Heavy Love

This is the part of the city that sleeps in till noon - and stays up with the street lights.

Where the boy on the corner dreams of hearing his name called in the first round of the draft - not being a corner boy.

But what made him want that dream? He is good at telling stories and putting them on paper - but taking care of his siblings cause his moms is working late makes it hard to turn in homework. So his grades reflect a bad student - below average - lack of sleep makes him a trouble maker - so a corporate job is out of the question, college is out of the question. The neighbors goal is the only resource he has to get out - and he will get out.

I walked down the street with a friends dog - because some times the simple tasks are the hardest to get done and when I can help I will. Stopped a dozen times by kids on bikes - receiving hugs and ignoring the older boys calls.

When I told them I picked her up from summer school they gave me a look full of judgment - like why is she in summer school? What they don't know is why they had to move - or that her sister isn't there anymore. I was just excited to see her.

In a place where we see "them" and become defensive - witnessing a cop hug my brother is considered a victory.

Certain topics of conversation are almost never off limits - this is family - and family listens and provides council. Whether it's the new girlfriend or a misunderstanding with the teacher. Maybe it's talking out how you don't "hate" a certain neighborhood, you just don't agree or get along with some of the people that live there because they want to shoot you. And they would if they had the opportunity. We go to those neighborhoods, and have family there too - but sometimes you have to be careful what streets you're on. No need to make more drama for ourselves.

This is the place where you show respect. Yes Sir and No Ma'am is required. Body language speaks louder than the words - and you better not forget your role even if you get comfortable.

This is the place where your job means you have to know who to call or what to do when abuse is detected. You are not the super hero. And even when they call me mom or sister people will never see it that way.

These are the days you wake up from nightmares hoping it never comes true.

"Doing life with a community of people" will never quite come across the way you want to - people will be confused - until they see it - then they will cry and wonder why it hasn't been obvious to them before now.

Vans full of Nike shorts and J clad feet - filling my ears with music - and my heart with joy.

The drug dealer across the street asked me a question - then I wasn't scared anymore. We understood each other. Respect is earned. We both believe in a similar end goal - except one of us is less excepted in the neighborhood. One of us has to show up a little more and gain approval. To prove I am not going anywhere.

This is the place where kids answer the door but know not to let you in. They just peek around the screen and glass and tell you what you need to know so they can slip back into the dimly lit room with cartoons on awaiting for mom to come home.

The van I drive is easy to pick out on the street - and now walking down the sidewalk I gain on average about 4 little bodies asking questions, wanting to be carried, and tell me they are fearless  "except jumping spiders - that crap is scary man."

Relationships. That is what happens when you show up. That is what needs to happen before you even try to make a sliver of an impact on the neighborhood - the moms - the daddies - the streets - relationships.

I am not blood. I am not an expert. I know what I know and continue to learn. I love the sweaty days spent talking about how I missed a birthday - obviously I wish I could have been there (wasn't actually invited) but the fact that he wanted me there. Me. Small victories.

Or when he... she asks for me and allows me into his... her little brothers life.

After last year she knows what I expect of her as a mother - it is not easy - but I go by randomly to make sure he is ok and they haven't burned the house down. Hand-me-down jerseys and folding laundry. We just talk about basketball and his future - because I will die making sure he has one. I learned that treating her this way was better. Not looking down and not pushing too hard - expectations that are doable - that you have to work at - because it will not happen again.

This is the place people lock their car doors while they drive through to get their second coffee for the day. Where fancy suits walk next to baggy shorts. And those other buildings are foreign to us.

I walk up to porches crammed with people - some not as happy to see me as others.
I join them on the porch, sit in the living room, or wait out on the sidewalk. That's what different stages of trust looks like.

This is breaking cycles. This is the struggle.
This is what hard -  easy - and heavy love looks like.

  

 

 

 

 

Saturday Thoughts & Finding The Rhythm

She told me they probably didn't live there anymore. We hadn't seen them since Halloween and even longer before that. But I was determined. He told me to find kids that wanted to play ball on Saturday. That's easy. I could hit up one street and fill the van in seconds. But I knew before I went anywhere else. I would see if my baby and the twins were home. 

 

The wreath on the door screamed they didn't live there anymore. Usually there was always a piece of notebook paper taped up with a sign that said something like "no smoking" or "don't ring the doorbell cause the boys are asleep." But still I got out of the UI van and walked to the door. Size 3 football cleats met me there. I couldn't have smiled bigger. 

 

When asked who it was I said my name and the door flew open. Squinted eyes and  a smile to match mine appeared. Another head peeked around the door. Thank goodness they aren't too old for hugs yet. My heart was refilled and overflowing before I even made it into the living room. My whole heart was stolen from him years ago. And I'll never get it back.  

 

It took me a long time to forgive momma. There aren't a whole lot of things that make me so angry to the point of hate. But I hated that time in our lives when they weren't here. And I would do anything to make sure that doesn't happen again. 

 

Not many people find joy in simple conversations of 2K and Lebrons cramps the night before. Or in getting bad grades and being honest with people about it. That's something I share with my kids. Yes, I did terrible on this exam, or I had to ask for help in my geometry class. There is no point in telling them to do their best and then me not do the same. They keep me accountable. And they keep their Ms. Chloe in check you better believe it.

 

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I like Saturdays like today... 

 

What I mean is, I like Saturdays when I am met with sleepy baby faces who woke up 5 minutes before I got there. Or the ones who climb in the van and lean forward to give you a quick hug around the neck. The ones where neighbors ask your name and say you're a good person even though they hardly know you, and you don't deserve it. When mommas can trust you and some of those little boys are taller than you. (I got a 5'11 13 year old body guard if anyone tries to mess with me!) 

 

Saturday mornings where you forget the coffee but the singing in the background  and giggling rejuvenates any tired muscle you once had. Jokes like "that's your girlfriend!" pointing to an older woman next to us and "did you see that Lamborghini?!" As they all claim it like it's theirs. Too many questions about my love life and college classes (they still wish I was at UK) dreaming and planning who will play for Coach Cal and the Miami Heat one day. 

 

Getting to watch them have fun and be silly. Of course there are the complaints, and bad attitudes every now and then but it's nothing compared to those bright white smiles. 

Adventures like breaking into a window or seeing who can rap each verse correctly. Oh and I love making fun of them about girls they like. I just got to be careful cause they are old enough now to get me back just as good.

 

Monday I will be reunited with even more of my kids. Brothers and sisters too. Some I've known for years, other I'll meet for the first time and welcome to the family. They will all have grown another foot, added or taken off braces, moved away etc. But I know once we see each other it will be hard to split us up again like it always is. They get on my last nerve but still many of us are joined at the hip haha.

 

They are my protectors, and where I see Jesus the most. Nothing could ever change that. 

So here's to family reunions, Saturdays, summer camps, and a heart that's finding it's way back to where it beats like a drum and the rhythm makes sense.

Confession: I have a dusty Bible

I have a confession to make. I'm pretty sure I just wiped a little dust off my Bible. Symbolically and quite literally. 

 

When talking to my best friend not to long ago he commented on how his Bible was doing the exact opposite of what someone had expected it to do when it was given to him. Granted he used the Bible app like all good Christians with smart phones do, but seeing that impacted him. And I made a terribly arrogant remark about how mine has stains and rips and highlighter markings thoroughout it. And now I'm kicking my own tail for it.

Being at Johnson University, previously and to many still considered Johnson Bible College, I've found it pretty dang easy to have my Bible open every day. If not for class, chapel, or church, maybe it's a small group or a debate on whether Jesus was really a passifist or not [thats a whole other story, I'll save that for a rainy day] I was SO worried that the Bible would become a textbook - so I spent a lot of time reading it outside of school. Not as much as I should or could have, but I still tried. 

Not being being at Johnson means the Bible went on a shelf and other books got priority. Good books, hardy, challenging, emotionally driven books that kept me up all night till my eyes were puffy with tears or just pure exhaustion. Sometimes I forget how much I actually like to read. I get that from my mom. We can sit down and read for hours without even thinking to stop for food or sleep or anything. We get caught up in the stories, characters, lessons to be learned, etc. We laugh, cry, get so mad we could just stop reading - but we don't. I've read books on everything from church planting to raising over a dozen adopted girls in Africa. I jumped on the Divergent train and loved it - so I borrowed my middle school neighbors copy of Insurgent. And there is always a Donald Miller book in the mix these days too. 

Yet not once since I've been back have I touched my Bible. It doesn't matter how many books I read about the church or good Samaritans, unless I am reading, learning, and engulfing myself in scripture - applying it to my life each and every day, there is no point. That is a Jesus freaks gps. "A road map to heaven" someone once told me. 

 

I can read spiritual books written by Christian best sellers, feed and clothe the homeless, volunteer in the children's ministry every Sunday till the day I die, all while living a life for Christ. All of those things are good and what we are called to do as his followers, but if I don't have scripture to encourage me, or teach me and educate me on all of the people that have failed and succeeded. To find guidance and love and hope and the evidence of His compassion on His people. 

So tonight I am embarrassed and ashamed that I let it get to this point. That I don't consider it the first thing in the morning, or when I am having a hard time. I look elsewhere or not at all and then I am left feeling empty still. Through His word, however I am restored. And I am going to do my best to make sure dust never collects on the coolest book(s) out there. 

 

"Until I get there, concentrate on reading Scripture in worship, giving encouraging messages, and teaching people." 1 Timothy 4:13 NLT

 

#stopthedustybibles

T H E - H O U S E

My dreams haven't changed much since I was in the 6th grade. I set goals, goals that seemed hundreds of miles away - years down the road from where I stood at the time. With perspective changes, and various different experiences with people - new environments, and my own personal challenges given to myself, those dreams became a lifestyle. They became my story. {My DNA was tattooed and my heart marked up with the most colorful graffiti - translation? I was born for this. Even the Queen of England had to be taught how to do her job, raised for it or not. That is where I'm at. I am growing, stretching, and absorbing the culture for the day when it is my time.}

I started to achieve those goals. Items were being checked off just as quickly as I had added them in middle and high school. People started to see the blueprint I had laid out for myself. Some shook their heads in approval and encouraged me to work hard, love people, and do the radical things. Others. Well, some people just don't have the same heart that I do. And that's ok. It hasn't stopped me from continuing and pursing the radical - investing my whole self into what that 6th grade dream was.

 

I need a second to catch everyone up.

 

For a little over a year now I have felt the call to live in the neighborhood(s) that I work with. Which if you don't know already means a predominantly under resourced, underemployed, "inner city" community. I've had people call these areas anything from downtown, ghetto, the hood, even "the bad part of town". Depending on how I feel that day I might correct you, but most days I just let it go and know that to me, those places look and feel like home. Like a place where lives are lived and stories are waiting to be told.

 

Within that year my church bought a house in the neighborhood I felt led to call home. So of course I claimed it! I told everyone it would be mine. That I didn't care if it took 4 days, or 4 years. But somehow I would move in and be the 24/7 presence I knew I wanted to be. Then I went to school in Knoxville, not Lexington. And 4 years became the reality a lot quicker than 4 days. I would wait.

 

 



Fast forward to one of the last days of school. I got a call asking if I would be up for the challenge to move into the house for the summer with the knowledge of it being a ministry house. And for those who know me at all know what happened next - tears. I looked at my mental list of goals and in the "dream" section, that was the next thing to check off. And it would actually be happening... 3 years early.

 

The park is in walking distance. I would be just around the corner from my kids. I could play ball with the boys anytime. The house would host missional community groups, and in my mind sleep overs and girls nights with all my girly girls that don't get too excited when I play sports instead of do the art projects with them! I would be forced to get to know the neighborhood and those who reside in it even better - only though I wasn't being forced. This was my dream come true. The only problem? The actual house was falling apart.

 

Set back after set back. Satan really did not want me to be in this house. No matter what we did, we waited longer, prayed harder, asked God to show us if this was what needed to happen. He said yes every time. I was hopeful. I was optimistic. I was in love with the idea being so close to reality. Someone once told me that God doesn't do bad things, but because there is sin, bad is inevitable, and when it happens God uses those moments to teach us. To see how we react. Do we call out to Him waving our arms like a crazy person saying "save me"? Or do we hunker down - gather whatever strength we have left - wipe the tears and scrapes and try again with a different approach? Neither one of those reactions are bad ones. I guess it just depends on the scenario and what God is trying to show the person. That's where I am currently. I am trying so hard to hear bad news, strategically reacting and figuring out what He is going to do with this pile of crap... literally broken, bowing, cracked, leaking, and half finished house on Larkwood.

 

So my living arrangements have changed for the summer. And that's ok. It hasn't stopped me from continuing and pursing the radical - investing my whole self into what that 6th grade dream was.  My dream has not changed. Whatever city, whatever neighborhood, and whatever house He calls me to. I will go. I will accept the looks of worry and judgment. I will nod as you tell me how ridiculous I am for putting myself in a dangerous environment as a young. single. white. girl. And I will even let you finish talking about how living in darkness can ruin my chance of getting into heaven. Then I will smile, walk away, pray for you, and continue to live the story God wrote out on my body years ago. I know what I have signed up for. Fully aware of the risks, dangers, violence, etc. I am also fully aware of the beauty, and community, and J wearing kids who just want someone to care about them. You don't have to join me. But you will not discourage me.

 

My heart hurts tonight... but tomorrow is a new day, and I am excited that one day my dream will be reality.