Category Archives: Multitudes on Mondays

Breathe Again on the (in)courage blog

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I praise God for the opportunity to spread His message to a wider audience on (in)courage: home for the hearts of women.

My One Thousand Gifts List

#151-160
Spending early time with God
Being able to skin the chicken before Justus called out to me
Giving the boys a bath
Taking a shower
Cooking most of dinner before noon
Spending three hours interacting with and teaching Nate before he watched TV
Tabitha for being selfless and supporting me so
A completed Black History Month report
Getting to watch a movie
A restful evening

Give Up Your World

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“..(A)nyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!”—2 Corinthians 5:17 (NLT)

The other day my oldest son asked if he could arise in the morning to join me during my prayer time. I was so pleased, but I wasn’t always this way. When Joshua was 6 God told me some things He had called Joshua to be and one was a prayer warrior. I asked God to show me how to train him to war in the spirit this way, and I didn’t hear anything from God. Suddenly, at 6, Joshua began to arise early on his own, sit quietly as I prayed and would hand me tissue so I could dry my tears. At first I thought his rising was endearing. After he kept joining me for about a week, I was upset. “Can’t I have some time to myself?” Then God reminded me that I had asked him to show me how to train Joshua. What better way than to model prayer and have him pray kneeling beside me right after me? But I soon slipped back into my selfish way, being happy a few weeks later when Joshua stopped waking up. I reasoned that the season for training him during my quiet time must be over. Truth is, discipline is part of the training, and I should have awakened him even when he didn’t get up. I did sometimes, but for the last two years that has been only a handful of times. So last week when Joshua asked to wake up to join me in prayer, I gladly agreed. I’m so glad I did. We had a rich time, and I got a chance to see a bit of what God sees every time we walk in selfishness.

When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things.—1 Corinthians 13:11

Before we prayed Joshua asked, “What happens to our bodies if our spirit goes to be with God when we die?” Of course, this led to a Bible study on Christ’s return and us receiving glorified bodies and reigning with Jesus on a new earth (1 Corinthians 15:51-52; 2 Corinthians 3:18; 2 Peter 3:13; Revelation 20:6). To give him a picture of what our glorified bodies might be able to do I had him read Luke 24:15-31 when Jesus walked and supped with the men from the Emmaus road then vanished from their sight. When I told him that our bodies would be supernatural, like Jesus’ body, letting us do supernatural feats like superheroes, he became sad. I was perplexed. Like his dad, Joshua loves comic book characters and he frequently asks me which ones I think are the strongest. When I asked what made him sad about getting a new improved body he said, “I want this body. I like this body. And I don’t want there to be a new earth. This earth is perfect. I want it to stay the same.” No matter how many benefits I told him about having a glorified body and reminded him of the wretchedness of this world he still wanted to cling to the old. He was determined to remain unchanged in spite of the pain and disappointment he feels in his own body and sees in the world. He didn’t want anyone to disrupt his familiar or his comfort. He didn’t want anyone, not even God, to change his world. I just hugged him and told him I understood, recognizing that he was a child and just didn’t understand how wonderful his change would be. I knew that when he grew up, his view would change. I determined that I would continue to be there for him, allowing God to disrupt my quiet time world, so I can help Joshua mature in his faith and talk the way he should.

So often those of us recovering from strong black womanhood seek to maintain our established order so that we can control our circumstances. We can’t handle a change to our world, even one that would help us create a better world or just allow God to give us a better one. Even though we know our present personal world may be in need of repair, we somehow convince ourselves that everything is perfect and fight to keep living there. Give up the fight and the temper tantrums and let God serve you a better world. This is a challenge, but one we must rise to so we walk out 1 Corinthians 13:11 and be the new creations the Bible declares us to be.

What worlds have you been clinging to that you need to let go of?

Copyright 2011 by Rhonda J. Smith

My One Thousand Gifts List

#141-150
A woman’s desire to follow God
An anointed sermon
Dinner with Stephanie
The boys making their own fun at Stephanie’s
Flynn cleaning the kitchen
Flynn putting the boys to bed
Flynn making me tea
Being able to rest
Spending time with family
My headache dissipating

Maturing into Motherhood

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“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!”

— 2 Corinthians 5:17 (NIV)

I have gotten older. “Duh,” you might say. “Aging happens to everyone from the moment we’re born.” But I really didn’t begin to feel older until a few weeks ago. Of course I realized my transition some years ago when I didn’t know names of popular artists or their songs AND I didn’t care. I had joined my parents’ generation and gotten amply disengaged from the current cool. This didn’t bother me since I had always flown in my own musical realm. But a few weeks ago was different. This was when it seems overnight a nest of grays had sprouted along my front hairline; an 18 year old couldn’t say why she thought I looked so much different than the woman in my 13-year-old wedding photo; and it had been months since anyone mistook me for being at least 10 years younger than I am. I settled into my eventual, always knowing that aging is inevitable. I must admit that accepting and liking my physical changes are not the same for me. But the time that changed my physical appearance is the same time that changed my spiritual position and that pleases (and, in some ways, has shocked) me.

“You’re such a mother,” said Tabitha, one of the seven women with whom I have a formal Christian discipleship relationship. She was watching me interact with my children and remarked on my mother nurturing. She said the same thing last week, this time commenting on how I mother her and her discipleship sisters. “You really want us to be okay and reconciled,” she said about the way I had mediated a small conflict that she and another of my daughter’s in Christ had. “You didn’t take sides; you just wanted both of us to be okay.” I do, and I want the same for my boys but my desire has not always been evident.

For years I struggled with strife, having to leave ‘up and out’ words with folks who needed to know the extent of their foolishness or density. I had little mercy for the weak in mind and made it my business to tell them so. Somebody had to tell them, I reasoned, so I assigned myself that job. I resigned years ago, when the magnification of God’s mercy overshadowed my sins. His great covering was big enough that I couldn’t just keep His warmth for myself; I wanted others to feel God’s comfort and how I could nestle in His care. That was my great desire and for years only remained in my thoughts. Though I had gotten glimpses of folks under God’s cover with me, Tabitha’s encouraging word let me know that I had made room for more than I thought. And even with a new girlfriend’s recent surprise that I used to be Zorro because “you’re so kind and thoughtful” let me know that I have been more consistent in my new way than I imagined. Time may have aged my body, but I praise God that time also has matured me in the spirit. Even though I am older I am brand new.

In what ways have you become new in Christ?

Copyright 2011 by Rhonda J. Smith

My One Thousand Gifts List

#131-140
Joshua shoveling Nana’s snow
Joshua spending time with two generations
Flynn being able to attend evangelism training
Renee loving One Thousand Gifts
Renee wanting me to go to Paris with her
A smooth Sunday morning
Going to church and on time
Being able to sit in the sanctuary
A quiet child during church
Being able to serve at the altar

Freedom of Partnerships

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Photo credit: InMagine.com

Flynn left the kids and me, just for a week but I got a GLIMPSE of single motherhood. I say a GLIMPSE because I knew, Lord willing, my husband would return after a ministry conference and be there again to partner with me in parenting. Also, my time with my sons was them being with me; I didn’t have to work outside the home like most single mothers do. It was only my job temporarily to physically provide for my children’s wants and needs and I did so with God’s grace. We had a great time at the drive-in movie theater, watching our city’s fireworks display, running around the playground, going to the library and having dinner with family friends. On a few outings I was alone with them. On two others I was with my single-for-the-week sister and her children and my-single-for-the-week friend and her daughter (Both their husbands were out of town, too). We have always respected single mothers, but our GLIMPSE into that sisterhood helped us appreciate them more AND cherish the freedom that can come with being married to men who take their fatherhood as seriously as we take our motherhood. Though we are bound by marriage (1 Corinthians 7:33, 39) our fatherhood-engaged husbands allow us to disengage from motherhood from time to time. For this reason, I encouraged Flynn to go away and basked in his return.

My dynamic with Flynn got me thinking about the freedom we have in healthy life partnerships—those we have in marriage, in friendship and with biological and spiritual families. Do we take these for granted or do we avoid them, knowing someone’s freedom in the partnership may at times mean for us a burden, one that we are unwilling to carry? As we celebrate our country’s freedom to self-govern, I want us to honor the freedom that healthy partnerships bring to our lives, those God-ordained relationships that the Bible speaks so clearly of. We must help one another, seek to refresh others so that we, too, might be refreshed (Proverbs 11:25). This is a path to our freedom that followers of Christ must lovingly take to benefit us all. Let us seek and celebrate the freedoms we have in Christ (John 8:32, 36; Romans 6:18-23, 8; Galatians 4-5:1, 16).

My One Thousand Gifts List

#121-130
Milk to nurse Justus
The children loving love
Flynn initiating prayer with the family before he and Joshua left for the day (and though they were running late)
God showing me that I’m not satisfied satisfying Him
Supplies for Joshua’s Black History Month project
Working with Joshua on his Black History Month project
Joshua wanting me to sleep with and Nate
Joshua not wanting me to leave his room
Impressing me to apologize to Joshua for hurting his feelings
Floyd taking Joshua to his piano lesson

Chivalrous Love

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Before I met my husband, my dad was the sweetest, most thoughtful and chivalrous man I knew. Curtis Anderson Sr. doted on my mom so much that one of her single girlfriends had the nerve to ask my sister would she mind having her as a stepmom if something ever happened to my mother. My dad would open doors, buy her things before she asked and rarely raised his voice with her. He was the family chef, so my mother never had to cook a meal nor did my siblings or I. To this day my brother is surprised that my sister and I cook so well, never being made to learn to cook or prepare a family meal. We were so self-absorbed, we never even volunteered. My father loved to give and I loved that he loved to give. To this day most of the classic suits I own are the ones my dad bought me, sometimes just because “they looked like you.” In my eyes he was the perfect man. No one could replace my daddy, but with Flynn I get that same love. In the beginning of our relationship, though, I almost blew it.

We were riding in the car one evening when dating and I took out something to read. Without me having to ask, Flynn turned on the light to help me see. Most normal people would have said “Thank you.” I, instead, began to berate him, telling him that I didn’t need his help and if I wanted the light on I could have turned it on myself. He responded with a soft word and had the nerve to still date me. Like my father, he saw a need and sought to fulfill it. Flynn wanted the best for me, but I was a strong black woman gone berserk (is that redundant?). He was trying to help me yet I saw his chivalry as controlling me, imposing his will on my life and thus redefining who I was. That little act spoke loudly the type of bondage I was in and that so many recovering strong black women are in. We shun the help that comes to us even though we are struggling:

So, then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman but of the free. Stand fast, therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.—Galatians 4:31-5:1

Quench not the Spirit.—1 Thessalonians 5:19

I think we forget the position God has placed us in. Like a caring father or husband, Jesus Christ saw our need and gave of Himself and through the price He paid to take away our sin we have been grafted in the body of Christ. We have been provided for even when we didn’t know we needed provision. We have been given sight when we couldn’t see. We are constantly doted on and directed because of Christ’s deep love and care for us. He never imposes His will upon us but makes it clear and empowers us to want it and choose it, all for our good. We too often resist His love and choose the bondage of self-will. But Jesus is ever present, vowing to never leave us or forsake us. With His presence and our desire to let Him lead we will break out of bondage and surely succeed.

I praise God for a father and a husband who remind me of Jesus. And I praise God for regulating my mind when I didn’t accept Flynn’s love, giving me a second chance to receive what He knew I needed.

How have you rejected God’s blessings? How have you been able to adjust your mind to receive what God has for you?

Copyright 2011 by Rhonda J. Smith

My One Thousand Gifts List

#111-120
Andrina’s safe travel to and from Cleveland for Aunt Lois’ funeral
Andrina helping me to get Xfinity operating
God giving me an on the spot 1 Peter 5:8 bible study to help Joshua deal with Alexis
Joshua understanding the bible study
Joshua accepting his punishment for destroying the air freshener cap
Managing the children without anger
Preparing a tasty, fast and simple dinner
A lack of desire for meat
Intimate time with Flynn
Nate sleeping through the night