The concussion

It was early December, what was still considered a fall day in Michigan , since the leaves were falling unusually late this year. There was still no snow on the ground and despite our several attempts at leaf pickup so far, our neighbors late falling leaves would manage to pile themselves up in tidy piles against the exterior of our home. Jeff and I decided to dress like we were hardy lumberjacks and clean the garage  so we could keep the cars clean when winter would eventually descend on us . Jeff was in the backyard shed  storing bikes and wheelbarrows while I intently focused my efforts into moving kids scooters around to keep them out of our way all winter. I had this genius idea of  storing the three scooters in the 2 1/2 foot gap between the top of a garage cabinet and the ceiling. I decided using a ladder was a waste of  my time since I could clearly just throw the scooter in the air and it could easily land in its intended winter storage location. It was a short distance to toss a wimpy little scooter. I tossed it up and it landed perfectly on the cabinet as I knew it would...like I said : genius.

I turned to see  scooter #2 laying  against the wall. I picked it up considering a repeat maneuver. Immediately I noticed its weight was a bit heavier than scooter #1.  It must have been made of recycled  cast iron bathtubs or something. I was perplexed because the weight didn't seem to match the object. It was unusually heavy.  I held it  in my hands lifting it up and down  to consider its weight for a few moments pondering   exactly what kind of metal it was made from or where on earth  it even came from. "This couldnt't have been purchsed at a store could it?", I decided it was likely welded together in one of Miles friends garages and left behind some summers ago. I moved on to the task at hand next considering  if I could pull off another cabinet toss to get this thing out of my way.   I decided my plan was still brilliant and settled on the toss in the air storage method. I lifted it above my head and kind of gave a 1-2-3 before I released it in the air.

I'm not sure if it was my horrible scooter tossing abilities or just the sheer weight of the thing that thwarted my plans, but the scooter hit the front corner of the cabinet and returned  towards  me at  twice the speed. I have no idea which part of the scooter it was that hit me on top of my  head ; but by the feel of it, I'm 100% certain it was the heaviest section , probably the end of the part you'd stand on over the back wheel.. It hit me so hard on the head it knocked me off my feet and sent me to the cold harshness of our oil stained  concrete garage floor.

On the garage floor, I thought for sure I would  be dead in a few  seconds realizing the gravity of what had just happened and coming to full terms with how stupid I was for attempting such a thing in the first place. I yelled Jeff's name quickly thinking in a moment I would be unconscious and laying in a pool of my own blood and brains. He never heard me. Still conscious, I got on my feet  and ended up in the house crouched on the kitchen floor holding my head crying and praying out loud.  I was feeling my head with my hands and then quickly  viewing my fingers expecting to see all my blood as I  asked God to protect me from my own stupidity.  Moments went by and I then I realized I was spared.... there was absolutely  nothing. There was  no blood. I never lost  consciousness. There wasn't even a mark or a bump swelling anywhere on my head!  It looked like I was going to survive my own foolishness.

I  wandered outside to find Jeff still in the shed so I could tell him what had just happened still amazed I was even alive.  I was a bit dizzy from the hit and we both supposed I'd experience at least some sort of concussion. We came inside and he attempted  to check my pupils using the flashlight method.  Soon realizing neither of us had a clue what we were looking for. "Are my pupils supposed to be tiny? Are they supposed to be too big? Is the size changing at all? Wait, Im facing the sun with a flashlight in my face,  is that interfering with the light from the flashlight"? We abandoned our attempts at playing doctor.  I was just so thankful i wasn't dead realizing how hard I'd been hit.

"I'm just going to lay down on the couch for a little while"

"Don't fall asleep though, I think you'll die if you fall asleep"

There I was, awake on the couch recovering for nearly an hour before I decided to suck it up and  carry on with my day. I wasn't about to spend another winter with a cluttered garage. So, I  finished  the garage, I went grocery shopping, made dinner, and  salads for the work week for my husband. Yea, I had some dizziness, a bit of nausea, but was relieved to be alive thinking the concussion would pass in a day or two.

The next day I went to coffee with a friend and  played pickleball and seemed to be okay. The day after I played pickleball again and started realizing  I wasn't  exactly  okay. Elderly players, twice my age,   who  had no business beating me were slaughtering me in every game.  As the hour passed and I continued to play, I started having  double vision, dizziness, slow reaction times. I knew something was wrong.  The third day, Wednesday, I worked a full day on spreadsheets and payroll software. I ended my day bundling up and taking a hike  around the neighborhood before bed.

 I woke up Thursday morning with full blown concussion symptoms.  It was time to call my doctor who  had me in her office by 10 am. She confirmed what I already knew; I had a concussion.  There's not much a doctor can do from a medical standpoint for a concussion except admonish you for being so active. Evidently exercise and thinking exacerbate concussion symptoms.  She prescribed  me  two weeks of "brain rest", restricting my driving, walking, Christmas shopping, and pickleball. I was told to go for a short walk a week later  and come back immediately if the symptoms were triggered again to reassess the concussion. She put me in a time out three weeks before Christmas.  It was in that moment I realized the mercy of God on me that somehow this year I had managed to get all my Christmas shopping done before Thanksgiving...something that I have never once in my life accomplished.

I set out to do nothing in my den for the next 7 days until that glorious day I could walk and put an end to this "brain rest" foolishness. I sat in the lazy boy with a book  trying not to look at facebook on my phone. It didn't work. Pretty soon, I found myself debating a mob of liberals and admonished one  for using the wrong spelling of the word "their" in her sentence.  When she quickly, and correctly,  pointed out it was actually used in the right form, I was horrified at my failure as an annoying grammar Nazi to makes such an obvious mistake. So I apologized and turned my phone off to save myself further embarrassment.  I tossed some wood in the fireplace and decided to just sit and do nothing...all.day.long.

My mom had called me earlier in the week to tell me, to her devastation, that  Bob was leaving...... most likely forever.  I tried to put a positive  spin on the news to cheer her up assuring  her we were thrilled at the prospect of her coming to live with us so we could take care of her during her battle with pancreatic cancer. Months previous, we had set our house up anticipating and hoping for her arrival. I'd purchased new bunkbeds in both the boys bedrooms so Jeff and I could share one room and the twins the other, freeing up  our large master bedroom and private bathroom for my mom.

 A few days before Bob flew back to Florida forever and a few days after my concussion,. He decided he wanted to stay in a hotel and asked my aunt to pick up my mom. She wasn't at my aunts place a full day when my aunt realized how sick she was and decided to bring her the emergency room in Ann Arbor where she  had been doing chemotherapy. The next morning sitting in a quiet hospital room with my aunt and her cancer doctor, still reeling from the devastating news that Bob was leaving, my mom told her doctor she wanted to discontinue chemo and said she was done, she wanted to die.  We found out she had several large blood clots in her lungs that could end her life at any moment. She didn't want to be treated for the blood clots and she wanted a dnr order. The doctor agreed with her plan . My aunt was half convinced too. Even if she wasn't, she was told she couldn't change the orders since my mother had been in her right mind when she expressed her wishes to die. That was a hard phone conversation I had with my aunt. It was Friday, day two of brain rest when I received the news. I started planning my trip to Ann Arbor to get my moms spirits back up.

It wasn't enough that my mom was in the hospital initiating Dnr's while I was prohibited from my doctor in making a three hour drive on icy roads. I spent my morning trying to figure out who could drive me. Jeff would stay home with the boys, Miles was working. Zoe asked her boss if she could go and she said "no" initially. If things weren't chaotic enough, they were only about to get worse. I  received a call from the twins school secretary,  notifying me they were out of meds for the kids 1pm adhd med dose at their school located 30 minutes away. So  I  started searching for someone to get the boys medication to their school. Jeff was at work, I was restricted from driving.  I called their dad, who answered his phone in  the emergecy room  an hour away with his new son for a cold.. I called Miles who was at a friends house. He'd planned on getting blood drawn that morning at the hospital and didn't have class until 11:30 am. I pleaded with him to until he finally agreed. He'd have to go to the hospital first since he was fasting for his labwork, stop and grab fast food, drive 15 minutes  home to  get the twins prescriptions,   make the 30 minute trek to their elementary school,then drive back to town before his class.  I called the twins school secretary  to let her know the plan and  filled her in on my  concussion dilemma.

At 10 am I received a phone call from a nurse at the lab. "Is this Miles Lamaires mother?" I figured she was calling to get permission to draw blood for his labs since he's 17. She wasn't. "Um, Miles was here to get labs done and um... when he got to the counter to sign in, he fainted and hit his head...pretty darn hard on our counter "...."we uh, called 911  and they took him to the e.r, you'll probably want to come down here"  I said "you have GOT to be kidding me?"  Next thing you know, , I'm driving a car again, with double vision,  on icy roads. Fortunately it was close by.

Miles ended up being okay and concussion free. But it didn't stop the e.r. from holding us in an obnoxiously brightly lit room (in the humble opinion of a person with an actual concussion) for two hours. I called the school secretary again to tell her my son, who was going to bring the meds in, was now in the hospital for a possible concussion himself and no meds were coming, and to apologize to their teachers on my behalf for whatever was about to happen with my med free twins in their classrooms that  afternoon. . I'm sure at that point she firmly believes I'm a serial liar, because the story is honestly just too far fetched.

 The lab Miles fainted in was actually in the hospital right down the hall from the ambulance services that "transported" him to ER. So when they called 911, they literally pulled a stretcher down a hallway and wheeled him down another hall to the emergency room, same floor, theres wasn't even stairs or elevators involved in this process! My insurance paid $600 for this.

 Miles told me his version of events. He was in a crowded waiting room about to sign in, he fainted...woke up to a crowded  waiting room full of people staring directly at him. A woman who'd been standing behind him said she tried to catch him but failed as she was little and he is 6 '2. The lab technicians wouldn't allow him to move or get up  until the "ambulance" came because he'd hit his head and they feared the worst..... so he laid there for 10 minutes on the floor as a waiting room spectacle until the stretcher arrived. When the stretcher arrived, the much less concerned "ambulance" worker simply said.." just get up yourself  and lay on the stretcher" as Miles stood up, laid on the stretcher as they rolled him 150 feet down the hallway.  Miles and I had a great laugh about it all in the obnoxiously lit continuously beeping curtained off e.r room.

The next day I managed to convince Zoe to drive me to the hospital in Ann Arbor to see her grandma Patty for possibly the last time. After driving with my 19 year old daughter 85 miles per hour on icy roads fiddling with her iphone to change her spotify song on the radio every 15 seconds, I was  convinced I would have been safer just driving myself concussion and all. Somehow we both  survived both the trip there and back, although I'm sure I left indentations on her passenger side door handle. Today is three weeks and three days since the concussion. I've managed a trip to Ann arbor, another trip to Detroit to sit by my mothers hospice bed in my grandmothers den for the remaining six days of Hannukah , her death, planning a funeral, attending her funeral, coming home to celebrate Christmas , and starting the process of designated trustee per my mothers will. Who has time for "brain rest" in this life? RIP mom.

The funeral

I hated a room full of people sitting around my grandpas death bed taking selfies with him. There I said it...I just hated that. I didn't want to remember my grandpa that way, half there, half dead and starving to death in a hospital gown with people grinning like idiots  around his hospital bed. I just wanted to see him make silly faces and tell him again about what he had to look forward to if he trusted in the forgiveness of God. That this moment ..... this weak death bed moment where you cant even get up to use the bathroom could soon be replaced by another moment so brilliantly different. 

He said "Can I have some coffee?" and my grandmother agreed to let him have a cup even though he hadn't had food or liquids in more than a week. My uncle went to the kitchen to try and figure out how to use their coffee maker. 10 minutes later, Leo was saying "I just want a simple cup of coffee, I asked three days ago!". I told him I'd heard the  service here was really slow. . I eventually  got up to leave and stopped by my grandpa and told him, to the awkwardness of the cousins around me,..."I'll see you on the other side Grandpa"...It was all I could think of in the moment. I didn't want to say goodbye. I was still hoping that the same God who miraculously had showed up and worked all this time would save him. He said "I won't be there, will you be there?" I told him eventually I would and to look for me. He agreed.  Now I just leave my anxiety at the cross and  and trust God with the rest. I'm amazed at the attempts He makes to rescue us despite us, we certainly are a stiff necked people.

When he was buried it was raining and cold and I wore the wrong shoes. My heels were sinking into the  soft burial  grounds I trekked over trying to get inside  the waiting half tent that would semi shelter us from the rain and wind.. We stood under this tent with astro turf and fold up chairs as they lowered his casket into the ground. Darby and Cooper were wearing suits and I imagined by their expressions this would be a moment that would be etched in their memory forever.  There was a wheelbarrow full of dirt and two shovels adjacent to his grave where family and friends could line up and toss a heap of dirt on his grave. A few times we'd notice the shovel was upside down, the backside f the shovel facing up and the next person in line would use the backside of the shovel to scoop the dirt up with and toss on. It happened maybe 4 or 5 times . Later at Shiva, my nephew Alex would ask "whats the significance of the shovel being used backwards?" I wish'd I'd had some symbollic historically rooted answer, but the truth was, as I told him then, ... we're just a bunch of Jews who didn't know how to properly handle a shovel...how often do you see Jews shoveling afterall?" The only time I can think of Jews shoveling was by compulsion in Nazi Germany, and they were digging their own graves. We haven't taken up shoveling since.

My mom was too sick to attend her fathers funeral, so she livestreamed from the hospital in Ann Arbor.  So many people told us how sorry they were at the service. I felt so lucky to have had my grandpa with us for so long. 93 years! I was sad my mom had to miss it.  He died peacefully , she was in agony. He had a wife and kids he loved. She had a long list of exhusbands she didnt love. He ate pie for meals. She hadn't eaten in months. He had a good life, she was never content.  He flirted with nurses, cracked jokes, and sang songs. She asked the nurses why they kept asking her questions they should know. I hadnt seen her smile since the summer. There was nothing to be sorry for as far as my grandpa was concerned. Its the way everyone can hope to go when their time comes. I pray my mom receives half the comfort he felt , and I pray she accepts Gods fogiveness for her so she wakes up eternally in a completely different state than this one of discontentment she's had for so long.

Wrestling with God genesis 32:22

How fitting that God gives us this account of wrestling with God in His first book of the Bible. We all  wrestle with God in the beginning don't we? Until we learn and understand who God is, how much brighter, stronger, more knowledgeable He is than we are and we eventually learn to TRUST Him. How fitting to put this historical event only 20 pages into Gods Word where new believers and  seekers can easily reach before giving up on Gods Word as they become preoccupied by the weight of the world and their own storm clouds.

But here we have a story about a dysfunctional person from a dysfunctional family which we can all relate to:

Jacob; he's cheated his brother Esau out of his inheritance by impersonating him, with the help of his mother,  to his blind and old father. He's been living in Paddan-aran where his father directed him to go after he blessed him. He's lived there for a number of years taking on two wives who've spent the next few decades competing over how many children they could bear for him. He had twelve children by the sisters and the sisters handmaidens who were also used to bear children for the wives. He's now fleeing his father in law  Laban and Labans sons after learning they do  not regard him well. The Lord tells him to return to the Land of his father, Canaan, where his brother Esau still lives. Jacob pulls all his livestock, wives, children, and property together to begin his trek home in the direction of his brother Esau, who he royally screwed over years ago and hasn't seen since.

He is afraid, he is burdened...the weight of the world is on his shoulders. He has been living his own way for a long time, scheming to get his way, being schemed by others on the journey. He loads up the caravan and sends the women, his children and all that he has across the ford of the Jabbok river, and all of a sudden He is ALONE for the night. A man shows up, He's no ordinary man...this is God himself in the flesh. Jacob wrestles with Him. The text says "when the man saw that He did not prevail against Jacob, He touched his hip socket (Jacobs) and Jacobs hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Jacob clung to Him and would not let go "until he blessed him" the text says. Jacob left with a limp that day. God won.

Are you wrestling with God? Are you fighting to do things your way and God is fighting back? Are you winning the fight? Has God touched you to disarm you? Are you limping yet?? If you are, might I suggest you do what Jacob did and cling to Him (the man, God, a,k,a Jesus).  In every biblical story from Genesis to Revelation, and this story here, in Genesis 32:22, the one that clings to God is eternally blessed, as Jacob was when he left the riverside that day.

Jacob continued on his journey towards Canaan to meet Esau fearing for his life. yet God went ahead of him and  prepared Esaus heart. Esau warmly embraced his brother  Jacob ,"he fell on his neck and kissed his brother."

Perhaps you fear the people of God, the people you have slandered for so long you fear they will reject you.  Don't be surprised when God gives you a limp and prepares hearts ahead of you.  When the people of God see you walk with a limp, they will show great mercy towards you and embrace you warmly....because we all also walk with a limp my friend.

NFL kneeling

I've been mulling this over for a few days now trying to figure out what exactly it is that grates me so much about NFL players kneeling for our national anthem. It started with one player who publicly announced it was because of police brutality towards black individuals in the wake of Ferguson.

Here's my biggest problem and the source of my uneasiness about it:

Standing for the national anthem and our flag is the ONE thing that unites us as Americans. We are a nation of different ideologies, skin colors, origins,  political allegiances, faiths, zeal for different causes, and  passions. There is NOTHING homogeneous about us except we are all human and American . The ONE thing we have in common is our country, that flag that binds us. The freedoms we fight for today and men have fought and died for to protect in this great country. How fitting to play the national anthem at a sporting event where giants battle their opponents, in team colors and an audience shows up to support their side in painted face and team apparel. But for a brief moment before it all begins, we all TOGETHER with our "enemies" on field and in stands, ... STAND  for what unites us, America. We are all citizens of the greatest country on earth that people have lost lives for, protecting our freedoms. If we don't stand together for that, for country, TOGETHER, we literally have nothing left. 

I understand passion for a cause. I am passionate about the abortion debate in this country. But why would I attack the very foundation of our country, the country that affords me freedom to speak out against our current laws on abortion? Its because of the flag and our anthem I can stand side by side with my fellow Americans who I wholly disagree with and unite that we are in this together, that God can still prevail NOT by attacking our countries flag and song, but by reasoning with my fellow Americans using my free speech in an attempt to win hearts and minds. This messy freedom loving constitutional abiding country that we love, I won't attack that. I'll stand for it. And I hope you'll stand with me and be offended by any who are small enough to not stand up with me.

 Read carefully the lyrics to the national anthem. We are in a place in this country where we are at an ideological war with eachother , like the anthem states..."the bombs are bursting in air", but in the end, the flag was still there. We are all here today because of that, through good times and bad. There is powerful symbolism in that. Are you willing to stand for the flag that  has endured and remained even after the dust of war  settled? Will you stand for the land of the free, and home of the brave?

Oh, say can you see,
By the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hailed,
At the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars,
Through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched,
Were so gallantly streaming.
And the rocket's red glare,
The bombs bursting in air,

Satans M.o

We can learn a lot about the m.o of satan in Genesis 3, literally page two of the bible for those of you who tried reading the bible and gave up :) Here's what Satan does, on page two and still today.. pay attention, .you might recognize his voice. "Did God REALLY say You must not...(what God said)"...he gets you to question what Gods very plain and simple instructions are....then Eve ponders what God said, reiterates what God said...Satan refutes it, convincing her its not true...she ponders it again, see's the object that God forbid looks good, pleasing and desirable . And......she goes for it. I bet if you pay attention, you can hear Satan speaking directly to you today...maybe you listen to it so much, you actually don't even know what God sounds like anymore.

the flippant snowboarder militant uncompassinate antiabortionist

Written about me by a "prophet" from an apostate group I was shortly meeting with and left by the urging of the Holy Spirit.



It's interesting that of the 6 women In my life who've had abortion(s), 5 of them were due to rape and/or physical and sexual abuse. There is one who had 3 or 4, very flippantly when she was young because as she puts it, she wanted to "go snowboarding." She has since found Jesus. Though she and I disagree on many issues, I love her and respect her. I believe she loves Jesus with passion. She is intelligent, well-read, well-studied, very knowledgeable about the Bible, and after living so many years as a "liberal," now, is deeply rooted in a very conservative belief system. Interestingly, of all these women, she is by far the most militantly and vocally anti-abortion, and, sadly, the most shaming of all. The others, who I know have deeply struggled with their decisions, both at the time of making them and now, are far more graceful and gentle with those who find themselves in positions that are not always black and white.


My response:


Those odds in your friend circle are astronomical. Did you know that the average abortions since Roe vs. Wade is well over a million per year? And, of the roughly 58 million abortions, statistics show that the percentage of women who are victims of rape is less than half of one percent? In Florida (2015), a state that anonymously records reasons for abortion, 92% of women having abortions cited the reason as "elective", the other big contender was 6% for economic reasons. Again, rape was less than 1%, so again bravo; your friend circle is some type of statistical anomaly.....or maybe I'm just more honest about my own sins than the people you hang with as your ONLY friend who flippantly ended a human life? It is kind of a strange thing to fire up facebook and see someone telling your story but embellishing the number of abortions you've had from one to three or four and then using you as an example of a person who is an uncompassionate, shaming, and militant antiabortionist. And I understand the confusion, maybe because in my story, where I came from, most of my friends and family members had abortions, and yes a few of them more than four. I grew up in a "liberal"culture that hated "religious oppressive republican Christians" (even though i didn't know any) with their rules and values about how life is sacred. We sort of hated them and thought we knew better. We believed the lie that abortion was just a medical procedure removing a "clump of cells", not a life. And of course life only has value if we decide it does right? God Shmod. I decided long ago to quit playing victim, here's what I learned about hurting people, they hurt other people. I used to reflect on my life, my broken family, my own instances of sexual abuse and use that as an excuse for my own bad behavior. When God allowed me to see the story behind one of my own molesters, that he himself was hurting and broken because someone else had hurt him, and he hurt others, the cycle went on and I was part of it. Is it possible a woman (less than half of one percent) reported having an abortion due to rape is hurting the child because she has been hurt? Why is the child paying for the sins of the father, especially when adoption is available? Jesus helped me break the chain reaction of harm , no more excuses for my sin. He pricked my conscience as a baby christian about the sanctity of life (it took Him two full years), He humbled me for my own actions and called ME to repentance, not to victim hood, not to justify my sins. Jesus is a victor and in Him, so I am I. So as much as I have rights to claim victim status as the world sees it, I don't anymore...and that was a life changer for me. He showed me how valuable life is, even for unwanted children in the womb. And now, I work to prick the conscience of the world who calls human life "clumps of cells" and decides its okay for people to harm their own children .....even if you're the .05% who was harmed by another person. You know what I love about Christ? the beauty He creates from the most horrendous of situations. Thank you for calling me a militant antiabortionist. When people talk to me on the fence about their pregnancy because abortion is a legal option and they're facing some giant in front of them; finances, rape, just scared they cant handle a child, I encourage them that the God who made the universe and everything in it, He's bigger than their situation no matter how enormous and terrifying the situation is, God can redeem it., He's good, He can make the most beautiful life for you even though it seems impossible and everything in you is saying to just abort and go on. Trust Him, don't harm your baby, Trust Him and see what He can do. You speak of compassion, but for some reason, the compassion ends when it comes to the life of the child who's literal life is on the line. You didn't have to correct the embellished parts of my story because someone called you out on it, you seem to operate on false heart wrenching fiction anyways, its how you keep the narrative to keep abortion legal. Whatever gets you a lot of hearts and Facebook likes. I'm shooting for eternal treasures and mercy, Gods Word tells me for this I'll be hated, and I'm okay with that, I please an audience of ONE. And remember it doesn't have to be 100% grace OR 100% Truth. In Gods economy, you can have 100% of both. So try truth in there with that grace and be blessed!!!

Grandpa

He sits in the hallway of the rehab center next to the nurses station so they can keep an eye on him so he doesn't try to stand up out of his wheelchair because the bright yellow armband hes wearing says "fall risk" in large bold black letters. He's wearing a  large neck brace, which reminds me of a cone a pet might wear after visit to the veterinarian,   this holds his neck in place from his most recent tumble which fractured  his neck . Doctors tell us that if he loses his balance and falls again he'll be paralyzed or dead. At age 93 with a resume of tumbles in the last few years and dementia creeping in, falling is as inevitable as the sun rising again. So in the hallway he sits singing in a Frank Sinatraesque voice to all the pretty nurses...cracking jokes, making funny faces,  loudly remarking on the weight of the heavy family members visiting relatives and asking every 3.5 minutes..."can I get up now?"

The last few years we've seen our beloved grandpa deteriorate more and more into dementia. His hearing loss and our chaotic family environment (loudmouthed highly communicative Jewish  family)  has made it difficult to have normal conversations and really engage with him. Usually we're all together having bagels at the grandparents house, we're all talking and my grandpa sits by and watches, none of us are sure if he knows fully what is going on or if his hearing aids are ever going to work properly again. We all try to talk to him but its difficult and unclear if he has any clue what we're actually saying.

I've prayed and looked for ways to converse with my grandpa about the King of the Jews, the saving Messiah, Jesus (or Yeshua as the messianic Jews would correct me). It feels like its a battle I've been losing for many years. I have strong convictions from God and little opportunity or fear holding me back. Earlier this year on a warm spring day when we were leaving my grandparents house in West Bloomfield to head back home to West Michigan, my grandpa came outside and stood in the driveway in the sunshine waving goodbye as we drove away. I'll never forget the scene and my broken heart...Id wanted to share eternity with him but couldn't, once again, on that trip which occurred to me could easily have been  the last time Id see him alive. I prayed for God to make a way in what seemed impossible. To have grace on my dear Grandpa and give him dreams or visions to make Yeshua known to him, to give him a chance! Can I stand in the gap for my grandpa God? What does that even mean God? what is this gap?  I left that day and cried for the first several minutes at the thought of my grandpa separated from God forever and my inability and defeat in sharing what God impressed upon my heart for so many years. I failed.

In the months surrounding that day, Id left a bible for my grandparents on one trip, so it was there in their living room and my grandpa is an avid reader, perhaps he'd pick up the book read it and gain understanding.  I'd feel inspired, then  call my grandma and ask her to read certain passages of the bible....Id send her to the book of revelation to read about heaven and she'd say "maybe later" although I knew later would never come.  Once I was at home reflecting on a joke my grandfather told me as a young child, seven or so years old....

"A flood came to a certain mans house, but the man was assured that he would be fine...that God would save him. Soon the water was up to his chest and a canoe came along to rescue the man...but he waved the canoe on exclaiming to the canoeman ..."thanks for the offer but not necessary, the Lord will save me"....A while later the waters rose and the man found himself standing on the roof of his house. A motorboat approached him to rescue but again he exclaimed. "Move along and no thankyou, the Lord will save me". Before long the water continuing to rise was at the nape of the mans neck...a helicopter hovered above him dropping  a rescue ladder,  but the man again waved them off exclaiming " no thankyou! I dont need you, the Lord will save me!" The inevitable happened, the water rose covering the man and he drowned. Soon, he was standing before God and angrily he asked the Lord...."why didn't you save me?! to which God replied..."I sent you a canoe, a motorboat and a helicopter and you refused!

I've heard many jokes in my lifetime, all of them forgotten,  but for some reason this is the one that stuck with me my entire life. It occurred to me that Jesus is the canoe, the motorboat and the helicopter. Jesus is the rescue God sent and we have no right to be angry with God for refusing this help he sent us when we stand before him.  I had to call my grandma and tell her my discovery.  I pleaded with her to  tell my grandpa that Jesus is the rescue that God sent and tell him  about the joke I remembered for so long...but she waived me off and  exclaimed  "no thank you, we don't need Him, God will save us".

Since the Spring, my mom has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and surgical complications in biopsy resulted in a major abdominal surgery that sent her to a rehab clinic to recover to get strong for her looming battle against one of the worst cancers known.

A few days after she was in rehab, my grandfather lost his balance and fell breaking his neck. My grandmother tried to turn the  ambulance away asking the fireman  to just put him back to bed. By Gods grace, he instead  urged her to have him taken to the hospital for evaluation on account of his age. Thank God she did, because he would never have made it through the night with his broken neck. He spent one night in ER and they sent him to rehab the following day, right down the hall from my mother, his daughter.

Jeff, my husband, and I came down on a Friday night to relieve some other family members who live here and have been working around the clock to support my mom and grandparents. Friday we sat in his room. CNN playing loudly on the television. Even at home, CNN would always be on the television, he spends hours everyday just sitting and absorbing the content. He had trouble distinguishing the people on CNN  from the people in the room. He was asking everyone if they "knew"...he surmised that no one "knew" except Jeff, who was the smartest man in the country. We had no idea what he was talking about, but we played along with him. He kept telling Jeff what a nice home he had, believing the rehab was Jeffs home. When a commercial would come on he would ask Jeff..."is that your sister"...he believed anyone on tv was  somehow related to Jeff. He could actually  hear well, in the quietness of his rehab room,  unlike other conversations we've had the last several years,  but conversation was obviously tough because he seemed to be in a different world. Any door I had to share eternity with my grandpa seemed entirely shut. I drove to my moms house that night praying "God, I can't do this...its impossible! You're going to have to do this...I have no idea how to do anything in this situation, he is not mentally here. this is on YOU Lord to reach him, its beyond my ability".

The very next day was Sunday morning, July 30, 2017. At 9:43 a.m.I received this text from my mom....

"Grandpas attending church down the hall"

 I replied "you're kidding, I wont tell Grandma"

my mom : "I know, they asked me if it was okay, they asked him if he wanted to go, and he said yes"

me "more answered prayers"

My 93 year old Jewish grandfather who has never been to church in his entire life went to church, in rehab.

When I showed up later that day I asked the little Phillipino nurse about it...she was worried I would be angry..."I tried to tell him, you're Jewish, you cant go but he kept asking to go...I said no no you're Jewish!, so I asked your mom and she said its okay. He asked a lot of questions, he was so engaged!"

I never met the people who took him to church and I didn't bring it up to my grandpa...but every day since Sunday I would talk to him, take him outside for walks in the sunshine. He was more and more engaged. By Wednesday and Thursday I was having normal conversations with him....conversations I haven't been able to have with him in at least six years.  He talked about his childhood, his mother, his father, working at Ford Motor Company. We discussed music, pianos, my family, his colorblindness. I had brought along the boys Enchroma glasses for colorblind people and he tried them on. We walked around and looked at the fabulous artwork along the hallways Maple Manor rehab and I pointed out what pink, green, purple, and red looked like. "That's pink? I thought that was blue"..."No grandpa, that is what Pink looks like, and this is orange, this is the color of a sunset!"

I left Thursday but before I left I stopped at Maple Manor. My grandmother was supposed to be there that morning so I thought again I would miss my opportunity to discuss eternity and the promises of God with him. But she didn't show up. My mom was there but she wasn't feeling well so she went back to her own room. My grandfather brought up the Christians that took him to church after we talked for some time. I had a chance to explain the gospel of grace to my grandfather. He completely understood his sin nature. My grandfather who is actually what the world would call "a good guy" could easily say he wasn't perfect and could recognize his own sin. We talked about CNN and what we knew the world was like, about human nature, even the two of us sitting there, how we were sinners. I talked about the sin in us and and how we all die as a result of our sin since our separation from God in the Garden of Eden. I talked about Jesus' sacrificial atoning sin for us on the cross and his resurrection and victory over death so that when we die, if we believe in his atonement on our behalf and His resurrection, when we believe and understand that God himself took our deserved wrath, we too are raised with Him, with God himself. My grandpa asked about being born again and I explained physical birth, physical death, spiritual death and spiritual life...a spiritual rebirth in Jesus" He looked directly at me and told me I was the only one he trusted. He brought up the colorblind glasses, how he could "see" colors. and he wondered if it was like that.

 I know he's frustrated by the confinement of the wheelchair he's continually asking to get out of. I told him that when we believe and look to the messiah we are given a new body in heaven after our physical death, he will be running and walking again forever with God. "So just listen to the nurses and doctors when they tell you not to stand, its just for now Grandpa, but in eternity you will walk and run forever. There will be no more pain, no more death, no more tears, no more sin, no more wheelchairs and neck braces...no more terrible stories on CNN. And the colors, oh the colors grandpa will be even greater than what you saw with those glasses the other day." I shared it all and what he has to look forward too in our Messiah. He told me "the man" (the church missionary he spoke with) was very well educated and made a lot of sense, but then the women who came after him was more pushy...now this was great because it instantly reminded me of a theme in my grandpas life.

My grandfather is notorious for one thing...being pushy about sharing his food. If he has a dessert, a meal,  a glass of wine...or anything in front of him that he loved, he would want you to try it. And if you said no thank you , he would just keep on asking and explaining why you should try it. That fork full of pie would be in your face until you either tried it or he eventually wore out ; which could take upwards of 60 minutes. Once he was at a restaurant with my mom and a few other family members.  He had  ordered a very expensive glass of red wine. Now my mother who hates red wine refused the offer to try it. But of course he kept pushing  her. "You have to try this wine Pat, try it, just try it!" My mom was so annoyed, she grabbed that glass of wine and guzzled it like it was water and she just finished a marathon.   My grandfather just sat there stunned and eventually  miserable. His exorbitantly priced cherished glass of wine was gone. My mom thought she would teach him a lesson! So I used that analogy for him of wanting to share something we just KNOW is so good. I  told my grandfather the woman, that pushy church woman, she had a really good dessert she wanted to share with my grandpa her "pushiness" was all well intended. I told him what psalm 34:8 of the Hebrew scriptures says:

 "Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him."  

God is BIG and mighty and amazing....I give HIM all the glory and honor, he does what man cannot do, He does what I cannot do.

"Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible."

-Matthew 19:26

Thank you God for your miracles, thank you for giving me peace, thank you for making a way for me to one day see my grandpa again.

chaos in the nation-transgenderism

Okay, are ya'll ready for this?

I think some of the opposition to what I've said has a common thread to it, and its clear many people  have taken sides, if you will. Its a test of compassion and what it means to be compassionate. In essence, its how we  respond, our interpretation of compassion. A common question or argument as some have demonstrated here is, "does it really matter, what harm is being done?" It is a familiar sentiment...it takes me to the very beginning of the scripture...the fall. Remember it was an apple that looked good and pleasing for Eve to eat, it appeared "good" and Satan was there to affirm its goodness by questioning Gods commandments to stay away from it. I am afraid some of you may be greatly deceived, things that appear "good" or harmless to you are in fact  gravely harmful.

Keep in mind, this argument does not include people born with rare intersex conditions, they are  THE ONLY humans who actually have a leg to stand on in confusion about their gender because they actually have a medical discrepancy in their genetic makeup.

So lets dissect , think and just marinate  on this  for awhile. There are two responses to a man or woman  who claims to be "transgender". #1- to acknowledge what is true, and  #2 to become an accomplice to delusion. I'm going to argue that  becoming an accomplice to delusion  actually creates a more delusional society, brings us farther away from truth (Jesus) and does harm to both the delusional individual and society as a whole. On the bright side, stars shine more brightly in darkness, and its this time that people on the fence are noticing. Don't mistake darkness for light. There are ample warnings of this in Gods Word, Satan himself disguises himself as an angel of light and the bible says his deceived followers will also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Do not be deceived, do not be an accomplice to delusion!

If you are a man who wants to wear womens clothing...you are not a woman...you are simply a man who wants to wear womens clothing which is crossdressing. I often hear people say "I just want to be myself" before dying their hair away from their natural color, or wanting to change their gender. Its an odd claim since by doing these things one is  actually running away from  being yourself. You are naturally a man, but you reject yourself and seek to transform to something you are not.  "Being yourself" doesn't require hormones, plastic surgery, and transformation. Being yourself is just that,..... being yourself. Altering your body through plastic surgery and cross dressing then telling people you are female when you are not is deception. Here are a few ways this is harmful to society:

1. Dating- people can present themselves as something they aren't. That is deception and often leads to horrific situations for the deceived deceiver  who could end up in disastrous harm in a sinful world. Ive read story after story of men representing themselves as women to heterosexual men as prostitutes or lovers, when the heterosexual man discovers the truth, grave harm befalls the deceiver. That is horrific. Telling a delusional person they are a woman because of their physical alterations encourages them to present themselves as women to sinful men and leads to horrifying consequences and tragedy. Tell the truth.

2. With current trends in ideology, there are penalty's now for telling the truth. In NYC, an employer can be fined up to $250,000 for  "willfully referring to a person by their actual biological gender".  So If I'm an employer in NYC currently, and I don't go along with the delusion, I am financially penalized. That's harmful, that's wrong, and its a trend that will continue unless we stand for the truth instead of being accomplices to delusion.

3.The transgender movement aims  to normalize the behaviors of crossdressers, transvestites, and drag queens Activists desire to deconstruct male and female identity and to push gender confusion onto children and parents and into the mainstream. But maleness and femaleness cannot be changed or created—these traits are tied to DNA. A man who undergoes hormone treatments and has his genitals removed does not alter his biological sex. Instead, he suffers from a mental disturbance that is the product of a troubled family life and requires psychiatric treatment.

These are deeply troubled individuals who need professional help, not societal approval or affirmation.

4. Surgeons are taking mentally deluded patients $$ to "transform" their bodies. They are castrating men, and giving men silicone implants. 

5. Locker rooms and bathrooms are open to men masquerading as women. This means a grown man who identifies as a woman can expose himself in an open shower or open changing area at your local ymca. I use a gym where woman frequently change, I have a big problem with grown men in our  locker rooms with young women. And some are saying that young girls who don't want to see men masquerading as woman or their penises in their locker rooms are intolerant, (says Chris Cuomo on mainstream CNN).  That is absolutely insane.

6. Prisons- do we let men who claim to identify as women into the female prison system or vice versa? What could possibly go wrong?

7. Sports competitions by gender: Do we allow men to compete as women? What about  the recent headline of a young girl who was  pumped full of testosterone competing in wrestling matches against other girls?. Someone is pumping a young girl full of testosterone, which competitors use in cheating to gain advantages in competition.  But not in this day and age. Delusion is affirmed and applauded, so anything goes, all other common sense out the window.

Consider the following situations:

1. 52 year old Canadian married father of seven,Stefonknee Wolscht, leaves wife and children and identifies as six year old girl. He dresses like a six year old girl, wears pigtails, the whole shebang. He clearly is not a 6 year old girl despite how he feels. He is delusional with a mental disorder that requires help.

2.White woman ,Nkechi Amare Diallo,  formerly known as  Rachel Dolezal , self identifies as African American. Goes tanning, gets a perm, checks boxes on applications and forms and deceives the public into believing she is an african american woman.  She was president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) chapter in Spokane, Washington, from 2014 until June 15, 2015 all under the false pretense that was an African american which she self identifies as. 

3.Nano from Norway, twenty something year old woman who  self identifies as a cat and claims she was born into the wrong species. Straps on a tail, ears and paws, crawls around and hisses at dogs. This is absurd. Do you believe its compassionate to aid her in this delusion?

4. 56 year old man, Eva Tiamat Baphomet Medusa, formerly known as Richard Hernandez, believes he was born with both the wrong sex and species has transformed to a dragon lady by  undergoing tooth extraction, eye coloring, horn implants, ear removal, nose modification, and an undoubtedly painful procedure to have a forked tongue. He was willing to attempt to physically destroy his humanity to complete his transformation. Guess what, hes still a man. Do you believe its compassionate to aid him in this delusion?

6. Vinney Ohh- twenty something year old man in California who has had more than 100 procedures transforming himself into a genderless extra terrestrial. Hes now looking to have his genitalia, nipples and belly button removed. Is it compassionate to go along with this? 

Scores of men and women who do not identify as their biological sex and transition to another sex. It is biologically impossible to transition to another sex. You are merely a man with implants, who has self mutilated his genitals and gone through expensive lengths to become something they are  just biologically  not. That is delusion. The compassionate thing to do would be to help people embrace who they actually are.

If I thought my true identity was not my current form, but to live as a 100 pound blonde double D Dallas cowboys  27 year old cheerleader, that would be absurd. If I couldn't feel normal or happy, or "my true self"  unless I physically altered my exterior body to become something that I am not, I would earnestly hope my friends would tell me I was delusional and pray for my mental health. Please tell me that I was made perfect by God, that no amount of plastic surgery or physical alteration would bring me happiness, only God alone will bring me joy. Tell me I  should love myself as God loves me and see beauty in the distinct and unique way God created me. If you affirmed me in my delusional pursuit to alter my physical appearance to identify as a 100 pound blonde double D Dallas cowboys cheerleader, you are not a compassionate friend, you are an accomplice to delusion.

Now lets get back to what is and isn't compassion,  which purveyors of delusions accuse those who tell the truth that they lack and need more of to join the rest of the worlds purveyors of deception...Compassion is defined by sympathetic consciousness of others' distress together with a desire to alleviate it. Again, I would argue that affirming mental illness, normalizing mental illness, aiding in falsities, especially in regards to young children is the opposite of compassion or alleviation of suffering. A person suffering from depression may believe their life is worthless and want to commit suicide to end their suffering. Is it compassionate to go along with their delusion?, or is it compassionate to tell them the truth?  But herein lies the problem, affirming mental illness and delusion is an easy way out for us....yea go ahead ....whats the harm??!, do what you think is right, truth is relative after all! Who am I to judge that you're not a cat, a dragon, a black lady, a six year old girl?  Affirming actual truth is increasingly becoming a criminal activity, because  society has  perverted and twisted what it means to be compassionate which is now going along with delusion because telling the truth is too mean.

When my twins were young, maybe three, they thought they were dinosaurs. I played along for fun, they eventually grew out of the phase. I didn't affirm them or aid them into their physical transition to  dinosaurs, their "true identity". I recognized the behavior as normal imaginary child play. If they truly still believed they were dinosaurs as teenagers, we'd have a different problem. Believing you are a dinosaur as a teenage boy is not healthy, its delusional. For me to approve and affirm such an identity would be nonsensical, but in today's society, who am I to judge and restrict teenage boys into expressing their true dinosaur selves? What compassion I lack!

I have a friend who has a four year old grandson. He lost his mother to drug overdose, the family is quite broken with several problems and refuses to turn to Christ for healing. The grandson mostly hangs out with grandma and other women in the family, no men.  grandma is a lively full of life kinda lady who wears alot of makeup and dresses. She is a major influence on her grandson, he adores her!. The boy likes to try on her highheels and put makeup on with her. This is pretty typical normal behavior for a four year old boy, modeling the people in his life around him. Although Grandma now thinks he may be transgender and is wondering what steps she might take to help him transition...at four.years.old! This is the effect of the trend in normalizing cross dressing and transgenderism in society today. Grandma doesn't see this as imaginary normal play in a child, she wants to aid him in his transition. This absolutely breaks my heart.

My daughter had a friend in high school who identified as a boy. She was a beautiful girl who had serious trauma and abuse as a child that resulted in some pretty significant delusions. She suffered from multiple personality disorder and identified as a gender she wasn't. She needed help, she needed Christ, she didn't need people to affirm her delusions. That is the opposite of compassion, that is a weak way out of compassion.

So lets talk about compassion in aiding delusion....because again, "whats the harm?". What do you think? Selah. 

Now I'll tell you what I think. Compassion and love  is telling the truth , bringing delusional people back to sound mind. Its not easy to say things that are hard, its not easy  to be confrontational, its not comfortable or popular, and today it brings accusations of bigotry, small mindedness,  and hatred. I've tried many things to alleviate suffering in my life, one thing changed everything. One thing  brought wholeness and healing, its  the gospel,  This is why I'm an advocate of Christ, God, Elohim, the Word of God, truth....a souled out believer. There is a reason Jesus said "I am THE  way, THE Truth, The life". I believe Him. I will be compassionate by telling you the truth, that's what God has called me to do.  That's love, that's compassion, Jesus is the ultimate alleviation from sin that grips us, harms us, and separates us from God. I will not aid people in delusions and deception. That's Satans' job.

Actually, as I'm writing this I have to laugh at the absurdity that I'm even having this discussion. Is this really where we are today? Are we truly this deluded and far from the truth? That people who tell the truth are cast as evil and those who affirm delusion are the compassionate ones? scripture comes to mind

"For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions" 2 Timothy 4:3

“Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” (Isaiah 5:20).

Now watch this and tell me if this is compassion? They accuse those who call him a boy of blind ignorance, he is a boy....and wearing makeup and girly clothes does not change that. He is a crossdresser, simple truth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-bv4MUwx3A&t=374s

womanhood

I'm a little confused about transgenderism: heres why....I'm a woman because of my biological makeup assigned to me by my creator since inception. I came into the world with unique abilities, personality, obstacles to overcome...all as a woman. I tend to be driven, competitive, curious, outspoken and forthright, all as a woman. My womanhood isn't solely defined by the fact that I wear makeup, sometimes wear dresses and skirts, its not defined at all by the clothes I wear. Most days, I wear jeans...does that make me a man? Why am I made to call a man a woman because he says he "feels" like a woman because he wants to wear dresses, makeup, and high heels? If you are a man who wants to wear a dress, go ahead, but don't make me pretend along with you that wearing a dress, growing your hair long,wearing makeup, and speaking in a softer "girly" voice is what makes you a woman....that's an insult to women if you think this is what defines us. We are women because we have vaginas, we are capable of carrying babies in our bellies and going through childbirth. Just because you put a dress on, pay for a pair of boobs, and get laser hair removal, you are still not a woman, deal with it.

black, white and alot of grey

okay, so heres my all over the place random thoughts without editing, lol. probably wont flow very well, but thats okay!...

Ive actually seen this video a few times. The woman in the video is Dr. Joy Degruy, shes the author of "Post traumatic slave syndrome". She also lectures around the country regarding her book and other topics mostly surrounding her ethnicity.

So, my initial reaction to the video was the pretty typical and intended response: how awful for her and her daughter to endure such treatment solely based on her skin color. I thought it was interesting that she pulled her daughters emotional disturbance into the story throughout the story. Then I just sat and thought about it for awhile...how would I have handled the situation with the life experiences I've had? What life lesson would I want my own children to learn from such an experience if they were with me? We cant change what other people do, we can only change how we respond to situations. I started thinking about my years waitressing as a single parent with two young kids. One of the biggest shifts I went through as a waitress was knowing that when people came to my section in really bad moods and were really vile towards me, my first several years I just wrote them off as assholes. Then I realized I had no idea what was happening in their lives, maybe their dog died that morning, maybe their wife had just left them, maybe they just lost their job, maybe they really were just assholes. Regardless, i chose to not be offended, ever....by the way a person treated me, it was their problem, not mine. I want my kids to know that when they're treated poorly.

So I started thinking about this strawberry blonde cashier in Dr. Degruys story, I so wished we'd had her side of the story. Perhaps a woman frequented the store who looked like Dr. Degruy that had written bounced checks and the girl thought she was the woman, or perhaps she really was just a horrid racist. We dont know, because we never hear her side of the story. And the takeaway is that we all just assume shes a horrid racist including Dr. Degruys young traumatized daughter. I wasn't with Dr. Degruy and her daughter in the aftermath of this incident, but I imagine her mother never said to her, its possible there's a woman who looks like me who has been writing bad checks in town and perhaps they think I'm her! Little daughter of mine, its possible shes just a racist, and its possible I look like a lady who writes bounced checks, either way its her problem, we choose how we respond to her. Do we get angry and upset? or do we respond with love. I'd want my kids to respond with love....but thats just me.

Over the years, as a Jewish believer I've heard all sorts of antisemitic things from gentiles. Ive always used them as teaching moments. I worked with a guy who told me that all Jews were evil because the Jews killed Jesus, I never got mad, I was excited to be able to share with him that we all killed Jesus, him included...it was our sin that sent Jesus to the cross, and he went there willingly! The love of Christ has allowed me to change how I respond to all things. 

I was once fired from a job because a gal who looks just like me from Grand Haven was out at the bars while I was home sick with mono. My manager saw her and thought she was me (the one who hadnt been to work in two weeks). I was fired, and no amount of explanation would do. Id actually met the gal once, she had long dark hair, she was white, about my height. Actually a guy i dated years ago had even dated her in high school! 

In Dr. Degruys situation, I would have wanted to take that cashier out for coffee , maybe since Im just that way, I would have wanted to know why she was so cold towards me... did she indeed just have a negative suspicious attitude towards people of color, and why? what were her experiences with black folks, did she think i would write a bad check simply because I was black? Think of how much more awesome this story could have ended if she just talked to the strawberry blonde girl over a beer, or some coffee and conversed about these things, i bet they all could have learned some things. 

Around the turn of the millennium, I used to pick up shifts  at the muskegon applebees  when they were short staffed. As a white waitress in a pretty mixed area of muskegon,  the majority of black patrons (at least during that time in that area, i don't know how it is today) but,  i would get stiffed on nearly 95% of my tables where my patrons were black, and they more often than not treated me like shit. They would tip my coworkers who were black, but never the white wait staff.  I was raising two kids on a single income with no child support and zero family around at the time. I was actually working two waitressing jobs just to pay my rent and feed my kids.  I was still a democrat at the time and I justified their racism towards me because of oppression they must have  faced from actual racists over the years, imagine if Id made a video and told my kids about the racism I experienced in Muskegon. they would have grown up believing any poor treatment towards them was simply because they were white.  I never did that.  But I did quit subbing there. generally all waitresses get stiffed from time to time from people of all different ethnicities. I worked with a few other black waitresses in other restaurants as well, so i was always curious to know if they experienced rampant stiffing by white folks driven by racism....they didn't. it was predominantly a black patron to white server phenomenon. why do you think that is? Do you think its okay? should the black patrons who tipped me apologize for other black patrons who don't? I don't believe they should.

I remember a few years ago, Michelle Obama was being interviewed and she talked about her personal experience with racism. She told a story about being at target store where an elderly white woman asked her to reach a box of detergent  for her on a high shelf. She believed she only asked her because she was black, and didn't this woman realize who she was?!, even as the first lady, she was still being reduced to the help. I thought about how many times in my life I've been asked to get stuff off shelves at the stores for short women, especially older women..usually I offer, I don't wait for them to ask! it never occurred to Michelle Obama, that she was being asked because she was tall, she automatically attributed it to racism.

Racism still exists today, in many forms and against many different colors of people. I think white folks have come a LONG ways! Did you know that KKK membership in the 1920s exceeded 4 millions people nationwide?! Today, the SLPC (who I believe is highly discredited) estimates their numbers to be around 4k...and i think they're being generous just by the nature of the slpc groups history. Racism is a sin problem! Slavery is a sin problem!

In our own country, one of the bloodiest battles was fought to END slavery. Slavery in the usa existed predominantly in the south by a small percentage of people...predominantly white people, but did you know that American Indians and black people also owned slaves? Heres a snopes list with some interesting things you can further research on your own...http://www.snopes.com/facts-about-slavery/

Approximately 330k white folks died fighting against the confederates and slavery in the south (about 30k black union soldiers also!) In American history, we have people who enslaved people, and people who died to put an end to slavery. We have people who have been horrid racists, and people who have fought and spoken out  against racism. My own family came here in the late 1800's from Germany to escape increasing antisemitism. We never owned slaves, and hadnt been slaves since bablyonian times. I think its somewhat disingenuous for me to apologize to black folks just because my skin has less melanin. Wouldnt they rather have an apology from a person who was racist and had an actual heart change? Is it racism to assume Im a racist because of the color of my skin?

If I was mistreated by a man, should another man come along and apologize for the way someone else treated me? I'm divorced, is it Jeffs job to right the wrongs my former husband committed against me?  I can see how people who apologize on behalf of others are  just trying to be nice, but what is really meaningful is when the actual perpetrator of the sin actually apologizes. That actually means something, wouldn't you say?

In the history of the world, North africans enslaved more than a million europeans (1500's- 1700's), Jews were enslaved by the egyptians and the babylonians, the chinese enslaved the koreans, the japanese enslaved the chineses, russians enslaved their neighbors, and muslims have enslaved everyone. Slavery is a horrid practice that the entire human race shares some guilt in. It is a sin problem, not a skin problem.

I love your heart Sherri! I love that you are not a racist! And I love that you are seeking ways to heal the chasm of divides the culture seems to face more and more with each passing day. And I'm beyond thankful that you already know the cure is Christ. Christ is the pinnacle, "for in Him, we move and live and have our being" every one of us, of every color, of every nation, He is the  cure and THE reconciler of all things, HE alone  makes us family. I am blown away by the reconciliation I see in Christ, I have sisters and brothers from every nation, with every skin color, from every sort of previous religious or nonreligious background, and our minds are in unison because of the spirit of Christ alone! There is no racism in the true church of believers. Have you ever visited Brooklyn Tabernacle in NY? Such a beautiful picture of what heaven will be like, all colors, all nations, singing to the Glory of God! And this little strawberry blonde cashier? its for her too, if she repents of sin and accepts His love, its for all my mean patrons black and white that treated their servers  so poorly, if they repent of their sin, its for every criminal, and every lawbreaker out there who repents and turns to God in faith, for every terrorist who repents and turns to God in faith, for every kkk member  or violent blm protester who repents and turns to God in faith,   what an amazing amazing amazing amazing thing.

My love's, my heart

There was a long period...Many years actually where my ex husband talked excessively to my twins about what a terrible person I was. He would complain about how I took all his money and he couldn't afford food or toys for the boys. The idea was to get them on "his side" by making them feel sorry for him.

For five years I've worked to have us both as parents be on "their side"...When I left the marriage, I left all the troubles that came with it...I had no time for resentment or anger and alot of hope in getting down to the real business of growing up and loving these boys . But he was so angry about the divorce his main priority seemed to be to tear down their relationship with me so they would like him more, it was a competition to him. He wanted them to hate me as much as he did. Darby saw through it pretty early although he still really felt bad for his dad and worried about him excessively . It did cause him alot of anxiety but he still always loved and trusted us despite the things his dad would say.

The damage was more evident in Cooper, who for four years had a simmering distrust towards me. While Darby has always been affectionate towards me, Cooper was more reserved...Refusing to give me kisses and reluctantly giving me hugs. Even though every night before bed both were offered, he'd usually give me a reluctant hug and cover his head with blankets before I could give him a kiss on the head.
The same was true in the mornings, I never made a big deal Of it.... For years now I would just give him a hug and i might sneak in a kiss if he wasn't paying attention and stand at the door waving until his bus left the neighborhood...So round 1 waves, then round two after the bus did a loop around Suffolk Rd. To leave the sub division.
Here we are in the second half of third grade, five years into this thing (divorce) and Cooper will now  run up to me and give me a kiss and a hug when his bus gets here....All on his own. I'm so so thankful for that.
As I stood by the door waving as they settled on to  Tim and Linda's bus, I just wanted time to slow down, simmering in that moment, these very precious moments that will be gone too soon and I'll cherish forever.  Thankyou God for them.