Feet On the Ground

There’s something that’s going around on Facebook that makes me extremely angry. This is being posted by teenagers and girls in their early 20s who got knocked up:

“There’s a new group of real live super heroes & they’re popping up everywhere. They can easily do the work of two people all on their own. They’re strong & determined, yet gentle & sensitive. They can kiss away boo boos & scare away the boogie man in a single bound. Millions of kids everywhere look up to them. They’re called single moms.”

HA, I say. HA HA HA.

I was raised by a single mother. A woman who had me at 23, stayed with my grandma for two weeks after I was born because she nearly bled to death, and then moved into her own place and never once went back to live with anyone else. I can’t tell you how many girls I’ve known over the past couple years that had kids and are still living with their parents or living off of welfare and buying themselves sparkly things just because they can. And they’re being celebrated for it.

Rubbish.

I saw my mom not know where money was going to come from and get on her knees to pray for an answer. I saw my mom work her fingers to the bone so that we could get OFF of welfare and even when we qualified for it, she refused to take it as soon as we could survive. We always had cable, our utilities never got turned off, and I wasn’t allowed to get a cell phone or internet before she knew we could afford it. We drove horrible cars that were falling apart. I was made fun of into college for not having nice things. I’m still emotionally scarred from my horrible relationship with my horrible father. My mom has always been the person in the background picking up slack for the prideful, showy, lazy people and asking for no recognition in return.

Being a single mother is not fun. Being the child of a single mother isn’t fun either.

A child is NOT a doll, prop or accessory. It’s not like a small dog you can carry around in your purse. It’s a human being, and a single mother (or father!) is totally responsible for that human’s life. It should be terrifying and it should terrify these girls into action- not into lazing around on Facebook patting each other on the back. A babysitter can kiss booboos and scare the boogieman. Guess what? My mom raised me entirely on her own and never once enlisted the help of a babysitter. My grandparents watched me on very rare occasions. Before I started school, we would sit at home for days because we had to walk everywhere and couldn’t really afford to do anything.

She washed all of my baby clothes in the bathtub and hung them up to dry. She said that moving a mile and a half from our old place into a two bedroom apartment in town when I was a year old was such a blessing that it made her cry. She could finally walk to get groceries rather than ask for a ride.

We had little…but we had traditions and did special things. Every Sunday we went roller skating. When I started piano lessons, we went to Taco Bell and bowling after my lesson. We did what we could and eked out every bit of fun we could. We didn’t have much, but she instilled in me to keep the little that I had in good condition and cared for.

The kind of single mother that deserves to be lauded is too busy to ask for recognition.

Tags: appreciation, controversy, Mom

I had a going away party yesterday. I had it a little early because my beloved aunt is going to have surgery this week and she, of course, had to be a part of everything. She’s having her reconstruction surgery after completely defeating cancer. She didn’t even have to have radiation or chemotherapy. She’s so strong and faithful and God is SO awesome. Anyway.

So, if I defined success by the number of people who apparently gave a crap about me moving away to be bothered enough to come to my party, I’d be a big blasted failure.

You know who came? THE PEOPLE I’M GOING TO TALK TO ANYWAY. *headdesk* I’m not kidding…nearly half of the people that came I had seen that week. I invited so many people that I don’t get to see that often and might never see again, thinking that it would be so cool to have everyone in one place. A couple people had legitimate excuses- my bff came for 30 minutes because she had to go, ya know, be a bridesmaid in a wedding…and we totally hung out last night anyway. But some people gave very vague excuses. I don’t consider, “I had stuff to do!” a legitimate reason to not come to my party. You know what the real reason was? I don’t care about your party.

The only people that showed up from church were my band guys and their wives. A couple people that I have met from church were there- but they don’t go anymore and I don’t consider them “church friends” anyway. I consider them “real friends” and it’s sad that there is a difference between the two.

But for the rest of people at church? Their reason? I don’t care.

The party was at the church.

The people there pride themselves on being so perfect. Yet they are so selfish, so awful, and so stuck up their own asses that they can’t even think about honoring someone else. If I’m truly honest with you, and that’s something that I just can’t keep out of my writing…the thing that makes me happiest about moving away is that I won’t have to come up with excuses to myself about why I’m not going to church.

Here’s the reason. Flat out there. Not an excuse, a reason. I can’t stand most of the people at my church.

Now, I have a pastor that I love here, and a choir member there, and the guys in the horn section, and their wives…and a couple of the greeters, and the woman that works the information desk, and some people in the congregation that I wave to on occasion…

…and that’s, honestly, about it.

But those people? Those people are AMAZING beyond belief and I will never forget them. Ever. They are going to have places of the highest honor in heaven because they’re that spectacular.

Yet I find the majority so clueless, so obnoxious, and so flat out rude and lazy that I hate that they’re the picture of Jesus to our community.

How can they coexist in the same organization?

It’s sickening sometimes. The place operates haphazardly and foolishly. Too much responsibility is put on too many people, and that resulted in hundreds of thousands of dollars being embezzled by the financial adviser. Then after that, someone thought it was a good idea to put the financial operations in the hands of some 20 year olds.

Like that would ever fly in the real world.

I’m so. so. so. tired of stupid Christians.

So what’s success? Right now, I don’t know. I know that the church doesn’t think I’m a success, and I don’t think it’s a success.

I know that this probably sounds like a whole lot of whining. Yeah, it hurt my feelings that not many people came. But I’m so thankful FOR the people that did come that I don’t want to belittle their importance in any way whatsoever. I wouldn’t trade them for a billion fakes. What really makes me frustrated, though, is the picture that this paints. The picture that is so totally unlike Jesus. To love like Jesus is to be a success. But how do we show it? Church is the last place I’d look right now.

Tags: angry, controversy, learning, uncertainty

A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit.  Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.  Therefore by their fruits you will know them. – Matthew 7:18-20

I started to write this post all riled up by someone who well, gets me riled up. Hank Hanegraaff wrote a book called Christianity in Crisis that was recently re-released as an updated version for the 21st century. In it, he attacks a number of preachers that he believes are affiliated with a recent (in the context of the age of the religion) movement in Christianity called “Word of Faith.” Now, I’m not here to debate the intricacies of the WoF movement because…ugh. Makes my head spin.

I will readily admit that the overall Pentecostal/Charismatic/WoF/whateverit’scalledthesedays sector of Christianity can get dicey. There are all sorts of scandals and sketchy characters involved. In these circles it is so easy to over-spiritualize everything that happens and people get easily tripped up by Satan. Pride runs rampant because people think that they are “closer to God” for whatever reason and then they begin pointing fingers at other denominations because they are apparently slacking. It’s not pretty.

Hank calls this movement a cult, but it’s SO ironic to me that he does the exact same thing that a cult does. First off, this is a huge movement- too huge to be called a cult. Snake handling churches? RUN AWAY! But…what do cults do? They take a part of a text or larger belief and blow it out of proportion. Jesus said that believers would be impervious to snakebites or the effects of poison- as a part of persecution. He did not say, “Handle snakes for teh lulz.” He DID say not to test God. However, the point here is that one verse of scripture is interpreted out of context and with complete disregard for the rest of the Bible.

When Hank does his research (term used loosely here), he takes comments that preachers make out of context and completely disregards the rest of what they say and, most importantly, what they do. This is ultimately what caught my attention and made me not be so upset about what Hank is doing. As followers of Christ, our ultimate ministry is to love others to show them the love of Christ and to be a witness for Him. He is love! That’s what we’re supposed to show. Hank is not pushing people toward Christ- he is pushing them AWAY from Christ. His deceitful words and biased arguments are rooted in bitterness and, I would argue, fear. Because what if we ARE supposed to enjoy a blessed life and what if God really did want us to believe that we would receive what we’re praying for? He’d be missing out.

A few ministries that have helped me are the ones that I’ll mention here. Again, I don’t want to get in depth with everything, because the intricacies aren’t the point. The point is stated in the verses that I posted above. If the “rightness” or “wrongness” of what is being discussed is hard to discern just by looking at the topics, God said to look at the evidence of what that person’s actions are birthing- their fruit. Joyce Meyer’s ministry has reached thousands of people both locally and through missions work. She is practical and teaches from her experiences and hardships and has not just waited around for God to hand out blessings. She works hard and with dedication because her calling is important to her. Her ministry has helped so many people get through emotional issues (raises hand) and depression (raises other hand) when they thought that no one understood or cared or that there was no way out (waves frantically). Not only that, she is helping so many people in poverty stricken places in other countries where people don’t even have food or water. Ken Copeland has a huge prison ministry where they offer resources to inmates to help them spiritually. Jesse Duplantis’s current vision is to share the gospel with one billion people. 1,000,000,000 people. So that they can know what Jesus Christ did for them and how much He loves them and what kind of glorious life they can live, both here on Earth and in heaven. None of them get everything right, and I don’t hang onto their every word or approve of or agree with all of their methods. I don’t put faith in man. But their fruit? Countless people who have found Christ and have their names written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.

Satan hates that.

Apparently, so does Hank.

So Hank goes around attempting to destroy the reputations of people who are bringing the gospel of Jesus to those who are hurting and in need. He is pulling people away from the love of Christ. In my opinion, that makes for some pretty rotten fruit. Fruit that I don’t want to touch. But Hank can keep going, because their ministries are still growing- probably thanks to his words. God likes to bless people when they’re persecuted.

Hank isn’t perfect. Joyce, Jesse, Ken, Noah, Moses, Peter, Paul, and Mary aren’t and weren’t perfect. Only Jesus Christ is perfect. But as long as we point to Him and His love, glory, and power…we’re covered. And fruitful.

Tags: controversy, fail