“I will worship with all of my heart,” the praise team began singing at the start of the service. “I will give you all of my worship. I will give you all my praise.”

 
The service at the Beijing International Christian Fellowship (BICF) wasn’t like the rousing morning worship at home. As my daughter said: “It wasn’t Baptist, but it was something.” (In photo above, from left, Yvonne stands with her sister Margaret and her pastor Rev. Cynthia.)

It was quite something – a gathering of believers in a country where church life is controlled by the government. It was evidence of the continued growth of Christianity in China, amid Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism and Islam.

Hundreds of people from many nations filled the large auditorium at the 21^st Century Hotel, which serves as home to many of BICF’s 18 congregations. People from more than 70 nations attend the international, non-denominational church, which began in 1981 and now holds services in nine languages in three different locations.  

Since we arrived in Beijing last week to settle my daughter in for a semester abroad, Cynthia had talked about finding a church to attend. We talked briefly about what it would be like to walk into a Chinese church, if there were one close by. Would our presence disrupt the service? Would government officials watch us after the service because we are foreign Christians? 

On Saturday night, Cynthia searched the Internet for Christian churches in Beijing, and found several that catered to English speakers and persons holding foreign passports.   

We took a taxi Sunday from our hotel to the BICF for the 11:30 a.m. service. We showed our passports to enter and found seats in the auditorium. It was like being in a large multiethnic church at home.

Communion was served early in the service, followed by announcements and an offering. The minister, an American who used to live in Oregon, sat on a tall stool and talked about the importance of using your gifts and abilities as ministers of God to help in the work of the church.

It was a message that I had heard many times before some 6,000 miles away. And like before, it challenged me once again to examine myself to see if I have fully surrendered my gifts to God. It was good to hear the same Word of God preached here that is preached at home, and to sing with believers from around the world, “Jesus, Jesus, I love you.”

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 Then age 9, Charles touched my heart when he stared into the camera and declared: “We just need some help out here. It’s so pitiful.”

I saw Charles again today on television. The 14-year-old told NBC broadcaster Lester Holt that Hurricane Katrina was “like a scary movie that I would not want to see again.”   

Some 1,800 people died after hurricane-swirled waters crashed through levees and flooded 80 percent of  the city. Hundreds of thousands people were displaced, businesses were destroyed and many people left for places far away.

Holt told viewers that he returned to New Orleans on the fifth anniversary of Katrina to see if life had gotten back to normal. For many, many people there, it hasn’t and it won’t. Many have had to deal with a new normal.

I met a family of four nearly five years ago who moved to Savannah after Hurricane Katrina destroyed their home and their lives as they knew them there. They were blessed to meet people in Savannah who helped them get settled and find work. Now that family is doing well and enjoying their new city. They have no plans of returning to New Orleans.

Charles says he wishes “that things would kind of be back to normal” in his city, but  he recognizes that may not happen. “New Orleans is not back to normal,” he said. “You know, a lot of people may think that it is, but it is not.”

In the five years since Hurricane Katrina, thousands of people in different parts of the country and the world also have had to deal with natural and man-made disasters that have upended the normal flow of their lives. What use to be isn’t anymore for so many people due to hurricanes, tsunamis, tornadoes, earthquakes, volcanoes eruptions, snow storms, terrorist’s attacks, mine collapses and oil rig explosions.  Floods in Pakistan from month-long monsoon rains have claimed the lives of nearly 1,700 and left homeless millions more. And the rains and the floods are continuing to bring calamity. (Photo from the Associated Press)

What happened in New Orleans five years ago, which was captured in all its misery and despair on television, was unimaginable. But since then, so are the disasters in Haiti and more recently Pakistan. We are not living in normal times.

While our personal storms may not compare with what Charles and millions of others have suffered and are suffering, some of us have encountered some our own earth-shattering events that have caused us to rethink  at times how we  continue to live our lives. Deaths of loved ones,  lost of mortgages, job terminations, children in trouble, illnesses, divorce, to name a few.

 I have learned  that when my normal has been upset to turn quickly in prayer to the one person that is constant.  God is unchanging. Faith in Him is the only way that I can deal when my way of living, thinking and doing has been turned upside down.  When I trust in God, I don’t as easily lapse into wishing that things would be like they use to be. Instead, I look forward in hope for something much better than before.

How did you deal with the seismic changes in your life? What lessons, if any,  have you learned from observing what happned in New Orleans about dealing with life-altering disaster?

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If we really believe that we can do all things through Him who strengthens us, what would we do to make a difference in this world, in our communities, our homes? How would we build up God’s kingdom on earth?  

Or  what’s stopping us if we believe what Matthew 17:20 says: “I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

Maybe we don’t believe. Or just not enough.

 All weekend I heard messages about God’s power and how He wants to work through willing vessels to accomplish His will. At a women’s symposium Friday night at a church in Silver Spring, MD, the speaker talked about women standing firm and being obedient to God’s word. We can become conduits of God’s power, she said.

Donna Partow talked about the importance of praying, trusting God and seeking His peace for our lives. “The time is so critical we can’t afford to be women in turmoil,” she told the women.

On Sunday, I attended two services where both ministers expounded on allowing God’s power to be at work in our lives. At the early-morning service, the 20-year-old minister talked about getting past the things that distract us from doing what we are suppose to do for God. The other preacher entitled his sermon, “OMG” (Oh My God in text shorthand) and used one of my favorite Scriptures, Ephesians 3:20-21, to bring home the message that we must stay connected to our power source . Which goes:

“Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”

For those of you who are already using the power within to do God’s work in the world, may God bless you to prosper as you glorify Him. To the rest of us, let’s fully uncork the bottle of our potential and let the power of God lead us to do some amazing things this week.

A final thought from this quote, which I have also used over the years to spur me on:

 “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”  – Marianne Williamson

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That’s a message that’s good for any day of the week, any moment of the day.

Gospel group Israel and New Breed belts out the song, which is entitled, “Trading My Sorrows,” with spirit-filled gusto. It always gives me an extra bounce when I hear it. So to wake up with it playing in my head just signals to me that today is going to be a great day, no matter what.

The news today is filled with depressing stories (what’s new there?); a couple of family issues have me concerned (if it not one thing, it’s another.) ; and I’ve got a long list of important things to get done before night falls (who doesn’t?). But before I allow myself to be overwhelmed by any of it, I am going to let the words I heard first thing this morning continue to run in my mind like a CD on automatic replay.

I am encouraged today also by the testimonies I heard yesterday from members of my church. We sometimes open space in our Sunday services for members to tell of God’s working in their lives, and yesterday a communal  blessing filled the sanctuary as the members related their stories of overcoming sadness,  breaking through financial strains, experiencing physical healing and surviving storm damage. What started as distresses for them ended in rejoicing.  

They know that the joy of the Lord is their strength and believe as the Scripture says, “Weeping may endure for a night but joy comes in the morning.”  For all those waiting for night and day to pass again before experiencing joy, Israel and New Breed sings that “Morning is not necessarily what has an AM next ot it. Morning happens when you wake up.”  Even now.

Darrell Evans wrote “Trading My Sorrows”, which was birth spontaneously out of a worship service, in 1997 and calls it one of the powerful songs he has ever written. The song has become one of the most sung worship choruses in churches around the world, according to Crosswalk .com.

In this song about  “trading sorrows , sickness and pain and laying them down for the joy of the Lord,”  comes this wonderful, empowering  refrain, “Yes Lord, Yes Lord, yes, yes Lord, Amen.”

What a great wake up call.

What was on your mind when you woke up this morning?

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Given the context in which she was speaking, which I won’t bore you with here, she pushed a good point that I revisited several times since our somewhat one-sided conversation.  

But when you are wrong, you just ought to say “I apologize” even though you know it’s probably not enough to heal the hurt you caused. An apology is better said than not in that case, I believe. We saw a glaring example of that this week during Shirley Sherrod’s rollercoaster ride in the media over an edited tape that tried to make the USDA official and a Georgia NAACP branch look like racists in action.

Without giving her a chance to explain, her job was yanked from her and she was vilified by some media pundits. Sherrod, who had spent her life battling unfairness and injustice, saw the twin evils visiting her again.

 Sherrod was a study of grace under pressure as she grappled with the fallout from the doctored video. She got more public apologies in one week than she had received in her lifetime after the full video revealed the redemptive nature of her speech. From the country’s chief commander to one of the country’s biggest mouthpieces, Sherrod received a rush of mea culpas and an offer for a better job from her boss.

“I asked for Shirley’s forgiveness and she has been gracious enough to give it to me,” Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said earlier this week.  ”I did not think before I acted…This woman has been through hell.”

A sincere apology has healing powers. When we make amends, especially when we do it before hearts harden, we release God’s grace into our life and the life of the person we’ve offended. We create space for good to flow to us and to others, especially in situations like Sherrod’s when so many people felt the sting of her rebuke.

Author Margaret Lee Runbeck says it this way:

 ”Apology is a lovely perfume; it can transform the clumsiest moment into a gracious gift.”

When you have knowingly or unwittingly wrong someone in word or deed, do you quickly apologize or do you wait hoping time will erase the memory? Are you waiting for someone to tell you “I’m sorry” for something they did or said about you? Is someone waiting on you?

Today, decide to apologize or to forgive. Open up space in your life for God’s grace to flow through you.

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“Be authentic,” she said, using Psalm 1: 1-3 for Scriptual context. “God can do more with you being you than He could with you trying to do what everyone else is doing.”

To be authentic is to be real, to be genuinely who you were created to be. It is knowing that you are “fearfully and wonderfully made” and living your life with the knowledge that the Creator desires His best for you. When we do our best in each of our daily transactions, we glorify God and bless people in ways small and great.

Today, I encourage you also to think about “Do You.” Are you living the authentic life God created you to live? Are you doing today what God called you to do? Do you know what He called you to do?  These are questions I ask myself sometimes as I meditate on God’s word.

My own queries today led me to someone whose work I greatly admire. Mother Teresa, who died at age 86, remains in a league of her own. I’m inspired when I read about how this gentle, loving woman allowed God to use her to touch the lives of so many through her work with the poor.

She clearly lived an authentic life and exhibited a Christ-likeness in all her endeavors. She described her call this way in the book, “Mother Teresa, In My Own Words.”

“We all have the duty to serve God where we are called to do so. I feel called to serve individuals, to love each human being. My calling is not to judge institutions. I am not qualified to condemn anyone.

 I never think in terms of crowds, but of individual persons. If I thought in terms of crowds, I would never begin my work.

I believe in the personal touch of one to one.  If others are convinced that God wants them to change social structures, that is a matter of them to take up with God.”

Fortunately, we don’t have to try to emulate Mother Teresa. The call to “Do You” is specifically and singularly for each of us as we walk in faith.

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The bill was signed last week and goes into affect Aug. 15. It makes Louisiana the seventh state to allow guns in houses of worships. In Louisiana’s case, guns are permissible as long as the pastor says it’s okay and permit holders take an additional eight hours of tactical training each year and serve as part of the church’s security force.  In some other places, people already make guns a standard church accessory.

I just cannot imagine going to a church where members are allowed to carry weapons in their purses, in the small of their backs or holstered to their sides. The thought of hugging someone during the passing of the peace at my church and accidentally feeling hard steel press back against me is unsettling. The peace that I seek in church would elude me.

Several years ago, a member who was in law enforcement caused a minor stir when he wore his service revolver to the church I attend. For me though I’m still not completely comfortable, that’s where I draw the line – police officers or other law enforcement persons coming to worship with their weapons but not as members of an armed church security force.

The impetus for the Louisiana bill and other gun-in-church legislation comes from the increasing number of church-related shootings that have occurred in recent years. I understand the fear and the need to feel protected. But still is this the correct response?

 Do we trust our guns more than we trust our God? Increasing so, I am afraid, across socio-economic, racial, ethnic and age groups in our society.  For growing numbers of people, and I know a few, guns are little gods. All powerful, and there to protect and to render judgment.

An opinion article published yesterday on Religion Dispatches sheds light on the dichotomy. Written by Welton Gaddy, it was entitled “Bobby Jindal Squares Packing Heat with Jesus” and asked the question, “How does one promote a new law that allows guns in church with the Prince of Peace?”

Gaddy, who pastors a church and heads a national interfaith alliance based in Monroe, LA., believes something is wrong with the increasing infusion of civic rhetoric with the language of faith.

“Why would civic leaders not want one of the last institutions devoted to peace-making to continue that important work in a society addicted and fascinated by guns?”

What must God be thinking about all the gun violence in our communities and our churches, and the response from church folks and government officials to it?

I’ve heard of instances in black churches where trustees have brought guns to church meetings  and once attended a church where a shooting had occurred following a meeting. That’s frightening enough. But as way of life for church-going, I cannot fathom knowing that along with toting their Bibles, my fellow members are packing their pistols.

Where is God in that?

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Surely she had to scream during slavery when some slimy creepy body climbed on her belly to use her as a receptacle. I know she screamed then but not out loud. Or when she – in the name of survival – had to give her breast to nourish somebody else’s child, while her child lay home thirsty, craving her warmth.

Or when she busily moved around in the kitchen, keeping her back to her children so they could not see the leaky tears burn her face or hear her groan in prayer. They were unaware as they sat at the table chattering that the stove was cold, the ice box warm and the cupboards bare.  

Scream she did, but not out loud. Romans 8:26 says the Spirit intercedes for us with groans words cannot express.  

Thankfully, these horrific moments are bits of second-hand history for many of us. Our lives are generations removed from those oppressive days. But on the scream-worthiness scale, we’re right there. Today’s Black woman, like her internally screaming ancestor, has much for which to scream. Like when she begins remembering at 25 what happened to her at 5, when her uncle used candy to entice her to come near. She kept it at bay for two decades, but now the specter of the memories won’t go away and she’s afraid for every little girl she sees near any grown man. Not only does she try to re-suppress the memory, which she’s not even sure is true since it was so long ago, she now also tries to quell the scream.

Or when in the courtroom she sees her teenage son or daughter, whom she put to bed each night with thoughts of Morehouse and Spelman on her mind, now standing before the judge with hands and feet chain-linked between some other mothers’ children over something stupid. No more Morehouse, now the big house. She can’t scream in the courtroom, lest they haul her away, too, or think it’s her fault that her child turned out this way. So she holds it.

Or when she  arrives home early and finds her man in bed – her bed – with another man and he declares before her eyes it’s not what it looks like.  Her intention is to scream out loud, but nothing comes out.

As bad as it gets sometimes, rarely do we get to scream out loud. Throughout history, our survival and the survival of those around us have hinged on our postponing, camouflaging or suppressing the out-loud scream. No wonder we major in heart disease. This inward shout to human ears sounds like groans. Our saving grace has been in knowing that the Spirit speaks our language of groans and translates them into prayers according to God’s will. Our hope is in knowing that there’s always a groan – an inward shout – before the glory.

So when can a Black woman scream out loud?

Is it at 20-something when her childhood friend’s father blindsides her with a proposition now that she’s all grown up? Or is it when she has the dream career, dream house, dream car and dream appearance at 30-something, but wakes up to realize that the dream duped and deluded her by not measuring up to all that? Or how about when she looks around at 40-something and realizes her chances of ever marrying, experiencing childbirth, or even having a lasting committed relationship have faded with last year’s underbrush?

Can she please scream then? Or how about this: when she realizes she no longer has a clue who the man beside her in bed is, even though she has laid with him under the same blankets for nearly two decades. He’s a stranger to her and her to him. Or is it when her son starts acting like her daughter and her daughter starts acting like her son? Though she loves them just the same, can she scream out loud then? Or when she suddenly realizes the reflection in the mirror resembles her, but that person is 30, 40, 50 or 100 pounds heavier than she ever thought she’d be. Please, can she scream now!

These are glimpses into the real-life stories some Black women share.

And yes, there surely are those whose charmed lives may never have experienced such tragedy. Even now someone is standing up in protest to declare that all her days have been good days and all her decisions have been right. I’m not mad at you. Work it. But work it realizing that what the old preacher used to say is still true: “If tragedy has not visited you yet, keep on living, daughter.” All I ask is that you have compassion. Realize that if you scratch just beneath the surface of many of your sisters, there’s an ear-piercing, eye-squeezing scream waiting to get out.

I once heard a poet say “every woman needs a day.” I agree. So here’s what I suggest. Once a year, we take a day for a Black woman to scream. B-W-S-D. Black Woman Scream Day. Rather than sleep the pain away, we’ll scream. It’s a day to fill up your lungs, stretch wide open your mouth, shake your head side to side in fury, and let out a loud noise that shakes the very foundations of the earth.  

One woman screaming is plenty, but just imagine if we all got together in an abdomen-tightening fellowshipping exercise, like the wailing women of the Bible, and just let it all out. And I don’t mean to be exclusionary, so I invite all of our Latina and Asian sisters, Jewish, Muslim and Buddhist; White, Pacific Islanders, American-, East- and West-Indian; gay, straight and bi-sisters to join in. (I’m not changing the name, though. We unapologetically and unashamedly must take ownership of this.) Take the day off and scream. Scream for yourself and for the woman who cannot scream.

We don’t scream because we are weak or because we have lost it or because any of this has gotten the best of us. We scream in protest because we know that this is not how life is supposed to be. We scream because we have the strength yet left in us to do so. Because we have not been defeated. Our screams are not in despair, rather they push out new life, new hope. They declare these dry bones still do live and they cry out not just with breath, they cry out with a loud screeching ear-piercing noise to say to the world “though you thought I could not, or would not, today – maybe just for today – I can and I will scream, because if I don’t I think I’ll lose my mind.”

And afterward, at sunset or perhaps the day after BWSD, we will do like we always did: Begin weaving together the frazzled remnants of our sanity, gathering up the tiny pieces again, and putting it all back together so everybody and everything can be all right.

Can I get an amen?

  ²⁶In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. ²⁷And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will. – Romans 8

_________________________________________________

The Rev. Dr. Cynthia T. Turner, pastor of the Dayspring Community Church in Lanham, MD, writes occasionally about the “Righteous Mind” on the Soul Rhythms blog.

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“Hey Sis,” he began. “Just wanted to touch bases.”

“God is good, even when we aren’t good,” he said, as he talked excitedly about the changes he was making in his professional life. He was finally leaving the NAACP, the organization that he loved and for which he had worked practically all of his adult life.

We praised God together and talked about “the options” God had presented him. We talked about how prayer had sustained him through difficult days and had helped him when he needed to make critical decisions. “Oh yeah,” he gushed. “I know.  I am always gonna pray.”

After a few more minutes, we hung up. I proceeded with the busyness of my day, grateful that I had stopped by home in time to receive his second call. I had missed the first one my son told me when I arrived back home that afternoon to pick up my daughter.

That was 10 years and almost a month ago, but even with my faulty memory I clearly remember that conversation and rarely resort to my journal for its details. Earl died in a car accident on an Alabama highway near Montgomery on June 11, 2000, the day after we talked. He was going somewhere, doing a thing that he loved.

I have come to view our conversation  that day as God’s gift to me. To know how happy he was somehow mitigates the pain when I think of his death. Today I am thinking of his life and how much laughter and love and service and purpose he crammed into his nearly 50 years.

Today would have been Earl’s 60^th birthday, and I am recalling some of the lessons I learned from my brother.  For me, he remains a prime example of a person who lived his life with purpose. From the age of 13 when he began volunteering with the NAACP youth council in Savannah, Earl’s sight stayed fixed on working for the civil rights of others here and aboard.

Here is a shorthand version of lessons I learned from my brother’s life:

Find something you love and do it with passion.

Be authentic. Live who you are in all situations and with all people.

Treat all people with respect and have no respect of persons.

Take your mustard seed of faith and find a way to do the things you desire to do.

Commit yourself to something. Don’t be a fence-sitter.

Love your family with all your heart.

Develop deep, enduring friendships.

Be righteously indignant about something at some point in your life and use that energy to make a difference in the world.

 Don’t take yourself too seriously or analyze everything. Sometimes a movie is just a movie.

Know and love yourself; more importantly know and love God.

                ————————————————————————–

In keeping with Earl’s spirit and commitment, my family in cooperation with the Ralph Mark Gilbert Museum and the Savannah Branch NAACP is sponsoring The Earl T. Shinhoster Youth Leadership Institute July 26 -31 in Savannah. The Institute seeks to help youth ages 12 -14 discover and sharpen their leadership potential.

Peace and power, brother Earl.

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Over the years, I have gotten energized and focused about living with intentionality from my exploration of books such as the popular, “The Purpose Driven Life” by Rick Warren and, as I mentioned in an earlier blog, “I will not die an unlived life,” by Dawna Markova.

However, it was probably the four-series MasterLife Bible studies, followed by the study, “Knowing and Doing the Will of God” by Henry T. Blackaby and Claude V. King,  that I undertook at our then-fledging church nearly 13 years ago that provided a foundation for my own definition of purpose.  I see my overarching reason for being as “serving God and edifying people.” 

It is in the carrying out of that purpose that I am now having some questions. I am involved in many good efforts through my church, my volunteering with the local Baptist convention, the College of Prayer, this blog, my family and some friends. Lately though, I’ve found myself  praying after awaking, “Lord I want to be useful to you today,” and then sometime afterwards  asking “Lord, am I accomplishing your purpose for my life with all this stuff….what is my larger purpose?”

Then while reading the book I purchased recently for my women’s ministry work, “Pathway to Purpose for Women” by Katie Brazelton, I found a passage or two that put my questioning on pause.  Brazelton, whose own life narrative provides a powerful testimony, writes that there is a strong connection between “going today where you have been sent today—no matter how difficult, incomprehensible, or unrewarding it may be—and a future, take-your-breath away assignment from God.”

She goes on to say:

“God has chosen a series of specific, daily tasks for each of us, and we accomplish those through our roles in our family, church, vocation, and community. He also asks us to handle the tasks-at-hand in our personal life (including our mental physical, emotional and spiritual well-being). Although we may not see the value in these common requirements, God is committed to using them to accomplish his purposes. So we must learn to trust Him as the Sovereign Lord of our “today.” Instead of asking, “what remarkable task do I want to tackle for God,” a better question is, “What does God want me to be and do in my routine world today?”

So today I’m taking one step at a time and fulfilling my purpose by doing today the work before me. I also am  keeping my heart and mind open for God to bring forth in my life what He desires to accomplish for His greater glory.

Have you read or studied any good books on purpose written specifically for women?

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