The Fog of Life

Recenlty, my church family has experienced a lot of pain and a lot of heartache over some negative decisions of our youth directors. As I sit here and type this, my heart is literally shattered into a million pieces. I feel like my view of church has been jaded by this situation and I just want normality back in the midst of what seems like complete chaos. I just want love to fill the crevices of hatred. I just want joy to wrap the sadness in its arms. Last night, one of my best friends from home sent me a prayer that she had wrote out and messaged it to me saying, "I didn't know what to do with this, so I sent it to you" So now I'm going to share her beautiful words with you and pray that they find you in need of some comfort.



I can cover up the pain and hurt all day long with friends and fun activities but when I stop to think its like I'm standing in the rain but can't feel the cold wetness dripping down my face.

This is all a blur because I know that if I let it become clear it will hurt me so much that I won't be able to handle this alone.

I don't know where God is in this situation. If I was not able see my friends and family also looking for him, I would have given up the search already. I hope that he will reveal his plan soon because the pain will only get worse before it can possibly get better.

What are you doing, Father? The last time I felt this hurt was accompanied by one of the best hours of my life. I'm sorry that I am questioning and doubting your abilities. I'm imperfect and scared. Help me. Here I am. Change me to be better for you

There's such truth in what she is saying there.. God of love, show yourselves to us and our congregation during this time of confusion.

God of Inclusion

I recently have been working on a paper on the Fundamentalist Takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention, and this is a little something I wrote as I was doing some work on the subject on my story and why I think this is important to learn about. =)

       As I think of church, one of the first pictures that comes to my mind is this beautiful senior adult woman in my church known as ‘Granny Franklin’ who would ungrasp me from my grandmothers dress and hold me until I stopped crying each and every Sunday with persistence and with love until I realized that I had a place in the three year old Sunday School room. As a child, and even up until my middle school years, I was very well sheltered from business meetings of the church where people argued. I was sheltered from the pain that the Southern Baptist Convention showered onto many congregations. Growing up with Liberty University and Thomas Road Baptist Church right out of my back door I never knew how many people the Southern Baptist Convention hurt. I didn’t realize until my junior year of high school what the Southern Baptist controversy was which made it a harsh reality to face when the God of love, mercy, and inclusion called me to be a pastor. I grew up in a church ten minutes from Liberty University but I luckily had pastors and a congregation that loved everyone for who they were and accepted me and my call to ministry and others in their callings as well.

     Being sheltered from the Southern Baptist conflict hurt as I began to openly share with pastors and others in my community that I was called by God to proclaim the Gospel as a pastor of a church. It wasn’t until I was hurt by many people that I finally realized the impact that the Southern Baptist Convention had on Lynchburg Virginia and many other places. It wasn’t until I shared my calling a number of times to important people in my life and their response was something to the effect of, “you would be a great youth minister,” or “have you ever thought about being a children’s minister” or even, “I think that you would be awesome starting a woman’s ministry around here, you would be great ministering to women in our community” that I finally removed the shade that had been blinding me and finally wanted to know more. I wanted to know why I couldn’t be a pastor. I wanted to know what made women and men different to serve God. I had more questions that I had answers and I had more anger than I had joy. I was mad at God and I was angry at my church for affirming me in something that to so many people seemed morally wrong. I was angry at my loving and caring church family for allowing me space to grow and to use my gifts when I realized in the real world or at least the real world of Lynchburg that my gifts were not valid.

        Thankfully though I was able to come to a beautiful place called Carson-Newman where the pieces began to fall together. I saw the beauty in so many places such as seeing Dr. Christine Jones serve God by being a minister not only at church by teaching but also by being a professor and proclaiming God’s words that are written in the Old Testament. The lights finally began to fully shine as I sat in chapel in complete awe of Rev. Julie Pennington Russell preaching at a chapel service, which was the first time I had ever heard or seen a woman preach a sermon. It was through Dr. Chad Hartsock wrecking my Christmas story, in New Testament Class, that I had always believed, and then through Dr. Ross Brummett putting the pieces back together and allowing me space to think and to feel the love of God through Spiritual Growth and Development that I was able to fully understand that Baptist’s have conflicts but that God calls boys and girls, women and men, and grandmas and grandpas the same. I was able to fully understand that God is not an angry dictator that can’t use women and men equally and that sometimes we may not understand God and what is asked of us. Learning about the Fundamentalist Takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention provides answers to questions and opens many doors for people to serve God no matter who they are because we serve an inclusive God that is full of love. Learning about the Fundamentalist Takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention allows individuals and congregations the ability to take a step back to really realize what we believe about Christianity and God.

Let the Healing Rain Fall

Precious God! I come to you tonight on behalf of my entire congregation of Randolph Memorial Baptist Church and we are broken. I pray that you cradle us in your arms and comfort us like a mother rocking her restless newborn to sleep. Help us find rest in Your arms. Help us to find peace in the midst of this chaos. Help us to cope with the stabbing pains that consume us. Help us to mourn because we have lost something precious to us. Help calm our anxious thoughts as we are reminded that You love us and that You created us. Help us to share with You our deepest hurts. Allows us to cry at Your feet because we do not understand what is going on around us. Help us to ask questions even if they have no answers. Loving Sustainer, help us to stand when all we can do is lie on our faces in tears. God, help us to find community in one another. I pray that our circumstances will not consume us but that the similarity of the pain we all share will bring us closer to one another. As we are blinded by the mist and fog of wounded hearts, give us new visions that we cannot see on our own. Daddy, help us to spend adequate time mourning the loss but during that time, strengthen us to dance to the beat of the new life song of Randolph Memorial Baptist Church. Give us voices to sing praises to You, The Almighty. Don’t let us wallow in our sorrows but rather give us a joy that cannot be taken. Give us words to proclaim Your goodness. Give us new life, shower us with abundant joy. Help our church to regain its health and heal our wounds, O Great Physician. Peacemaker, shine Your light on those who criticize and help them to see that they are wasting beautiful moments of their lives by wreaking havoc on the lives of others. God, do what You do, show us what You have in store. God, we know that You alone bring beauty from ashes and we are looking forward to when that moment comes. Amen