Moving Up and Going On

“… when I was a child, I spoke as a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child …”

What are “childish things”? They are behaviors and mindsets that are commonly found in someone that is irresponsible, unwise, double-minded, and immature. Can you name a few? I sure can… misplaced priorities (i.e. paying for your vacation before your rent/mortgage), quitting a job because the child support agency finally caught up with you, refusing to contribute to the monthly groceries with your roommates because of the two nights you decided to eat out last month, mocking the misfortune of a person whose car skidded on a patch of black ice during a blizzard…

Those are obvious, right? Well, let’s go further… What about Unforgiveness – can that be considered a “childish” thing?

So many of us talk about Forgiveness, but have no real concept of what it is, how it works, or the power that it possesses.

Forgiveness means that you release a person from debt or vengeance from whatever wrong s/he committed against you, even if they never ask for it. However, it does NOT guarantee or obligate reconciliation and it does NOT mean that you must leave the door open for the same thing to happen again…

We have all been emotionally wounded or disappointed at some point in our lives, including dating relationships. We will let go of the offense and move on, but there are just as many people who are determined to hold on to that grudge, refusing to let it go and be free. Years will pass and, during a casual conversation, your colleague causally makes mention of your previous partner. As if on cue, you immediately replay the situation as if it occurred minutes before, rekindling the flames of the past, forfeiting another day’s peace or night’s rest because of your grip on an old wound. Meanwhile, your ex has released you and the pain of the incident, and is enjoying life.

A more destructive pattern of Unforgiveness is of what we refuse to give to ourselves. Many of us suffer self-inflicted guilt, defeat, and blame for what we’ve done to ourselves or to other people. Indeed, the act may have negatively affecting all parties involved, but if you are alive to see another day, and have been forgiven by your Father, you must, for your sake, learn to forgive yourself – even if the ones you hurt have not yet granted forgiveness to you. Yes. Now, this is not a license to manipulate grace or take advantage of the situation, but it is a time for you to repent, grow, and work on the only one that you can change – you.

If you are on this Earth, you will experience pain and disappointment in life. Your partner WILL say or do something that hurts or angers you just as YOU will say or do something that hurts or angers your partner. More than likely, it will be nonintentional, so choose your battles wisely. Every word or action is not worthy of a response – however, if it is, consider your words, tone, and mood before you do. No matter what, by all means, FORGIVE – let it go and move on.

How? One day at a time. One step at a time. The breakdown did not happen in an instant, so the restoration will take time as well. Life has taught me that it is those small things – the faith steps – that have the greatest impact in our lives. A house is made up of many parts, a cake is made from many ingredients. So it is with rebuilding and recovering – they are comprised of many small steps, leading us to our destined place. The important thing is to keep going, and keep growing.

Now that you are a man (or a woman), it is time to put away childish things…

© 2017 International Kendra

Is “Help” What You REALLY Need?

Have you ever – no, let’s be honest – do you recall a time when you were in a place of need, and it seemed that no one was around to help you? No matter how many numbers you dialed or who you reached out to, there was no answer. Doors continued to close in your face. For a while, it seemed that everyone had deserted you, that you were in over your head. Fear gripped you, worry kept you awake at night. You had no idea where the money for your mortgage would come from… when – or if – you should walk out of the marriage you feel that you’ve solely worked on keeping together… or if your investment would bring in enough profit this month so that you can avoid yet another bankruptcy

Life is full of challenges and dry places. We ALL encounter them, in some form, more often than we care to admit. When we are met with fiery trials, what do we tend to do first? Oftentimes, our immediate reaction is to look towards family or close friends to help us solve our problems or make things work. The frantic calls made to your parents go unanswered, the texts and voicemails left for you best friend receive no reply. You reach out to the 100+ names in your contact list – yet no one is available.

“Why won’t he accept my calls?!”

“Where are Mom and Dad today?!”

“She would expect ME to help her if she needed it!”

“I texted her six times already!”

Sounds familiar? Always there for others, but no one seems to ever be there for you when it is your time to receive. No help, no rescue, no assistance. Storms are raging in every direction, but there seems to be no way out – the more you scream, the greater their intensity. Those situations can be very stressful, upsetting, and disappointing. However, take heart; there is a valuable lesson in the adversity. It can be stressful and upsetting, but it is also a very teachable moment. This adversity may very well be for your good.

There are three types of adversity – one, to destroy you; two, to warn you of impending danger; and three, to teach you how to trust when you can’t see your own way. So before you choose to cancel or proceed with an opportunity or situation, discern the timing and the circumstances surrounding it. Remember, all sickness is not unto death…

 Oftentimes, help will NOT come. This is the only way to produce the fruit from the seed in you, and for you to recognize whose strength your assignments are completed in… In this, you will learn to trust your true Source.

If you never found yourself in the position of sickness, how would you know that He is a Healer? If situation never became tight or almost impossible to beat, would you know that He is a Waymaker? If the circumstances in Life were always advantageous to you, would you ever recognize His favor? How could you see Him as the Miracle-worker if you could figure out the way out of a mess on your own? And would you ever learn to lean in depend on and trust Him if people never failed you?

Being rescued from a situation isn’t always what we need – His power being revealed for you and through you while IN the situation is…

©  2017 International Kendra

When things go low, Provision has already gone high

Oftentimes, Life catches us “off-guard”. Our routine is interrupted by circumstances we can’t control – those that have the potential of revealing our helplessness. Though the situations are unexpected, we do not remain unprepared, even if we have YET to see the way forward.

Last Thursday night, as I walked into my front door from work, I received a call from my teenage son (so I thought).

“Hi, is this Kion’s mom?”  It was a girl. #sideeye

“Yes”, I replied. When I heard her voice, I immediately assumed that he lost his phone.  To my shock, she was calling to tell me that my son was injured at school.

After her brief explanation, I thanked her and asked to speak to an adult. She handed his phone to one of the school coaches, who informed me that my son was hurt while was playing flag football in the field. Apparently, on the last play of the game, while running at full speed, he hit a huge tree before he could stop himself. The large branch hit him so hard in the head that it knocked him backwards, and he somehow landed ON CONCRETE, on his face, arm and left hand – the same hand that was broken less than 2 years ago from a football injury.. There was so much blood, the teacher/coach thought he had a head injury and they could not tell where he was bleeding from…

A handful of my closest colleagues know that the transmission/engine on Shelby (my SUV) croaked on 12/12/16 and we’ve been using public transportation since, so what was my first thought knowing I could not pick him up from school? No, it was not panic or hysterics – it was “This darn boy!” LOL. I reminded our Father – then told the school staff – my transmission went out and I had no means of picking Kion up. They asked where we lived (one can live anywhere in the county to attend his school), so when I told them how far away we resided, I was ‘expecting’ to be told that I would be stuck between a rock and a hard place. Instead, one of the staff (whom he says reminds him of me) volunteered immediately to bring him home, and take us anywhere we needed to go.

After 30 minutes or so, they arrived at our home. My son was still his teenage self, so I knew all would be fine. He was in pain and still had a nosebleed, so to the hospital emergency room we went… This ‘angel’ waited for us, took us back home, refused my thanks (so I forced it in her purse), then sent a mass text to the teacher and students who were frantic and worried about my son. The next day, an announcement was made at school. See, Kion is not only the Track captain for his school, but he is the student who convinced the school system to implement Flag Football in the first place, so there is some accountability on his part…

In the midst of this unexpected circumstance, a miracle had manifested. From the time that we drove onto the hospital property to the minute we drove off, was less than 2 hours…  My son landed full speed and face first on CONCRETE – nevertheless his arm was not broken, fractured, dislocated or sprained; all he had was a soreness and stiffness from muscle strain. He was never incoherent or “not himself”. There was no head injury or concussion; only a quick bout of slight dizziness on the ride from the school. His nose was neither broke or displaced; there was only swelling from the fall and a small cut on his bridge… Amazingly, his glasses were not damaged. They did not break and the lenses were not scratched – the ONLY reason you can tell he fell onto them is due to the few scratches on the FRAME… The best part was my son’s sarcastic question as he was being discharged with only a prescription for Motrin.

“So, Mom, I guess that $150 copay was my birthday present, huh?”

“Oh, yes”, I said with a smirk.

Smart child. 🙂

Would it shock you to discover that this whole situation was an answer to a prayer from 3 days prior? Yes it was! I asked to see His hand, that I needed a miracle… Hmmm, not quite the manner or manifestation that I was expecting the response/answer to be, but I did get one.

Reader, as you continue on your journey, remember these 3 things:

• In every situation that He allows us to endure, be assured that provision is already there. Our responsibility is to speak it into existence, and not be afraid of ‘strategic transparency’ (i.e. revealing my private trial of having no car). Though ‘Life” WILL happen to us, He is mindful of what HE has permitted in this season and will not leave us in a deeper bind (i.e. intact glasses, no need for expensive surgery)

• Choose not to harp upon what you don’t have right now (i.e. resources for a new car, etc.), but stay focused on what He has called you to do (i.e. International Kendra, daily inspiration, connections and expectation of greater etc.). When it is YOUR time, your tenacity, drive, faith, resilience, obedience, and boldness will be rewarded. You never know who is watching, or who knows someone that knows someone that has what you need.

• HE HAS NOT LEFT YOU!

Let that encourage you today.

© 2017 InternationalKendra

The Stifling Sound of Selective Silence

Can you hear it? The stillness in the air. The silence of the sheep…

A serious question has been pondered, “Why are many men and women of God not saying much right now?” Indeed, it is an eerie sound. I’d like to tackle that question. The reason why is because, as with all humans, many of (us) men and women of God are also facing an internal battle between their faith and their feelings. Most have never seen such an intense physical manifestation of what has been going on in the Spirit realm since the beginning of time. The deafening silence we hear today is also the indication of the rockiness in the foundation that many of us are REALLY standing on, rather than the one that we SHOULD be on.  We are living in the day of “All or Nothing”, “In or Out” and some of us think that we will triumph by having one foot in the yard and the other on the sidewalk… Some are also entangled with fears of what ‘friends’ will think, what family may say, or what their colleague might do if they take a stand or give a definite answer to the question of “what say you?” No, it may not be right, but it is real. It must be addressed… and corrected…

Many of us are playing footsies with issues or people simply because they are of like-gender, like-race, similar political affiliation, and slap a scripture on it to make it sound sensible in our own minds. No, no, no! We keep looking at the outer appearances, but what we fail to see is that it is a HEART issue, not a physical one. Many men and women of God have aligned themselves with causes, plights, organizations, and people based on feelings or outer appearances. True, there is no denying that certain groups or places have tighter strongholds, but that doesn’t lessen the importance or value of any other. We must return to our foundation, what we know to be just and true, and build from there. We must return to the GOD perspective, and loosen the opinionated, emotional one.

Through our silence, some of us have become the very thing we caution others not to be – hypocrites. Society has unfortunately conditioned many of us to give a pass, make an excuse, or walk in defensive denial of a person’s wrongdoing when we share a societal-driven major commonality with them, such as race or gender, even when we KNOW they messed up. If we do not share one, we are more prone to suspect that their motives are deceptive or dishonest, even if they did the EXACT same thing for the same reason as the other person. We have also been conditioned to react to the emotion of what is popular with the masses rather than that respond to the root of the issue…

Let’s talk about it –

1. Kim Burrell and Vicky Yohe. Some of the men and women of God who shied away from the association and defense of the statements spoken by Ms. Burrell during a recent service (things, by the way, that ARE in the Word, though communicated by her in a seemingly unconventional manner), were some of the SAME ones who condemned Ms. Yohe to the “Pit of Hell” for a meme she reposted about her PERSONAL OPINION of the outcome of our recent presidential election because her perspective didn’t line up with their own. …
2. Some of us men and women of God will take sides against the crooked Caucasian police officer that used bigotry as her reason for shooting a non-Caucasian young man, but will not address or abhor the senseless Black on Black murders that take place in Chicago on a daily basis…
3. Many people (including men and women of God) condemned the late Bishop Eddie Long for the alleged actions against some young men he mentored – but some of these SAME people will defend R. Kelly to the moon and back – or simply keep quiet when the conversation comes up…

Corporately, we have become comfortable with picking and choosing what we are “for” and what we are “against”, based upon how it will look to others, if it will benefit us personally, or what is popular at the moment – then wonder why we are losing our respect, integrity, and influence with the world – and why we do not see tangible Divine power in our own lives. Many of us are unstable, sway with the blowing of the wind, flip-flop like a confused fish out of water. Many of us have allowed our ever-changing FEELINGS to override our (supposed) certain FAITH. Many of us have become ‘splinter-pickers’ while trying to hide the planks we personally possess… Guess what? Your feelings – my feelings – OUR feelings do not change ANYTHING He has said, so get over them, over yourself, and do what you are supposed to do!!!!!

We are here to judge the SIN, not the sinNER. We are supposed to call out the actION, not beat down the actOR. However, in our haughtiness, we have taken it upon ourselves to give more weight to some wrongs more than others when, in reality, EVERY person with an unconfessed salvation and unrepentant heart will end up in the SAME place! We weren’t called to emasculate, condescend, or condemn. We are to emulate the One who is LOVE. Walking in love means loving the PERSON, meeting them where they are without compromising who you are, and empowering them to rise above or out of their brokenness and dysfunction with truth and power.

Nothing we see today makes sense – but when have His actions and thoughts ever made sense to us???  Many are scratching their heads thinking, “Surely, that is NOT God! That man is no good… What can He do with her? She messed up so badly, it’s pathetic…” Is that so? Remember David – the adulterer, the murderer, who not only was the man after God’s own heart, even with all of his constant wrongdoing during his kingship… Remember Paul, the one we would call an Islamic extremist? He wrote at least 2/3 of the New Testament of the Word we stand on today… and what about you? Are YOU perfect now? Do you not still mess up, whether in your words and deeds? So who are YOU to say who or what can or cannot be used?

When the lies, drama, and smoke screen clear, the truth will be the only thing standing – and ALL of the blood from the things and people who were lost because you chose to lie, appease, enable or coddle, rather than be honest with, will be on your hands. Yes, men and women of God, WE will be held accountable for what we do –and what we don’t do – with every opportunity and every test. When the harvest is ripe (as it is now) and while it is day. Just as He is watching the ones who DON’T know, He is watching the ones that DO know yet have CHOSEN not to do. If you don’t stand for something, while in the face of adversity, you will fall for anything…

We will ALL reap what we sow from our actions – and our silence…

© 2017 InternationalKendra