August 2017 – Cassia's Place

This week I posted on Facebook with regards to events in Charlottesville, VA, “I pledge not to look away, not to offer the cop-out of “It’s complicated” as an excuse for doing nothing. This white supremacist garbage is straight out of hell, and we’ve got our work cut out for us as the body of Christ to unseat an ancient evil. But our Jesus will have the victory in the end.”

I truly believe we, the church, have an opportunity to respond to God’s call for unity within His body and then work shoulder-to-shoulder to fight what is ultimately a spiritual battle against racism, sexism, class-ism and any other “-ism” that’s not’s reflective of Who we serve. (If you need a starting place to understand that vision, check out some folks like Derwin Gray and Trillia Newbill who are speaking and writing eloquently on the topic.) With that vision in mind, I want to remind us of two tools in our tool belts, forbearance and forgiveness, that will go a long way in helping as we dismantle old mindsets and walk in Christ’s will for His earth. I’ve written a few chapters about those two things in New Woman, New Clothes, so I’ll share some excerpts this week and next.

And sisters and brothers, hold tight to Galatians 6:9 and let’s not grow weary of doing the good things Christ is calling us to do, for in due time we will reap a harvest!

Continue reading “what house are you building?” →

On Saturday I stood waiting in a crowd.

Our numbers grew, time lengthened, but we were not unhappy. True, we were all a bit anxious, a bit tired, but you would have seen various ones of us continue to pop up onto our toes and crane our necks to see down the corridor, hopeful looks on our faces.

At one point I caught a blur in my peripheral vision. A boy of perhaps 10 or 12, dressed up in black slacks and a pink-hued button-down ran from the crowd and around the metal barrier to launch himself into the arms of a woman clothed in a long black dress and headscarf. The little guy was equal parts smiles and tears! I’m not ashamed to say I, too, shed a few happy tears as I watched them enveloped by a larger family near us, the boy never leaving the woman’s side.

We watched some version of that scene play out over and over in the course of an hour at the airport’s International Arrival lobby:

A gentleman with flowers awaiting his love.

A scruffy-faced backpacker arriving to scan the crowd for his parents.

A group of families cheering as our rumpled teens finally came through the corridor.