This is part one of honoring my mother with how she helped me to turn my focus to the gospel of Jesus and his kingdom.

 My mom and I would often have doctrinal discourse and being intellectually minded like I am, I would usually tend to want to stay on subjects that were primarily theoretical, instead of focusing on the gospel of Jesus and relationship with him.

 I strongly believe this had to do with my chaotic childhood background. I thought that if I could just have all the answers in life then I would finally be safe.

I remember being just a few years old living in a women’s shelter in McAlester, Oklahoma, with my mom and siblings and I loved getting books to read which helped me escape from my childhood chaos. I started reading at a very young age which was my cup of tea as a form of escapism. 

While still living in McAlester, Oklahoma, I witnessed a man forcing my mom to get on the ground and put a gun to her head threatening to kill her and her kids. Seeing this happen before my eyes was more than something awful, it was straight up terror. I wanted to run and smack that man in the face and tell him to leave my mom alone, but I couldn’t muster up the courage to do so. This wouldn’t be the last time I would watch my mom or us being intimidated and terrorized by violence that would consequently have deep emotional impact.

That man did a cowardly thing, but I refuse to label him as a coward because now I understand that he has God given dignity which is different from your character and what he did didn’t define who he was at his core.

 Humans can judge from appearances, but we don’t know the motive like God does. God looks at the big picture, and what contributing factors lead to people to do what they do. 

I forgive him. I can separate his behavior from who he is. He was desperate for his fix and if he never changed and never will then he will become one with his behavior. Until then, he was just a broken person himself who made a terrible decision not understanding or caring to understand the consequences he would have on all involved. When you’re in that type of state of mind you are not necessarily thinking about these things because you’re in your lower animal brain. All you care about is survival. Does this excuse the behavior? Absolutely not. It’s just looking at things holistically, seeing the whole picture. Regardless, I hope and pray that he has asked for forgiveness and has given his life to Jesus since then.

To be a faithful steward of the gospel, we have to forgive as God has forgiven us. “We love because he first loved us” 1 John 4:19. If we don’t forgive then we are placing a cheap and offensive price on the blood of Christ and his sacrifice for humanity. Each person has value that’s beyond human comprehension and the cross was a revelation of the value God places on us.

 The reason why humans do what they do in the first place is because they don’t understand their value in Christ and live from an identity contrary to beloved and greatly cherished.

  If you’re wondering about what culminated in the hostage story, The man’s girlfriend, who wasn’t there during the time of this event, had a strong and overwhelming feeling by God to go check on us and she obeyed the conviction and immediately drove to the man’s house! 

 God saved us through her urgency and obedience, and I often wonder what would have happened if she didn’t walk through the doors when she did! My mom thanked God for answering her prayers for and this was one of many times I would see God’s salvation in our lives. God didn’t prevent this tragic event from happening, but he was with us in the midst of it and brought good out of it. I believe God only allows things like this to happens with redemption in mind.

 This wasn’t the last time I would watch my mom or us being intimidated and terrorized by violence.  

So, as you can see just by this story alone, my childhood was chaotic. This story is a backdrop to why I started reading at such a young age for it allowed me to escape to a different reality and find answers. This intellectualizing I developed would then turn into me not being able to understand my own emotions and I would intellectualize rather than feel them and understand the messages they were conveying to me which is crucial when it comes to developing emotional maturity which I will further explain in a future post.

 I wanted to tell this story to give background to what I believe is why I would later become so focused on doctrinal truth vs Jesus himself which is what the bible centers around!  Part 2 is next!