Tag: Christian

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.

 

The Radical Underground

I dedicate this piece to my son Cameron, who is a leader in the radical underground movement. A group of people who make the reality of the spotlight shine its very brightest.

Ami Beth CrossLeave a comment

13029648_772307906236924_2223564325859210780_oFor anyone who knows me, you are fully aware that I am not a “behind the scenes” kind of gal.  I love the spotlight.  I’m not going to sugar coat it, if you give me a microphone in front of 30,000 people my endorphins would immediately fly through the ceiling and pop every single one of the balloons that were meant to drop on your heads at the end.  I LOVE to skate in ice shows, write books for people to read, and give speeches in front of large groups of people.  In conclusion,  I love, wait no I ADORE the spotlight.

Reflection always takes place when you see your children take flight, into the person that they were groomed to be.  Blessed to take part and pardon in God’s magnificent grace, I have watched my two teenage sons grow toward their purpose.  My oldest son is me in every way when it comes to his ability to jump on a stage and truly own it.  He loves to sing and bless the world with his gift of leading worship.  He has preached, ministered to the masses, sang in front of thousands.  He, like me, loves to be center stage.  

My second son is the opposite and this is what gives me great pause and has inspired this piece.  Someone recently asked Cameron, in lieu of his older brother singing, writing songs, preaching at church, living boldly in the arena of sight, what he did.  Because in that person’s eyes, he doesn’t do much.  For the work that Cameron does is not vivid to the naked eye.  In this moment my  Cameron lay silent, as usual, because that is what the underground does.  They are the inaudible hero’s that create the formation of what is able to transform when the people like me set out to conquer the excitement of presentation.

The lights come on.  

The music of background decibels magically meets the onlookers ears.

A book is edited perfectly, fixing all the errors of the author who brings creation onto paper.

A cover is designed with artistic impression that grabs at emotion in a manner that provokes readers to grab your book.  

Back stage hands make it possible to know that exact moment to go on stage.

The perfect camera angle enables the stage hungry performers to articulate exactly what will capture the viewers to go with them where the story leads.

We don’t see them.  They are miraculously invisible, and that is what makes them deeply and infinitely important.  For, in essence, the availability of the show stoppers who have the ability to reach the masses cannot function alone.  We are unable to perform in our God given talented ways without you; the background foundation that without all would not be possible.

To the lights person.

To the tech expert.

To the editor.

~Digital designer.

~Person behind the camera.

~Song writer.

You all deserve our applause and deepest of gratitude.  For even if you seem like you are quiet and stand behind the lights and action, you are our rock.

As a profound team, we bring the Word of God and His promises into a light that can assimilate with the masses.  Profoundly, we do this together.  Not only the showman, or show-woman on the bright shining stage, but, side by side with the radical underground movement that supports the dream of bringing the love of God to the world.