Do No Harm (Pt. 1)

(Originally published on 7/24/2018; edited on 7/28/2018)

Hey world,

1 John 4:11-12 says Since God loved us that much, we surely ought to LOVE each other.

A few weeks ago I got some news about the sudden loss of a friend. This news shocked me and I am still trying to figure out how to catch my breath from what feels like a socking and  like the wind has completely been pulled from my sails.

The thing is grief or shocking moments, can cause us to respond in specific ways. Each time we might be faced with the same "attack," our response might be different, it might not always be the same. But, there are times that the way we respond to experiences that happen to us or around us have some tells. There are patterns in how we might respond.

As a Christian, I hold tightly to a scripture in 2 Corinthians that says Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! (2 Corinthians 5:17-18 NIV)

When I said yes, to God and committed my life to His ways, it meant that my old was gone. It meant that the ways in which I viewed the world, responded to the world, reacted towards the world would be different. It certainly didn't mean it would be overnight, but it meant that in time, my way of responding to the world, situations or experiences would be less like me and more like God--- AMEN!

Over the years in my walk, I have watched this progression happen. I have seen God change my heart from the inside out. I have seen the rough parts of my exterior and interior smooth and soften. Things like being quick with a cold or sharp word--- Fighting. Cursing, excessive boozing, drugging--- essentially numbing. Those things over the years have fallen away. But there are times when something I thought was dead, something I thought I had overcome, comes out again and I realize, there is still more work to be done.

This experience happened, in how I responded to the loss of my friend. When I first heard the news I erupted with emotions. I was saddened by the loss. Then that sadness turned to numbing, it happened so quickly I wasn't even aware. See I only gave myself one day to respond. I cried my tears and then I moved through the rest of my life, until it was time to lay this friend to rest. It was in that moment and seeing our friends grieve that how I handled that grief, that pain, was numbing. At the bottom of more drinks than I should have.

With the lubrication of a drink, my response to the people around me wasn't that of a new creation. It was a resurgence of the old me.

You see, as I have matured in Christ, I adopted this philosophy in interacting with people-- Do No Harm. This philosophy is adapted from the medical field. My mom was a surgeon and I was familiar with the oath that medical professionals take when they recite the Hippocratic Oath--- "First, do no harm." What does that mean exactly? For me in my walk and this journey as a Christian, it means the following.

Do No Harm:
1. Saying yes to Jesus
2. Building a relationship with Jesus through: Daily Prayer and Reading the Word

Establishing this foundation is the process of becoming a new creation.  It's in this foundation that we allow God to do the work in our lives and smooth out those rough spots. It's in this that He transforms us from the inside out, that we start to reflect God's response in the world around us.

In this foundation, how we respond to situations, relationships, PEOPLE changes! For me do no harm was/is especially important when it comes to relationships. I have this other thought that "Broken people, continue to harm and break broken people." We live in a broken world and until we say yes to Jesus and allow God to transform us we will continue to respond to those around us from a broken filter. Rather than the filter of Grace, Mercy, Forgiveness that God gives us.

I know in reflecting in my life, that I did harm to many of the relationships I was in, particularly in high school and into my mid 20s. I was rough with people, careless with people in so many ways. Not because I intended to be, but simply because I didn't know any better. I didn't know that how I responded to people was harmful, not just to them but towards myself as well.

As I matured in God, I started to realize my old way of responding to people wasn't helpful. It wasn't encouraging, it wasn't edifying, it wasn't reflecting the presence of God in my life. But God!-- soon enough, focusing on Him, making Him central in my life. Saying yes to Him, building my relationship with Him, allowed my filter of RELATING to People change. Instead of me relating to people out of my "not knowing" I learned a new way of relating to people--- GOD's Way! Amen!

His way of extending forgiveness, Grace, Mercy and love.

So waking up in the aftermath of how I responded to my friend's sudden death, I slipped. I reverted to that old filter. If I can be truthful, it made me feel small. It made me feel like I had failed. It made me feel like I missed the mark-- those things are true.

In this moment of reflecting, I feel like I am not worthy to bear the identity of Christian. Because "First, do no harm." And in my reflection, I have done harm.

How do you recover from that moment?

I think often our first response when we miss our mark is to isolate, to hold ourselves on the mat and keep laying into ourselves about who we think we are instead of who God SAYS we are--FORGIVEN.

I shrunk back, I tiptoed into depression, I wanted to isolate. I wanted to be punished for my actions.
I wanted to wallow in the misery to not allow myself to feel God's love, to not allow God to forgive me because I wasn't ready to forgive myself.

So how do you recover?

1. Remember whose we belong and who we said yes to- God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
2. Pray-- give it up to the Lord. You see, when we become a new creation it didn't mean it would be instantaneous.  Like an onion we have layers and with each peeling of a layer there is something fresh coming forth. But is also means that there is new revelation of an area we might not have been aware of as well.

Pray and say thank you God for revealing another space in which you can turn over to Him and allow Him to work in you.

3. Recall what God says about you- HE LOVES YOU!

I feel like this is a work in progress so for now that's all she wrote folks...

Untitled.... love

Hello world, it's been a while since I got deep in my emotions in this space. I actually separate my posts about relationships into a private blog, but I needed to not hide from the things I am about to share.

I fell in love and for the most part it was amazing. Especially when you think about all that it took to get me there. And honestly, all that it took to get him there too. We were not perfect and that's not what I was seeking. There were challenges and lots of tears. But when it was the two of us, linked in, connected, it was just this perfect simple place. Wrapped in each other, like our tangled limbs when we slept.

I miss the simplicity of love, I miss just knowing that a glance, a smile, a hug came with so much comfort and peace. But in honesty, those moments were few and far between. Love, relationships is consistency and I would be lying to myself if I didn't say I felt like I was working HARD and often alone to build a structure around a relationship.

There are many things I could say, many things that I could say to rationalize the human logic around relationships, but this post isn't about that.

As you might know, and maybe I need to do a little bit more posting on this, I am a Christian. And my walk has been colorful to say the least. This last year or so, I have been on fire for the lord. My heart ended up traveling oversees and for 6 months I had to learn to put my energy into some other place and not into the relationship I had been pushing for, for now 3 1/2 years. And in that, I found the stability of God. Which comes with so many more details, make God the Center of your Life because HE is the center of it all. When your eyes are focused on anything but God everything else becomes so complicated. Aligning with the Will of God is the simplest way to live your life. It doesn't mean it won't be challenging, because your battle every day ends up being with the world that man created and trying to flip the world's understanding to align more with God.

Anyway, if you have been graced by the love of God you know that you don't have control of the speed in which He grabs hold of those heart issues and goes to work. And there are things in our walk that we will try to keep a hold of and my imperfect, but simple and perfect man love, was one of those things that I wanted to keep hold of. I wanted to take it along in my new life.

But when you live in Christ, the old things fall away. And unfortunately, making my relationship and my heart in a place ahead of God, was one of the old things that needed to fall away. And God's timing it is PERFECT, isn't it. Two days before my heart was to return, two days before I could go back to that simple place, wrapped in each other--- the Lord gave me a word. Leave Him Alone, Let me be God in both of your lives.  I don't think if you have never heard the REAL voice of the Lord that you will understand what this meant to me. You see, I know I have been in the presence of the Holy Spirit. I know that I have been comforted by his everlasting peace. But hearing the VOICE of God has been something that I have only prayed for. That my relationship with God would deepen so incredibly that I would know the voice of the Lord when He spoke. And this day, two days before my heart returned to me, the Lord gave me my prayer and I heard His voice. And when you hear the voice of God, you know it. And when you hear the voice of God you obey it. As painful as you know it is going to be, you do.

So the first round of emotion was so hard, because I wrestled with God-- do I have to? Why? What will happen? But I begrudgingly obeyed. And in this space, I gained some peace, that what God was meaning to do would work together for my good. That what God has His hand in, is for our good. Not to destroy us, but to build us up and to set us up for something bigger. So while it hurt, I had peace.

But then recently  came the second round of emotion, when my heart, after a few weeks of silence, caught on that things were not going to return to our simple love. And here I am broken more than ever, because he is my heart, no matter how imperfect our love was. He has my heart and I can't think of any other human who will capture it the way he had. And it kills me because, in all of our challenges, the biggest one was pushing him so far, that he would hate me. And here I sit, probably the most hated person second to one other in his life and there is nothing I can do about it--- but pray.

Pray that we are both healed and comforted by the grace and wisdom of God's love. I pray that someday we might be returned to each other. Maybe not in the same fashion, but at least with understanding of what we went through together. I pray for him the most, because my biggest fear is that the man I know he is going to be, might be more delayed because of this. But, I have to trust in God's perfect timing, even though I may not understand the reasons, I trust in the love of the Lord, because I have been saved by His Grace and His Love in my life.

So there, unfiltered, raw, my heart open, very broken, but knowing it is in the hands of the Lord to heal.

The Caliber of a Man- Russell Wilson

Hey there,
 Welcome to my blog! I write a few different blogs and posted this one today about Russell Wilson, on my sports blog. If you are interested in sports, you should definitely check out my blog. It is about sports and I write in it often, but from time to time, that sphere of my writing collides with other parts of my identity and where I can create overlap I do. So check out my post below about a recent interview that Russell Wilson was in that has many talking. Hope you enjoy!

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Hey Y'all, it's your favorite SportsGal89 Innnnnnnnnn the Buildin'!
This might be one of the few times that I diverge just a little bit from true conversation around sports and let those of you who only follow this blog, see a little more into my life.

I am a Christian, and probably like many believers and non-believers I am fascinated by the caliber of a man, that is Russell Wilson. He stands apart from many athletes and celebrities in general. When we walk in this world as Christians, we are often battling what our identity means. What I appreciate about Russell Wilson, on a human level, is that he is just solid in who he is through Christ. I love that it's not this show he is putting up, he trusts, believes and stands faithfully on the word of God.

Russell has recently made the spotlight, due to his relationship with singer- Ciara (Update: 9/12/2015- I had originally posted the video here, but then it looks like they took it down. So I found an link to a brief recap of the main points, so check out the brief story )

The news outlets have made this a story that is about him proclaiming his abstinence in his relationship with her, but for me, I am more intrigued just be who he is, what he exudes beyond the fact that he is a high profile celebrity, with another high profile celebrity who happens to be abstaining from sex in their current relationship.

The little tidbits that he shares about how God has changed who he is, how he thinks, the man that he presents himself as to the world, it literally makes me overjoyed. He is a young man that I look up to. I admire his passion, his freedom to express his love for God, his faithfulness to God and his trust in God. I think in this day and age when I think about the world I can raise my children in, I hope that as they look to these men and women who have these extraordinary gifts that they can see more people who are like Russell. It definitely makes me appreciate him as more than just an athlete. I appreciate him as a person. I respect him as a person and I hope and pray that he continues to speak the way he does. I am so in awe of the God that is inside him.

I know I have digressed a little bit from the platform that many of you come to read, but I felt compelled to share this story.

That's all she wrote folks!