When You’re an Ignorant Christian, Satan Wins

January 3, 2017 / ME / Leave a comment

If you’re really genuine in your faith, you live in steadfast fear that Satan will use you for his will. And yet, too many Christians do the devil’s work for him by acting like ignorant assholes about major newsworthy topics. For example, this post that came across my Facebook feed today.

When you fail to understand the scientific facts of abortion (or any other topic), yet you share asinine pseudo-science about things like third trimester abortion, you look stupid. You’re an asshole. You give all Christians a bad name simply by being an uneducated, head in the sand twat.

Are you mad yet? Hate all the name calling? GOOD. You should be pissed. You’re actively causing others to turn away from God! You’re the reason souls aren’t being saved, the very reason that other people look at Christians and turn their backs! Instead, you should be pissed at the idiots who are preaching to YOU with their inaccurate information, and angry at the people who are reading your stupid social media posts and believing them.

Whew! Am I done ranting? Not by a long shot!

If you wish to be a God-fearing Christian who actually leads others to Christ, then get your act together! Stop sharing ridiculous Facebook posts, stop showing the world how stupid you are, and educate yourself on the facts. Get it together this year, and be an educated force for good instead of an idiot who makes all Christians look bad with your stupidity. Learn the facts, read a scientific article once in a while, and be prepared to answer non-believers’ questions. Only then can you really claim you are doing God’s work.

Oh, and if this post made you angry, GOOD. It should. Because Satan’s hand is in it anytime one of us so-called believers causes someone else to go astray. If you’re angry, it could be because you’re guilty of this. But it’s not too late to open your heart, open your mind, and open your eyes to those around you who are just trying to make sense of it all.

Are You the Face of Love? I’m Not.

November 28, 2016 / ME / Leave a comment

I’ve seen so many horrible posts since the election about an individual being attacked (verbally or physically) by someone hateful, and a bystander stepping in to help. From the very first day, I knew I’d be ready. I’d keep a close watch for people around me in need, and I’d step in to help that person without hesitation.

Instead of seeing others in need, my experience has been this: I’ve been mistaken for a hate supporter THREE times. Just since November 8th, I’ve had people in public mutter something like, “Just wait til January 20th, and we won’t have to put up with these [insert group name here] anymore.” The groups have included everything from immigrants to “lazy welfare” n***ers, right to my face.

Each time, I’ve fired back on the individual and hopefully put him in his place. Just last night, it was a Lowe’s employee who couldn’t find the cutting tool he needed to help me with a piece of piping. He said, “Well, the problem is every night about thirty minutes before closing, the place fills up with Mexicans and they steal everything that isn’t nailed down.” I snatched the piece of piping from him and just said, “Wow.”

I went straight to the front and reported him. The manager wasn’t available, but the young woman whom I spoke with was horrified. She promised she would mention it to the manager, and then here’s where she stepped in it: “He shouldn’t have said something like that, for all he knows, you’re married to a Mexican!”

As if THAT is the reason it was wrong? Not because these are human beings but because I (the white lady) might be offended?

I leaned in close and said, “Pass THIS along to the manager…he should be far more worried that I *might* be married to someone from corporate.”

But it left me asking myself a very important question: WHY am I giving off the impression that I would be in support of racism, homophobia, Islamophobia, etc? What is it about my mannerisms, my words, the look on my face when I’m not even mad, the way I dress or the way I stand while looking at the shelves…what is it that makes me look like someone who does not have love in her heart? More importantly, how are people supposed to look to me as a friendly face in a crisis if other people think I look like a bigot?

I’ll admit that I inwardly dismissed the “safety pin” when people started sharing it, not because I thought it was ridiculous but because too often, we change our Facebook profile pictures or slap a car magnet on our vehicles and think we’ve done enough. It’s the same reason I don’t typically wear a cross necklace; if my wardrobe accessories are the only thing that lets you know I’m a Christian, then I’ve failed at being one.

It’s certainly given me a lot to think about, especially how others–from victims of hate crimes to just the every day citizen around me who needed God’s love today–see me.

I’ll Be Homeless at 3pm Today

November 12, 2016November 12, 2016 / ME / Leave a comment

I know, that’s a weird headline for a blog post. No, I’m not losing my house. No, I’m not being evicted. I’m not homeless (anymore) and don’t have any reason to think I will be in the foreseeable future.

Because I’m white. And middle class. And straight. And Christian. And American. And the list goes on…

Months ago, my teenaged daughter texted me from school (that’s pretty typical, actually) in a panic. A good friend had had enough, and was struggling with the fact that he’d just realized a few weeks before that he was gay. She was urging him to tell his parents, if only so that he didn’t have to hide who he was and live a lie.

She was texting me the play-by-play as she tried to convince him that being honest and true to himself was the best way. I followed up with supportive texts, confirming what she was telling him. As a parent, I would be devastated to learn that my child harbored a secret that she thought she couldn’t tell me.

As he contemplated texting his mom to tell her–please, let that sink in…he was afraid to even text her–he looked at her at one point and said, “I could be homeless at 3pm today.”

Choke on that for a minute. Think about your child really believing that you would kick him out, that you would tell a fifteen-year-old who isn’t even old enough to drive a car that you don’t want him to step foot in your house again. Your own flesh and blood, sent away from your presence.

Would God do that to you? Is there ANYTHING you could do that Our Father would not forgive? That he would cast you out and say, “Don’t show your face again?” Anything that would keep him from gathering you in his arms and sending his angels to lift you up?

No. And you’re a putrid excuse for a human being if you think that’s even possible.

I texted my daughter immediately: “He is NOT homeless! If they don’t want him, he is to come to our house and stay with us! But he is NOT left out in the cold!”

Some of us felt the ground quake beneath us this week, realizing that hatred won out over love and over Jesus Christ. Don’t let that be the end of the story. Show your love everywhere you go, be the force for change and for good, and for God’s sake, open your hearts and your homes to those who are terrified right now. Shower the world with the love that Christ gave us. The Holy Spirit is in us, and it’s not there without reason.

When Satan Wins…

November 9, 2016 / ME / Leave a comment

Yes, this is a political post. No, I’m not affiliated with a church, so yes, I’m allowed to get political. I’m just a Christian who doesn’t understand why so many other Christians have never touched their Bibles and therefore don’t know what commandments were given.

Yesterday, the country voted for someone who espouses everything that Christians are not. He adores greed, extra-marital and underaged sex, division of the races, intolerance for other religions, and money. He is the walking embodiment of the “root of all evil.”

Yet, so many of the people who voted for him do so while professing to be Christians. They at least claim to love others (unless you’re black), welcome all into the fold (unless you’re gay), and want unity (unless you’re Muslim).

With so many people serving as keyboard commandos in the fight against evil, where was their action? Where was their literal movement to prevent this? It was nowhere to be found.

So here is a new commandment: get off your ass and do something to show the world how much you love others. Stop hiding behind hashtags and patting yourself on the back. Put a sign in your front yard that says, “You are safe here,” and open your doors to people in need. Stop whipping out your cellphone to video the violence against a black person and actually throw your body between the victim and the assailant…exactly the way Jesus would have done.

Now is not the time to share pathetic messages of love and unity and hope. Now is the time to stand up and say, “Mr. President, you work for me. I am your boss. I love all and welcome all, and that is what my country will do.”

And of course, it is always the time to pray. It is the single most effective thing we can do when we invoke the will of God, but please remember that it is not the ONLY thing we can do.

Where Do You Go When You Have Nowhere To Go?

October 16, 2016 / ME / Leave a comment

I started this blog some time ago because I wanted others to know that not all Christians are the people who make the headlines. There are those of us–and honestly, there are plenty of incredible people who don’t identify as Christians–who are working for good on a daily basis. They might be the world changers, or they might just be the people who smile at someone who needs it.

But in the past several years, my family has felt the suffering of not having a church home. We’ve bounced from one church to another, testing them out and never really settling in, attending a church until they did or said something that made us walk away. We’ve been criticized for this practice by people who know us quite well, people who insist that it’s our Christian duty to fellowship with other Christians, even those who don’t see eye to eye with us, recognizing that the church is filled with flawed and sinful people (as it should be).

I agree. I do understand that notion, and yes, it’s fully Biblical. There is no perfect church and there shouldn’t be one, at least not until we are taken home to the Lord. So that leaves us struggling, cringing in our seats while the pastor spouts off about something unBiblical or while two old biddies standing in line for the bathroom talk about why there will never be a black person in their congregations so long as they have breath in their bodies (a fact that I’m happy to help relieve them of). We grab our kids and head for the hills, distancing ourselves from hatred and bigotry.

Truthfully, this election cycle has tried our Christian beliefs in ways I’d never thought possible. The sheer ugliness out of the mouths who claim to profess a love for the Lord has left us feeling empty inside, lost in our own Soddoms. Hopefully, come November, God’s will for loving one another will be done, and we can set our hearts right again.

Where Was God?

July 13, 2015 / ME / Leave a comment

These posts are always a lot of fun to write because they address one of the most common questions non-believers have: “If God exists, why do bad things happen?”

Bad things… very bad things, mildly bad things, genocide-level bad things, bad things that shake a nation.

Of course I’m referring to the Charleston shooting.

Why did God let a man enter a church and kill eight people, some of them grandmothers, if he’s so real? It doesn’t get any more religious than sitting in a place of worship and praying to your god than what happened that night. There is literally nowhere else those people could have been that would have made them closer to God. And he didn’t save them.

Why? Why didn’t he stop it? The Bible is full of examples of God’s earth-shaking power–literally earth quaking–and he couldn’t stop the shooter than night?

Oh… so you mean to tell me he just DIDN’T stop the shooter. He could have because he’s God, but it didn’t suit his purposes so he didn’t so much as send a cherubim to blow dust in the shooter’s eyes, giving all those people time to flee.

This is one of the many, many times it’s hard to be a Christian, or any kind of spiritual believer, for that matter. Not only are we stuck trying to make sense of it, we’re stuck defending ourselves to the non-believers in our lives. No one was rejoicing over the news that eight people were savagely murdered by a man who said he almost didn’t go through with it because they were so nice to him, but I know plenty of non-believers who are asking the same question:

“Where the hell was your God on that one?”

The answer is I don’t know. Was he busy? Is he not really as powerful as I think he is? Is evil stronger than God?

NO. Of course not.

So here’s what I do know: God’s will is perfect. Ours is not. If the events of this evil place suit his purposes, then it shall be done, no matter what we think of it. We can’t see the eternal, but he can. So this is when I have to sift through the hurt to find any shred of good.

Good: the people of Charleston have come together like never before.

Good: whites and blacks have joined hands at that church to honor the ones who were killed and to say, “It has to stop.”

Good: a decrepit rag that symbolizes fear and hate in so many people’s hearts has finally come down from the government offices.

Good: Eight people who loved the Lord with all their hearts, and who looked the shooter in the face and let him do his worst because their Bible says to turn the other cheek, are sitting in the bosom of the Lord right now. It hurts to lose them, but they have attained the very thing they have prayed for their entire lives: salvation.

It’s so hard to remember these things when evil shows its face, and it’s even harder to force yourself to so callously say, “Those victims are the lucky ones, they’re with God now.” But that’s what we must do when evil tries to get the best of God. Remember that he has a plan, and it is good.

Of course I’m going to have to say SOMETHING…

June 29, 2015 / ME / Leave a comment

The Internet is currently awash in both love and hate right now. Rejoicing advocates and friends are painting the World Wide Web with rainbows and celebration posts while hate-mongers declare this to be the end of days.

Yes, SCOTUS has handed down a decision that declares the legal institution of marriage to be available to all couples. Not threesomes, not human-goat partnerships, certainly not adult-child molestation…just two consenting adults whose genitalia happens to look similar.

Is it an abomination unto the Lord? I don’t know. He didn’t consult me.

Is my marriage or my status as a believer affected? No.

Has my Bible been ripped from my hands and burned on the trash heap? No.

Has anything at all about my life changed? No.

So why are so many Christians so furious?

Because they’ve lost their privileged status. They no longer “own” America, and it’s pissing them off. They’re being forced to look around and acknowledge that they’re not the only ones here, and they can’t stand it.

Face it, folks…this isn’t a Christian country. The founding fathers never intended it to be, but more importantly, God himself doesn’t intend for it to be. God has a Christian country waiting for all of us, and our job as his believers is to bring as many people as we can when we go. We can’t do that if we spread hatred and nastiness.

We can’t reach out to non-believers if we don’t open our hearts and acknowledge them as people. This decision didn’t change a single thing about my life except this: there is now more opportunity to spread the gospel because the government has just officially recognized an entire segment if the population as being humans. You can’t hear the word and believe if you’re not bring recognized as one of the Lord’s own.

We have work to do, Christians. It’s to love.

God Don’t Make Mistakes

June 7, 2015June 7, 2015 / ME / Leave a comment

“God don’t make mistakes.”

If I have to hear that one more time from a backwoods hillbilly who’s suddenly become an authority on what God does and does not do, I’m going to need s lot of forgiveness in a hurry.

Of course, when I hear these words, it’s from someone blasting Caitlyn Jenner for her not-recent decision. They’re making this pronouncement to indicate that God made the person we knew as Bruce, and Caitlyn had no right to interfere with that decision.

Let’s break it down.

Once again, for the millionth time about the hundredth issue, your/my beliefs in God don’t dictate others’ choices. Whether it’s abortion of gay marriage or buying beer on Sundays, if we’re forcing others to conform to the standards of our beliefs simply because we hold those standards dear, we are NOT welcoming others to the Lord. We are putting the thou-shalt-nots ahead of God’s love.

More importantly, we have a fundamental inability to mind our own business and shut our own mouths. If we have a religious problem with Caitlyn Jenner’s choice…who cares? Certainly not Ms. Jenner, who obviously did not ask our opinions or permission. All we’re doing by speaking out is letting others know how intolerant we are.

Finally, God might not make mistakes but he does change his mind. Aside from the Biblical passages in which he literally changed his mind, we have everyday examples to follow. People who were at death’s door who make miraculous recoveries, people whose marriages are on the brink of collapse when one party makes a dramatic change and saves the relationship. Who’s to say that wasn’t a divine mind change? And who’s to say that God didn’t change his mind and finally put it on Caitlyn’s heart that it was finally time to let Bruce go?

There is so much good we can do as Christians when an event like this makes headlines, but only if our first priority is to demonstrate love and acceptance. If we’re waiting with baited breath to demonstrate hate in God’s name, we’ve failed our brother or sister and we’ve failed God.

Why I Won’t Be Watching the Duggar Interview

June 4, 2015June 7, 2015 / ME / Leave a comment

Yes, America is waiting with baited breath for Fox News’ resident spiteful b**** (sorry, I should have said ONE of Fox News’ resident spiteful b****es) to sit down with the Duggars and ask that they explain themselves. The interview with the parents was slated for Wednesday night but the interview with two of the victims will be aired–making the Duggar family even more money for letting people gawk at their strange ways while judging them on Twitter–Friday night for our prime time enjoyment, a veritable Roman circus of sideshow freakhood.

Here’s where I stand on the Duggar scandal:

If you made a mistake, if you committed some sin, yes… as hard as it is to explain to non-believers, once you truly repent of that sin and confess it to God, it is done. It’s over. It’s forgiven.

And that is the only thing that keeps me going each day, knowing that every single screw up in my life (even the ones I haven’t thought to do yet!) are forgiven and washed clean.

But here’s my other take on it: we can rant all we want to about the hypocrisy of being a confessed child molester then going on to become one of the loudest voices against tolerance of the LGBTQ community. Josh Duggar is an a**hole for knowing he had this sin buried nicely in his past–and it’s allowed to be buried and forgotten if he’s truly confessed and repented–and then daring to blame the ills of society on people he doesn’t like.

Here’s where it’s really hard to be a Christian: Josh Duggar, flaming jerk and piece of human filth that he is, is forgiven. He does not have to hang his head in shame for the rest of his life and never have a home, a family, or a career because of a sin that God has already promised is washed clean. Jesus died so Josh Duggar could molest little girls, then go on to have a lucrative career as a TV personality and professional loudmouth.

It hurts to even write those words, but it’s true. Look it up.

The real reason I dislike the Duggars? They’re horrible ambassadors for Christ. They espouse the extremes of our faith, they paint a freakish picture of true faith and spirituality, and they espouse hatred and discrimination for people that GOD made. The LGBTQ community that they’ve worked so hard to squash is made up of people who were formed in God’s image, whose bones God knew before they knit in their mothers’ wombs. The non-believers who watch the overbreeders and woman-haters on TV are pointing their fingers at all Christians because of the Duggars.

Yes, they should all hang their heads in shame, not because of a sin and crime that they committed and covered up years ago, but because they are turning people away from God with every televised word that comes out of their mouths. Every long-haired, long-skirted, “courtship” episode tells non-Christian viewers that THIS is what it means to follow God, and they’re wrong.

There is nothing that the Duggars can say in this much-anticipated molestation interview that will lead anyone to Christ, and they should be ashamed of themselves for smearing the name of the Lord.

Every once in a while…

May 29, 2015May 29, 2015 / ME / Leave a comment

I’m one of those people who feels the presence of God most completely when I’m out in nature. It doesn’t really matter where, as long as there’s a sky overhead and a beautiful view of some kind in front of me. All I need to feel Him near is to be outside.

And that hasn’t happened as richly as this week, at least not in a long time. My girls and I went to the beach and spent several days just enjoying each other’s company and playing in the ocean version of God’s creation.

And I took more pictures than I can ever remember taking!