The Charleston Massacre
When the alarm started blaring country music, the only station that will come in properly on that tiny outdated box that sits on my night stand, I struggled to open my eyes as I reached to turn that noise off. As soon as my feet hit the floor, I walked around the bed as I tugged on the corners, flipped the covers, and smoothed out the comforter as I made the bed. As I reached the other side of the king sized bed, I reached for the silver button on the big stereo in my bedroom and pressed it to usher in welcomed music from my most favorite radio station. Turning to walk away and go about my usual morning routine, I heard the DJ announce a shooting at a church in Charleston, South Carolina. I froze right where I stood as waves of disbelief washed over me. A shooting? At a church? In CHARLESTON?
Fear rose up inside of me as I thought of the Christians that were gathered in their place of worship last night for their normal Wednesday night prayer meeting. Then sorrow filled my heart as I processed the news that they were gunned down in their church.
Oh dear Lord. What is happening to us? We need you now more than ever before, God.
The DJ returned to the music selection, and I tried to return to my usual routine of getting ready for work. I drove into the office still in somewhat of a daze, hoping I had heard the DJ wrong. Surely it can’t be OUR Charleston that she spoke of; the Holy City.
As I went about my day, sure enough, it was indeed our beloved Charleston that was making headlines worldwide. Some were calling it The Charleston Massacre.
Fear remained throughout a good portion of the morning as the suspect wanted in the shooting was still at large. There was video footage so there was no way to deny what the shooter looked like. It was on every news station and even flashed all over Facebook.
Charleston made the news … but in a horrible, horrible way.
Why do things like this have to happen? We will never know this side of Heaven.
And now … people are calling this a hate crime … and once again the race card is pulled out. People are talking about how the white man will get away with killing nine innocent black people, but they are saying that if it was a black man that shot all the white folks, it would have gone down so much differently. I do not like hearing that. It was a tragic situation that never should have happened. The individual obviously has some serious problems if he sat in a church for over an hour before opening fire on those in the church. It is unfortunate that he happened to be a white person and the victims were black. But I’m not here to talk about the color of people’s skin. It is my hope that we can see past the colors and see that they are all human beings … they were all made by God’s own hands. Red or yellow, black or white, we are ALL precious in His sight! What gets me more than anything is that nine lives seemed to not be valued … they were snuffed out when all they did was gather in a church for worship that evening.
Lord, please help us. We need you.
My heart is heavy burdened tonight as I write these words to you. Please, if you are reading this, let’s not focus on the color of the skin but instead that precious lives were lost last night when this all happened.
I had no idea any of this was going on last night as I sat up until 11:30 p.m. contemplating how to write an email to a Christian lady that seemed to be pushing “church” on us. We are Christians, and at one time, we were going to church every time the doors were opened. We were involved in so much at the church, from the GROW committee, to singing in the choir, to the buildings and grounds committee, to director over the interpretive moment team. I even kept children in the nursery a few times as well as helping in Vacation Bible School. I know what it means to belong to a small church, as I did growing up, and I also know what it is like to belong to a huge church, as I did just a few short years ago when we were heavily involved. Things happened in the church, feelings were hurt, and things transpired that should not have … thus leaving us to make a tough decision to leave the place we had grown so fond of through the years; our place of worship. Yes, we did try to find a new “church home,” yet, every church is going to have their own individual set of troubles. Why? Because they are all run by people … and people want to be in charge. I heard a saying once that there were too many chiefs and not enough Indians. Regardless, we left the church scene, but understand that we did NOT leave Christ nor our belief and faith in Him. We still have a relationship with Jesus, although our shadow does not fall upon the threshold of a church any longer. We prefer, instead, to be one with God out in the great outdoors on the back of our horses. We feel closer to Him there than we do in any building. However, we felt lectured and pushed to find a “church home” by, I’m sure, a well meaning Christian lady of an equestrian ministries group we got involved with a few months back. And there I sat last night at 11:30 p.m. trying to compose an email that would speak our hearts without offending or hurting the feelings of the recipient. Little did I know that while I spoke of not wishing to go to a church building at this point in time, people had just been gunned down at their church in Charleston.
I do think that Christians are under attack. I think that bad things happen to good people, and I also think that there are twisted people in this world that delight in evil. While I have no way of knowing what was going through this young man’s mind when he opened fire in that church building, I do know that he is a child of God. I am not sure what his beliefs are or why he chose to do what he did, but God created him and gave him free will. While we – the Nation – mourn, I believe that God is mourning also for the loss of those nine lives. Will we ever make sense of this or any other “hate crime?” No.
I would like to urge you all to join me in prayer for our Nation as a whole. This world seems to have gone crazy, and it is very scary to think of our children growing up with this type of thing happening more and more frequently. Now it’s at our backdoor, and it does not feel too good to turn on every single news channel and hear of The Charleston Massacre. A lot of focus has been placed on the man that did this – the white male. I’d like to focus on the victims and their families, friends, and loved ones. I’m choosing NOT to focus on the color of their skin. Yes, they were African American … but they are so much more than just the color of their skin. They are precious lives that we have lost, no matter WHAT their skin color was. People lost their lives last night as they were gathered in their church to worship God. It saddens me greatly that people are not even safe in church any more. It hurts my heart to know that people that had so much living to do, so many plans for the future, will never be able to see those through due to this senseless act of violence on innocent people.
Please pray that people will begin to value other people’s lives again so that shootings will STOP taking place. Each and every life is important and should be valued no matter what their skin color is.
Please join us in prayer for Charleston, South Carolina, as the Holy City mourns.
Old Fashioned
Back in February, Old Fashioned came out in theaters the same exact weekend that Fifty Shades of Grey entered on the scene. When it seemed that people every where couldn’t get to the theaters fast enough to see Fifty Shades, my husband and I went in search of a good, wholesome movie to see instead. We got just that in Old Fashioned!
To be honest, I read Fifty Shades when everyone started talking about the books long before there was ever any mention of a movie being made. Curiosity killed the cat so to speak, and I wanted to see what people were in an uproar about. Some were raving about how much they loved it and how it spiced up their love lives, while others were so set against it and all the books stood for. Once my curiosity was satisfied with the books, I had no desire to see the movie when it came out. I’m not a prude by any means, but I did not need to take it any further beyond the books. While it may be exciting to role play and do other “scenes” in the bedroom at times, there is a lot to be said about what others on the Dominant/submissive scene refer to as “vanilla.” That may sound boring to some. For me, an old fashioned way of courting and falling in love should be the foundation of your relationship. The romance and passion that comes along with it will be enough to knock your socks off to where one won’t need an erotic book or movie to help enhance things in the bedroom.
There really is no comparing the two movies because I will always lean toward love and romance first. What was noticeably different is how the characters were drawn to each other. In Fifty Shades, he sees her, wants her, and due to all of his wealth and money, he gets her. However, in Old Fashioned, the woman is more modern and worldly it seems at first glance, while the man is more standoffish. He will not even be in the same room with her alone. He prefers, instead, to stand outside her door to speak with her, or if he has to go inside her apartment to make repairs, he has her stand outside the door while he’s inside the apartment. He does not want there to be an opportunity for temptation or for things to look bad either. Yes, it is an old fashioned approach, but it is something that we need to consider now in this day and age, too. Think about it. How common is it for a male and a female coworker to be together looking over plans, proposals, bids, or discussing something else on the job? One may not see anything wrong with stepping inside the office and closing the door with a member of the opposite sex or even going out for a “working lunch” with a coworker of the opposite sex either, BUT, they should! Quite frankly, males and females should not be in the same room or car alone. Period. If they are married, their spouses won’t like it one bit, but not only that, it introduces an opportunity for temptation to enter or inappropriate things to start happening. Does it always? NO. But, why take the chance? There is a lot to be said about not giving the wrong impression or the “appearance of evil” either.
One significant difference in the two movies is that Grey and his subject had an agreement, yet he still did things that seemed to violate her trust in him. She quickly recovered and went back for more, but this has been seen by a lot of people as abuse. Some argue that if they had an agreement and they were both consenting adults that this wasn’t abuse, just something that happened when they were living out one of their “scenes.” The main character in Old Fashioned had a life changing moment where he realized that he did not want to continue on the path that he was on, and ended up turning his life around. He began reading a bible that he was given and allowed it to speak to his heart. As he did, he realized he wanted things to be different in his life and his relationships. He went back to the old fashioned way of life, which, to me, is quite refreshing.
Earlier this morning my husband had to take our vehicle to the repair shop. As he waited inside, he overheard a woman talking about how she was so “over” hearing about Fifty Shades. My husband took that opportunity to share with her that when everyone was talking about this movie, we went to see Old Fashioned. He told her a little of what it was about, and the lady said she thought she may have read the book a few years ago. My husband expounded on it saying that now there is the book, the movie, AND a devotional type book as well. He encouraged her to check it out, and she said she might actually do that. We encourage our readers to do the same. You won’t be sorry! And actually, we have all three, and we plan to pass these along to our 18 year old daughter and her boyfriend. They just started dating, and while he has been respectful and has shown, thus far, that he is a gentleman, we don’t think it will hurt to introduce this concept to ensure that they take this path instead of the worldly way.
If any of our readers are on the dating scene themselves or has teenagers/young adults that are dating as well, please enter our giveaway and share the Old Fashioned concept with them, too! I’d love to see more couples reverting back to this way of courting and having a meaningful, Christ-centered relationship than what this world has resorted to today.
“Disclosure (in accordance with the FTC’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising”): Many thanks to Propeller Consulting, LLC for providing this prize for the giveaway. Choice of winners and opinions are 100% my own and NOT influenced by monetary compensation. I did receive a sample of the product in exchange for this review and post. Only one entrant per mailing address, per giveaway. If you have won a prize from our sponsor Propeller / FlyBy Promotions in the last 30 days, you are not eligible to win. If you have won the same prize on another blog, you are not eligible to win it again. Winner is subject to eligibility verification.”
Trip of A Lifetime
Last year we were anxiously awaiting the date to arrive when friends from all over the United States would meet up IN PERSON for the very first time. Having met online 17 years ago, we never dreamed that we would actually get the chance to meet in person, yet finally we did. Sadly, it was due to one vital member of our little online community being struck with breast cancer. We wanted to rally around her and offer our support, love, and prayers … in person.
One of our Lifetime friends from New Zealand tried desperately to make it before our dear friend, Debbie, passed away in November of 2014. In the mist of making travel arrangements to go around the world to be at Debbie’s side, she faded away. Our hearts were shattered the day we lost our precious friend.
Feeling this great loss, we tried to pick up the pieces and go on, yet everything was a reminder of Debbie. Then, one day, our Kiwi friend, as Debbie so affectionately referred to him, announced that he was coming to see us after all. He had a great desire to go to Debbie’s final resting place to speak his heart, and after much planning and preparing, the time has come for us to meet Vaughan at last! Ah, yes, our little Kiwi has landed after traveling literally all week to get here. He is resting up in a hotel and will be bombarded with giggly women come Friday afternoon when Sylvia and I will hunt him down to give him a hug of a Lifetime!!
Vaughan as kept us informed of all of the details of his flights. He would “check in” at every hotel and update his status so we’d know exactly where he was and when we would need to run for the nearest hill. Just kidding. We are all anxiously awaiting our meeting Friday afternoon, and you KNOW I’ll be back to share all about it. I can’t wait to hear his accent in person, too!
This post is entitled Trip of A Lifetime, as that is what Vaughan has been calling it. We are BLESSED to have the Kiwi among us, in our online community as well as now, life and in person! We are thankful that he sacrificed so much to make this dream a reality, and soon … very, very soon, we will be meeting in person! God is so good to have allowed us to meet! Who would have ever thought that he, all the way over in New Zealand, would be coming here to meet us?! Ah yes, a Trip of A Lifetime – for Friends of A Lifetime!
We are blessed and so grateful.
Our friends truly have become our family. We have claimed them a long time ago. We have shared so many things through these past 17 years. The great and wonderful things that have happened in our lives, as well as the heartache and pain. None of us had to go through any of our troubles or trials alone for we had each other through it all.
My heart is overjoyed, and I wait in great anticipation!
Hold your friends close to your heart and let them know every day how much they mean to you. Life is too short. Make your dreams come true, just as Vaughan has for himself as well as for Sylvia and I, too!
Blessings to you and all of your online friendships!
