I'm filthy, misguided, disgusting and hard to love, sometimes . . . I am impatient, I am unkind, I am, at times, still an addict, but JESUS loves me wholly and completely!! People say, "you're a hypocrite"~ I sure am sometimes. People say you're not worthy of love . . . They are right! People say there is a special place in hell for me-- there would've been if not for Jesus, dying for me, otherwise they would've been right!
I am DEEPLY flawed, in one area in particular, but MUCH better than I used to be!! I am so disobedient, so rebellious, beyond stubborn, I mean stubborn upon stubborn upon stubborn, but God sees His Son when He looks at me!! He sees not only His Son, but He made me His son-- He adopted me and grafted me in to the Royal Family!!!
I am NOT just beauty that came from ashes! I am BEAUTIFUL!! I am a beaten-up, rusted trumpet . . . A RAGAMUFFIN of Grace and His intentional, unconditional Love!! I only have A chance because chance had NOTHING to do with it at all!!!
I fall short every day. I don't walk in the victory I have been so freely given-- the one that came with the ultimate price, but God, the Rock, says I ROCK!! I say what about the sin? What about the dirt? What about the times, numerous to say the least, and ways I've failed You? He says, "I don't remember!" Though you fall short . . . You NEVER fall short to me!
You are my perfect creation . . . You are fearfully and wonderfully made! While there are so many times I fail Jesus-- there is NEVER a single time He fails me!! More than the grains of sand . . . More than the drops of ocean; I LOVE YOU my child!!
People ask me, "How do you believe in God?" "Why do you believe?" Because of moments like the ones I just experienced where I feel His Love in a REALER way than the rays of sun on my skin or goose-bumps on my arm!!!
People call out and say, "I saw you with Jesus . . . You're one of His disciples!" And I say no, no that's not me, you must be mistaken, but as I get older, and grow in wisdom, I am learning how to say you're right!! I've been with God . . . I walk with God, and against ALL rationale He chooses to live in me and walk with me! When I fall down; He picks me up and if I'm too weak to walk-- He carries me! If I fall to pieces~ He mends me! HE puts me back together!! My God~ my God that humbles me and makes me grateful beyond words!!!
If you ask me why I LOVE Jesus, I can only say look at HIM-- don't look at me . . . Look at Him in the midst of the my greatest accomplishments and in the presence of my worst defeats! Look at Him! Don't look just at what He has done, or is doing, in your life~ but really look at HIM! You will see BEAUTY beyond our imagination and LOYALTY that would put all the kennels of the world to shame!
His Grace will sustain you~ His Grace will give you strength when you have none~ His Grace covers a field full of sin~ His Grace is ALL we need! If Grace is more present than the air we breathe~ then why won't we let it embrace us the same way? So, you can say all the ways I've failed Him, but I will never stop speaking of ALL the reasons I love Him!
My King 👑 my Father~ my Savior~ my Friend~ my Strong Tower~ my Refuge~ my Sanctuary past the end!!! I love YOU Jesus and I am unashamed of that Love~ ashamed of me, but infinitely PROUD of YOU!
it's OK to let people know we don't have it all together~ for without the One who gives us breath . . . It, no matter how sturdy it is, or how hard we worked for it, no matter how indestructible it is, will FALL APART! And without Jesus; we fall apart too!!
Saturday, July 30, 2016
Friday, July 8, 2016
Bring the Flood
Damnit! This MADNESS is getting out of hand!! Sorry (sorry mom, dad and my pastor Mike), kind of, for the use of slang, but in the past 48 hours 6 young people, 4 black young men, one Latino and one white have been killed!! And now 11, YES ELEVEN, policemen have been SHOT (ambushed) in the back, while protecting the very ones who hate them and making sure the protests went smoothly! Five of them have passed away. How many moms and dads have to lose their children? How many wives and children must lose their husbands and dads? How many tears must be shed and eulogies said!?!
Being a policeman is a hard profession, a brave duty, and I thank you Matthew Adams, Paul Finger, Jody Harkey, Travis Jones and Trey Hayes and the city of Lincolnton and Charlotte, and the surrounding areas, for your valiant service. The reality is, these policemen leave their house every day not knowing if they will return! While many of us are insulated, when racial tensions flare up, they are right there on the front lines! They not only are on the front lines, but they automatically, especially if they're white, are looked at as the villains . . . just their mere presence causes ignorant people to view ALL of them as MONSTERS! We can't paint groups of people with such a broad stroke! Saying ALL does nothing but perpetuate ignorance and stupidity! I know this will be unpopular to some, but the majority of policemen do serve and protect . . . They do fulfill their oath! They do go beyond the call of duty to make our communities better! It's the few ROTTEN apples that make the whole orchard look bad! #BlueLivesMatter
I've been nauseas, I've cried, I've run the gamut of emotions . . . Anger, hurt, deep sadness, empathy, sympathy and I've prayed-- oh have I prayed for all the victims' family and friends and for the shooters! I'm SICK! This isn't the America I've always LOVED and been proud of!
The ONLY way for us to DO better is BE better and the only way we can become better is be guided by the BEST (Jesus) and we need some serious 'BUT God' moments right NOW!!
I'm truthfully SAD~ really sad . . . Broken! As I type this tears are flowing down my face. And I'm disappointed in whites and blacks! We have to do better and become BRIDGES not WALLS! That's how TRUE Love and Unity come to be . . . the first much-needed steps toward racial forgiveness and reconciliation will only take place once we have the courage to change-- the courage to break this all too familiar, and vicious, cycle!!
I do say #BlackLivesMatter because they DO! I grieve alongside my black brothers and sisters. They are understandably hurting!! If there was accountability in many of these cases, then wonderful, but there is NOT! Very few, a minute amount of policemen, are convicted in these shootings. There is an epidemic in our country of policemen, whom I have a GREAT deal of respect for and thank often for their service, gunning down young unarmed black men and a few women and children!! Resisting arrest, unless there is a weapon involved, should not equal your life ceasing to be!! That is a fact-- some killed are by trigger-happy cops, who should never be policemen to begin with and give the badge a bad name and some times because the victim resists arrest. I will spare harping on nobody should resist arrest because that's just common sense and respect for authority. Nothing ever comes from that!! Resisting, however, should never bring a death sentence!
But in some cases, such as Castille Philando, you don't always have to resist to be killed, so when young black men are pulled over they wonder, even if they do follow protocol, if they could be the next one lying in blood and making their trip to the morgue! Buffalo Bills' wide receiver Marquise Goodwin tweeted last night, "My biggest fear is getting pulled over by a policeman." This is the gripping fear faced by the African American community. Philando was gunned down in front of his girlfriend and her four-year old daughter! Or consider Alton Sterling . . . two policeman seemingly had him subdued, the gun in his possession not produced, yet the policeman fired four shots into his chest, treatment, that is so often the case, sub-human! Videos of these two incidents, and or Walter Scott and Tamir Rice, made me ABSOLUTELY sick!
The trust between young black men and white cops is at an all-time LOW . . . Some of the ones, who took an oath to serve and protect, are doing the killing. Now it's spilling over into our communities and adding to something that is the silent epidemic-- RACISM.
Something people don't talk about, don't address, and barely, if at all, mention!! We are going to continue to sweep racism underneath the rug, until we find the house is collapsing, which is what is happening now! So what we have is race relations in SHAMBLES and both sides are to BLAME! But blame does nothing if we aren't willing to say I'm sorry and mean it . . . Blame does nothing but really being empathetic and sympathetic, just having compassion toward a whole race, that's hurting, DOES! Or you can just bury your head in the sand and act like some of our worst nightmares aren't coming true! I call that Ostrich syndrome!!
Like it or not, blood is on our hands in the white community. The same way abortion covers us in Crimson for the past 40 years . . . Blood is on our hands due to slavery!! I don't adhere to owing black people something for having gone through it, but I damn sure do believe we owe them an apology! Just like we owe Native Americans an apology-- arguably, the most mistreated people in our country's tarnished, yet rich, history. Tens and tens of thousands Indians slaughtered. The Trail of Tears isn't just a footnote in the history books. It was the extinction of tribes and families . . . a historical tragedy of epic proportions! I'm ashamed my ancestors had their hand in these travesties!! I am sorry. Genuinely and DEEPLY although I know sorry doesn't ERASE it . . . It is a start!
I never had anything to do with slavery, and I've never treated black people, or any other minority, differently due to the color of their skin, but I still HATE it happened! At the same time as long as both races continue to cling to pre-Civil Rights era ways and the atrocities and horrific memories and scars of slavery . . . NOTHING will EVER change! A scar indicates the wound is closed, that God was faithful enough to heal us! We don't have scars-- we walk around with OPEN wounds, so there is no healing and most of the time not even Band-Aids!
Scars are meant to show us what we have come through NOT used as maps to dictate where we go next!! Ours aren't even closed! And the more we bleed, the more life exits and dead we BECOME! The more resentment builds and our hearts become numb because they are in the shackles of hurt!
I know it's not as simple as Frozen and just letting it go, but we can't cling to the past with unforgiveness! Like Buddha said, unforgiveness is drinking poison and hoping it kills the other person. How foolish and dumb are we?!?
I treat people as people, which we ALL are, as God's beloved children, but how quickly many forget or have NEVER learned that beautiful fact!! We are ALL made in the Creator's image . . . We are made of His DNA-- fearfully and wonderfully made. No matter what race, what background, religion, what sexual orientation or gender, we all bleed RED! Jesus died for ALL of us, paying a price He didn't owe and one we couldn't pay! That very fact gives each of us an unspeakable worth that many of us forget and fail to apply to our fellow neighbor.
Racism is a LEARNED behavior, so I conjure up the lesson of Higher Learning . . . we must UNLEARN!! Not a single one of us gets to choose what race we will be, where we will live and what socio-economic background we will be born into, so let's act like it! If you walk into an elementary school, you see white kids, black kids, Latino kids, Asian kids, Native American kids . . . you see them all playing together! It's only as we grow older that beliefs are impressed upon us, but even then, we still get to choose what our OWN beliefs are! Not our parents, not our grandparents or anyone else on our family tree . . . our own!
Every day I commit myself to being a BRIDGE and not a WALL! What if we begin to see Jesus and love like Him when we look at each other? What if we see a whole bunch of Jesus' just in the form of different beautiful hues of skin?
I'm ANGRY and frustrated--it feels so HOPELESS, but I'm reminded of that Lazarus situation . . . It looked hopeLESS too! Daniel surrounded by the lions-- that wasn't a very enviable situation either! Moses approaching the Red Sea-- hopeless . . . Shadrach, Meshach n Abednego in the furnace was beyond BLEAK! Paul in the jail . . . He had NOTHING but a prayer! A hopeless situation. Dire doesn't begin to describe it!! David vs. Goliath . . . Can someone say colossal MISMATCH?!? Gideon vs. the Midianites . . . Not a CHANCE! Elijah in showdown vs. Baal? No way!! I could go on and on with situations that looked HOPELESS . . . But I'll end with this one~ Jesus! Satan had won so he thought! He was DEAD! Not just dead, but dead for three days!!
BUT GOD!
See with the One who is HOPE~ there is NO such thing as HOPELESS! Nothing too broken! Nobody too far gone!!
That's what I'm praying for a BUT GOD moment where we humble ourselves, seek His face and let Him heal our land! (2nd Cor. 7:14). We can't go on with life, as normal, when people are abused and killed and heinous acts are committed, which try to suck the color out of our world, but gray is OK if it changes our colors on the inside! If our heart is washed with Love and compassion, if our mind is painted with forgiveness, if our spirits, like mud on a tire, are cleansed from our past hurts and infinite ways we've failed each other!
I can't imagine how our Creator must GRIEVE, because if we claim He resides in us, there is NO way what we are seeing in our towns, in our cities, throughout our great, while flawed, country, shouldn't shake us to the very core of our being! It does mine.
If we can learn to not just hear with our ears, but hear the heart-breaking symphonies our hearts sing . . . Then we can take those first faith-filled steps on the invisible staircase Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of! If more of us can become bridges instead of walls . . . If we can love instead of hate . . . If we can dare to be different instead of the status quo that stands idly by doing NOTHING . . . If we can swim mountains and climb oceans then maybe we can begin to see CHANGE! Maybe then we can get a step closer to the DREAM MLK so eloquently shared!!
We've come too far to turn back now! God brought a flood, in Genesis, to DESTROY . . .
I pray He brings a flood of HEALING, not to destroy but repair and rebuild, because we need it more than ever! We need healing to pour into the steps of the Washington mall and run, like a roaring river throughout our country! Healing is possible, but we have to begin to search for it the way we cling to our pride of never saying we're sorry! Healing is possible if we try to embrace a clean slate instead carrying along our annals of wrongs committed by both sides . . . Healing can come! But we have to DO . . . Not just say . . . Not just #Hashtag but DO better, so we can BE better . . . As ONE! For liberty and JUSTICE FOR ALL!
Broken, confused and trying to make sense of the INSENSIBLE,
John Mark Brooks
Being a policeman is a hard profession, a brave duty, and I thank you Matthew Adams, Paul Finger, Jody Harkey, Travis Jones and Trey Hayes and the city of Lincolnton and Charlotte, and the surrounding areas, for your valiant service. The reality is, these policemen leave their house every day not knowing if they will return! While many of us are insulated, when racial tensions flare up, they are right there on the front lines! They not only are on the front lines, but they automatically, especially if they're white, are looked at as the villains . . . just their mere presence causes ignorant people to view ALL of them as MONSTERS! We can't paint groups of people with such a broad stroke! Saying ALL does nothing but perpetuate ignorance and stupidity! I know this will be unpopular to some, but the majority of policemen do serve and protect . . . They do fulfill their oath! They do go beyond the call of duty to make our communities better! It's the few ROTTEN apples that make the whole orchard look bad! #BlueLivesMatter
I've been nauseas, I've cried, I've run the gamut of emotions . . . Anger, hurt, deep sadness, empathy, sympathy and I've prayed-- oh have I prayed for all the victims' family and friends and for the shooters! I'm SICK! This isn't the America I've always LOVED and been proud of!
The ONLY way for us to DO better is BE better and the only way we can become better is be guided by the BEST (Jesus) and we need some serious 'BUT God' moments right NOW!!
I'm truthfully SAD~ really sad . . . Broken! As I type this tears are flowing down my face. And I'm disappointed in whites and blacks! We have to do better and become BRIDGES not WALLS! That's how TRUE Love and Unity come to be . . . the first much-needed steps toward racial forgiveness and reconciliation will only take place once we have the courage to change-- the courage to break this all too familiar, and vicious, cycle!!
I do say #BlackLivesMatter because they DO! I grieve alongside my black brothers and sisters. They are understandably hurting!! If there was accountability in many of these cases, then wonderful, but there is NOT! Very few, a minute amount of policemen, are convicted in these shootings. There is an epidemic in our country of policemen, whom I have a GREAT deal of respect for and thank often for their service, gunning down young unarmed black men and a few women and children!! Resisting arrest, unless there is a weapon involved, should not equal your life ceasing to be!! That is a fact-- some killed are by trigger-happy cops, who should never be policemen to begin with and give the badge a bad name and some times because the victim resists arrest. I will spare harping on nobody should resist arrest because that's just common sense and respect for authority. Nothing ever comes from that!! Resisting, however, should never bring a death sentence!
But in some cases, such as Castille Philando, you don't always have to resist to be killed, so when young black men are pulled over they wonder, even if they do follow protocol, if they could be the next one lying in blood and making their trip to the morgue! Buffalo Bills' wide receiver Marquise Goodwin tweeted last night, "My biggest fear is getting pulled over by a policeman." This is the gripping fear faced by the African American community. Philando was gunned down in front of his girlfriend and her four-year old daughter! Or consider Alton Sterling . . . two policeman seemingly had him subdued, the gun in his possession not produced, yet the policeman fired four shots into his chest, treatment, that is so often the case, sub-human! Videos of these two incidents, and or Walter Scott and Tamir Rice, made me ABSOLUTELY sick!
The trust between young black men and white cops is at an all-time LOW . . . Some of the ones, who took an oath to serve and protect, are doing the killing. Now it's spilling over into our communities and adding to something that is the silent epidemic-- RACISM.
Something people don't talk about, don't address, and barely, if at all, mention!! We are going to continue to sweep racism underneath the rug, until we find the house is collapsing, which is what is happening now! So what we have is race relations in SHAMBLES and both sides are to BLAME! But blame does nothing if we aren't willing to say I'm sorry and mean it . . . Blame does nothing but really being empathetic and sympathetic, just having compassion toward a whole race, that's hurting, DOES! Or you can just bury your head in the sand and act like some of our worst nightmares aren't coming true! I call that Ostrich syndrome!!
Like it or not, blood is on our hands in the white community. The same way abortion covers us in Crimson for the past 40 years . . . Blood is on our hands due to slavery!! I don't adhere to owing black people something for having gone through it, but I damn sure do believe we owe them an apology! Just like we owe Native Americans an apology-- arguably, the most mistreated people in our country's tarnished, yet rich, history. Tens and tens of thousands Indians slaughtered. The Trail of Tears isn't just a footnote in the history books. It was the extinction of tribes and families . . . a historical tragedy of epic proportions! I'm ashamed my ancestors had their hand in these travesties!! I am sorry. Genuinely and DEEPLY although I know sorry doesn't ERASE it . . . It is a start!
I never had anything to do with slavery, and I've never treated black people, or any other minority, differently due to the color of their skin, but I still HATE it happened! At the same time as long as both races continue to cling to pre-Civil Rights era ways and the atrocities and horrific memories and scars of slavery . . . NOTHING will EVER change! A scar indicates the wound is closed, that God was faithful enough to heal us! We don't have scars-- we walk around with OPEN wounds, so there is no healing and most of the time not even Band-Aids!
Scars are meant to show us what we have come through NOT used as maps to dictate where we go next!! Ours aren't even closed! And the more we bleed, the more life exits and dead we BECOME! The more resentment builds and our hearts become numb because they are in the shackles of hurt!
I know it's not as simple as Frozen and just letting it go, but we can't cling to the past with unforgiveness! Like Buddha said, unforgiveness is drinking poison and hoping it kills the other person. How foolish and dumb are we?!?
I treat people as people, which we ALL are, as God's beloved children, but how quickly many forget or have NEVER learned that beautiful fact!! We are ALL made in the Creator's image . . . We are made of His DNA-- fearfully and wonderfully made. No matter what race, what background, religion, what sexual orientation or gender, we all bleed RED! Jesus died for ALL of us, paying a price He didn't owe and one we couldn't pay! That very fact gives each of us an unspeakable worth that many of us forget and fail to apply to our fellow neighbor.
Racism is a LEARNED behavior, so I conjure up the lesson of Higher Learning . . . we must UNLEARN!! Not a single one of us gets to choose what race we will be, where we will live and what socio-economic background we will be born into, so let's act like it! If you walk into an elementary school, you see white kids, black kids, Latino kids, Asian kids, Native American kids . . . you see them all playing together! It's only as we grow older that beliefs are impressed upon us, but even then, we still get to choose what our OWN beliefs are! Not our parents, not our grandparents or anyone else on our family tree . . . our own!
Every day I commit myself to being a BRIDGE and not a WALL! What if we begin to see Jesus and love like Him when we look at each other? What if we see a whole bunch of Jesus' just in the form of different beautiful hues of skin?
I'm ANGRY and frustrated--it feels so HOPELESS, but I'm reminded of that Lazarus situation . . . It looked hopeLESS too! Daniel surrounded by the lions-- that wasn't a very enviable situation either! Moses approaching the Red Sea-- hopeless . . . Shadrach, Meshach n Abednego in the furnace was beyond BLEAK! Paul in the jail . . . He had NOTHING but a prayer! A hopeless situation. Dire doesn't begin to describe it!! David vs. Goliath . . . Can someone say colossal MISMATCH?!? Gideon vs. the Midianites . . . Not a CHANCE! Elijah in showdown vs. Baal? No way!! I could go on and on with situations that looked HOPELESS . . . But I'll end with this one~ Jesus! Satan had won so he thought! He was DEAD! Not just dead, but dead for three days!!
BUT GOD!
See with the One who is HOPE~ there is NO such thing as HOPELESS! Nothing too broken! Nobody too far gone!!
That's what I'm praying for a BUT GOD moment where we humble ourselves, seek His face and let Him heal our land! (2nd Cor. 7:14). We can't go on with life, as normal, when people are abused and killed and heinous acts are committed, which try to suck the color out of our world, but gray is OK if it changes our colors on the inside! If our heart is washed with Love and compassion, if our mind is painted with forgiveness, if our spirits, like mud on a tire, are cleansed from our past hurts and infinite ways we've failed each other!
I can't imagine how our Creator must GRIEVE, because if we claim He resides in us, there is NO way what we are seeing in our towns, in our cities, throughout our great, while flawed, country, shouldn't shake us to the very core of our being! It does mine.
If we can learn to not just hear with our ears, but hear the heart-breaking symphonies our hearts sing . . . Then we can take those first faith-filled steps on the invisible staircase Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of! If more of us can become bridges instead of walls . . . If we can love instead of hate . . . If we can dare to be different instead of the status quo that stands idly by doing NOTHING . . . If we can swim mountains and climb oceans then maybe we can begin to see CHANGE! Maybe then we can get a step closer to the DREAM MLK so eloquently shared!!
We've come too far to turn back now! God brought a flood, in Genesis, to DESTROY . . .
I pray He brings a flood of HEALING, not to destroy but repair and rebuild, because we need it more than ever! We need healing to pour into the steps of the Washington mall and run, like a roaring river throughout our country! Healing is possible, but we have to begin to search for it the way we cling to our pride of never saying we're sorry! Healing is possible if we try to embrace a clean slate instead carrying along our annals of wrongs committed by both sides . . . Healing can come! But we have to DO . . . Not just say . . . Not just #Hashtag but DO better, so we can BE better . . . As ONE! For liberty and JUSTICE FOR ALL!
Broken, confused and trying to make sense of the INSENSIBLE,
John Mark Brooks
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