Brown Sugar’s Promise…

Nine months ago, I woke up Sunday, March 17, three days after losing Kip, with another knot in my stomach. After lying in bed crying the Journey of 1,000 Tears, I told my best friend I wanted to go to church. I needed worship… I think? I needed something to make sense of this all-consuming darkness that was suffocating me. My best friend was so accommodating those few days she was here. If I wanted to do it, we did it. If I didn’t want to do it, we didn’t. If I wanted to do it at first, but half-way through, I changed my mind, WE changed OUR minds. Everyone truly does deserve someone so loving, thoughtful, and supportive.

After making my body follow the directions of my mouth, we all got dressed and headed to church. The culture of my church is a welcoming one, so when we walked through the doors, I immediately felt a bit of relief despite the weight I dragged chained to my leg.

Church started, and the Worship Team was in full swing! The lights were flashing, the bass was thumping, and people all over the auditorium were praising God. My senses were engaged, and I was finally distracted from the monster we all call grief, or so I thought… The Worship Team transitioned to the second song titled “Do It Again” by Elevation Worship. This one is generally a slower tempo. It was actually one of my favorites, so I immediately recognized the melody. I closed my eyes, and welcomed whatever God was about to lay on my heart. This had to be the moment I thought I needed this morning when I was lying in bed. But what I felt was the complete opposite. What I experienced couldn’t have been farther from God’s grace! The lyrics to the chorus are:

“Your promise still stands
Great is Your faithfulness, faithfulness
I’m still in Your hands
This is my confidence, You never failed me yet

I’ve seen You move, come move the mountains
And I believe, I’ll see You do it again
You made a way, where there was no way
And I believe, I’ll see You do it again”

 

By the time the Worship Team was in the middle of the song, this intense rage washed over me. I caught myself grimacing and grinding my teeth. My heart was racing, and my fists were balled at my sides rather than lifted above my head in surrender. How could I worship a God I was furious with? Have you ever been there? I was confident that God would heal Kip, but God had failed me, and failed to move that mountain. I prayed, fasted, believed, and had faith the size of a mustard seed, and I STILL lost the man I had prayed fervently for. Philippians 4:6-7(NLT) says, “…Tell God what you need, and thank him for all He has done. Then you will experience God’s peace…” My prayer time was set up just like that. That was how Kip and I prayed. Yet, here I was without him. Without the promise God told me. The heat that came along with the rage I felt started at my core and spread over my entire body in waves, and if I’m honest, I liked it. That was the first time I felt anything in three days. I had been walking around hollow inside, and in that enraged moment, I could feel again.

During alter call, I tried one more time to get whatever it was that I needed, so I went to the alter to pray, and couldn’t think of a single word to say. I knelt at the alter tight lipped with a hard and broken heart. Someone came over and laid a hand on my shoulder and began to pray for me; I broke. Every emotion I thought I already released seemed to come barreling out of every single pore. I sobbed loudly at the alter. I was able to angrily choke out, “God I’m here. You promised you meet me.” I questioned God at the alter that day. What kind of God would cause someone to experience so much pain and anguish, and allow the person who loved them to witness it? How could God promise me that I was an heir to His throne, and not protect me from that type of heartbreak? That type of suffering? I don’t know what I was expecting in that moment, but I got up still angry. As soon as I turned around, my campus pastor was right there. He said, “We’re praying for you,” and wrapped his arms around me. I collapsed in his arms and sobbed even more. Obviously, church was the wrong idea, right? All I did was cry, and that was the one thing I was tired of doing! I appreciated my Pastor, and I wanted to receive him and those prayers, but rage felt so much better. I pulled myself together enough to make my way back to my seat for the remainder of the service. I sat there contemplating walking out during the entire sermon. I didn’t want to hear anymore lies.

Fast forward to the last Sunday in 2019, and I was back at church, but this time on the opposite side of the auditorium when the Worship Team sang the exact same song by Elevation Worship.

Life had taken a funny turn, not bad, not good, but a turn. Grief is complex like that. I was at the alter again praying to God about finding joy in ordinary things again. God had elevated me from one level to the next, and I was feeling overwhelmed and under-qualified. I had no motivation to do anything. There were so many things I knew needed to happen at work, with my kids, with my home, with myself, but I couldn’t bring myself to do any of it.

I knew that I needed to consult with the author of the story of my life. So, I treated the alter like my very own confessional. Matthew 11:28-30 ²⁸“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. ²⁹Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” The way I view the alter is like this place that I can literally take all of my problems, worries, and issues that are beyond my control (even though I often try to handle them within my own strength), and lay them there. I go tell God what they are, even though I know full well He knows, and leave them there. That’s also how I view trust. Once I give it to Him, I know He has it. When I get up, those things are with the only One who can turn them into something He can use for my good…

I heard that same melody from “Do It Again” just as before, and the lyrics flowed in a familiar manner. I was distracted from my prayer, and jolted back to that Sunday, on the other end of the auditorium. I instantly remembered the sorrow in my heart, the confusion in my mind, and the heaviness in my soul. God spoke to me at the alter saying, “I did keep my promise. Don’t you feel my peace? Haven’t I moved mountains? Just because I didn’t move the way thought I should doesn’t mean I’ve failed you, daughter. Even now, your thoughts are a memory, not your reality.”

And just like that, I was at the alter sobbing all over again, but this time it was because of God’s goodness. It was because for so many years, I was taught not to question God, but if we don’t question Him, how will we get answers? I sobbed because He answered me nine months later, and showed me that even when I turned my back on Him, doubted His love, and questioned my faith, I remained anchored in grace.

Just like last time, someone came and laid a hand on my shoulder. I heard her praying for my strength to walk in what you had prepared for me, and it gave me so much… strength! I’m still in awe of how God uses people at the right time. Imagine if the woman who had come to pray with me had not been obedient… I said all of that to say this, the promise in Philippians 4:6-7 is that we’ll experience God’s peace. He doesn’t say when or how, but He does promise us that we will. God placed me right back in the very place when I thought taking my life into my own hands was better, safer, and wiser (man grief can be tricky and conniving). He placed me in the same place, same spot, and even with the same song lyrics to show me that nothing stays the same, not even our deepest hurts.

(Ya’ll the praise break I had after typing that last sentence tho…)

I’ve been in this dark and stagnant place for the last nine months. I can only compare it to an out of body experience. I’ve watched life happen around me – extended myself so I could see others experience the joy I lacked. I dressed numbness up so beautifully, but it had gotten heavy. Too heavy to carry into 2020. Sarah Jakes Roberts wrote, This is the season of change and transformation — your opportunity to grow. You are armed with more wisdom, discernment, awareness, confidence, and joy than the innocent and delicate person you once were” (Don’t Settle for Safe).

God, I thank you for being a Promise-keeper.

Brown Sugar Baby Girl

What I’ve learned over the years is that I have a difficult time expressing my emotions. I’ve been doing a lot of self-reflection lately, and that’s causing me to dig into the depths of who I am and confront some hard ugly truths about myself. One of those truths is that I am afraid of being misunderstood. As a result, I’m somewhat fixated on how I communicate with others.

Years ago when I was married (let’s refer to this as my situation), we attended a counseling session with this young, black therapist. He asked me a question, and I responded. It was probably passionately, because his response was that I had a harsh start-up. He pulled up what was called The Four Horsemen of Communication. I’ve never forgotten that, and it’s made me aware that I never want my message to be lost because of my tone or attitude.

So as a form of communication for my mental and emotional health, I lean heavily on writing as my form of creative expression. I heard a youth pastor at my church once say, “What God gifts you is not meant to stay with only you.” I’ve watched my daughter struggle with her identity over the years. I’ve watched her relationship with dude from “my situation” deteriorate, and how huge of a toll that’s taken on her. She’s such a smart, witty, creative little girl (and I’m not just saying that because she’s my daughter, she really is so much more than what I just described), and like her mother, she sometimes struggles to express herself emotionally. So, I’ve encouraged her to write her own blog about her relationship with her dad from “my situation” since our divorce. I was very intentional about not asking her to do this until after she’s had time to process all of the emotions from meeting her biological dad in person for the first time.

She sat beside me and typed her blog with tears in her eyes. I wish I could heal that hurt and erase that pain away from her. I wish she didn’t have to suffer her first heartbreak because of my decisions. A quote by Dr. Gabor Mate that settles at the core of who I am as a mother reads, “Anything that is ‘wrong’ with you began as a survival mechanism in childhood.” I wish my inability to know what true love was hadn’t caused my daughter to create a survival mechanism. I’ve decided to share her blog below because we often hear from the spouse or the adult children after a divorce, and not the babies. She doesn’t like to discuss her feelings around their relationship, but I need my daughter to know that nothing has or will happen to her that God can’t use to restore her. I need her to let this go. Letting go, as Sarah Jakes Roberts puts it, is “trusting that we can carry the lessons from our past in our hearts without constantly replaying the pain in our heads.” I want to teach her now, as a young adult, how to confront her hurts and let them go. As adults, I think we all know the importance behind learning how to do that at an early age. Her blog is below:

 

I’ll be honest. I didn’t want to do this. I don’t like sharing feelings especially about topics that I’m sensitive about, but today I’m talking about my relationship with my dad. In the beginning it was good, we had fun. Then one day it started to change, and next thing I know we don’t talk to each other.

I guess I should start from the beginning when I noticed the change. When my mom bought a new house, my dad didn’t move with us, and I guess you can say I found that suspicious. That’s when I noticed he wasn’t really talking to me. At the time we had a house phone, but it seemed like whenever he called, it was for my brother. If he came over it was for my brother. It started to feel like I was just this kid in the corner. Like I was some burden forced upon him. I knew he wasn’t my biological father, but did he have to treat me like an outsider?

Then for five years. Five whole years, those were the worse years of my life, ages 9-14. For five years I tried. To contact him, to build a relationship, to be the perfect daughter. But it was five years wasted. He didn’t care. He only distanced himself from me. I know, I know. You’re thinking, “Kelcie why do you think that? He probably loves you like your other siblings.” No. I watched him love my sister and brother. Laugh. Tickle. Play. Then all of a sudden when I come around the fun and laughter shuts down. I tried so hard to just get treated like a daughter. Like the daughter he seemed to love before the divorce. Everyone said don’t stress about it. You don’t owe him anything. You don’t have to have his approval. So, I quit. I wasn’t going to put in all this effort just for him to throw me in the corner again and again. To make me feel like a mistake.

But no. When I quit then its, “You need to see him. You should talk to him. Be a good daughter and talk to your dad.” But when I did, he denied access to his love and denied access to my father. And again, just like before, everyone said don’t worry about it.

Everyone thinks they know what’s best, what you should do about watching your father pull away and deny you. No one cares about what it did to you. How it messed you up in the head. How many nights you cried yourself to sleep because you knew deep down your dad, your own dad didn’t love you. How you feared to love or to be loved because of him. How you wished and prayed for a normal family with a dad who cared. A dad who loved you. But I guess everyone doesn’t get a happy ending. But you know that’s just life. It’s not fair. So, I built walls. You can’t hurt me, if I don’t let you in. But no one will know that. My mom always tells me that the bible says we have to guard our hearts, and unfortunately, sometimes we have to guard them with our parents.

People just think for some reason I don’t like my dad. They always say well why not, just forgive him, talk it out. But I said I was done and I meant it. Because no one cares about you. Your mental health. Because no matter what happens, it feels like the world is constantly and always will be against you, and the one person who is against you with the rest of the world was supposed to love me, support me, and protect me. How could the person who promised you that snatch it all away and never look back?