Using your device to Serve Christ!

We've all looked down our noses at those buzzing, ringing and sometimes singing Sunday service cell phone offenders. Most rules of cell phone etiquette suggest we silence our devices or leave them at home.
But is it really so bad to use your cell phone or electronic device during service?
I can see it being rude to interrupt the sermon with annoying rings or vibrations. Also, checking scores and Facebook statuses are without a doubt uncool. But I think there is a place for my phonw in service.
Some examples:

1. Awesome Apps — No, I'm not playing bubbleburst during service, but with so many helpful apps on my smart phone, I find it indispensable during service. First of all, there's my Bible App. It allows me to follow along quickly. I'm not super Bible-literate, so it helps me track down passages quickly instead of flipping through pages, I can bookmark my favorite passages and even share them with my friends via text or Facebook. I love it, and it helps me continue studying Sunday's message all week long. I may not carry a Bible everywhere I go, but my phone is with me 24-7, so I have no excuse not to explore the Word with my bible on my device.
2. Notes — Ok, so this is basically anther app, but taking notes, making list and other reminders helps me to practically use the word after service. This week my pastor gave us 12 steps to forgiveness, I immediately made a checklist in my phone, something I have referred to twice already (It's Monday)
3. Status — I know, I said checking your status wasn't cool, but that's totally different from updating it! Sharing a weekly message with friends and family is an excellent practice of evangelism. We may not all be called to preach, but all Christians should freely speak the lessons we're learning on this journey. Hey, did you think twice about posting that latest viral video?

These are ways I feel comfortable pairing my faith with my attention deficit issues and addiction to technology. How do you use your device to serve Christ?

In God's hands

Something was wrong. It was about 5:30 a.m. Friday morning that my body woke me and brought me to this conclusion.
My left hand was itching. And not in the 'lookout now! I got some money coming' kind of way. It felt like I had my hand had been bitten by 100 mosquitoes. I got up and turned on a light to view the hand that was surely swollen and inflamed. nothing. I was beginning to feel uneasy. Something was wrong. But what?
I'd prayed over my family. Things were good, great even. We were speaking God's word like middle schoolers speak 'yo mama' jokes. My husband and I were even discussing, planning for our approach to teaching our child the word of God.
But something was terribly wrong.
I went back to sleep.
Three hours later, as I read the morning news updates on my phone it hit me.
I had skimmed headlines about the Indonesian volcano story all week. But I never seemed to have the time to read it. That morning however, I had a little more time. I didn't have to read past the first sentence to realize what was wrong in my life.
You see, amid all of the disaster stories in the news — those stories about other people in other countries with problems other than your own – there was one, on the other side of this planet, that applied directly to me.
My best friend, Irma Paramitha and her family live in Yogyakarta where the volcano erupted. And all week I had been reading about Kanye West and 'For Colored Girls' and Lindsay Lohan. while someone I loved was literally dealing with disaster.
ugh. what's up with that.
So of course, that's when the Devil hit me!
"How could I be such a bad friend," I cried to my husband.
He told me things would be alright.
"I can't believe, I didn't think about it until now,"I weeped to my friend.
She told me not to worry.
"What if she didn't make it," I worried over the computer.
The news stories reported most had evacuated and the dead were mostly farmers.
"I'm just so worried about my friend," I sniffled to my daughter.
She told me God would take care of my friend.
And then the Devil gave up, I suppose, because any guilt, worry or distress I had felt melted away.
I cried about it. I prayed about it. There was nothing more that I could do. And my baby was right. The situation was and is completely in God's hands.

In the beginning

Today I'm reclaiming two very important parts of my identity: My faith and my word. I won't say I ever lost these two traits, but somewhere along the line, I convinced myself that I didn't have the credentials or the right to share these parts of me with the world. One day I stopped writing short stories and monologues. One day I stopped talking about how the Lord was working in my life. And now I find it difficult to share even the simplest thoughts or feelings.

It seems that when you don't uses the gifts the Lord gives you, he feels inclined to take them away.

So today, I'm going to try again as I've tried before. I'm going to write. I'm going to blog. I'm going to share and if it is God's will, I'm not going to stop.

Now the thing I've been battling with the most lately is trust in God.

Recently at church, we had a series on practical atheism which, as I understand it, is professing a belief in God without actually acting like you believe in God --sounds better coming from my preacher.

Anyway, during this series, there was a lesson on trust and the question was "Which do you trust more God or Money?"

And it's funny because normally in service, I'm listening to the service like "Oh that's my husband all day!" and "Um, hmm I was like that once" or "If only my friend could hear this one!" But on that day, that man was talking to me.

That day, I realized that I'm praying to God for the money I need to obtain the security I want when I should just be praying to God for the security. I should just be praying to God to ensure I have everything I need, but instead I'm praying for $10,000 more dollars a year.

That one really hit home. Because at the end of the day, I was depending on the dollars and cents, not God and I knew that there was a time in my life when I could ask the Lord to provide me with my needs and he did.

That realization made me really question a lot of my actions and struggles over the past few years.

In that one moment, I realized that I had received every blessing I ever asked for and was still unhappy. Every monetary goal I ever spoke was achieved, and still there was a sense of longing, a sense of failure. And in my darkest moments, my prayer was always if I had $5,000 more Lord, if I could just make this amount, I know my problems would be solved and I could do your will.

I was really ashamed of myself and of how far off track I had gotten that I could believe that any amount of money would fix my marital problems or make me a better person or instantly activate a better Christ follower within.

No amount of money is going to give me more time, effort or energy to write or to reach out or to become a contributing member of society.

But any amount of time that I put into reading the word, sharing my faith and listening to the Lord would help me come closer to the real goals I set for myself a long time ago.

Because I do want to eventually have a home big enough and wealthy enough to sustain any and all friends or family members who need a place to stay. I do want to create a charity. I do want to write a book and be heard and make a difference. But I don't want to wait on the world to make that happen.

So today, I'm stepping out on faith. I'm sharing my thoughts, my faith, my words.

And I''m claiming my blessings, not in dollars but in spiritually tangible goals that I am sure the Lord will move mountains to help me achieve right now without a dime to my name.

Pray for me, or at least think about me, as I embark on this journey to reclaim my gifts and share them with the world.

Seriously lawmakers?

Reading a story about the end of the Missouri legislative session and I come across a bullet at the end of the story about a new abortion law awaiting passage. If state lawmakers have their way, women in Missouri will be required to see an ultrasound and hear a heartbeat before being allowed to have an abortion. SERIOUSLY? I can't fathom a situation where I would want to have an abortion, but I imagine that people taking this decision lightly are in the minority. If a woman has gotten to a point where she has decided she cannot support a child and cannot afford a pregnancy. Why make her go through more anguish. I don't think the law should be allowed to guilt women into changing their minds, there are enough private groups covering that territory.
I know not every issue is race related, but this whole ordeal calls to mind an article I was hipped to last week that connected the anti abortion movement to the want to breed more 'white babies'. It's sounds extreme, I know, but then you see how invested they seem to be in other people's business and it's like 'What's the real deal?' I don't know, check out the article, connect it to my thoughts, see if your mind makes the same connection.
Are Anti-Abortion Groups Targeting Black Women?

The secret of my success.

When you're brought up in a family of strong, successful women, failure takes on a whole new meaning. You find it was never about whether you won or lost the battle. It was never about making the right choices. It was never about obtaining a certain lifestyle. Failure and success hinge on how we play the hand we're dealt. Ok, you lost this battle. You made a bad decision and you're piss poor ... what are you going to do about it. You're failing as long as you keep waiting around on someone else to fix it. I will not wait. I will succeed.

In living color

"Look, there goes another one!" I whispered, nudging my husband as we walked through the Wal-Mart entrance. "Do you think we should say something?"
He gives me the 'Are you serious?' look then tilts his head as if it wasn't such a bad idea after all.
We're counting black people.
We're not racists. It's just taking some time getting used to being a true minority.
We moved here from Arkansas. Before then, we lived in Mississippi and in Memphis, Tenn. Lots of black people. Lots of Latinos, Asian, Middle Easterners even – lots of color.
Here, not so much.
I never thought of myself as a person who needed to be around other black people. People are people right? I even avoided attending an HBCU so I could attend a college with more 'diversity'.
Of course, diversity looks different on this side of the Mason Dixon line.
It only took me three weeks to break down and sheepishly ask a black woman if she knew of any places I could go to get my hair permed.
She replied with a knowing smile and wrote down the number to a kitchen sink beautician and told me that might be the best I could do.
It sounds strange, but I feel like I took my culture for granted before this move. Things that weren't important to me before are pressing issues now.
Things as simple as the lack of R&B songs on the radio, or my daughter wanting to wear her hair down everyday instead of the multitude of plaits, twists or braids she liked so much before.
And who do you talk to about all these feelings without sounding racists?
On the bright side, I'm pretty sure no one at work notices how badly I need a perm.

Essense of hood

What is hood?
My stepson visited us last year when we lived in Pine Bluff, Ark. — known to locals as 'Crime Bluff.' The comments he made to his dad seemed to express an eagerness to see 'the hood.'
So my husband asked his 'Son, what do you think hood means?'
Fast forward about a year, we've moved to Missouri — caramel candies in vanilla sea — and according to my stepson, we now live in a better neighborhood.
I'll admit, there are less grown people at home at noon, which is a relief. There are less gunshots, less break-ins, less domestic calls. More people walking, smiling, waving, talking. A lot less color.
But, my pregnant neighbor and her live-in boyfriend are drug users and dealers. So is the couple sown the street and about ten other people on our block.
Last week my husband was hanging out and a bitch stole his phone.
I mean she straight jacked him for his Blackberry.
She ran off, used the phone for two days, then sold it.
The guy she sold it too tried to sell it back to us.
The host of the gathering suggested the best way to resolve the problem was to let her 'beat that bitch's ass' as she had been waiting too long to do so.
So now I'm back to my husband's question to his son.
'What is hood.'
Because the way I look at it, it's a state of mind.
It's the mind set that tells you to do certain things certain ways that you should know better about.
It's in all of us, but only a minority of us choose to live in the state indefinitely.
I have to admit to harboring many of my own hood tendencies.
But I learned from growing up in a family full of non hood regulators you shouldn't let your mouth write checks that your ass can't cash.