Seriously?!?! What good you may ask in a world gone crazy?! Confession time on this Monday morning… Is it ok if I show you my weakness and get real? Is it ok if I tell you I haven’t really been happy ANYWAY this weekend? And quite honestly I’ve had a hard time loving ANYWAY this weekend, too. Wanta know why? I’ve been a mad mama. Attempting to be angry and sin not. It’s ok to be angry. It’s not ok to sin. It’s ok to want justice. It’s not ok to want revenge. It’s ok to protest. It’s not ok to riot, loot, and kill. This weekend was a struggle for me emotionally. It was supposed to be a happy time celebrating my baby graduating high school but instead what filled the news was riots and looting and absolute chaos in our nation. What a way to enter adulthood for this class of 2020! I repent on behalf of this country to you, Class of 2020!! I am so sorry – as if it hasn’t already been hard enough for you! We celebrated Garrison Friday night and had a wonderful time in the midst of it all. Sort of like feasting in the presence of our enemies actually…getting wind that night of all the riots beginning to sweep our country and hearing that similar was coming to us this weekend…and it did. Thank God for our MPD who kept it at bay much more than it could have been.

I just recounted the whole weekend in this blog and then erased it because I realized Duh! I’m doing exactly what this blog title says not to do…..giving life to the evil that happened this weekend. So take two…..(I’m human and working it out as I go just like you are!) So this blog is going to be short. My mama taught me if you don’t have something good to say, just don’t say anything. There is a lot of good to talk about but in times like these when the bad seems to drown it out or during times of struggle when it is hard to peer through the smog, silence can be a good thing. In all this talk of – Don’t be silent. Actually, yes be heard!! I get it and I also know that I don’t get it. But at some point when you are led by the Holy Spirit inside of you to speak up, speak up! But sometimes He will also lead us to shut up. Obey both unctions.

So give life to the good! Here’s what I mean…..this weekend we celebrated my son who has chosen to give his entire life to the work of the Lord, to be part of the REAL solution to all of this and go into ministry upon graduation!!!!!! This weekend he graduated in a class where he was the minority and where he was loved well by his classmates. He spent the day on Friday with friends of many different cultures, nationality, and race laughing and enjoying beautiful memories they have had together the past 4 years. His heart was so full that night as friends came to celebrate him afterward. We sat into the wee hours of Saturday morning reminiscing and relishing his high school years. Saturday, within a mile in both directions from where shootings had just taken place in our city, we shopped and enjoyed the day together as a family celebrating him and spending time together! (again feeling surrounded by violence due to all this hate in the world…trying to shrug it off for a great day of celebration)

Sunday we took the “day off” as it was the last Sunday before coming back together and it was the first Sunday of the quarantine we actually got to “go to church together” in our living room without working through it all as a family. It was so nice. You only would “get how nice this was for us” if you are a pastor’s family. Trust me! It was amazing and soooooooo rare. These were all great things and these are the parts of the weekend I choose to give life to.

What I had originally typed was a totally different view of the weekend and it’s a view I DECIDED not to give life to. Trust me……this weekend, as rosy as that last paragraph sounded filled with family time and celebration, and again, that was the good part I’m choosing to give life to but the other part where I was glued to the news, found myself afraid & anxious about how close this all came to my house etc etc I’m not giving life to. I only mention that for you to see how much we do this or don’t do this each day with things.

So at the end of the day, it’s a decision. It’s a choice to give life to hate or love, to give life to sadness or joy, to give life to family or foes, friends or frenimies.

Please give life to what’s life giving and brings true reconciliation and not to what is tearing us apart. If each of ya would do this, it would make a real difference. It would overpower evil with good.

Love ANYWAY! That is our answer.

I think I will take a redo on this weekend for the whole upcoming week to celebrate my son’s graduation properly and Ha! Devil! Now I have 5 days instead of 2! See how great God is at turning things around for good!!! Don’t let him steal from you what is yours!

Happy Monday!