or what she wore. My memory cave brings me back time and time again to the way I felt in her arms when it was just her and I. All that consumes me when I blanket myself with my memory of her is…love. Pure. Unapologetic, raw and beautiful love.

We as women get caught up in the idea we have in our heads as to what makes us a good mother. The pressure to be perfect has never been more intense and our own mind creates this version of what we should be to produce amazing children to gift to the world when we are done raising them. Having this preconceived notion that we have to dance a dance of perfection plagues this generation of mothers who are just trying in this life to do more than has ever been done before. We now have to add the task of providers, protectors, nurturers and loving creatures that will do and be what our kids deserve.

Is it ever enough?

A good friend of mine recently said that she thinks she is a bad mom. Now, this statement left me in shock and a bit angry. I mean, this woman is a GREAT mom who loves on her kids with every breath she takes,  kissing on them, planning great days filled with films of memories for them for when they are older. So, why does what I see as a perfect mom think she is, in fact, a bad mom get me so riled up? Possibly because I often times feel the same way about myself. The reflection she had on her defeated face was staring me blankly in the eyes that looked all too familiar speaking lies that can sink even the strongest of vessels.

This made me take pause at my own life. She said her house is a mess and she doesn’t cook really great dinners like you see on Instagram. Quite honestly if I was held to this regard I would be the worst mother alive. My house isn’t spotless (okay it’s a hot mess at the best of times) and I’m pretty sure if it weren’t for my husband Alan, we’d all completely die of starvation. Yet, as I sought out my reality in this encounter with my dear friend, I too have thought this of myself on many occasions.  But why as God see’s us as perfectly imperfect and that is enough for Him.

I’m a bad mom. I work too much and often times am writing when I could be spending time with them. They don’t have perfect little cubby hole things to put their toys in so their rooms don’t look like a hurricane just drove a deep dive through their bedrooms. I have vices I wish they didn’t know I had. I am tired and cranky at times and look like a zombie on the weekends. I’m sometimes quicker to anger than I wished and I don’t have them in five thousand activities that I’m sure would make them poised to be leaders of the free world.

Why is it so hard for me to hear my friend say those things about herself?  Although I can speak the same language to myself on more occasions I’d like to admit I have. Every time I sit in a deep sinking mud of self-loathing that wants to drown me, my husband reminds me of what a great mom I am. I do hear him and drag myself out of the messy quicksand and wipe myself off and try to remember that I do give them all the love I have. But, why is it so much more of a wake-up call now that I’ve heard my friend speak the bad mom language over herself? I truly think this is so because I see her as a perfect love for her 4 kids, so why do I not see that in myself? Why are we so impossibly hard on ourselves for being…well…imperfectly loving and capable mothers?

My oldest son who is 20 tells me that he appreciates all that I’ve sacrificed for him. My 17-year-old son tells me I’m his hero. My little ones who are 10 and 5 squeal with delight when I come home as I hug them longer than I’m sure they’d like. That speaks all it should, but at times it isn’t enough. I hold myself to this high and impossible regard that at time steals my joy because I can’t obtain the perfection that I have in mind for myself.

A messy house with unfolded clothes on the floor and dreams of play times that pass me by are always in the back of my mind but deep in theirs has to be the love I give them when I hug them. When I walk away early in the morning to work to provide for our family they see me laboring hard for us and the dreams I chase in the aftermath must mean something to them.  As a matter of fact, I know it does, as my (almost) grown children have told me so.

When you hold your baby to your heart (no matter their age) and allow them to feel the passion you have for them that is like no other it makes you a good mom. When you put down the distractions of the day to watch them play you truly take in the essence of motherhood. Breathing in the air that surrounds them is like filling your lungs up with oxygen and feeding your soul with enough water to travel decades in the desert.

When my daughter asked me tonight to sit on my lap, I immediately put my phone down, grabbed her on my lap and breathed in her essence as I sang a single lullaby in her ear. A messy house behind me, and my insecurity telling me that I need to be better, I recalled my encounter with my own mother and my heart lifted knowing that this is what she will remember. This is enough.

Soft sweet nothings sang in her ear with my love exploding all over her like a thousand stars lighting up the sky took over all my insecurities of what I have deemed it is to be a perfect mom. That is what she’ll remember and all I will treasure when it’s all said and done and I’ve given my best version of myself to the world.

Chariot of Sunlight

Ami Beth Cross2 Comments

Storms surrounding me one year ago, I took up the arms declared to me that I had used in years past to run for cover.  Knowing that the sun was fleeting and the clouds were moving in fast, I had no other choice but to breathe deep and take in whatever there was in this life that could help save me.  

The hospital room was bleak, smelled sterile and formed around me faster than I could run from it.  I feared the consequences of asking for help. Did this define me? Was my weakness my downfall? Would this go down in my playlist of life as a weak cry to try to piece it all together?  My life that is. The past, the present, my future pardon I was crying out for. In that moment that I had asked for help, I found myself more lost than I had ever been, completely consumed in a scrapbook of the life I had lived so far.  One that had taken me on a fateful plank that ultimately drove me to the place that required me to be completely broken and bare for the world to see. I was loved and had loved thousands of years deeper than I could had ever imagined, yet was I  lost in the darkness of my own mind? I was chasing the hours and seeking the wind that was passing through my hair like a summer’s eve just venturing through, I had no idea how to recon a life that had brought me to that place. Shaking and alone, I was left at the doorstep of a seemingly closed door that I begged would somehow open in the depths of my despair.  I was asking for help to fill my atmosphere with a kind of air that I could take in where I believed I was enough to breath it into my lungs. But first I had to cry out. I had to be dark enough to seek the light and deep into the finding of my own failures that I could ask for a way to guide me through it all.

The beauty of it all is that I was able to find help.

Running toward life with both arms wide open I found people, places and coping mechanisms that brought me to the place I needed to be.  One year ago, I begged for refuge and I found it. In hope I rose to a place where God found me, He begged me to follow and I did.

For those of you who have followed me on my journey, you’ll recall that one year ago I was admitted to a hospital that changed my life.  A rallying cry of fire burned blazes inside me and a forever light took place that ultimately shone in the form of forgiveness and bounty. Love won and God awoke a part inside me that I never knew existed.  That of peace, surrender and a fight inside myself I didn’t know could forever change me.

One year ago, I sat humbly in that hospital room, celebrating a fade that didn’t occur.  Sadly one that doesn’t reach all who felt as dark as I did. Love was shining on me then, and it is now.  Never give up, never take defeat as a signal inside you that makes you give up hope. No matter what!

A few years back, I wrote a book about overcoming the most impossible of odds to find my way back from the brinks of the deepest kind of tragedy, the loss of two little infant sons.  God was a dismal light in my existence at that time, but nonetheless He was there. I just didn’t see it as brightly as I do now. My faith was weak and my idea of Jesus was confused.  Yet, God was there. In the smallest yet grandest of ways. He brought me through that time and I was able to write about it and publish a book that has touched the lives of many women who have buried babies.  Love is not something to take for granted, it is a gift that exists when we give up our arms against an intrusion that may surface when we find ourselves at the weakness of our circumstances. Love wins. God’s perfection exists when we surrender to Him.

…Which I did last year as I looked around a sterile hospital room that I almost walked out of to run for the door when it all became too real.  I saw the road in front of me and I FREAKED out. I didn’t want to march the path in front of me, put in the work and give up the vices that plagued me and brought me there. Yet somehow I stayed and surrendered to a gift that was being strung in front of me, one that would make me dig deep and go further than I wanted to go.  I knew I had to stay and be kept in a place that had the ability to teach me life saving techniques that would eventually save me. God kept me there that night, I surrendered and became more than I could have ever imagined in the act of giving up what I thought made me strong, yet kept me weak.

On the eve of the anniversary of the night I sought and found hope, I find myself nosologic.  I am thankful, but mostly I am in awe of what God can do if we truly surrender to Him, for today I am a healed woman.

Give up your arms that fight against your inner healing and find peace in knowing that when you surrender to whatever it may be, that you have the chance to not be separated from peace.  You have the right to claim it on you like chariots of sunlight that overtake you after a battle you had no idea that you could fight.

Live in the light and seek the freedom that can be yours.  As it has become mine.

;Life

Ami Beth Cross1 Comment

life__s_highway_by_alancross

i want to Live…

Yet,

i want to die.

Can i live somewhere in between?

i want to feel, yet,  i desire to be numb…

Why can’t i just accept that life isn’t perfect, whether I’m numb or present?

Evil thrives in the presence of facades, yet, Grace illuminates through my Truth.

i like to keep my poison private, my beguiling friend, who binds and gags me.

Trying so hard to convince me to take darkness by the hand and pour another.

I want to Live because He died.  And oh what a waste it would be for me to exist hidden behind the mascarade of my lies.

The Truth has already set me free.

Through death, He Overcame…

So that I may live my Life in the Light

;

My Life goes on, past the darkness and into Eternity.

The Beauty we Grow

Ami Beth Cross1 Comment

morning_melody_by_judylee-dmld79.jpg

 

In the glistening sun, I see it, peeking out from the grass.  The ugliness declared in all of its form. A disgusting, thorn filled weed. 

I’ve really got to pick those evil, prickly weeds before they spread, I think as I wipe my brow of sweat from the bright brilliance that has brought us an unremarkable warm season.

  • A few weeks later I stand at the same precipice.  After failing to pull the weeds out of my garden I find myself facing a multiplied amount of sticker bushes.  Yet I feel they are Not capable of extraction, simply left to breed, because I didn’t pull it out when I should have.  

Yet I’m so tired, Lord, so very tired.

 So, Who can clear the debris if I’m not able?

I just can’t.  I mean after being a wife, mom, and work, work work, when do I have time to pull out all of the weeds? 

I look up and see the same strong Son making Himself known to my soft blue eyes saying, “I will make it well, I will pull the weeds.”

But how?  They are too high, multiplied, and are speaking to one another and soon they will overtake me?  How can this burden dissipate?

The Voice continues to Speak:

Because It Will.  It just Will.

Have Faith, my child, trust that I will send you what you need to weed out the ugliness and plant the plentifulness I intend for your life.

Please weed out the ugliness because I just can’t.  I simply can’t.

The weeds fester on.

They grow and multiply.

Time passes on, as I’ve forgotten about the pests yet unrest has grown in my soul, in my spirit, in my journey.  

Weeks later, a day presses on my spirit that requests my strength, growth, and a possibility for something that might transpire even through the weeds.

Turmoil bound, I wander into my garden of peace and tranquility and am met by a thousand peony’s who have made their appearance, and a  couple hundred lily’s;  yet to my disappointment a million thistle bound weeds that have overtaken my garden of Peace and Loveliness.

REALLY???

In fervor, I recall asking for these weeds to be pulled, gone, far from my safe haven of trust, honor, and beauty.  Yet they were still there, multiplying in record speed.

I shake my head in frustration and grab my greatest nemesis to come meet me in a dark room; Insecurity.

 It meets me there and tells me I am not enough.  That rejection comes in waves, especially when I feel safe.  Darkness tells me that the thorns on the green weeds are of my doing.  I wasn’t enough so now it prickles all who touch, to the point of a pain that makes them want to never come back.  To me.

 Insecurity reminds me that rejection has come in waves throughout my life, especially when I start to feel safe.  I am not enough so now I prickle all who touch me, to the point of a pain that makes them want to never come back.  To me.

So, I do what I do best.  I run.

In hiding, I grab my phone, my drink, and my vape thing that makes me feel better in times of duress.  I find myself in my safe haven of a room where there are no thistles, no weeds, and no monsters to remind me that I’m not good enough.  

Reaching for my contact with God’s people, my phone, I reach out to her… a stranger who had sent me her number in a time of need.  Someone I’ve met once, yet who God had predestined me to know a million stars ago.

“Hello.”

She answers.  My voice quivers.

Deeply taking her where I am at in my pit of darkness, I hold my emotion until the part of feeling rejected.  That is where I completely lose it.  For that is my thing.  Rejection, abandonment, loss, loss, and more loss.

She cups my tears and tells me more of her tale.  See, I had met her on a big ‘ole screen months prior telling the three thousand people who attend Journey Church that she has suffered many of the toils that I have.  That day in early spring, where the wind was still deep and the frost continued to bite I took in each and every one of her words.  That she had been healed from all of the demons that haunted her and she had created a home to help others in such situations.  A miracle indeed had taken place in this beautiful woman who I now knew because she was brave enough.  To share her story.

Oddly enough, I found out, she knew me too, as she had read my book of overcoming the tragedy of losing a baby and my tale of God bringing me back despite the bleakest of possibilities because I shared my story.

We were suddenly kindred spirits God knew needed each other in His perfect timing.

“Don’t feed your weeds of insecurity.  Know that Jesus is working hard in you to bring His greatness.  In that, you are being hit with a loss from the past that manifests itself now.”  She bellows into the waves that brought us together as the sun finally decided to set.

Silence on the line because I was sobbing.

“You are good enough.  You are plenty.  Stop feeding the ugly weeds in your life.  STOP giving them life.  The people God has brought into your life will rally around you, not defy you.  They won’t forsake you, for with God who is against us?”

More tears.  An open heart reaching out in a form of surrender I ask God to heal the sad in me that assumes the worst in people who are invested in my life.  

We pray and I calm realizing that I had been feeding the ugly green prickly despicable weeds with my fear, doubt, and speculation of loss.

  I acquiesce to what I know is True even though it’s almost impossible to believe.

An hour later I walk into my garden and the weeds are magically gone.

Because an hour earlier my husband had ripped them all out, not a single one left to fester.  

What we choose to allow to grow will, yet if we give our all and fixate on the strength that will pull it out, zap our insecurity and turmoil from life, the glory will come.  It just will, it has no choice.

Tonight, I thank my God who has sent His army once again to lift me up.

To help me defy impossible odds, and overcome the most unthinkable of circumstances.

What we feed becomes the growth within us, so let that be the Truth, the Word, and Grace be our beauty we grow. 

The Parable of the Parrot

Ami Beth Cross3 Comments

Image result for words

I am about to share with you something that will probably shock you to your core.  Words that have been spoken to me since I can recall until now are that I, in fact, talk too much.  I know, it is a major confession.  Yet, in the midst of a really great church service today, Pastor Kevin spoke on what I seem to excel at…words.  A power exists within the linguistic ability to build up or destroy.  Our inner moral code is formulated with what comes out of our mouths and what can be detrimental the words we tell ourselves that believe we truly are.

Absorbing every word of our beloved pastor had to share on the power of words I both felt great appreciation for my gift, yet a deep burden.  I have both the gift of spoken and written word…what a responsibility!  My heartbeat slowed, my air flow swallowed as I gasped in the great knowledge of what God has called for me in this life.  Like a sword that is in your hands and you can either lift up or chastise.  You have that much power.  Yet, we all do.  The wordsmith isn’t the only one held accountable to such a duty.  We all are.

I almost didn’t go to church today.  After battling on Saturday a day of depression that I haven’t had to face in a while, the kind where I could barely get myself out of bed.  Saturday, the only thing I wanted to do was sleep, find some kind of peace in nonexistence.  Faces danced in my mind of my children, my blessings, my God who has always been faithful, and my husband, my dear wonderful blessing of a husband who loves me so…and even so…I wanted to disappear.  An imbalance in the brain, circumstantial, environmental, abusive past, all things prelude to such an illness.  The words of others telling me I’m weak to not trust God for healing blared in my silence as I tried to do anything but sleep.  In that moment, that precipice of time, His hand reached down and caressed my hair like my mom used to do when I was sick.   He said it wasn’t my faith in His ability to heal me that was lacking, it was my trust in Him that He hasn’t healed me is what I needed to cling to. He gave me a vision of why I’m where I am.  Sometimes we aren’t healed.  People die of diseases that they don’t deserve, and more so, they live with illness’s that holds them back from the better part of themselves because of a purpose.  God told me my purpose was clear.  And it is my words.

I drifted off to sleep, thankfully.  My dreamland brought me to a place where I was speaking in front of a group of young women.  All suffering from…depression.  A door opened and I walked through it, even though in my dream I could barely keep my head up, my eyes open and my body afloat.  What I saw were sixty, maybe eighty eyes on me begging for hope, for an answer.  For enlightenment.  Digging deep into my life experience, pain, torture, lack of want to go on, I walked on the stage and told my story.

Tears fell.

Knees buckled.

Women’s lives were somehow touched.  Because of my pain, not my immediate healing.  My journey through the perils of grief, abandonment, abuse, loss, addiction, fear, love, joy, birth, re birth, loss, loss, loss lives were forever touched….I woke up with a gasp of air that filled me full and left me okay with not being healed today.  For healing comes in so many different forums.  Sometimes our closure to the vice that hunts us down is simply helping others who are walking in the shoes we had to navigate tough territory in.

I almost didn’t go to church today because I’m battling a big go at depression.  Somehow, I got up, dressed, put some makeup on so I wouldn’t scare anyone, and gathered my family to Journey Church.  Walking into the place where it is easy to find and experience God my husband and I ran into Pastor Kevin.  I told him, “I’m so excited about this service.”  He smiled, humbly as he always does, and placed a gentle hand on my shoulder.  In that moment I wondered if he knew if I almost didn’t come.

Words flowed, from a wordsmith to a wordsmith.  Taking notes as fast as I could process I realized that my polarity is huge when it comes to my words.  Sure, I write books, blogs, speak, but I am so very capable of the polar.

I have gossiped.  Slandered.  Cussed. Been blasphemous.  I have. Usually depending on my polarity or the reach of where I chose to hang my hat.  Folks I surround myself with, words I acquire into my vocabulary.  They can be either earth shattering beautiful, or God-forsakenly hurtful.  

Colorful and smart the parrot knows this better than any of us.  Mimicking who is dancing in front of her, she speaks the words, repeats the actions because it is all she knows.  Yet, we as followers of Christ know that we chose who we polarize ourselves to.  When we surround ourselves in darkness we speak….way more crass than we would in the light.

In the sunshine, we encourage, build up, bring peace and open the door of opportunity of God to move.

I have been the enemy’s parrot.  Speaking ill words of people who have done me wrong, spreading gossip, true or untrue, somehow giving me a high that is straight from the pit of hell.

 I have been God’s parrot.  Shouting from the mountain tops His love, promise, hope even in the face of depression, abandonment and abuse.

The takeaway and the burden of my heart this week is that when we speak kindly, even against those who we feel don’t deserve it God will shine, those around us will be blessed, and we will be at ease. No, we aren’t Jesus.  We can’t be, but we can try.  It is our calling to Fight so hard to act as He did, and strive to be the better part of us that He is in the process of formulating.

Words are monumental and in ways we are all parrots, repeating our surroundings and giving what we are given.  Chose light, love, joy, freedom, and repeat.

 Repeat.  Repeat Love.