Crying Out

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What Do You Think? Wednesday

For weeks her eyes have been hollow and face sunk in; she has creases at the mouth, greasy hair and ashen skin. She has a brood of children, a reportedly hands off husband of a father and too many responsibilities to name. One day without a word to anyone she left our home schooling group, left a crying preschooler, an anxious toddler and half a dozen older children without a clue to where she went. One mom speculated she needed a break, that she just left to get a breather and could only do so with this type of great escape. When she returned, to my knowledge, no one asked where she went or why she left without a word. I only said, “I wondered what happened to you. You left and didn’t say a word.” She told me she went home, talked to some workers there, never saying she was sorry she left the way she did or thank you for caring for her concerned children. I was offended and decided to have little to do with this woman, but when she came to our group the other week I wish I had said something then.

She came with 70s style track shorts on top of a thick pair of holey dark tan pantyhose that contrasted with her white skin. I wondered “What would make her think it was okay to wear pantyhose with shorts? What would make her think it was okay to wear not just pantyhose, but pantyhose with gaping holes?” Her pulling at and trying to minimize the holes let me know that she knew holey hose were not okay, but was this the only way she could get the help she needed? Was drawing attention to herself in such a loud way the only cry she knew to make. Still, I said nothing. I let her holey cry go unheeded, too afraid to step into her world, get into her business to care for her. But I didn’t let that chance pass me by when a medical office worker gave me more than instructions for my mom’s lab visit. She poured out her soul right in the waiting room, emotions spilling right on the desk and onto me about caring for her dying mom and losing her brother to brain cancer just a few months before.

She cried, sad and angry at her siblings for being absent, coming only to the funeral and not coming around since. She cried right there with a blaring TV, unfiled paperwork and ears captive, listening. “I gotta be strong for my kids,” she said, not able to wipe her tears fast enough before the next well flowed. I told her to let go of that strong black woman demeanor, to get some counseling and grieve fully and as long as it takes for her to feel whole again. And I told her when she could do so without sinful anger to talk to her siblings about how she feels, leaving no room for bitterness to break her but for her attempt at reconciliation to help make her whole again. I prayed for her, told her my name and left knowing that she, nor I, would ever be the same.

When you encounter someone who is clearly crying out for help, how do you respond? What, if anything, would you say to my homeschooling group mom? Please, tell me what you think.

Beauty in Routine

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There can be something beautiful about routine. I wake up before the children, pray, write, clean stray dishes, fix mom breakfast and give her meds, eat, shower and dress, rally the boys, get them washed and dressed (some days), fed, and schooled. This is my routine, the items I can count on doing. The everyday knowing what to do and what to expect can be settling. But for those who don’t want to be settled, those wild horses unlikely to ever love the tame, routine can be a chore, a bore, a way to lose self in the process. Surprisingly, I find myself mostly loving the routine of my life that satisfies the control freak in me, but then my adventurous side wants to let the routine go so I can flow, be free. I thought this as I washed my first of three piles of dishes of the day while sausages sizzled and fruit sat waiting to become drinks. With no routine there would be no order: no clean dishes, so nothing to cook or serve food in, thus hungry whiny children and an overwhelmed stressed out mother trying to simultaneously make room and meals. Routine speaks to faithfulness, something you can always count on to bring you the stability that we need. Routine provides the order we need to balance the inevitable interruptions that come on any given day. Though at times I want to buck routine, I know the tragic result of doing so: chaos, confusion and a mean mama. Routine keeps me grounded and I need to cherish its benefits. After all, our greatest example of faithfulness, of routine if you will, is God, and in Him we have a perfect reason to appreciate routine:

“He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it” (1 Thessalonians 5:24).

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us [our] sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).

“But the Lord is faithful. He will establish you and guard you against the evil one” (2 Thessalonians 3:3).

“Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful” (Hebrews 10:23).

Our God, whose essence is faithful, can never change. Faithful is who He is and He acts based on His faithfulness. Because He is always the same, we can count on Him. When I long for more than the routine I prompt myself to remember that God, Faithful, is more than enough and with Him I have the stability I need for my entire life and to make it just one more day. I am indeed grateful for this.

My One Thousand Gifts List

#531-540
Contacting blogs to feature Motherhood devotional
Not having to cook
Flynn being home in the evening
Flynn putting all the boys to bed
Shelita Williams calling me “pretty lady”—though she calls every woman that it still felt genuine and good
God loudly speaking during my quiet time, giving me two articles to write on pride
God saving my two youngest children from hurting themselves when they were about to fall—Justus off the bed and his head about to hit the nightstand and Nate down the stairs; both children’s falls were interrupted at my calling out “Jesus.” I saw Justus being carried and placed back on the bed and Nate stopped in the middle of the stairs down which he was falling.
Getting confirmation about being on the Chocolate Pages radio show

Know What’s in There Part 2: Hidden Trans Fats

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Lawry's Nutrition Facts and Ingredients

For years I have used Lawry’s Seasoned Salt to flavor my popcorn, collard greens and cabbage, but last week I threw it away after learning that it contains hydrogenated oils that ARE NOT listed on the label. You read that right. Even though the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requires food products to have nutritional and ingredient labels, all ingredients may not be listed. The only way I found out that Lawry’s Seasoned Salt has hydrogenated soybean and cotton seed oils was that the representative I contacted in the Consumer Affair Department at McCormick (the maker of Lawry’s) to find out if the salt had MSG masked under other names voluntarily told me about the oils. Here’s her email:

Dear Ms. Smith:

Thank you for taking the time to contact us again regarding our Lawry’s Seasoned Salt. This product does not contain yeast extract or autolyzed proteins, but it does container (sic) partially hydrogenated soybean and cottonseed oil. We hope this information is helpful to you.

If we can be of further assistance, please call us at 1-800-952-9797, Monday through Friday, 9:30AM to 5PM Eastern Time. If you wish to respond to this note by e-mail, please include your name and e-mail address.

We hope to have the continued pleasure of serving you.

After reading this note, I couldn’t understand how McCormick could get away with not listing trans fats, which hydrogenated oils are, on its label so I contacted the FDA. The first FDA representative I spoke to, who only identified herself as Anna, worked in the FDA national office in Silver Springs, MD, and said that if a packaged food has less than .5 grams of hydrogenated fat, the company doesn’t have to list that the product contains any trans fats. Not being familiar with the agency’s regulation for spices, Anna referred me to the regional FDA Consumer Complaint office in my hometown of Detroit.

I spoke with FDA representative Cecily Long who said that McCormick is probably not violating any FDA regulations. She said the partially hydrogenated oils would fall “probably under the catch all term ‘natural flavor.’” I challenged her, explaining that though cottonseed and soybean oils are natural they become altered from their natural state once they go through the process of hydrogenation.

Long: “They come from natural oils.”

Me: “So you’re saying that as long as an ingredient is derived from a natural source it can be considered natural no matter how it is modified?”

Long: “Yes.”

I paused audibly, galled by the deception and even further by the FDA’s response. “If you have a problem with a product you could choose not to buy it,” Long said. After telling her “I know that and have chosen not to use Lawry’s Seasoned Salt anymore, but I wouldn’t have known they had hydrogenated oils if the representative didn’t voluntarily tell me,” Long said: “If you’re ever in doubt about a product that’s what you should do; call the company. They know their product the best.”

So know this: Even with nutritional and ingredient labels you have to be responsible for knowing what’s in what you eat. From this experience and dozens that I have heard about, FDA regulations allow for companies to put ingredients in foods that are harmful to us and we not even know it. Historically, health advocates have told us to read the labels on everything you buy, but reading labels is not enough. Unfortunately, we have to do what Long advised and contact the company to get a full disclosure of what you are consuming. Though I believe labels are useless if they don’t tell us everything we need to know, ultimately the onus is on us to know what we are eating. It takes some work, but isn’t your health worth it?

Mother Respect

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What Do You Think? Wednesday

Being a mom is hard. Whether you juggle work outside the home or seek to balance life while caring for children full-time, the work of mothering can make you want to quit, at least temporarily. I know I’m not the only one who may have that momentary thought. Though the calling is full of blessings, we need mothering breaks, but we have to know what breaks are appropriate. The break we take to regain our sense of self, sanity or anything else we may have lost giving ourselves to mothering may be the one to cause us to lose our children’s respect. Like any calling from God, we can’t delegate mothering, put it on hold or simply hope for the best as we take a hands-off approach. Though we recovering strong black women have full lives that may be rich with variety, the greatest contribution we can give to the Kingdom of God is disciples sold out for Jesus Christ. Whether our children are spiritual or biological they must respect our authority in their lives so we have the foundation we need to impart all that God intends for them to have. Read more about this in my latest EEW Magazine article, which begins below:


She was asleep on the couch, taking a short rest in the comfort of her own home. This was her bed for the minute but became her last resting place alive after her 14-year-old son shot her because she forbade him to associate with alleged gang members. In another case, a 15-year-old boy stabbed his father to death as the father tried to physically restrain him from leaving the house to hang with gang members. Both these incidents happened a few weeks ago in Michigan but we too often hear stories like this across the nation where children have taken the lives of the very ones who gave them life. What is it that would make a child kill a mother or a father, the ultimate act of parental disrespect? Barring the child being sexually, physically or emotionally abused or having substance abuse or mental illness issues, perhaps the one reason a child would cuss out, strike at, steal from or kill a parent is simply not respecting their parents’ authority.

“Respect is not given but must be earned,” goes the old adage. Though some of us would like to believe that respect automatically comes with being a parent, that simply is not the case. We see the disrespect with the three-year-old cutting up in the grocery line, the 12-year-old with the attitude at the mall. or the 16-year-old who refuses to come out of the bedroom because of conflict with a parent. We see parents (and we ourselves may) negotiate, ignore or just accept this type of behavior, but this shouldn’t be the case. As our children’s first teachers, no matter how we may have messed up in the past, we have the responsibility to raise disciplined children and that works best when our children respect our authority. We must earn our children’s respect by establishing our authority in their lives. Doing so will curb this ill behavior until it becomes practically nonexistent.

“To discipline a child produces wisdom, but a mother is disgraced by an undisciplined child”
(Proverbs 29:15).

So the key is teaching our children wisdom through discipline and this works in a number of ways: Read more here and please tell me what you think.

Purpose in Pain

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Most challenging weeks I wonder what I should be learning from the experience and this week is no different. Is something wrong with me? Is God trying to show me something? Do I need to get tougher? Am I being rebuked? I ask these questions because I know God doesn’t waste anything; He uses everything for my good and maybe even the good of someone else. We may not know what the purpose of our going through is at the time but our going through has a purpose.

I remember four years ago being in the most excruciating back pain I have ever experienced when I was preparing to minister at my church. My degenerated spine had gotten worse and three vertebrae had begun to pinch my nerve. The pain was so bad that my cries were yelps. My husband and friend, who was by at the time, just laid hands on and prayed for me. The pain dulled and I was able to minister that evening, but later the pain returned and landed me on the floor in anguish. When I cried out to God He asked me did I trust Him. I said yes. He then told me that He was doing a new thing in me. He also told me that my pain experience would teach my friend, husband and sons something. I told God that I would receive whatever He had for me (knowing that what I said was dangerous but I was telling the truth) so that His will could be accomplished.

The very next day my friend said she had learned from watching me press on with my responsibilities in spite of my physical pain. She compared her emotional pain to my physical pain and said she sees physical pain worse because in my case there’s not much I can do to relieve myself. She said she could do something about her emotional pain and would seek to do so. Later that day my husband was surprised that I sounded cheery even though my pain was still intense. He said, “You have a great capacity for misery and pain. Most people with your level of pain would be crying all the time and you haven’t cussed or anything.” My oldest son, 5 at the time, was gentler, asking me how my back was feeling and telling me that he hoped I felt better.

This was an incident I needed to remember as I’m being stretched in this season like so many recovering strong black women are stretched. My to do list of being a part of caring for my mom, husband and children while still maintaining outside of the family ministry has left me wondering should I be doing all that I’m doing. The physical exertion most times just seems to be too much. But I thank God that He knows my capacity and that what I carry is helping those who are weaker. What an honor to suffer for righteousness’ sake.

My One Thousand Gifts List

#521-530
Managing the children in not so fretful a manner as I usually would be in after not taking care of some business before they woke up
Finally signing up for a writing service
Getting to bed by 11 a.m., yay!
Another Monday where I felt God’s strength
Waking up mostly refreshed
God giving me book promotional ideas
Enjoying the boys play at the park
Justus saying “wee” as he swung
Watching a movie then spending intimate time with Flynn
Another great blog post from God