Baby Butterflies
Loss denotes pain that can sometimes be debilitating. But I am learning that pain is just pain. Not good. Not bad. Just part of being a human being.
single parenting
I Fell In Love Carrying Another Man’s Child
I fell in love across the Atlantic in a country more beautiful than God himself while four months pregnant with another man’s child. The first time I saw him, it was nighttime in late August, the moon a perfect sickle. My plane landed in Accra, Ghana, and the air smelled like curry spices, yam and dry heat. A van was waiting to retrieve us from the airport, the driver dressed in slacks standing on the outside with a sign that read “NYU in Ghana.” I rolled my luggage over and was greeted by another man, Seth. Seth was a CRA: Community Resident Assistant. He was 26 years old, a native of Ghana and an employee of the university. They put him in the house to guide us students along, show us the ropes and answer the millions of questions we had living in a foreign nation, like how to guard against being cheated out of our money and how much a taxi should cost. Orientation lasted six hours the day after my arrival. We were told to avoid long walks at night for fear of rapists, to avoid carrying a bag for fear of muggers, to avoid drinking tap water for fear of cholera and to avoid mosquitoes for fear of malaria. “Symptoms of malaria include but are not limited to nausea, headache, loss of appetite and vomiting,” Dr. Akosua Perbi told us. If we experience any of these symptoms, we were told we should alert a doctor right away. The housing complex was beautiful, surrounded on all sides by a barbed wire gate and guarded by a 24-hour security guard. The brick cobblestones inside were something out of the Wizard of Oz. I lived in a house full of six men… and another girl, an overload of personality. Seth, however, was my favorite. I watched him a lot. The uneasy way he sauntered around. He’d come in… Read more at Huffington Post
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The Single Parent Solution
My 8‑year-old twins have a problem. There are three sides to the story. The Black Family in America has suffered tremendous setbacks since our arrival over 400 years ago. In recent decades, some, like Bill Cosby in his infamous 2004 comments and subsequent book “Come On People,” have placed the blame on the black community, itself, admonishing us to retire the victim mentality, take some responsibility, and stop having so many babies out of wedlock. That’s one side. Another belongs to Cosby’s opponents, namely, Michael Eric Dyson, an ordained Baptist minister and professor of Sociology at Georgetown University. He calls Cosby out for “blaming the victim” and turning a blind eye to the injustices that still pervade the unfair society in which we live in his “blanket indictment of poor blacks.” The second side. After all, it is, in fact, true, that blacks are disproportionately targeted by police, the issue lit recently by events in Ferguson, Missouri; blacks in low income neighborhoods have access to fewer resources, educationally, and otherwise; and the job market has historically been skewed in an opposing direction. But it is also factual, that 70% of children born in black households are born to single parent families, me and my twins, among the number. The conundrum compounds many matters and has introduced a host of problems that have affected the Black Family mentally and emotionally, specifically diluting the strength of the Family and weakening responsibilities to each other. So who’s right? Let me suggest that the question can be answered in examining, as I have begun to do, our identity. The family’s identity is not what it looks like through America’s lenses, set against a backdrop of European ideals. But wait, it is also not found in “going back to Africa,” and learning who we were in another culture, a polygamous one at that. After all, that’s simply exchanging one opinion for another. As Christians we know that the biblical view surpasses any other, and the right answer can only be found with God. The final side, and more importantly, the truth. The Bible tells the story of our salvation. Creation. The Fall. Redemption. And Renewal. The family is held in high regard in God’s eyes and was created to fulfill his purposes perfectly. One mother and one father in an inextricable bond (Genesis 2:24–25), obedient children (Deut 5:16) and a fear of the Lord, the organizing principle for all aspects of life (Proverbs 1:7, 3:5–6). Let me say it this way… The Fall separated man from God, broke order, and among other detriments, put Whites against Blacks. Slavery created a situation of profound dehumanization in the Black Family, which could be easily broken up and family member’s sold simply at the master’s whim, the breakdown of the family ideal still evident today. But we know that we have been redeemed and are being renewed day by day if we be in Christ. This is the story of salvation. It is not simply salvation from death, but also salvation from any and everything that is destroying us, by the grace of Jesus Christ. Lean not on your own understanding, but in all your ways, acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths (Proverbs 3:5–6). The victim mentality, while based in fact, dismisses God’s authority over heaven and earth that we have declared in our hearts to be true. And while we have been called to be responsible, we are casualties of sin and will never live our lives in perfect accordance with God’s intent until the coming day of glory. Our truest identity and the solution for an ever increasing problem in the single parent household can only be found in submission to Christ. I heard a preacher tell a story of his dear friend who had recently undergone surgery to remove cancer from his body. While the surgery was successful, and the cancer eradicated, the friend still groaned in pain for weeks, side effects of the operation. Psalms 6, arguably, one of the saddest Psalms, filled with lament and anguish, illustrates David’s suffering, much of it perhaps, a consequence of his own irresponsible behavior (2 Samuel 7, 11, 12). And yet, while he has been forgiven, his prayer is for deliverance from sin’s consequences. Likewise, the hope, for my own children, is that they would come to know the importance of the nuclear family despite their own upbringing, and regard God’s ways as perfect. My prayer is that God would fill in where I have fallen short, apply grace in empty crevices, and have mercy on our house.
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The Single Parent’s Secret
I recently became a contributor to my church’s newsletter “The Calvary Connection”. My column titled Fruit of the Womb will focus on parenting from a biblical perspective and is taken from the reference to children in Psalms 127:3. It reads “Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord. The fruit of the womb is a reward.” I was thrilled to see the published piece, although it had to be cut for length. Below I include it in its entirety. I still watch Jeopardy. A few nights ago, Alex answered, “This fish with no stomach has to eat almost constantly to stay alive.” The question, “What is a seahorse?” My first thought was what a miserable life. No time to really live because you’re constantly worried about simply surviving. As do most of us. We feed the flesh in an attempt to fill up our bank accounts, our love lives, our idea of happiness, yet we are never quite satisfied. We never seem to reach our intended destination, do we? Always hungry. Always eating. As a single mother of two boys, it’s tempting to focus on my lack as opposed to the provisions God has already afforded me. When I have a late meeting at work and I find myself rushing to pick up the twins on time, I say to myself “If I only had a husband, or a nanny or something…” In difficult months financially, I find myself stretching my dollars and I say, “If I only had a better paying job…” When I compare myself to others, I say “If I could only buy a house…after all I should own one at this age…” If only…If only…If only… And so I eat. I rush through the days, the weeks, the months striving for that which I do not have, waiting and praying for God to give it to me. But then, I am reminded in quiet and solitude of the words David spoke in Psalm 23. “The Lord is my Shepherd. I shall not want.” The literal translation, I lack NOTHING. God has promised to be a provider and a supplier of all of our needs and surely our Father knows what we need. Therefore, if we don’t have it, then we don’t need it to carry out His purpose in this season of our lives. By the world’s standards and sometimes by our own, it is easy to believe we lack much as single parents, however we arrived here. One income, not two…and the burden of household responsibilities often fall on our shoulders alone. Yet Christ, by grace, has fulfilled all that we would lack, and stands in the gap between our limitations, and the needs of our household and our children. One of my favorite scriptures is Phillipians 4:11–12 where Paul says: “Actually I don’t have a sense of needing anything personally. I’ve learned the [secret of contentment] whatever my circumstances. I’m just as happy with little as with much, with much, as with little. I’ve found the recipe for being happy whether full or hungry, hands full or hands empty.” paraphrased The Message. Rhonda Byrne wrote a self-help book in 2006 that sold over 19 million copies, has been translated into 46 languages and was featured on two episodes of the Oprah Winfrey show. I’m convinced it’s premise is pure plagiarism, harking on an age old idea and calling it novel. The book aptly titled “The Secret,” speaks on the law of attraction, positive thinking, and tells us that the act of needing nothing, attracts everything. But isn’t that precisely the same secret that Paul has been telling us about all along? Isn’t it what Christ himself has told us throughout the Gospel? “For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me, will find it.” Matthew 16:25 NIV As single parents, let’s resolve within ourselves to be content in every situation. Let us not just say that we believe that God is a provider but let us really believe it. Paul has discovered the “secret” to doing this, which means this is information to which not everyone is privy. It’s fragile, it’s hidden and freely given by grace alone. A woman of contentment is aware of her needs and what God has already provided to meet them. I made a list. I labeled one side “My Needs”, and the other “How God is Meeting Them” and as I filled out the page, it became increasingly obvious that I have much to be grateful for. I keep my list handy for those times when doubt begins to creep in. I have resolved to put my fork down, enjoy my life, my children, and my current season one day at a time… to stop preparing to live, and start actually living, to remember that I am alive in the present moment, the only moment there is for me to be alive. The Jeopardy clue stills stays with me. On second thought, the same is necessary of us. Like the seahorse, we must constantly eat spiritual things, feeding not the flesh, but the spirit, where life resides. In doing so, we not only survive, but by an act of the supernatural, we also get to live.
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