Category: God

A Letter to My 25-Year-Old Self

As I look back over the almosts 20 years since that magical year I turned 25, I shudder a bit. I thought my life was meaningless, and I realize now, that I was more clueless than anything. So, I want to write down the things I would tell my 25 year old self.

What I would say…

Dearest Janshea,

When you look back at this time 20 years from now, I know you will be amazed at all the ways you have succeeded. Yes, there have been some missteps. Quite a few to be honest, but it won’t compare to the joy on the other side.

As you reach the magical age of 25, your mind tells you that because you are unhappy, you have failed. You have had a bad breakup, dislike your job, and feel stuck. Little girl Janshea had a master plan of being married by this point, blissfully planning her perfect family. Well, see that previous sentence about the bad breakup, yeah that wasn’t happening any time soon. Younger you also planned to have a great job she enjoyed along with the financial security that comes from saving and spending wisely. Now she has no idea what went wrong as none of those things can be checked off the list.

Getting rid of whatever doesn’t work!
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Throw away the “they”!

I am here to say don’t fret, don’t spend the year moping around because someone somewhere told you that you had to have your life tied up in a big red bow by this time. Who are these infamous “they” we always base our opinions on anyway? Let me tell you, “they” don’t have any clue about what makes you tick or how to get to your happy place. You have more growing to do before you are ready for life. That growth is essential. Not because of the future husband, family, or job, but because of the future Janshea. Not much is more important than being comfortable in your own skin and being okay with showing that person to the world.

Part of that knowing includes finding work that you don’t hate and getting a better plan on taking care of your money. Listen, I know everyone (“they”) says you have to find work you are passionate about. And it is great if you know your passion or you just stumble upon it while walking down the street and then get paid to do it. So, instead find a job you do well, with people you can get along with. It will still feel good to go to work and you can continue to look for your passion. Don’t forget to get money help! Can’t stress this one enough. Managing money doesn’t come easy to everyone, so just find someone to help you take care of yours.

What about that family?

Your master plans included a husband and plans for children. Umm, what gave you the idea this was a good idea? There is nothing wrong with wanting a family, what needs to be updated is your idea of when that should happen. Because let me tell you, you don’t have your mind in the right place for this particular dream. Hold on, keep working on yourself, and it will come. You know you are whispering “If you build it, they will come” in your head! Anyway, as clichéd as it sounds, just wait, just keep being you. You will grow into a better version of you and she will be awesome! Don’t rush the process.

Now for the kicker…

No, that is not me… but you get it. The unknown is coming!
Image by Omar Medina Films from Pixabay

Life is going to get unbelievably harder! I know you can’t imagine such a thing because a disappointing and unsuccessful 25 years is the pinnacle of your thoughts. Not to spoil it all by giving you worries before they are due, but I do want you to know you need a relationship with God and a strong network of people who love you. I don’t think there is any reason to start worrying you about specifics, because there is no changing things. But I can say, a strong faith, strong spouse, and rockstar friends are going to hold you up in some dark hours. You will not be alone, you will come through as a survivor. When you do, you get to share your wisdom, then comfort others and that’s a good feeling.

I know you feel overwhelmed, disappointed, listless, and even a bit angry. Let yourself feel everything, then pick yourself up and go about doing the work. The work to be your better self, the work to get you out of a dead-end space, the work needed to get you here. I stand here 20 years later shaking my head at how you think things are over. But I also stand here awed at your will to survive.

In love,

Janshea, 20+ years later

Personal Advent Season

For the past six years, I have been marking each year in remembrance of the day my son died, while learning to dread the anniversary of his due date all the more. Thanks to Facebook’s “On This Day” function, each December 14 I am reminded of all the love and support as the due date dawned without even the chance of his arrival. My mom friends rallied to give words of love and thoughts of me as this date shared heavily among expectant parents, arrived while he had already arrived four months earlier to say goodbye.

It took about two years before the reality of the due date coming with no baby really set in. Frankly, it was a lovely gesture that so many remembered a date spoken of fleetingly, months later, especially after the sudden horror of his being born still. Yet those first years after his death, I was almost wholly transfixed with the date of his death. I dreaded it, I loved it, I celebrated it, I wanted to hide from it. August 11 came each year and I felt dragged back into those frightful hours as we waited for him to be born still. Gradually I experienced the gift of God’s peace on Hardison’s death. Of help in feeling this peace, was discussing the continued preaching of Paul and others after being persecuted in the early years after Christ’s resurrection. One thing covered in the discussion was the idea of not focusing on the persecution, but the perseverance. By keeping our focus on God, we can stay the course by virtue of His love. When we are focused on the persecution (struggle, opposition, tragedy) it is much easier to become angry, disillusioned, and to give up. God’s love is shown in the understanding of our turmoil because Jesus Christ experienced the struggle of human life, in part to aid us during our times of need. I took these known ideas to heart more than ever and eased some of the flailing of my soul that I felt upon Hardison’s death. Even so, I met August 11 with pain long before the date showed up on the calendar every year. Somehow, despite my best efforts it still loomed large. Understandable, I know, yet December 14 would sneak up on me and then strike me down based on friends’ remembrance. Then, this year, I learned to appreciate the coming reminder of his due date all because I made a connection between it and the Christian celebration of Advent.

The Christian advent has come to be all about anticipating the second coming of the messiah. Christians wait for Christ to return and fulfill the promise of His eternal kingdom. Each year during the four Sundays leading up to Christmas, a time which has come to represent the birth of Christ, we look back at His coming and forward to His coming again. Even when not speaking in the Christian sense, advent can be defined as “the arrival of a notable  person, thing, or event.”  While reading a devotional taken from Bo Stern’s When Holidays Hurt, this statement took on a whole new meaning. Ms. Stern says “One of the reasons Jesus came to dwell with us – and is coming again – is to wipe away every tear.” Did your lightbulb go off too, based on your own circumstance or what you have read of mine? The bells were ringing like the sound when you get an answer right on a game show and the lightbulb illuminated. I could look upon the advent of Harrison’s due date as a reminder of the love and joy we were anticipating with the advent of a new member to our family. The way Christians look forward to the second advent of Christ, a member of our eternal family. I will still be heart sore and sad as December 14 arrives, but I can also view it as a personal advent season, a reminder every year of what Hardison means to this family. No longer do I only have to be reminded of when and how we lost his physical presence. I don’t have to be bombarded with sadness once the memory reminders start showing up on Facebook, I can reach back to the happy shock the date originally stood for.

These thoughts on personal advent seasons are not only useful due to the loss of a child. Most loss, sadness, and pain, can be brightened by the idea of the remembrance of the excitement of arrival. It may be you will look forward to the coming of justice, of peace, of love. But look forward in anticipation, not just back in sorrow.

Way To Go, #1 Son

Working on crossing the midline of his brain while playing ball

My son works really hard to master simple things that come naturally to most of us. He doesn’t always get my epically wicked sarcasm or jokes or remember to do things we all do daily. His difficulties make him anxious and that anxiety makes him lash out physically in an attempt to control a world that often feels alien to him. Since we started this diagnostic path when he was 3, he has come a long way. Many people like to say that I and my husband have done such a great job, but that isn’t true. I may search for the therapists and doctors and school curriculum, but he does all the heavy lifting. I remember feeling unlike others as a child too, I mean exactly why was what they found fun so boring to me? I can only imagine this feeling is multiplied infinitely for him in trying to navigate a world that tells him he is too different, he must change, he is weird and strange and makes way too much noise for the other civilized people. Every time he gets up, he has to try and remember what he is supposed to do while his brain is thinking about a thousand other things, he has to find the right combination of shirt, shorts, and socks that not only do this strange thing his parents call ‘matching’ they must also not have any large seams or tags or just feel too itchy to wear. He then surrounds himself in items he has specially chosen that makes him feel strong and hidden simultaneously. The oversized jacket, shades and scarf effectively shield him from a world he barely understands. 

 He also has a huge heart that wants to be friends with everyone and never understands why someone he just met at the monkey bars doesn’t want to play with him or calls him “weird” and kicks him when he just wants to run around and have fun together. You may think this is an extreme example, I assure it just happened a few days ago, to my 9 year old who just wants us all to have free video games and play well together. He is scary intelligent and often solves problems by saying “there is no spoon” (See The Matrix for this reference). He shocks me often with his thoughts and ideas. I have always wanted him to reach his potential and be happy. I work tirelessly learning new techniques and therapies to help him learn what comes instinctively to most of us. It isn’t always fun, I often feel alone and beaten up and so far beyond my depth of understanding that I am doing more harm than good. But I get up everyday and try again, because I am giving him the best I possibly can, in the same way my family gave me all they could to improve and enhance my life.

He is in therapy 3 hours a week in order to help him meet your expectations in social situations and to improve his small motor skills, writing, and short term memory. I often watch him in therapy and prayerfully thank God for the ability to help him. Not all families have an easy time getting the help they need of their kids, not medically or emotionally. They can’t get insurance coverage or their area doesn’t have any supportive help available. Our hometown world is full of help, we have insurance coverage, and are surrounded by people who love him and support us. I pray that all who need help in whatever their journey is, they will still be able to get it as our government wrestles with the enormous responsibility of deciding who and how to help. No man gets ahead alone and may we all remember that. 

My son works hard at therapy, at school, even at play and maybe I need to remember the work he accomplishes in addition to many deserves to be recognized and rewarded. I love you son, just the way you are, keep being caring and weird because you just wouldn’t be as much fun if you were different!

How Are You Feeling A Week Later?

Well, have my feelings of fear and disbelief diminished as I paused in the last week, as many people requested, to give President-elect Trump a chance to show his presidential race was filled with rhetoric he would never actually engage in. I am here to tell you, the pause was barely a heartbeat between his acceptance speech that espoused unity among the political parties in the United States of America and his reconciliatory new promise of being a President for ALL the people of this country; and the divisive, separatist ideas of most of his recommendations and hirings for his upcoming Presidency.

As I research to find reputable news sources, listen and watch the numerous instances of hate shown marginalized people by white men and women, and walk through the world with my marginalization apparent for all to see, I am feeling less optimistic, less everything really. Every story of hate has been perpetuated by people who have vocally used an impending Trump presidency as a reason for their actions. Some more public officials have been held accountable, but what of all the people who are only in a position to loudly terrorize others with no thought of repercussions? Many want us all to forget that the history of this country, forgetting the history of the world for a moment, tells us this new America is frighteningly similar to the old America. Many people in this country despised the idea that the old America ever left, and now find themselves vindicated and elevated and celebrated. They are passionate and dangerous and nothing you say will change that. Does every person of privilege want some return to old America that includes savagery to those marginalized people who have always been here, who were brought here illegally, who travelled here under duress for life improvement? No, I certainly don’t ascribe to that belief, but those who don’t have misread the cues of the people before them and now we are stuck in an American Horror Story of our own making. The only way to change the story is to do the difficult work of looking at ourselves, our surroundings and our government and then work for change. Now that your President-elect is filling the spaces around him with divisive people, what will you do?

May you be emboldened to not show hate, but show systematic work to dismantle those who would tell us we don’t belong, don’t deserve and don’t matter. Remember that every day and person you show love and acceptance to in your small town or big city makes a lasting impact. And if all you can do is that, know you are thanked. Do more if you can, do your part and hold up the love Jesus showed to ALL people, even those who despised him through no fault of his own, and you too can change the world. It takes workers and caregivers to evoke change and both are equally important to the betterment of this place at this time in history. Because I want to be on the side of betterment, how about you?

United States Presidential Election 2016 Feelings

Since this is my space and I need to get out what I feel, today you get to read all about what I am processing in my soul after the United States of America elected Donald J. Trump as the next President of our country.

I am the daughter of a woman and man who spent most of their grammar school time in segregated schools in a segregated community. I grew up listening at the feet of the granddaughter of slaves, and the daughter of The Great Depression and The Jim Crow South, in a town where 20 years before I was born, it was still segregated into Whites Only and Negroes. I grew up listening to the memories of people who lived through some very divisive times, times marked by indiscriminate persecution, belittling, injustice, murder, oppression, and suppression. A time where all the people in charge of making and enforcing the laws of the land truly believed that if you didn’t look like them, you were mentally inferior and lacked the ability to think for yourself or take care of yourself without the saving intervention of the ruling class. As such, you had no rights, the rights you thought you had were systematically dismantled in new laws written for the express purpose of reminding you that you belonged to them and needed them and their kindnesses to survive this life. I lived through my own instances of intrinsic and subtle racism, stories to add to the great diaspora of mistreatment and injustice rampant in this country. As this person, I share my feelings, those which I clearly understand that I am still processing.

I sat up all night watching Election 2016 coverage. From the beginning you could see that things didn’t seem to be going the way the many historical pundits had predicted. Soon, everyone was sputtering to come up with words to explain what they were witnessing. Many, like me, stared at the unbelievable, but not surprising, results with an impending sense of doom. As my kids fell asleep and my husband abandoned me and I tried to drown out the results with the words of a novel, I could feel the collective gasp of people around the world who really could not fathom that the United States would vote an unknown political entity, who had crafted a race built on baiting the worse in many of us, to the highest office in our land. Yet, as the dread seeped in my bones and the tears tried to seep out, I was still thinking, I can’t believe they didn’t take him seriously, the threat seriously, the history seriously. I can’t believe I am possibly about to be forced into an United States reminiscent of my ancestors memories. After nodding off for about an hour I had to get my kids up and started on their days. I also had to tell them that Mr. Trump had won the election. I could barely manage to not cry as they teared up in despair of what Mr. Trump being President would mean for them and their friends. I explained that while we didn’t know what would happen in the future, we certainly knew Who held the future. We are Christ Followers, commonly called Christians, and we believe that God’s Will in the world will prevail, even when we don’t understand, even when we don’t agree, even when attacked. For my kids this helped, but I could tell it wasn’t over for them. They like others around the world, needed time to process. Before I had even got them up, I was being bombarded with the ongoing coverage. My television was still on, I was obsessively scrolling through Facebook and Twitter feeds trying to absorb all the responses and feelings from everywhere and meld them in my mind. Trying to make sense of them, of my own thoughts, of how I could be honest and supportive under the laws of the land which God had placed me. I didn’t delve too deep, my kids still needed my attention to move on with their day and I knew I was just waiting for space and peace to delve a bit deeper.

After dropping them off, I found my first gem of discordant tunes in the post of a friend. This friend is a non-POC woman. This friend had been harassed in her car after dropping her older children off at school. The youngest was strapped in their car seat in the back. Her car sported a bumper sticker that evidenced support of Hillary Clinton.  A non-POC man drove close to her bumper, crowding he driving space and intimidating her. He then pulled alongside her and started verbally abusing her with words that called out her gender with common curse words typically used to belittle women and ended with this nugget, “F*cking liberal loser!” My friend was terribly shaken, felt afraid and then took her bumper stickers off her car to avoid a similar situation. And while I felt her fear and was saddened by her experience, on the other side of those feelings I felt vindication and a bit of that Aha, now you see what I am talking about! I felt like saying, yes, now see how you might like living like that constantly not just now because Mr. Trump has been elected President. Because I can’t stop, shaken on the side of the road and pull my skin color off, the thing I am most vilified for. I can’t take my skin, crumple it into a ball and get rid of it to stop the hate from reaching me. Then of course came the post from a classmate who sung the educate yourself and don’t be silly because they can’t do that to you tune of the Trump candidacy. This post was an impassioned plea to not spread panic by telling children they will have to ‘go back where they came from’ because Donald Trump was elected. This is absurd, the post assured, because if you are born here and/or came to the USA legally and/or a naturalized citizens then this IS where you are from (emphasis mine) and there is no WHERE to go back to. This person also included their feeling on how happy they were with the election result because her son would have a fair playing field in the work force and her daughter, in the armed forces, would be safe with a Boss that would have her back. They included how you must educate yourself in order to know you belong here and can not be kicked out. Then they closed with numerous references to God in America and how we traditionally pay lip service to God in this country (saying things like Merry Christmas, In God We Trust, God Bless America and God Bless You) all while they would be standing for the national anthem with their hand over their hearts. Goodness, I didn’t even no where to start with all the assumptions in this statement. While they may believe no one here ‘correctly’ need worry about being kicked out, people are already running through the streets shouting “go back to Mexico, Africa, China, insert foreign nation here!” with enough hate to drive fear into the hearts of small children and old people alike. The problem with leaving this idea as a statement that stands in defense of legal immigration is that the people excited about the idea of deporting illegal immigrants don’t stop to check your legal status or birth certificate when spewing their feelings. Besides, we have been shown that in the United States you can actually prove you were born here and still not be believed, and if you need to prove your legal status to random beings you meet, does this not smack of carrying freedom papers, traveling papers, being pinned with yellow stars of David and forced into internment camps? I mean where does it stop? Do you see? I Love God, I Love my country, but I am not blinded to the faults inherent in humanity, of which I am a part. And I don’t have the privilege of hiding my difference in order to survive, I have to survive anyway. You can’t tell me that now that the election is over we can all go back to some Utopian time pre-election cycle 2016. Let me tell you, for marginalized groups of humans in the United States and around the World, there is no real pre-election 2016 utopia in which to return. Why do you think so many worked so hard to discuss policy that could put all marginalized groups back to oppressed groups and then beg us all to listen and make informed and educated decisions? It isn’t over now, it isn’t in the past and you aren’t at least a good person because(fill in your reason for feeling good)! We all want what is best for ourselves, we get lost when we lose sight that what is best for ourselves isn’t our calling. It is what is best for the collective in which we all live.

I am a follower of Christ and firmly believe in God’s true sovereignty over all. While I will and do pray for the President, other elected officials, volunteers, my country, and the world, it does not negate the feeling of desperation and fear uppermost in my mind and heart. Loving and trusting God didn’t erase the pain of my child’s death. Loving and trusting God does not erase the pain of my child’s absence on the physical plane and by the same note, loving and trusting God does not erase my fear today or keep me safe from those who wish to harm me. Loving and trusting God does not ensure a pain and trouble free life, it does ensure I will be strengthened to endure the race before me because I put God first, seek Him first. It ensures that no matter how my earthly body leaves this plane, my true home will be revealed in God’s glory. This faith helps me and does not erase the practicality of being alive in this time as a member of a marginalized people. You may not have my faith, but I pray you understand that my pain, fear, and distrust are real and should not be erased, suppressed, or disregarded because it isn’t your truth today. I don’t want a bleak Dystopia to be ushered in, I pray that history doesn’t repeat itself, I pray we aren’t disillusioned, decimated, or caught off guard. I pray that as we move forward we find a way to look at the problems in our systems and vanquish them while shining a light on anything we can get right. I pray that while today I feel the need to call on the faith of my ancestors that allowed them to make the seemingly ridiculous decision to get up and face hate every day by going to work, to church, walking down the street, by speaking out, by getting an education, by continuing to live every day with dignity even when afforded none by others. Then by having and raising their children to do the same.