At the Well

What's Your Vision? Get Focused

2012-01-25T12:13:00.000-08:00

“And the LORD answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it.” Habakkuk 2:2

What’s your vision?

Few of us have 20/20 vision in the natural sense. I have worn glasses or contacts most of my life. In the morning the first thing I reach for are my glasses. Otherwise, the world is a little fuzzy around the edges. Things in the distance are hard to make out. I can function but not my full potential. For example, I wouldn’t dare attempt driving without the aid of corrective lenses. It would be dangerous for me and anyone in my path.

In the spiritual sense, some of our vision needs correcting.

Vision is the ability to see. It is also defined as a thought or concept formed by the imagination or a revelation.

In your life, what can you see? Are you seeing clearly? What do you imagine for your future? What is the revelation that God has given you about your purpose and how He wants you to use your gifts, passion and experience for His glory? Does your sight need some adjusting or correcting?

If you can’t see, how can you walk in your destiny? You stumble and bumble around in a blur—making out the vague outline but things never coming into clear focus.

Some of us are in dire need of a vision adjustment.

We have lost our vision which has been clouded by the distractions of life. We’ve lost clarity on who we are and the purpose God has given us.

What’s the best way to adjust your vision?

Focus.

When things are out of focus, it means we need corrective lenses or surgery to get things back in alignment so we can see clearly.

Our corrective lenses are prayer and God’s Word. Through prayer and God’s Word we can correct our vision and see who we are and clearly discern God’s purpose for our life. Through the corrective lenses of prayer and God’s Word, we receive instruction and encouragement.

If you’ve lost your vision or feel stuck in the pursuit of it, take some time to refocus. If you never had one, take some time to focus for the first time.

Application:

Focus on one thing at a time. After I started writing this posting, I saw an inspirational video message by Tyler Perry about focus. His words were right on time for me. Sometimes, especially as women, we multi-task and find ourselves juggling ten balls in the air at the same time. Sometimes it is unavoidable and necessary. You have to do laundry, cook dinner and help with homework simultaneously. But when it comes to reaching big goals, finishing large projects or focusing on our vision, we have to hone in on the one thing that’s most important. My husband often tells me, “Do one thing and get it done and then move to the next thing.”

What is your one thing? Identify it and get to work on it and don’t stop. Keep plugging away at it. As Tyler Perry said, plant that one seed and water it. God will give the increase.

Write the vision. Having a road map helps you get to your destination. If you get off track you can always refer to the map. Writing your vision gives you a road map. It will help you to focus on what your vision is and writing it will help you to focus and clarify your thoughts. Write your vision statement today.

Visualize. Do you want to write a book? Make the cover and put it where you can see it. Do you want to earn a degree? Make up a diploma with your name on it. Find a photo of how you want your body to look and put it on the refrigerator. Start to see not only in your mind but in a physical and tangible aspect what it is that you are working toward.

Pray and read God’s Word. Every day, whether it’s one minute or one hour, commit yourself to consistently seeking God through prayer and His Word for your vision and his revelation. I think too many of us, including myself, are guilty of underestimating the power of prayer. God said in his Word, if anyone seeks wisdom, let him ask and God said he would be more than willing to give it to you. Read His word so you know what to pray. Read his word for encouragement and wisdom. Pray back God’s word and memorize it so that it becomes a part of you. God wants to lead us and guide us. He wants to order our steps. One of the main ways that God speaks is through his word. But how can you hear him if you never listen?

Get focused and get busy and before you know it, you'll be seeing 20/20.

Steps to Success in 2012: See It, Say It, Believe It, Build It

2012-01-09T19:21:00.000-08:00

"Without a vision, the people perish." Proverbs 29:18

As we enter a new year, we have a new opportunity. A new opportunity to fulfill the purpose that God has given us.

We start out the year with high hopes and in good spirits, but as the weeks go by our passion peters as plans don’t go as planned. Unexpected obstacles occur. Fear becomes a factor and prevents our progress. Negative naysayers prick our expectations, deflating our dreams and inflating our own fears as we start to rehearse in our minds all the reasons why we won’t succeed.

Whenever you are on a mission to fulfill God’s will and purpose, there will be challenges. The Bible says that our enemy wants to steal, kill and destroy. And he will use any tactic to achieve his goals including delay, discouragement and making you feel disqualified.

But most of the time, the biggest obstacle is ourselves. Our fears. Our focus on past failures. But God has not given us a spirit of fear and if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things have passed away, behold all things have become new.

In 2012, make a decision to step into your destiny every day with determination, redeeming the time. God will give you visions and dreams and the strength by His Spirit to walk in and fulfill his purpose for your life. Whatever your God-given goal is in 2012—a new career, quit smoking, lose weight, start a business, complete a degree—see it, say it, believe it and then build it.

See it

Without a vision the people perish. (Proverbs 29:18) Another translation of that verse says when people do not accept divine guidance, they run wild. (New Living Translation). If we do not have a vision for our lives we will run around wild and undisciplined with no direction. Without God’s direction, our possibilities and purpose perish.

Helen Keller famously said, “It is a terrible thing to see but have no vision.” Many of us have eyesight but we do not have a vision for our lives. Like the Israelites who first surveyed the Promised Land, we see ourselves as grasshoppers instead of the conquerors that God has called us. Ask God for his vision, his revelation, guidance, will and view of our life.

Application: Pray for God’s vision for your life. Create a vision board. Put the cover of your book, a copy of the diploma you want, other things that you want to see happen where you literally can see them.

Say it

Once you see the vision that God has given you for your life, say it. Write it down. Tell trusted friends who can encourage you and keep you accountable. God said to write the vision and make it plain so you can run and not faint. (Habakkkuk 2:2) When you get discouraged, look at what you’ve written and remember where you’re going. Tell others so that it’s real and not just something in your mind.

Our words are powerful. God’s word brings things into existence that weren’t there before. God spoke a word and galaxies appeared. Jesus spoke and people were healed. If we confess with our mouth the Lord Jesus and believe God has raised him from the dead, we are saved and our eternal destiny changed. In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. (John 1:1).

Don’t just say what you’re going to do, but start confessing God’s word over your life. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14) Say, “I am more than a conqueror through Christ”. Say, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

Application: Write down the vision God has given you. Write what you want to see happen in 2012. Write and memorize scriptures that will encourage you. Put them where you can see them and say them out loud. Tell 2-3 trusted friends your vision.

Believe it

Without faith, it is impossible to please God. (Hebrews 11:6). Believe that God is able to do exceedingly and abundantly above what we ask or think. (Ephesians 3:20) Believe even if things don’t go as you wanted or expected that God is faithful, that he loves you and has a plan for you and wants to give you a future and a hope. (Jeremiah 29:11)

Application: Pray that God will help your unbelief and increase your faith.

Build it

Get to work. Nehemiah was able to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem because “the people had a mind to work.” Seeing it, saying it and believing it mean nothing if you don’t do something. “All hard work brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty. “ (Proverbs 14:23) God will bless the work of your hand. He will open up Red Seas but there’s no need to open up the sea if you’re still in Egypt. God will give the increase, but you have to plant something. Building is a process. It is done, step by step, brick by brick. A foundation has to be laid and built upon. God will establish the work of your hands (Psalm 90:17), but you have to work.

Application: Even if it’s a small step, do something every day. Set small achievable goals. Don’t try to run a marathon the first day. Just walk around the block. Get the help that you need. Find resources. Start. Rome wasn’t built in a day and your dream likely won’t either.

All of these steps are undergirded by prayer and planning. We have to do the internal and external work. Prayer provides direction, encouragement, motivation and information. Planning helps us to put our prayers into action.

In 2012, step into your destiny: See it, say it, believe it and build it.

Happy 2012 from At the Well

2011-12-31T10:43:00.000-08:00

Langston Hughes posed the question what happens to a dream deferred.

Monica and John W. Fountain

So many live with the gnawing ache of dreams deferred.

But what happens when your dreams are fulfilled? When what you hoped and prayed for become a reality. When you plant and water and God through His grace and amazing love gives the increase. When the hard work of planting and nurturing, building and dreaming, working and planning finally come to fruition.

Joy.

Not just happiness at the circumstances, but a deep satisfaction and peace because you know you are in the space and place where God intends you to be, even if all the circumstances still are not perfect.

2011 has been a joyous year of dreams fulfilled for the Fountain Family and for that we praise God.

Our book, Dear Dad, that lived for years in our heart and mind has come to life. Lost family ties have been bound. In October, for the first time, I met my brother Walter face to face. Awards have been won professionally and academically, on the field of athletics and in the discipline of martial arts. In 2011, my husband, John W. Fountain, was honored as the top columnist in the Chicago area by the Society of Professional Journalists.

We praise God for every blessing, but most of all we thank God for you--our family and friends.

The vision I had for At the Well has come to fruition. When my husband encouraged me to start blogging in 2008, he gave me the name At the Well based on the woman at the well who had a life-changing encounter with Christ. My hope for At the Well was that it would be a place of enlightenment, encouragement and edification. This year, it has truly been all of those things for me and I hope for many of you as well. Through the platform of social media and the Internet, I believe we have created a community where God's name is glorified, the Gospel is proclaimed, prayers are lifted and people are encouraged and edified for this journey called life.

Not only have dreams been fulfilled for me this year, but also dreams have been renewed.

The Well magazine is in the works and will be given birth to in 2012. The Well will be a quarterly magazine that will complement At the Well and have the same mission of edification, enlightenment and encouragement as well as inspiration. It will be a forum where we can share and learn from each other's testimonies and triumphs.I hope that many of you will contribute your testimony and story to The Well magazine. (click here for writer's guidelines) We overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the words of our testimonies. My prayer is that the testimonies and stories that will be shared on At the Well and The Well in 2012 will bring healing and deliverance.

Thank you to all of you who have encouraged me this year. I can't tell you how much it has meant. And I thank God for freeing me from fear and helping me to step out on faith. A special thank you to my best friend and husband, John, for giving me tough love sometimes and telling me to stop talking about it and get about the business of doing it.

The greatest treasures we possess are the intangible ones. Our health. Our relationships with family and friends, those who we love and who love us back. Not the things we accumulate, but the memories that we make. Hugging a brother for the first time. Laughing and playing games on a trip to Detroit. Watching your son be a pirate in a play. Singing and dancing under the sky at a music festival in Cincinnati. Driving with the drop top down on a humid summer night. Sitting by a fireplace with the one you love.

We pray that you treasure the moments and that your 2012 is filled with joy.

Don't Give Up

2011-12-16T04:45:00.000-08:00

“I would have fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.” Psalm 27: 13 (King James Version)

As a matter of fact I had fainted (Psalm 27: 13, American Standard Version).

I lost confidence, my strength, my consciousness of who You are.

I was knocked out. Down for the count. Tired. I was weak. I had messed up. I had given up.

But I believed. I believe.

Believe: to accept something as true, genuine or real; to have a firm conviction as to the goodness, efficacy or ability of something. (Webster’s Dictionary)

Not in myself. Not in my power or might. But in You.

I believe in God. The Great I AM. The Maker of Heaven and Earth. Jehovah Jirah, my provider. Jehovah Shalom, my peace. The Ancient of Days. The Lord God Almighty. The Alpha and Omega. The Beginning and the End. My Rock and my salvation. The lover of my soul. My creator who knit me together in my mother’s womb. My God who counts the number of hairs on my head and sees my thoughts afar off.

The God who sees me. The God who knows me. The God who knows the plans He has for me, plans to give me a future and a hope. The God who takes care of me.

I gave up. I quit. I couldn’t take it, make it or do it. I didn’t have the capability, ability or capacity to achieve my dream. I still don’t.

I would have despaired (Psalm 27: 13, New American Standard Bible)

Despair: complete loss or absence of hope.

But I have confidence in You. My hope is in You.

My success and significance are in Your Son, Jesus Christ.

“I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.” Psalm 27:13 (New International Version)

Before I close my eyes on this earth, You will fulfill the purpose you have for my life. You are good and your mercies endureth forever. Because I am also confident (sure, certain, secure, positive) of this: that he that began a good work in me will carry it on to completion. (Philippians 1:6)

I have already seen your goodness. Your protection. Your provision. Your love.

I see it on the cross. A King on a tree, dying for me. An empty tomb. Resurrection power. Your Holy Spirit and still small voice. Your miracles every day. Your discernment and direction.

Your Word speaking to me:

“The Lord is faithful to all his promises and loving toward all he has made.” Psalm 145:13 (New International Version)

“And let us not be weary in well-doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.” Galatians 6:9 (American Standard Version)

“But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.” Isaiah 40:31 (King James Version)

“Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the LORD.” Psalm 27:14 (King James Version)

Your word to me: Don’t give up. (Monica’s Modern English Translation)

The Ministry of Naps

2011-12-08T04:01:00.000-08:00

“Then he lay down under the tree and fell asleep. All at once an angel touched him and said, “Get up and eat.” He looked around, and there by his head was a cake of bread baked over hot coals, and a jar of water. He ate and drank and then lay down again.” 1 Kings 19:5-6

I heard a preacher once say, taking a nap is sometimes the most spiritual thing we can do.

I used to hate taking naps as a child. I remember being in pre-school lying on the mat looking at the other kids who were knocked out. I wanted to get up and keep playing. Why did we have to take time out to take a nap?

When I got to college and pulled all-nighters, I appreciated a nap, especially during finals week. As a stay- at- home mom, I felt guilty taking a nap during the day. What if my husband called and said, “Whatcha doing?” Taking a nap. That just didn’t seem right. I needed to be productive. There were too many things to do.

But we are human beings, not human doings and God wants us to rest. In creation he created a Sabbath day, a day of rest. He knows our frames. He knows that we need time for restoration. We also need time for reflection and meditation. Then we can get a revelation from God. If you want to be really effective, sometimes we need to stop and take a nap.

Research has shown that naps—short periods of rest—are good for our health and lives. Some of the benefits include: less stress, increased creativity and productivity, improved memory and learning and lower levels of heart disease.

In the book 1 Kings, the great prophet Elijah was feeling down. As a matter of fact, he was downright depressed. He had just had the mountaintop experience of defeating the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel. He had seen fire come down from heaven and then a downpour of heavy rain after years of drought. The prophet had experienced God’s miraculous provision through ravens and widows. His prayers were so powerful that he cried to the Lord and a boy was restored to life.

But after all of that, Elijah was still just a man. He was afraid of the evil Queen Jezebel and fled for his life. He sat under a tree and prayed for death. “I have had enough, Lord,” he said. “Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors.” (1 Kings 19:4)

But then he fell asleep. An angel woke him up and gave him something to eat and drink and Elijah went back to sleep. The angel woke him up again and he ate and drank. Strengthened by the food, he traveled forty days and nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God.

The lesson from Elijah: after great victories or hard work, we must take the time to rest. When God has something great for us to do, sometimes we need to be strengthened and we need time to prepare for the task ahead. It’s OK to be still and quiet before God. Activity does not always equal ministry.

The other day I was feeling a little down. I was not accomplishing what I wanted to accomplish. My to-do list was getting longer and my Plan A had turned into Plan C. My desk was a mess, dishes were in the sink, and clothes on the family room couch needed folding.

My husband came home and said he was going to take a bath so I spruced up the bathroom for him. Another lesson: What you do for someone else, give it your best. You might find out you’re doing it for yourself.

Next time I came into the bathroom, thinking I’m checking on his bath, I find a bathroom with candles, roses, a card and my favorite candy. I soaked in the bubble bath that had been prepared for me, devoured my candy and fell asleep. I thought I had dozed off for a few minutes. It was actually almost an hour. But when I got up, I felt refreshed and when I woke up this morning I felt lighter and the day was brighter. That rest did wonders.

God wants us to enter his rest—his ultimate blessing for our lives. He has a rest for our souls. “This is what the Lord says: Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls.” (Jeremiah 6:16).

If we want real rest and peace that passes human comprehension, we must walk in His ways. Are you tired? Are you sick and tired? Maybe, like Elijah, you’re depressed. You’ve worked hard and it seems like your labor is in vain.

Jesus invites you to take a nap.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” (Matthew 11:28-29)

What Happens When We Praise?

2011-12-02T17:45:00.000-08:00

Church mothers praise God during service at the
Regina Mundi Church in South Africa.
Photo by John W. Fountain

"Praise the Lord, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name. Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits..."
Psalm 103:1-2

Last month I embarked on a challenge. My brother, Rev. K. Edward Copeland, the pastor of New Zion Baptist Church in Rockford, Illinois sent out an invitation on Facebook to join his church as they study "The Power to Prosper: 21-Days to Financial Freedom". He challenged his congregation to a 21-day fast from credit cards. It prompted an idea for me. How about 21 days of giving God something? 21 Days of Praise.

I had read a book about gratitude and on the local Christian radio station once I heard an author talk about how she had a goal of writing 1,000 things for which she was grateful. I thought it was a great idea and I had started to write my own gratitude list in my daily devotions, but as time went on I was inconsistent. I’ve heard it takes 21 days to form a habit. Why not challenge myself and invite others to join me in listing our praises for 21 days?

Part of the challenge was to think of something new every day and not repeat. I thought it might be a challenge. But the challenge ended up stopping the flow of praise to just a few. As I started to post praises at the At the Well Facebook group and others joined in with their praise, I found myself finding more and more to praise God for and along the way God made manifest what happens when we praise and why praise is so important.

Perspective

When we praise we get the proper perspective of who God is.

Praise is recognizing, appreciating and expressing God’s greatness. Perspective is defined as a view or vista; a mental view or outlook. It comes from the Latin word perspicere which means to look through or see clearly.

When we praise God, we see more clearly. We see who God is and we see ourselves and our situations in the proper perspective. The things that seemed so large in our human perception seem microscopically small when compared to the greatness of God.

When we praise God we start to really see who He is. Although our finite human minds cannot conceive or perceive all of his greatness, when we start to enumerate who He is, we start to see different aspects of his holiness, omnipotence, awesomeness, love and grace.

When we start seeing how big and great God is, everything else is small in comparison and we have a proper perspective on our problems, our position and our purpose.

Praising God jogs our memory and increases our ability to trust in the one who has brought us through before. We remember how God has kept us, comforted us and provided for us. The more we say what He has done the more we appreciate who He is and have confidence in what He can do.

We recognize that He is the Creator, the Maker of heaven and earth. The God we serve and praise is the almighty One who spoke and brought the universe into existence. This great God is our God. He is a personal God. Our father, Abba, Daddy God who loves me and knows me so well that he has counted the number of hairs on my head and sees my thoughts afar off. He knew me before I was me and He knit me together in my mother’s womb.

The same God who determined the number of the stars heals the brokenhearted. The same God who created the vastness of the cosmos and galaxies also created the subatomic particle of the atom. The same God who made the intricacies of my DNA is the same God who makes the rain fall, the grass grow and the seasons change. The same God made the sun and made it so that plants on earth take that light and turn into food through the miracle of photosynthesis.

And that same God who made the sun, gave His only begotten Son who was there with Him when the foundations of the earth were established. And that Son set aside His divinity, wrapped himself in humanity and shed his blood for our iniquity. What a mighty God we serve and He is worthy to be praised.

Praising God puts things in perspective.

Next: What Happens When We Praise? Purpose and Power

21 Days of Praise

2011-11-01T13:00:00.000-07:00

Recently, my brother, Rev. Kenneth E. Copeland, the pastor of New Zion Baptist Church in Rockford, Illinois sent out an invitation on Facebook to join his church as they study "The Power to Prosper: 21-Days to Financial Freedom" (click the link to see CNN interview) by Michelle Singletary. For the 21 days of this fast, they are asking folks to not use credit cards or debit cards and only purchase necessities (grocery, gas, medication).

"From November 1st through November 21st we are trusting that God will give us the discipline to break the bondage of debt and to put our money where our values are. I DARE YOU TO JOIN US!"

U.S. consumer debt is more than 2 trillion dollars. That's trillion--not million. We are drowning in a sea of debt. For many, not using credit for 21 days would be a great challenge. Being financially free is important. God wants us to be free in every way, emotionally, spiritually, physically and financially. In order to take control of our finances (and other areas of our lives) we must be disciplined. That financial challenge gave me an idea for another challenge. A challenge to 21 days of praise.

I invite you to join me on At the Well to enter into His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise (Psalm 100:4).

For the next 21 days (November 1-21) join with me in posting praise and thanks on At the Well (online or Facebook).

For the first seven days, list three things:

I praise God for His (fill in the blank)
I thank Him for (fill in the blank)

The next 7 days list 7 things.

And the last 7 days see if you can list 12 things a day.

The challenge. Don't repeat but you can go from general to specific. For example, I thank God for my health. Then later you may say, I thank God that I was able to walk under my own strength or I thank God for the ability to see, etc.

When we start thinking about and saying all of the things that we have to thank God for, I believe it frees us. Our problems become small in light of an awesome God who loves us.

Maybe you'll do both--the financial fast and 21 days of praise. Either way, at the end, I'm sure we'll have many praise reports of what the Lord has done.

Here's my first list:

1. I praise God for salvation
2. I thank him for my husband.
3. I thank him for my children.

Memo to Girls' Clothing Manufacturers

2011-10-29T19:20:00.000-07:00

Memo

To: Girls' Clothing manufacturers

From: A concerned mother

My 15-year-old daughter is not a video vixen.

I just thought you should be made aware of this fact since most of the dresses you make in her size are too short or too tight for her to wear in my opinion. A few years ago when I was looking for a dress for her eighth grade graduation this unfortunate situation came to my attention. Now two years later while looking for a dress for her fall harvest dance, I find that the situation has not improved.

Once again, most of the selection was too tight and too short in my humble opinion. Even my daughter said, “Mom, that’s too low.” I thought we would have to buy a skirt and blouse until we found the right dress. Not too low in the front, not too high on the thighs.

Now I don’t consider myself a prude. My prom dress was strapless, but it was long and formal. But maybe I am a bit old-fashioned in this day and age. I just can’t see my daughter in a dress where she has to fight to keep her breasts from popping out and keep tugging down to keep it from riding up.

That’s what I see too often at these dances and other functions--girls pulling up and down to keep their dresses on.

Another mother shopping the other day commiserated with me. She said most of the dresses made the girls look like prostitutes. I prefer the term video vixens—the young ladies who populate the videos of popular music these days, half-dressed and shaking what their mamas gave them.

This dilemma is not just for teens.

Another mother told me she searched for weeks to find shorts for her then 6-year-old that weren’t too short or had inappropriate words like “juicy” written on the back. One friend has contemplated taking up sewing so that she can make clothes for her daughter. Another friend looking for dresses for her 5 and 7 year old daughters for a daddy-daughter dance said she had a hard time finding something appropriate.

I just want you to know I think there is a market out there that you can capitalize on. There are other mothers out there looking for dresses and other clothing that don’t make their daughters look like Puritans or nuns but at the same time leave something to the imagination. There are some mothers out there who want their child to remain children for as long as possible, although the world keeps trying to make them into mini-adults. They want their children to relish in the simplicity and innocence of childhood because they know they will have the rest of their lives to be grown up.

I cannot blame you for all of this. Someone buys the dresses that you produce or you wouldn’t make them. I think too many mothers are living vicariously through their daughters and wishing for their younger days. I see it on that horrible, disturbing television show “Toddlers and Tiaras” as mothers pressure their pre-schoolers to win beauty pageants and disgrace themselves. They parade their babies in sexy outfits in beauty pageants with their already flawless faces caked with makeup to make them look like grown little women.

This summer at a music festival I saw women my age and old enough to be my mother wearing outfits that Beyonce would be afraid to wear. One grandmother had a red number on with a neckline that plunged to her belly button and her breasts were sagging almost as far. I wondered how anyone let her get out the house or how she looked in the mirror and thought, “Girl, you looking good.” I see the pictures on Facebook, women who refuse to age gracefully but think that Daisy Duke shorts that almost look like bikini bottoms and super tight, cut up jeans are still for them.

But I want my daughter to know that it’s wonderful to dress up and wear beautiful clothes. How you present yourself to the world is important. But you don’t have to dress according to what the world says is desirable. I want her to know that she doesn’t have to show everybody her breasts and butt to be attractive. I want her to understand the wisdom of the scripture in Proverbs that says, “Like a gold ring in a pig’s snout is a beautiful woman who shows no discretion. (Proverbs 11:22)”

I want her to know that she is a lady and she should dress like one. I want her to understand that her beauty should not come from her outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. “Instead it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight. (1 Peter 3:3-4)”

That inner beauty will never go out of fashion.

So dear clothing manufacturer, please keep this market in mind. I think you might be surprised by the demand.

To Sweet or Not to Sweet

2011-10-22T18:48:00.000-07:00

We are eating ourselves to death.

Trust me. I get it.

Americans are obese and African Americans are particularly plagued by health issues related to their diet and lifestyle. It has been reported that 70 percent of African American women are overweight or obese. African Americans suffer from diabetes and high blood pressure at detrimental and deadly rates.

Many of our health issues can be resolved, alleviated or aided by eating a healthier diet. Too much of the wrong foods can kill. But foods can also heal.

Not only are the adults obese, but our children are overweight and out of shape.

Trust me. I get it.

I am an absolute advocate of healthy eating. My mother taught me that. As a child, she made sure that a healthy diet, full of fruits and vegetables was a part of life. She still preaches a vegetable with every meal and at least one green vegetable a day. My husband also insists on teaching our children about putting the right things in their bodies. No white bread. Whole wheat 12-grain bread. There was a little complaining at first but not anymore. Lots of fruits and vegetable. Little red meat. Bacon or sausage every blue moon. I can’t remember the last time I had a pork chop. Chicken and fish. Cut down on the candy.

I support First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move campaign.

But no cupcakes at school for kids on their birthday? What is the world coming to?

At a PTO meeting at my son’s school last month, parents were informed because of a health initiative grant received by the school district, children were discouraged from bringing cupcakes to school for their birthday. All fundraisers also had to be approved by the higher ups and cookie dough (our biggest fundraiser for the year) and chocolate sales were also discouraged.

Bringing cupcakes to the school on my children’s birthdays was one of the highlights of my now teenagers early school years and something that my son still looks forward to. I must admit it was something I enjoyed as well since as a child my birthday near the end of August always fell just before school started so I didn’t get to celebrate with my classmates. It seems like some of the fun of childhood is being taken away. Instead of cupcakes, pass out carrot sticks?

In the whole scheme of things, this is not earth shattering but it still feels like a loss.

No cupcakes for birthdays? My husband noted that if I was a teacher, I would appreciate the kids not getting a shot of sugar from a birthday cupcake in the afternoon.

Trust me. I get it.

But I also believe that banning cupcakes is not the recipe for healthier children. I think we’re better served by making sure that children are active, school meals are balanced and healthy and most importantly that children and parents are educated and encouraged to practice healthy eating and lifestyles at home.

I’m not beating the drum like some anti-government advocates saying keep your hands off my cupcakes. I don’t plan on occupying the school district offices. But as I asked in the meeting, “You mean there can’t be any sugar in the school?”

I read recently that some schools have banned sugar all together. A few years ago a principal claimed that after banning sugar from her school, test scores rose and discipline problems declined. Maybe there is something to this sugar free thing. And kids can always have their treats at home.

But as in most things in life, I believe a balance is required. Advocate and educate for healthier eating. Cut back and out sugary drinks and fatty snacks. Exercise and practice a healthy lifestyle. But also realize that indulging in a cupcake every once in a while is one of those sweet treats of life. And because like your birthday it doesn’t come around every day, it makes it that much sweeter, special and something to be savored.

Advice for Your 16-year-old Self

2011-10-13T19:27:00.000-07:00

The other day I was having a conversation with my daughter. She was telling me the latest controversy among her group of friends. A minor thing seems like the only thing when you’re almost 16 years old. As I listened to her talk about the world of teenage girls, I couldn’t help but thinking, “Thank God I’m not in high school anymore!”

My high school senior yearbook photo

Don’t get me wrong. I had a good high school experience. But when you’re in high school there can be so much drama. You’re trying to figure out who you are and how you fit. Nowadays there seems so much pressure to be popular. Although I’m sure there was that pressure when I was 16 too, but in this generation of Facebook, Twitter, instant communication and cyberbullying, the pressure cooker of peers seems to be even more intense.

I often tell my daughter, “You won’t even remember most of these folks 10 years from now.”

The advice I gave her the other day in regard to dealing with friends and misunderstandings and the general drama of hormonal girls was, “This too shall pass.”

As I prepare for my 25th class reunion at the end of October and my daughter turns sweet 16 in November, I think about the advice that I was given when I was that age, how much of it was really true and how much did I follow.

I received (and for the most part followed) excellent wisdom and advice based upon God’s Word from my parents. I was also blessed to have friends who had parents with the same values as my parents. My neighbor told me college would be some of the best times of my life, to enjoy it to the fullest. She was right and I did.

One of my mother’s favorite sayings was, “God gave you some sense.” One of the millions of nuggets of wisdom from my father was, “You have to learn to live with people because you’ll have to live with them for the rest of your life.”

I find myself passing these lessons to my children, including a few variations and bits of wisdom that I have picked up along the way of this journey called life (check out 43 lessons I’ve learned in 43 years).

But I was thinking, if I was to go back in time and speak to my 16-year-old self what would be the most important words of wisdom that I would want to impart to that young lady on the brink of adulthood? It probably wouldn’t be much different than what my parents told me. It’s some of the things I know and that I tell myself and live by today. It’s what I tell my children and other young people.

But I think I would tell my 16-year-old self something like this:

“In life you will have heartaches and pains, trouble and trials. Sometimes you will feel like giving up or a failure. You will also have joy and triumphs, laughter and love. Through it all, remember God is with you. Love freely. Forgive freely. Tell those you love that you love them. Our lives are our choices. Learn from the past but don’t dwell on your mistakes. Savor every minute. Take advantage of every opportunity. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not to your own understanding. Always remember who God says you are. Wherever you go and whatever you do, leave the place a little better for you having been there and take something from the experience to make you better. Don’t waste time. But make sure you stop and smell the roses. Don’t be held captive by fear. Life is short. Live it.”

If you could go back and talk to yourself at age 16 (knowing what you know now about yourself and your life’s journey), what advice would you give to yourself?

You Never Know What's Wrapped Up in a Child

2011-10-06T09:43:00.000-07:00

Upon hearing of the death of Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple, I learned from media reports that he was adopted. Born in 1955, he was the biological son of university graduate students. I thought about how his mother made a decision to bring him into this world, but I'm sure at the time she could have never imagined that her baby would grow up to be described as "a pioneer" who "changed the world."

It got me to thinking about others who people have dismissed or would have never thought would be lauded and applauded by the world or accomplish "great" things. It got me to thinking about how some people might have acted differently if they had known what those children would grow up to be. It made me think we never know what is wrapped up in a child.

It also made me think that it shouldn't matter if we knew or not because whether we make "great" accomplishments by the world's standards or not, that by God's standard we all have a calling, a gift and greatness that He has placed inside of us. For far too many that calling is crushed when we are children because of the cruelty of others.

I wrote these thoughts/poem/musings as a result of those reflections.

You never know what’s wrapped up in a child

I wonder if that woman knew that you would grow up to be you

If she would have made you sleep on the porch

Would she have despised you because you were darker

Esteeming the fairer

Judging you by her hatred of her own and the color of your skin
If she knew the greatness you had within.

You never know what’s wrapped up in a child

I wonder if those kids who poked fun at you
Would have been so cruel
Mocked your dark skin and called you ugly names
If they knew one day of your fame

That your name would be chanted across the world

Did they just see a poor little brown boy

Playing in Indonesia’s dust and dirt

If they knew the greatness within

Maybe they wouldn’t have said those things that hurt

You never know what’s wrapped up in a child

I wonder if the girl giving birth out of wedlock
Could have known that the child she made a decision
To bring to this world
Would one day change it
That news of his death would be broadcast around the earth
On the very devices to which he gave birth

You never know what’s wrapped up in a child

What’s wrapped inside every child

Is greatness that God placed within each and every one of us

For we were created in His image

Every child is great

Every child is Oprah, Obama and Steve Jobs
Every child has a gift that God has placed inside of him
We all have a call

A gift to share with the world

Even if that gift is just a kind word to help someone else along the way

Never forget what is wrapped up in a child

And treat every child, every person

With respect for their humanity

Love for their eternal soul

Treat every child with dignity

Treat every child

The way you would want to be treated

Don’t crush the beauty

That is wrapped up in every baby

Tending Our Gardens: What We Need to Have a Harvest

2011-09-26T09:34:00.000-07:00

Listen! A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants, so that they did not bear grain. Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up, grew and produced a crop, multiplying thirty, sixty or even a hundred times. Then Jesus said, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” Mark 4:3-9

Last spring when we planted our garden, I planted pumpkin seeds at my son’s request. The pumpkin seeds eventually sprouted and grew into long vines that spread across the little garden. The vines produced big beautiful flowers but no pumpkins.

The vines looked lush and green. The flowers were beautiful, but there was no fruit. October came-- the time I should have been harvesting our pumpkins. But all I had was the memory of the flowers. No fruit.

That is how our spiritual life can be sometimes. Flowers, but no fruit. Over the years of gardening, I’ve learned a few things about producing a harvest and what we do naturally can also apply to how to produce spiritual fruit in our lives.

How we can produce fruit?

Seed

First, we need a seed. Our seed is the word of God. All new life comes from the living seed from the word of God. We all have a seed of faith. If we have faith the size of a mustard seed we can move mountains. If we have faith in God, we can tell mountains to throw themselves into the sea.

Soil

A plant needs soil. The soil anchors the plant. The soil provides nutrients for the plant. The soil is where we live. The soil is the condition of the human heart. In the parable of the soils, Jesus talked about four different soils or responses to the gospel:

Hard soil—Hard soil may have been walked on. It’s compacted. Some folks’ hearts are so hard that the devil can just pick the word right off. The Word doesn’t penetrate.

Shallow soil (rocky)—In this case, there is a temporary response but no permanent change. Because of a shallow response, the person is not rooted and quickly falls away.

Thorny soil—This soil represents the concerns of the world. Some are so preoccupied with the concerns of the world that the seed of God’s Word is choked out.

Good soil—It is this type of soil that produces a harvest. In good soil a seed has a chance to grow and produce fruit which contains more seed. A pumpkin can contain up to 700 seeds. Each of those seeds has the potential to produce a vine with as few as one and as many as six pumpkins which each have 100 to 700 seeds.

In order to have good soil, we have to weed out sin and fertilize our faith.

Sun

Pumpkins need at least six hours of direct sunlight. We need the sun to produce fruit.

The sun is the source of life. Earth’s proximity to the sun makes life possible. Through the process of photosynthesis, a plant grows and produces fruit. The plant turns the light from the sun and actually captures or absorbs the light from the sun into the chlorophyll in the plants cells. The sun takes the water and combines it with the CO2 in the air and transforms or converts it to sugar. The sugar is carried to other parts of the plant and oxygen is released into the air.

Jesus is the sun. He is the Son of God. He is the light of the world and he shines in our soul. And in him I live, move and have my being. He is my nourishment. And he has placed me in his body and I can release his love that he gave me and give it to the world. He is the air I breathe. He is the light and we take that light into us and provide his love to the world.

But not only is Jesus the sun, Jesus is also the seed. Jesus is the Word. In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the Word was God.

Jesus is the living water. Jesus is life and light. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. Jesus is the light of the world.

Everything you need is in Jesus. He is the source of life. If you want to produce fruit, you have to be in the vine. He is the True Vine. We are the branches.

“If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” John 15:5

Want fruit? Get Jesus. Accept him as your Savior. Follow Him. Learn about him. Learn from him. Love him. Abide in him.

“If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.” John 15:7-8.

Bear fruit.

This series,"Tending Our Gardens," was adapted from message given at the City of Refuge Church International in Kankakee, Illinois in October 2010.

Tending Our Gardens: Got Fruit?

2011-09-23T00:01:00.000-07:00

The next day as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry. Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to find out if it had any fruit. When he reached it, he found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs. Then he said to the tree, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And his disciples heard him say it. Mark 11: 12-14

In the morning, as they went along, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots. Peter remembered and said to Jesus, "Rabbi, look! The fig tree you cursed has withered!" Have faith in God," Jesus answered. "I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and does not dout in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him. Therefore, I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours." Mark 11: 20-24

Last year, I planted pumpkin seeds in my little backyard garden. Instead of big orange pumpkins during harvest time, all I had were big pretty flowers. This year my cucumber plants produced an abundance of little yellow flowers. Every day, I would go out and look for the signs of a cucumber growing. But just like last year with my expected pumpkin harvest, this year my cucumber plants produced no fruit, just flowers.

Jesus is also looking for fruit in the lives of those who call on his name.

“So, my brother, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God. (Romans 7:4)”

But are we producing fruit or just flowers?

In our lives and in our churches is Jesus finding the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) or the acts of the sinful nature: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy and drunkenness (Galatians 5:19-21)?

What is fruit?

Fruit is the product of growth. Fruit is the part of the plant we can eat. Fruit carries the seed. Fruit is the consequence of an action or operation. Fruit is synonymous with results.

Why do we need it?

Nourishment—We need fruit to survive. Fruits provide nourishment. What we need to live and grow is in the fruit. Fruit provides life.

Reproduction—the seed is in the fruit. If we don’t have seed, we cease to exist. If we don’t have seed we cannot make more fruit.

Seed represents hope, future growth, inheritance, offspring, life.

In the parable of the four soils, Jesus said the seed is the word of God. Seed represents life. God’s word brings life. God’s word brings nourishment.

What happens when we don't have fruit?

When Jesus came upon the fig tree that had no signs of fruit, he cursed it. When Jesus and the disciples returned, the tree had withered and died. There is a judgment for unfruitfulness.

As John the Baptist told the Pharisees and Sadducees, “The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.” Matthew 3:10

Jesus also told a parable about an unproductive fig tree (Luke 13:6-9). In that parable the owner of the vineyard said to cut the tree down so it wouldn't take up valuable space. But the gardener asked for more time to "dig around it and fertilize it."

If we respond to the Master Gardener's care and prepare and fertilize the soil, we can bear fruit--godly lives that nourish others and reproduce for the kingdom. There is a cure for unfruitfulness and it starts with prayer and repentance.

“If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. (2 Chronicles 7:14)”

Our land needs healing. And the only way the land can be healed and good fruit can be produced is if the people who are called by his name humble ourselves, pray, repent and produce fruit.

We need fruit. We need a harvest. And if we want to produce fruit, we’re going to have to fast, pray and repent. That gets the land ready. Then we’re going to have to get busy tending our gardens so that we can have a harvest.

Next week: Fruit production: How to have a harvest

Tending Our Gardens: Flowers, No Fruit

2011-09-16T08:29:00.000-07:00

The next day as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry. Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to find out if it had any fruit. When he reached it, he found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs. Then he said to the tree, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And his disciples heard him say it. Mark 11:12-14

I have a little garden in my backyard. It’s a small plot of land that was ready to plant a vegetable garden in when we bought the house. I had never gardened before but when I saw that little plot of land in the back visions of tomatoes and cucumbers danced in my head.

The first year I planted tomato seeds I didn’t know what I was doing so I just planted a bunch of seeds and I had a bumper crop of tomatoes.

Last spring when we were planning our garden, buying seeds, plants and deciding what we wanted to grow, my then 8-year-old son asked if we could plant some pumpkin seeds. Now I have never grown pumpkins but I was willing to give it a try. We bought a package and planted the seeds. Before long, the green shoots of the pumpkin plant poked their head through the soil. Soon, long vines stretched out of the little barbed wire fence into the yard. Before I knew it, big beautiful flowers emerged from the pumpkin vine.

We were excited because our experience had taught us that the flower was the preliminary stage to the fruit. I also have an apple tree in my backyard and every spring it explodes into beautiful white flowers and then those flowers transform into little green apples. The yellow flowers on my tomato plants become red ripe tomatoes. So I was expecting these large orange flowers on the vine to become pumpkins.

Every day I would go out in the garden and look for signs that a pumpkin was on the way.

No pumpkins.

Eventually the flowers would shrivel up, but then new buds would emerge. But still—no pumpkins. The vines looked lush and green. The flowers were beautiful, but there was no fruit. October came-- the time I should have been harvesting our pumpkins. But all I had was the memory of the flowers. No fruit.

That is how our spiritual lives can be. Jesus is looking for fruit. All he is finding is flowers.

Jesus is looking for fruit or at least signs that fruit is coming, but all he is finding is flowers. He is looking at our churches where we meet every Sunday and some Wednesdays. He is looking for fruit. He expects fruit. He is looking for a harvest. Jesus wants to find some fruit, but all he sees are leaves and flowers. We look good. We might even smell good, but we aren’t producing fruit. We seem fruitful in appearance, but we’re barren in reality.

Every day he is looking at our lives. Every minute he is examining our hearts. He is looking for fruit.

Galatians 5:22-23 says, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”

What is Jesus finding in your spiritual garden? Fruit or just flowers?

Next week: Tending Our Gardens: How to Grow Fruit

Just Another Day: 9/11/01

2011-09-09T19:11:00.000-07:00

This week our nation remembers the tragedy that occurred on September 11, 2001 when the United States was attacked by terrorist and nearly 3,000 people lost their lives. Most of us remember where we were on that fateful day that changed our lives, the country and the world. That beautiful September morning, I was pregnant and taking a non-fiction creative writing class at a local community college. My daughter was in kindergarten and my husband was a national correspondent for the New York Times. In remembrance of September 11, 2011, I am sharing with you what I wrote a few days after the tragedy for my creative writing class.

Do you remember what you were doing that day?

September 13, 2001

It was just another day. I woke up at 6:30 like every other weekday morning and prepared to take my daughter to school. Breakfast. Brush teeth. Throw on some sweats and a sweatshirt and head out the door. My husband told me to wait. He was going to ride with me this morning. Great, I thought. He can put some air in my car tire.

I dropped my daughter off at school and kissed her goodbye. We stopped at a gas station, filled the tire with air and the tank with gas. When we arrived home, our biggest concern was installing a new mailbox. That soon changed.

The phone rang. “Who could this be?” I thought. It was my mother-in-law.

“Are you watching T.V.?”

“No. We just got in from school. What’s going on?”

“The World Trade Center is on fire.”

Immediately, we turned on the television to see a gaping black hole, smoke and fire. Then another plane came into view and slammed into the other building. It looked like a terrible horror movie, but it was real. Last summer at this time, I was living in New York, walking down the streets with my daughter. Immediately, I thought of all the people on the street who would be killed by flying debris. I saw the people hanging out of windows and wondered how would rescue workers ever make it up so far to rescue them. I hear of people jumping out of the window and tears started to fill my eyes.

I ran upstairs and turned on another television and my husband and I traded information back and forth while flipping between channels, trying to find out what was going on. More and more bad news kept coming. The phone rang. My husband, a reporter, might have to go to Boston. The phone rings again. No planes are going anywhere. A friend calls. My mother calls. Has anyone heard from our New York City family? Adrian works in the financial district. Does he work in the World Trade Center?

Then there’s more bad news. A plane has crashed into the Pentagon. My husband and I can barely stand.

“Oh , my God. Elder Allen works in the Pentagon,” my husband said. We called our friends in Virginia. Our friend, an assistant to the Marine commandant, was working in Quantico, Va.

The tears kept coming. Then there was disbelief. Should be pick up our daughter? What’s going to happen next? Wouldn’t it be better to have her with us at home? Maybe we’re overreacting. We go to the school and sit in the parking lot. A police squad car is parked in the front, but everything else looks normal. The flag is flying. The sky is still blue—just another day.

We go back home and stay glued to the television. Another plane crashes in a field in Pennsylvania. There’s talk about an act of war. I call the school. Some parents have picked up their children. I decide to bring my daughter home. She runs to greet me. She smiles without a care in the world. We go home and she watches “Arthur.” You can’t tell a 5-year-old the world has turned upside down. Terror, death, hijack and war are not in her vocabulary.

I stay in my sweats all day, transfixed by the horror gripping our country and hoping to find out any new information. I pray that people had a chance to leave the building before they collapsed. I dig out my photo of the skyline of New York, taken from the harbor on the way to the Statue of Liberty and think they’re not there anymore, but it still doesn’t seem real. The tears come and go with each tragic story.

It was just another day. It was just another day for someone who went to work that morning, maybe dropped their daughter off at school and headed to work. It was just another day for a person boarding an early morning cross-country flight, eager to kiss their babies. It was just another day, but after this day, no other day would ever be the same.

From Freedom Riders to Flash Mobs

2011-08-30T19:09:00.000-07:00

Fifty years ago, the Freedom Riders changed America.

From May until November 1961, more than 400 black and white Americans risked their lives—and many endured savage beatings and imprisonment—for simply traveling together on buses and trains as they journeyed through the Deep South.

Trained in the techniques of non-violence, the Freedom Riders challenged Jim Crow laws that called for the separation of blacks and whites by riding interstate buses through the South. The Freedom Riders met with bitter racism and mob violence along their journey. In Mississippi, the Freedom Riders were sent to prison.

On September 22, 1961 the Interstate Commerce Commission issued its order to end segregation in bus and rail stations that had been in place for generations.

Last night, as I watched the documentary, The Freedom Riders, I was in awe of the courage of the young men and women of all races and religions who faced violence and death in the fight for civil rights for all Americans. I was proud of the strength and resolve of the men and women who faced death so that America could live up to its ideals. I felt gratitude for the sacrifice of people who faced beatings, violence and the very real possibility of death so that future generations would not have to suffer the indignities of segregation and racism.

But as I reflected on the images of the Freedom Riders and our forefathers who faced hate-filled violent mobs, I thought of the new mobs that threaten our young people today.

Now the images I see on the news are not Freedom Riders facing white mobs of hate, but flash mobs of young people beating innocent victims.

After watching the documentary last night, I turned to the news to see the mug shot of a young black man, the last to be sentenced in the beating death of 16-year-old Derrion Albert. Then the now familiar footage of Derrion’s tragic beating was shown. The beating death was captured on a cell phone two years ago when a fight broke out after school on Chicago’s South Side. The horrific footage of the honor roll student being beat to death caught the nation’s attention for a moment, even garnering a response from the White House which sent the Attorney General and Secretary of Education to Chicago.

The image of Derrion’s beating shows a mob not unlike those that attacked the Freedom Riders. It shows a wild frenzied group wielding wooden planks and stomping a young black man to death. But the perpetrators of the crime look like the victim—young, black, male.

Lapoleon Colbert, 20, received 32 years in prison for the first-degree murder conviction. Colbert admitted to kicking Albert in the head and stomping on him while he lay on the ground

The Freedom Riders and others who fought for civil rights did not risk their lives and die for this.

I wonder what has happened in those 50 years where in some ways it seems we have gained so much politically and economically and yet lost so much spiritually and morally.

How did we get from Freedom Riders to flash mobs? Now instead of student coordinating committees organizing to fight racism and injustice, young people coordinate stealing and violent attacks via Facebook and texting. They push their elders to their death while trying to steal an iPhone and even sexually assault women who could be their grandmother. They mericilessly shoot pregnant women. Instead of being imprisoned unjustly for pursuing equal rights, young black men are imprisoned in downstate penitentiaries, usually for taking another young black man’s life.

How did we get to this place? Is there a lack of hope? A lack of jobs? A lack of morals? A lack of parenting?

Or have we given them too much? Or maybe we haven’t given them enough of what really matters.

Colbert appeared in front of Circuit Judge Nicholas Ford, who sentenced three other suspects in the Albert case to at least a quarter of a century as adults and ordered one suspect, as a juvenile, to remain imprisoned until he turned 21.

“We don’t do a good job raising these children,” the judge said, his voice rising to a shout, according to the Chicago Tribune. “They can slip away from us just as Lapoleon is going to slip away from his parents, and the way Derrion slipped from his.”

Maybe in 2011 we need a new movement.

We need to do sit-ins again. But instead of sitting at lunch counters to desegregate we need to sit in our children’s classrooms so that the teachers can educate. The rides we need to take now are on the school buses with our children and we need to march around our schools, praying and then going inside the schools working with teachers and administrators to teach our children not only their ABCs but also their history and who they are.

We need to boycott rappers and other entertainers that promote criminal behavior, misogyny and plain old stupidity. We need to gather again in our churches but not just to be entertained by a dynamic sermon and great choir, but to pray, plan, strategize and be energized and mobilized to change our communities.

And perhaps most important, we need to parent our children. Not be their friends. Not buy them a bunch of stuff, but give them substance--love and discipline, care and consequences.

Then, like the Freedom Riders, will we change our communities and our country for the better.

Photo by John W. Fountain

Click below to read a powerful and poignant column from the Chicago Sun-Times by my husband, John W. Fountain about the need to revive Dr. King's dream.

Searching for Signs of King's Dream

43 Lessons I’ve Learned in 43 Years

2011-08-22T16:42:00.000-07:00

On Sunday I celebrated my 43rd birthday. By chance if I had forgotten my age, my daughter reminded me with a wonderful homemade card with a big 43. But I think I’m going to claim my Wii fitness test age of 35. That was a pretty good year. I am thankful to God for allowing me to celebrate another birthday. As I get older, I find birthdays as a time of not only celebration but also reflection and contemplation. In thinking about my four decades and three years on this earth, I thought about some of the important life lessons I have learned.

So I wanted to share some of those thoughts. These thoughts, lessons, truths and sayings are not necessarily in order of importance or in the order learned. This list is also not comprehensive, but just 43 that come to my mind at this time based on my 43rd birthday. They are things that have been learned by observation, experience and listening to the wisdom of others (sources noted in parentheses). Although they are lessons learned, truths taken to heart and ideas that I live by, I’m still striving to live and walk in the truth of them every day. Step by step. Day by day. Year by year.

What are some of the lessons you’ve learned and truths that you know? What have the years taught you? Here are some of mine.

1. God is real.

2. God is faithful.

3. Change is a constant.

4. People are more important than things.

5. God’s Word is true.

6. You can’t go wrong when you do right.

7. Sometimes doing the right thing won’t feel good or have immediate rewards.

8. Our greatest riches are in our relationships.

9. My success and significance is in Christ.

10. I don’t have to compare or compete—I am complete in Christ.

11. Money can’t buy the most important things in life—love, peace, health.

12. Making memories is more important than making money.

13. Treat others the way you want to be treated.

14. You can’t argue with excellence.(John W. Fountain)

15. You have to learn to live with people because you have to live with them for the rest of your life. (Rev. William H. Copeland Jr.)

16. When folks are jealous of you, don’t get mad. Get glad. You’ve got something they wish they had. (Rev. William H. Copeland Jr.)

17. A little encouragement can go a long way.

18. Babies grow up too fast.

19. Stop and smell the roses.

20. Before you speak, ask: Is it true? Is it kind? Is it necessary?

21. Laugh. It’s good for your soul and health.

22. The quickest way to get out of a pit of despair is a ladder of praise.

23. Worship costs something.

24. You reap what you sow--good and bad.

25. Insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result.

26. You should listen more than you talk.

27. Life and death are in the power of the tongue.

28. Living a righteous life is rewarding. Smoking, alcohol abuse, overeating, not exercising, promiscuity, foolishness, etc. takes years off your life and makes life harder. God’s Word and warnings are to help us, not harm us.

29. Prayer and praise, worship and the Word of God are essential.

30. If you want to soar with eagles you can’t hang out with turkeys.

31. People are fickle.

32. You are what you eat—physically, spiritually and emotionally.

33. Sometimes you have to encourage yourself.

34. Attack ideas. Not people.

35. I am who God says I am.

36. Fear paralyzes. It can deter and derail dreams and eventually cause death.

37. It is what it is.

38. Your attitude determines your altitude. (Rev. William H. Copeland Jr.)

39. Bitterness is poison. It robs you of life. Forgiveness frees you.

40. Knowledge is power.

41. Love is not just a feeling; it’s an action.

42. God loves me.

43. God and family are the top priority.

Bird Sense

2011-08-15T19:15:00.000-07:00

Like a bird that wanders from her nest, so is a man who strays from his home. Proverbs 27:8 (Amplified Bible)

Outside of my living room window robins have taken up residence.

They built a nest there last year and have returned. I’m reminded of their return most mornings when I enter my living room and I hear the thump of the bird running into my window.

“Crazy bird,” I think to myself and sometimes say out loud.

The bird, the Daddy Bird I assume, keeps flying into my living room window, apparently thinking someone is coming near his nest when we walk through the living room.

I see him bringing worms to the Lady Robin as she sits on their eggs. He protects and provides for his nest.

Then I started thinking, this bird isn’t so crazy after all. If only some humans had bird sense.

I sit at my computer and click on Facebook and look at a video a friend has shared from Judge Mathis. A man in an orange pin stripe suit with nine children by five different “baby mommas” is being sued for rent and cell phone bills by a woman who is pregnant with his tenth child.

And I think to myself again, some folks don’t have bird sense.

Going in Circles

2011-08-08T18:48:00.000-07:00

“Then the Lord said to Joshua, “See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands, along with its king and its fighting men. March around the city once with all the armed men. Do this for six days. Have seven priests carry trumpets of rams’ horns in front of the ark. On the seventh day, march around the city seven times, with the priests blowing the trumpets. When you hear them sound a long blast on the trumpets, have all the people give a loud shout; then the wall of the city will collapse and the people will go up, every man straight in.” Joshua 6:2-5

Have you ever felt like you’re wasting your time?

You’re doing what God told you to do but you don’t seem to be getting anywhere or making progress? You’re just going around in circles. Covering the same ground. Doing the same old thing.

Do your daily tasks seem meaningless and ineffective in the grand scale of things? You see others doing “great” things. Winning great battles and receiving accolades and you’re just marching around in circles.

I’m sure the children of Israel must have felt like that while they were walking around the walls of Jericho. And that is how we may feel sometimes in our life. Perhaps God has you in a season where you just seem to be going in circles.

God, what kind of strategy is this? Shouldn’t I be scaling this wall? Maybe I should be spending this time building some type of contraption to tear down this wall. God, this just doesn’t make any sense. I know what you said, but I’ve wasted my time. I’ve missed my opportunity. This is impossible. You can’t take a city by marching around blowing trumpets.

With man, it is impossible. But with God all things are possible.

God is with you, even when you feel like you’re going in circles. By following his directions you are showing your obedience and your trust in His word. Like the children of Israel who carried the Ark of the Covenant, you have God’s word with you and also His presence. He has promised you that He will be with you wherever you go.

It might not come the way you thought it would, but the victory will be yours.

Keep doing what God told you to do, even if sometimes it feels like you’re going in circles.

Shout for joy. The walls are collapsing. Shout for joy. Those strongholds in your life are coming down. Shout for joy. Those things God has for you are within your reach. Shout for joy. The enemy is defeated. Shout for joy. Even in the seemingly mundane, unnoticed, unheralded tasks of life, God is with you.

The Power of One and a Little Encouragement

2011-08-01T18:36:00.000-07:00

Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!
Psalm 133:1

This past weekend my husband and I attended a music festival in a large football stadium. Thousands of concertgoers enjoyed the music of various artists.

During the break between acts on Saturday night while the stage crew was preparing for the next performer, the sounds of “Flashlight”, a classic from the 70s group Parliament that gets folks to the dance floor, played in the stadium.

The energy of the crowd had died down as we waited for the next act, but when the music started to play, one man in our section got up and started to dance. He was working it, smiling, having fun and getting down. The folks in our section of the stadium started to encourage him.

“Go, go, go,” we chanted. “Get down. Get down.”

People started clapping and laughing. Then after he finished his dance, a woman in the next section got up and started to dance. Then a man in front of us got up and started doing his thing, all to the applause and encouragement of complete strangers who were in the same place for the same purpose.

Then a woman in our section stood up and tried to start the wave. At first it was just a trickle of folks and it died out. But she persisted in raising her hands and each time more and more people joined her. After more than a half dozen times, the far end of the stadium started the wave and it rippled across the stadium. Then it started again. I looked up and the folks in the “nosebleed” section joined in. The folks on the field took notice and as the wave made its way around again, they joined in. The wave went from one end of the stadium to other, on the field across and back again to where it started.

It was a simple wave, something folks do at football games, but that simple act changed the atmosphere, brought about a sense of accomplishment and community.

As I heard the roar of the crowd as we cheered the wave going around the stadium, I laughed about the excitement and fun of doing the wave and I thought about the power of one.

One man with unbridled enthusiasm had started something that touched and involved almost everyone in that stadium that night. Even if they didn’t participate, anyone who was there saw the power of a group of people working in unison.

The wave reinforced some lessons for life:

One person can make difference and a little encouragement can go a long way.

One person's enthusiasm can encourage others.

We can accomplish great things when we work together.

Sometimes in life you just have to keep lifting up your hands in praise, even when it seems like what you're doing isn't making a difference.

One man, with encouragement from community, can start a movement that touches lives. But although one person can have a vision, it takes a community to bring it to fruition.

Jesus Christ was one man on a mission. Who would think that this carpenter’s son from a poor background with a motley crew of 12 disciples could turn the world upside down and divide time into B.C. and A.D.? But he did. He was the Son of God. But he gives us the power to do great things. He gives us the power to do what he did when he walked this earth. We can bring wholeness and healing to others. We can be set free and also free others from the bondage of sin.

One man, Jesus Christ, died for the sins of the world. And by encouraging and uplifting one another a community of believers can make all the difference in the world.

The Truth at Last

2011-06-15T09:20:00.000-07:00

An excerpt from Dear Dad: Reflections on Fatherhood

By Nichole Christian

Years after my daddy died, I finally laid down my superhero image of him too. Two decades after spreading his ashes, facts I’d never known about Daddy began to surface and collide with the fiction I had cherished as a child. It turns out Daddy was more human than I could ever see.

It’s funny to me now the way I once romanticized a man I knew so little about. And sometimes I cringe, thinking of the many nights, the many ways I prayed death upon my mother, while forgetting and forgiving Daddy, who’d gone AWOL first.

He had ducked out of their marriage not long after doing the honorable thing and marrying my pregnant mother. By the time I was fourteen, they were both dead, departing one after the other—first her (by a drug overdose), then him, with just nine months between them.

Through it all, Daddy remained golden to me because he was the one who bothered to come around. My mother had parked me at her parents’ house while she divided her time between getting high and her stints in jail for petty robberies. I never understood how he knew, but Daddy always managed to show up when she was at her worst. The more he showed up, the more people swore they saw him in me: his eyes, his chin, his highbrow humor. Daddy bought me Underoos—Batgirl and Wonder Woman—before anyone on the block had a pair.

I saw E.T. on the big screen, with Daddy at my side. He plied me with buttered popcorn, while I pretended not to see his little brown paper bag or to smell the stench seeping from it every time he raced it up to his lips. One parent playing the part here and there was better than none at all. Even now, I smile at the memory of Daddy bopping up the street, sing-calling the nickname he created just for me. “Cola, Cola,” Daddy would sing.

In my childhood eyes, the precious moments he’d given me seemed the measure of a man worth worshiping. I was content with the things I knew about my father. That is, until many years later when I myself became a parent and started sifting through the details I’d one day tell my daughter. I wanted to be able to share with her the good stuff, a way to understand why I was so proud to be Daddy’s girl. I wanted to pour the details into a letter for her to read someday as I’d done with so many of the tales about my family and our struggles.

The year she turned three, I called Uncle Raymond—Daddy’s brother—looking to flesh out a story I’d heard bits and pieces of that had always made me proud. Daddy had been a soldier in Korea, so the story went. I had seen a grainy old photo of him once in what looked like a soldier’s uniform. I had imagined him a decorated soldier in the war who had been too torn up to tell his story. Uncle Raymond, I had decided, would give me the facts.

“Daddy was in the war, how long?” I asked Uncle Raymond over the telephone.

Uncle Raymond’s voice went silent. I could hear him take a quick breath. It should have been my clue that I had just stuck the key into Pandora’s box...

Nichole Christian--A native Detroiter, she was formerly a member of the Detroit Free Press editorial board, writing about education policy and children's issues. She began her career at the St. Petersburg Times and later became a staff writer at the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and Time magazine, where she was Detroit bureau chief.

About the Book and Prologue

2011-06-14T16:18:00.000-07:00

About Dear Dad

This project was inspired by my essay for National Public Radio’s This I Believe series and is itself a compilation of true narratives written by a group of journalists and writers I assembled for this project. Men and women from various walks of life and various generations, they are black, white, and Hispanic. A good number of them have written for some of the nation’s best news organizations—the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, Time magazine, and others. All of them write in the pages that follow about the impact of fathers, and fatherlessness, on their own lives. This comes at a time when the focus of a national initiative and even President Barack Obama have sounded the clarion call for responsible fatherhood amid a continuing crisis of paternal absenteeism.

Fatherhood is a subject that deserves our attention. A key component of that critical socializing agent known as family, “father” is important to us all.

So what better time than this—than now—to lend to and perhaps spur the national dialogue on fatherhood, to raise to the light images of the best of our fathers, and also examples of some failed or flawed fathers, with the hope that from each may be gleaned a more perfect model to which all fathers might aspire? And there seems no better way to examine fatherhood and to extract lessons from the past in the hope of creating a brighter future than to follow the reflective journeys of writers who remember their fathers lovingly, poignantly, vividly, at times longingly, even sometimes with disappointment.

Through the prism of our collective lens, these mini-memoirs recall time we spent with our fathers, or in some cases, the lack thereof. And each seeks to provide insights on the best of fathering, if not also hope for the millions of American children who today face growing up in homes with no father present.

What we present here are hardly religious sermons. They are instead stories steeped in journalistic craft, stories that resonate deeply on the universal themes of childhood, family, struggle, love, and loss, offering a kind of collective case study. They are stories that I—that we—believe have the potential by the power of intimate narrative not only to help others understand the impact of fatherlessness but also to help mend those most wounded.

These stories are not black, or white, or brown. They are not singularly male or female, nor are they solely American. Rather, they are transcendent stories about the human condition, about the human spirit and the universal longing to feel connected to who we are, and whose we are, to that critical figure we all know as father and to the lasting lessons our fathers taught us, by their presence, or by their absence.

In some ways, this book is also a tribute to fathers, a celebration and remembrance of those men who have graced our lives with paternal love and guidance, whether or not they were our natural fathers. It is a tribute to those special men who had the courage, faith, and fortitude to withstand the storms of their own lives and yet remain resolved to produce, protect, and provide for their families.

This book is for everyone who has a father, for everyone who has lost one, loved one, or longed for one, for everyone who happens to be one, and for everyone who longs to be a better one.

And finally, this book is for everyone who longs to make peace with one—a gift to all good fathers past, present, and future, and sealed with a prayer for them all.

John W. Fountain

PROLOGUE

In the absence of my father, I have longed at times in my life for affirmation, for the steadying hand on the shoulder; for the paternal love that is reassuring, establishing, uplifting, grounding, life-giving—only to find none. This deficit in my upbringing was devastating.

I am the son of mostly de facto fathering, of the pieces and particles that fell from the cloaks of men who filed past my life, men whose paths crossed with mine or with whom I walked for a time. But I cannot say with certainty whether it was the case that those men closest to me would not or could not promote me, or whether they never fully embraced or fully esteemed me, at those particular times in my life. What I can say and what I do know is that as a result, for much of my life I felt fatherless.

Strangely, perhaps—and at least certainly this was unexpected—I eventually found solace and healing in my reflections as an adult upon the frailties of all fathers, including my own frailties as a man; in the forgiving of those men whom I deem to have in ways failed me; and also in my own journey of fatherhood and my willingness to provide paternal nurturing and substance to my own children and even those who are the seed of other men. I have found strength and a measure of healing in my earnest desire to be a better father and a better man than my own natural father and to learn as I travel this course from the mistakes of others and those I have made myself.

Still, there is a hole, a feeling of emptiness, in a certain place in my heart, a place that was meant to be filled with a lifetime of memories made with my father. I suspect there always will be. And yet I have found strength in the presence of an Eternal Father, and in that good gained from even the imperfect men I encountered from boyhood to manhood. And though I remember not the joy of my own father taking delight in me, now I do know and embrace the joys as well as the responsibility of fatherhood.

And there is a part of me—the little boy in me—who finds in me the kind of father he always wished he had. That has always been my endeavor, my promise to myself as a little boy, a promise I intend to keep until my last breath.

Someone once advised me during one of life’s inevitable storms not to "despise the process." In other words, the sometimes painful struggles of life and their accompanying heartaches and sufferings can ultimately create in us a heart that seeks to heal and help others. I have come to believe that as we pass through our sufferings and survive them, the lessons learned through our own healing can ultimately serve a greater purpose: the healing of others, the mending of broken hearts, perhaps even the healing of a nation.

* * * *
This project incubated during the years of hurt and eventual healing from the paternal desertion I experienced in my own life. It was, in fact, an essay I wrote in 2004 for National Public Radio’s This I Believe series about the absence of my father and what “saved” me, and ultimately the responses that subsequently poured in from around the country from people of all walks of life that led me to consider writing more on the subject. That piece appears in this collection along with several others I have written over the years, in some cases as narrative, and in others, as poetic essays or letters.

The responses to the NPR essay—moving and deeply contemplative—touched me and reaffirmed the depths of the impact of fatherlessness, but even more, they affirmed the need of many others for healing. One of those responses was from a gentleman on the East Coast who said he had heard the essay and wondered if I might send him a few pictures to accompany the NPR podcast, which he had played for a Christian group of mentor-educators who frequently encountered young men and women growing up without a father. I strung together a series of photographs from my childhood, including the only picture I have of my biological father—a faded portrait frozen in time of a smiling man with his hat half-cocked and the swollen lines of alcoholism beneath his eyes and in his gaunt cheeks. I arranged that photograph and also a few of me, as well as some accompanying video clips, coordinated them with the NPR podcast, and sent it along. I understand that the Christian group continues today to show the clip, which has become a tool for training.

I also show the five-minute video clip, mostly to groups of youths and to church men’s ministries. It is part of what the saints at my grandfather’s Pentecostal church would call my “testimony.” And without fail, after having shown the video, the responses pour from the mouths and eyes of those for whom the words of that essay strike a chord, particularly from males, regardless of age or race: a teary young man in a Baptist church in Kentucky; a man driving in his car along a city street; students in a university classroom; or homeless men and women at a Thanksgiving gathering inside a Chicago shelter.

Not long ago, while speaking at that shelter run by a Christian ministry, I showed the video clip. Soon after the closing prayer had ended, a fortyish, burly man with a round brown face approached me and began to share how much what I had said had touched him. He had, in fact, been moved to tears. He, too, had grown up without knowing his father. Then one day after he became an adult, he finally met him. Sometime later, he and his father got into an argument, he explained as I listened intently. They argued, he said—he and his father. Then it happened.

“He shot me in the mouth,” he said matter-of-factly before melting again into tears.

On one side of his mouth, he bore the scar to prove it. But what I understood as we stood there was that his scars and his pain ran much deeper. I also understood that they would be eternally his to carry, were there no hope of healing.

I explained to the brother that day that there is a father who is infallible and loving. That He is a father who, though He be of spirit and invisible, and not of flesh and blood or tangible, is a father no less. That this Father I have found is able to comfort, console, and embrace his sons and daughters with a love and peace far beyond human understanding. He is a father who stands with one foot in the beginning of time and the other in eternity. He is a sovereign Father who allows our earthly fathers to choose to be good fathers, or not. And He is a Father who also finds no shortage of means by which to care for those of us who find ourselves paternally abandoned or disconnected, sinking for what seems like the last time in deep consuming waters that encompass our souls. He is God the Father. God, my Father. God, our Father.

In constructing this volume, I searched my mind and experience for stories of other writers I have met or known through my work as a newspaper journalist for more than twenty years. Mostly, they are people with whom I had shared over the course of our friendship bits and pieces of my childhood experiences. I began to make calls or send e-mails to inquire whether they might be interested in contributing to this project. Before too long, a group of writers emerged.

There is Nichole Christian, formerly on the editorial board of the Detroit Free Press, whom I met first when I was a reporter at the Chicago Tribune and later worked with when we were both staff writers at the New York Times. There is Sylvester Monroe, formerly a Newsweek and Time magazine correspondent and newspaperman, at one time senior editor at Ebony magazine. There is Rosa Maria Santana, a former Chicago Tribune colleague and writer for the Cleveland Plain Dealer. There is Mario Parker, a correspondent for Bloomberg News; and the Washington Post’s Hamil Harris. There is my good friend Vincent Allen, a career U.S. marine, pastor, and founder of Agape Ministries in Stafford, Virginia. There is my friend and former journalism colleague Lee Bey, formerly a reporter-columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times. There are fifteen other writers, not including myself, whose stories appear in this volume. I am grateful to all of them for pouring a piece of their souls onto these public pages.

Most important in my selecting of these writers, as has been the case with those people I have chosen to write about for more than two decades as a newspaperman, is that they each have a story to tell. But in this case, it was equally important that the subjects, in the vein of the Black Church’s oral tradition of testifying, be able to tell or to write their own stories in their own resonant voices, using the vehicle of narrative writing. Also, rather than to seek to tell the stories of the rich and famous or notable, and in doing so, to risk—at least in my view—the element of “celebrity” taking precedence over the story, I felt led to focus on the stories of somewhat ordinary men and women. In this way, I hoped to provide a common access point for ordinary people to examine the issue of fatherhood and fatherlessness through the fabric of their own unique cultural experiences.

* * * *

For anyone who has ever known the agony of fatherlessness, there is no need to delineate its effects. Nor is there any quick prescription for healing—no clear-cut cure for the hurts suffered due to the lack of paternal nurturing and love. And for those who have known a father’s love and presence, the impact is in many ways immeasurable. In America today, millions of boys and girls, U.S. Census figures show, live in homes absent their biological father. In far too many cases, they live without any semblance of this figure so essential to our emotional, physical, and spiritual well-being. There is no greater issue confronting our children, our communities, and our country. Collectively, the writers in this volume know this well.

The stories here are real.

Some writers in this volume wrestle with the absence of their fathers while growing up—with paternal desertion, with paternal neglect, abuse, or dysfunction, or with the emotional disengagement of their fathers. Others deal with the loss of their father’s mortal presence due to death or incapacitation. And others fondly recall the fathers they dearly love, the making of memories with them, and the learning of lessons that will endure for a lifetime. For among these stories are moving tributes to good and faithful fathers and to all men who choose to be a good and present influence in their children’s lives.

There are stories here of good men who chose to be good fathers, not only to their own children but also to their communities. There are stories of reconnection, stories of reconciliation, redemption, and revelation, stories of healing, and of triumph—stories that also speak so clearly to the importance of mothers and grandmothers, who for many of us were our saving grace.

In this volume, there is the story of the father who died months after his drug-addicted ex-wife succumbed to an overdose, leaving behind a child with a million unanswered questions; the truth leads to an unraveling of the hero she had always believed her dad to be, but it also provides the thread to longed-for answers, to peace and resolution about the man she only thought she knew. There is the story of the granddaughter who finds within a bullet hole in a basement wall a window to the past and memories of a loving grandfather. There is the story of the young black boy who loses his father, and his discovery of their eternal connection, of the paternal lessons that can endure for a lifetime, of that bond that indeed transcends even death. There is the absentee father and the impact of his cold disconnection on a little girl who found through his absence the drive and motivation to rise beyond her circumstance to educational and professional heights, and ultimately consolation. There is the story of the little boy who found more consistency in a drill sergeant than in his alcoholic father. There are the stories of invisible fathers, stories of paternal heartache perhaps more than any one soul should have to bear. There is my own story, the story of a father who died drunk and the story of my own search for solace and reconciliation and my discovery of a God who embraced me. And there is the story of the father and son, separated by years, miles, and the unknown through no fault of their own, and the fateful telephone call that led to their reunion and a baseball game where they, both as men by then, would mend their ties.

This is not a “bash fathers” book. Nor are the stories tell-all exposés. But you will find no perfect men.

There are also no victims here in our collective psalm, only victors.

In some ways, this is a how-to manual: How to overcome. How to succeed. How to live on. How to be a better father. How to forgive our fathers.

We write with the understanding that so many boys and girls across America each day face through no fault of their own the void left by fatherlessness. We set down our words with the knowledge that so many men still have the power to heal by charting a new course in fatherhood. We write in hope of reversing that curse often passed down by the absence or complete failure of fathers. We are also fully aware that even as we breathe, we shape the histories of our own children’s experience with father—or mother—and ourselves are subject to human frailty. We write to encourage good fathers who feel undervalued and underappreciated to stay the course. We write to celebrate fatherhood.

Our hope is that others may find somewhere in these pages a guidepost—at least a beacon to reflect light on their own paternal pasts.

Perhaps it is too much to hope that others might find in our stories some measure of healing. But one can hope.

For anyone who has ever felt like a fatherless child, that is our hope as we write in the pages that follow, reflecting with deep sentiment on these two simple words: “Dear Dad.”

John W. Fountain

Absent but Always Present

2011-06-14T06:16:00.000-07:00

An excerpt from Dear Dad: Reflections on Fatherhood

By Monica Fountain

My father never went on a school field trip. Never came to a football or basketball game where I was shaking my pom-poms in what he still jokingly describes as my little “bobtail skirt.” He didn’t attend the school musical or the play I wrote in high school. When he did come to the school, he usually wasn’t there for me.

Instead, he was helping a single mother get her wayward son back in school. Or he was fighting the local powers that be, protesting to get more black teachers hired for a school enrollment that was increasingly black and a school staff that was stubbornly white. He was often marching off to school board meetings or rallies and organizing the community for another civil fight. Or he was protesting the number of black boys being expelled and suspended—my father’s days and nights filled with meetings and causes and prayer.

My mother was the one who registered me and my brother, Ed, for school. The one who was there for parent-teacher conferences and field trips. She was the one in attendance on Senior Night at football and basketball games, though like my father, she also sometimes stood in as parent for some child at church or one whom she knew from our small-town community. I shared my parents, especially my father. He had scores of son sand daughters, though in actuality my mother gave birth to just two: Ed and me—six years younger. We were PKs, preacher’s kids. My father was pastor of the Morning Star Missionary Baptist Church, the largest African American church in our town of 30,000—and arguably the most influential church.

It was largely my dad—the Reverend William H. Copeland, Jr.—who made it so, a caramel-complected slender man whose politics and hands-on liberation theology were shaped in a Jim Crow Louisiana and in the faith of his father, himself a Methodist preacher.

Dad had a sometimes raspy voice that when he stood in the pulpit on Sunday mornings, when it was buttered with the spirit, thundered as he preached. It was the same fire of righteous indignation that I later recall hearing in his voice when there was some injustice he sensed, some new cause to battle, some compulsion or call to help someone in need.

And so his presence in one place meant his absence in another. Such is the calling of a preacher, and also the burden of being a natural-born PK.

The Real Thing

I can’t say that I knew where my father was when I was singing “Oklahoma,” back in high school or even as a pom-pom girl that time when the batteries went dead on the tape player during a dance routine—and “you dropped the bomb onnnnn meeeeee” suddenly fizzled across the gymnasium—creating one of my life’s most embarrassing moments. I just knew he wasn’t there and that I don’t really remember expecting him to be there, though with my mother ever present, I never remember feeling deprived by Dad’s absence.

Dad’s job was to help others. That much I understood, even as a child...

Celebrating Fatherhood

2011-06-13T05:10:00.000-07:00

My husband, John W. Fountain, sometimes quotes Chris Rock about fatherhood. Chris Rock says if fathers are lucky, they might get the big piece of chicken. On Mother's Day, restaurants are full. On Father's Day, not so much. Sometimes we take our fathers for granted or don't show them the appreciation that they deserve. Sometimes our fathers are or were not there.

Whatever the case may be, fatherhood is important and should be celebrated. Good fathers need to be appreciated for the love, guidance, provision and protection that they provide. Fathers who are not there need to know the important role they play in their children's lives.

That's what my husband's new book, Dear Dad: Reflections on Fatherhood does. Dear Dad celebrates fatherhood as one of life's most sacred callings. It also encourages fathers who have been good fathers to stay the course and those who may have fallen down on the job to get back up. It is also an encouragement and hope for healing for those who have not known the love of a natural father. It speaks clearly of the love of our Heavenly Father--God.

I am one of 15 writers that my husband enlisted to share their thoughts, memories and reflections about their own fathers and fatherhood. It is the first publication of WestSide Press, a publishing company founded by my husband that is dedicated to telling the stories of the human experience, especially the stories of those who are often unseen and unheard in our society.

This week, as we prepare to celebrate Father's Day, I will feature excerpts from Dear Dad: Reflections on Fatherhood, including my own.

For more information about the book and the writers, please go to http://www.wspbooks.com/. For an autographed copy of the book, you can purchase the book here at At the Well or at the WestSide Press web site. Dear Dad is also available at amazon.com.

If you would like to share your own "Dear Dad" story, go to http://www.wspbooks/ and click "Your Story" for information about writing your reflections on fatherhood.

And if you have a father or special person in your life who has been a father to you, give them more than just the big piece of chicken. Thank them. Call them. Show appreciation to them. Celebrate them. Celebrate fatherhood.

Run Your Race

2011-05-17T09:31:00.000-07:00

“And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” Hebrews 12:1

The other day I returned to my high school football field. It was the first time I had been there in more than 20 years. I was there to see my daughter run in the sectional meet for her track team. It was the first year of the school and the first time the girls would compete in a sectional meet and the sectional at my high school alma mater was said to be the toughest in the state.

There were 13 freshman girls on the team but only nine, the coach informed me, showed up for the track meet. Girls had to run races that they were not used to running to fill in for other girls.

It was only the second year that my daughter had run track. She ran the 800 (two times around the track) in eighth grade. My husband, who ran track in high school, was convinced that our daughter’s race was the 400 (one time around) but the coach that year didn’t put her in the 400 race.

“That’s her race,” he assured me. I agreed. But we told her to do her best in the 800 and her time would come to show what she could do in the 400. At the sectional meet in eighth grade, I told her before she ran, “Leave it all on the track.” She took off and in the first lap of the race she was way ahead of the other girls. The first time around, her coaches and teammates were excited. “She’s going to state! She’s going to state!” they yelled.

I was on the cell phone with my husband who hadn’t been able to attend. I was giving him a blow by blow on the cell phone. He told me what to tell her as she came around the bend the first time. I was yelling his instructions to her from the sidelines.

But by the second lap, she ran out of steam and out of first place, just missing the opportunity to go to state.

But now she was in high school. Throughout the season I had been to every track meet, providing water, snacks and cheers for the fledgling team. Our daughter did well in cross country so her coach wanted to put her in the distance races. We asked him to give her a chance to try the 400.

“The 400 is her race,” my husband said. I agreed.

My husband decided to coach our daughter himself for “her race.” He started taking her to the track after school, timing her, teaching her the fundamentals, giving her advice, showing her proper techniques and track meets on television. The evening before sectionals I took her to the track because Coach Dad was working. I timed her and tried to offer some advice about running (although I never ran track in high school. I was on the football field being a pom pom girl.) She promptly told me, “But Daddy said…” I deferred to Daddy. “Do whatever Daddy said,” I told her.

The coach had promised he would give our daughter a chance to run the 400, but she never had the opportunity during the regular season. Sectionals would be her first chance to run her race.

Her first race was a relay, each girl had to run around the track two times. By the time our daughter got the baton, her team was almost a lap behind. My parents were there cheering. My son was yelling. I was yelling. My husband was cheering and coaching. As she made it to the final stretch, we screamed for her to kick. I saw the determination in her face as she ran the last 100 meters, buoyed by the cheers of her family and teammates. They were in last place, but they finished the race.

Then her time came to run the 400--finally. She didn’t win. But she knocked almost 10 seconds off her time from the day before when I took her to the track. We told her how proud we were. We encouraged her that she was running against juniors and seniors who had more experience. She was happy and excited about her time (14 seconds from qualifying for state) and looking forward to training and getting ready to run her race next year.

In this journey called life, we also have to run our race. We have to remember what our Daddy-- Abba-- tells us. We can’t listen to folks who haven’t even run the race. We have to do whatever Daddy God said.

We have to eat right. Put the right stuff inside of us. Watch what we consume. Eat the whole roll of God’s word. Drink the living water. Keep practicing. Keep training. Keep running. “Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.” 1Corinthians 9:25

Even when it looks like you’re behind and failing, don’t give up. Keep running your race.

We are encompassed by a great cloud of witnesses-- those who have ran the race, those who are on the sidelines cheering for and encouraging us. But each of us has to run our own race. During parts of the race, we will be on the other side of the track and we won’t be able to hear the cheers. We might feel all alone. That’s when we have to remember what Coach D.A.D., our heavenly father God, said. And sometimes when we’re rounding the bend, the coach will be there, waving his arms and giving us instructions. Or even if we can’t see the coach, the Holy Spirit will be there giving us His instructions, telling us what Daddy is saying.

Sometimes you feel like giving up and just walking off the track. I saw that this year at a track meet. The girl just walked off and the other girls on her team were not able to finish the race. Even if you’re behind, don’t stop running. There’s someone coming behind you, depending on you to finish your race. Keep running. Keep pressing toward the mark. Run the race with patience and perseverance that God has set before you. It’s your race. Don’t give up. Keep going.

No matter what place they came in the race, if the girls made a certain time, they qualified to go down state and compete.

You may feel like you’re losing and others have passed you by. But don’t worry. Keep running your race and pressing toward the mark. And after while you’ll get past sectionals and go to state and win the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. And you like, Paul, will be able to say, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” (2 Timothy 4:7)

Meditations on the Ministry of Motherhood

2011-05-08T05:41:00.000-07:00

“Thanks, Mom.”

The two words from my son are like music to my ears. It will be a thank you for some small thing to me. Perhaps getting the bread off the top of the refrigerator or buying his favorite candy straws. But hearing those two words mean so much.

Sometimes I have felt that motherhood is a thankless job. But I think real motherhood is not thankless but selfless. And although it is work, it is not a job. It is a ministry.

True motherhood, the best of mothering, the true heart of parenting is selflessness. Motherhood is not about you. Motherhood is always about someone else. It is a ministry. Ministry means service. It is about ministering to someone else’s needs. It is committing to someone else’s welfare and well being. From the time that they are conceived and take up residence in your womb or when they become embedded in your heart as your child—no matter what the age or circumstance-- motherhood is not about you.

A selfish mother would seem to be a contradiction in terms—an oxymoron to say the least. But too often in this “me” society, I have seen mothers who have put themselves or even worse, a man they hardly know, ahead of the welfare and interests of their child. It’s all about what makes “me” happy. In a society of selfishness and a culture that values self-fulfillment, the ministry of motherhood can sometimes seem to lose ground.

It’s not that mothers don’t need “me” time. Mothers who take their calling seriously need to take more time for themselves sometimes. How can we truly give if we have nothing to give? How can we give to our children and nurture them if we are depleted? It’s important to pursue our creative interests and purpose that God has placed in our hearts.

But for the purpose-driven mother, the priority is always her family. We are not the sacrificial lambs. We do not have to die to give our lives. But mothering is a sacrifice.

I became a biological mother almost 16 years ago. I loved being pregnant the two times that I have had the privilege to carry my children. It was a wonderful miracle to share my body with another human being. Some of the happiest times in my life were when I was carrying my children. Never would they be closer to me. I would always know where they were. My life had a direct effect on their life, growth, development and well being. It was an awesome responsibility. It wasn’t about me, but the life inside of me.

Although I gave birth to a child almost 16 years ago, I became a mother almost 19 years ago when I said “I do” on a beautiful, sunny August afternoon. Although the vows did not mention children, my husband had three children from a previous marriage. I always saw loving and helping him raise his children as loving my husband. We were a family and his children were his heart. I witnessed a portrait of our heavenly father’s love by seeing my husband’s love and sacrifice for his children.

So we went without so they could have. I went to the school, sat at the table and supervised homework, talked, counseled, went to parent teacher conferences and track meets and gave driving lessons. I was not their mother. I did not give birth to them, but I determined that I would follow the example of the best of mothering that I knew -- my mother.

She was there. She demanded excellence and cheered my victories. She was my biggest fan, advocate and example. I saw her feed the homeless, visit the nursing home, buy clothes for children in her Sunday School class. Whatever I needed she made sure that I had it. She worked the night shift so she could be there when I went to school and came back home.

So I have always tried to be there for all of my children.

I used the example of my mother-in-law. She sacrificed for her children. She went without so that she could send my husband to private school. Every Christmas she would make miracles happen and her greatest joy was seeing the excitement on her children and grandchildren’s faces. I followed the example of my husband’s grandmother and my adopted grandmother, Mother Green. Although I could not bake peach cobblers and rolls and sew quilts, I prayed for my children, counseled them from God’s Word and always tried to show them how much I loved them.

Although I had wonderful examples, I must admit sometimes I have felt like a failure as a mother. It’s not like a story in the newspaper that you report and publish and it’s done or a grade in a class where you take a final exam and get an A on your report card. Motherhood is never done. And sometimes the larger ministry for me gets lost in the daily routine of dishes and laundry and taking care of my son's dog. Most of those feelings of failure have come when I have felt inadequate for the task at hand, but thank God for my examples—my mother and mother-in-law-- and other women who I admire who have come alongside me and encouraged me by their words or example.

As I reflect on this Mother’s Day on this awesome ministry and responsibility, I think that what mothers really need to do this ministry is a community. A community of mothering. I have found that community sometimes within my family—my mother , mother-in-law and others. But I have also found it within my church family and organizations like Mocha Moms. I think we have to be intentional in supporting one another, encouraging one another, setting examples for younger mothers and lifting their hands, not putting them down.

To always, as my mother taught me, to say thank you to the women who are true mothers, whether they have given birth to a child or been a mother to every child that comes within their sphere of influence. Thank you for giving your life and love to us. Thank you for sacrificing. Thank you for all the little things you do, like getting the bread off the top of the refrigerator.

“Thanks, Mom.”

If a Robin Can Say Thank You

2011-03-14T07:12:00.000-07:00

“Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?” Matthew 6:26 (NIV)

When I took my dog out into the frozen tundra which was my yard last month after a blizzard and a week of sub-zero temperatures, I saw and heard a miraculous sight.

I might have missed it if I had just concentrated on my internal mumblings and musings in my mind about the cold, the snow, having to get out of the warm bed to take the dog out, thinking about taking out the garbage and taking the kids to school.

The mornings are beautiful and despite the cold I love the stillness of the brink of a busy day. While the dog does his business I take a deep breath and take in the beauty of the snow glistening like diamonds, the beauty of the trees adorned with snow, the icicles hanging from the roof like stalactites in a cave, the architecture of a snow drift curved over the roof into the sun porch.

But what amazed me this particular morning were the birds.

A tree full of robins perched in the crab apple tree merrily chirping in the nearly sub-zero temperatures.

Why are all these robins here? Aren’t they supposed to be south in warmer climates? How do they survive in the harsh winter elements? What do they eat when the ground is frozen solid and covered in a foot of snow?

As I marveled at the tree full of robins, a scripture came to mind about God knowing when a sparrow falls. “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father.” (Matthew 10:29). Then another scripture came to my mind about how God provides for the birds. “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.” (Matthew 6:26)

Even in the dead of winter, there were berries left on the crab apple tree. It was full of dried up fruit. God in his divine, wisdom, order and plan left the berries on the tree to provide for the birds in the dead of winter.

He does the same and so much more for us. The verse in Matthew goes on to say, “Are you not much more valuable than they (the birds)?” I thanked God in my frozen tundra for the reality that God takes care of me--He provides for us-- even in those winter seasons when it seems like everything is dead.

Standing in the cold, a song came to my mind as I heard the robins cheerfully chirping their song.

I joined them with my own song.

“Everybody ought to praise his name. Be thankful and praise His name. Everybody ought to praise His name. If a robin can say thank you, you can do it too.”

A Righteous Inheritance

2011-01-10T13:05:00.000-08:00

“A good man leaves an inheritance for his children’s children…”
Proverbs 13:22

I read the posting on Facebook. It was a posting from the daughter of a friend. My friend, Jenny, passed away this fall. Her daughter commented on how she could still hear her mother’s words and even found herself saying her mother’s very words sometimes.

“Never stoop to their level,” is one of the lessons she could hear her mother saying.

I don’t think Jenny left her daughter vast wealth or a great fortune in the material sense. I don’t think her daughter inherited millions of dollars or property when Jenny died. But what Jenny left her daughter was far more valuable than money, property, silver or gold.

Jenny left a righteous inheritance. Jenny loved God. Jenny loved her daughter and all of the love that she had overflowed to her family, church and community. Jenny left her daughter something far more precious than rubies. She gave her wisdom. And not only did she give her words of wisdom, but she lived a life of wisdom and was an example of a godly woman.

Her daughter has left Jenny’s Facebook page active. Sometimes I read the postings from friends and family who continue to write to her although we know she is in heaven. The postings speak of the impact that Jenny had on their lives. They talk about how much they miss her. How much they love her. How much she helped them with her words of wisdom, comfort or encouragement. How they can still hear her voice, although her earthly presence is gone.

I think about how even when cancer had consumed her body, she praised God and how she had a smile on her face. I think of how even when she was in pain, she encouraged me. And although I mourn the fact that at the age of 45 she has left us, I marvel at the richness of her life and the impact that she had and how much she was loved by so many.

An inheritance is something of value. It is something that lasts long after we are gone. Jenny might not have left a lot of money. But what an inheritance she has given her daughter.

An inheritance doesn’t just mean money or stuff. Those things pass away too, just like our physical bodies. They can be destroyed, lost or deteriorate.

A righteous legacy, however, lasts for an eternity. An example of character and wisdom are valuables that we can leave our children and our children’s children. Not just telling our children about our faith in Jesus, but living our faith, are gifts that lead to eternal life for our families and loved ones. The life that Jenny lived and the lessons that she taught are a part of her daughter and I’m sure she will impart her mother’s life lessons and example to her own children one day.

My husband often quotes his grandmother who passed away nine years ago and will have a conversation with her, saying the words that he knew she would say, speaking into his own life the godly wisdom that she imparted while she was here. Her great-grandchildren sing her praises. People who she babysat speak of how she loved them and took care of them. She was kind. She was wise. She was everybody’s mother. She was a wife. She loved her husband. She loved her family. She loved her God. She left a righteous inheritance.

These women inspire me. I want to leave that kind of inheritance for my children and others who know me. I want to live that kind of life. I don’t just want to store up riches here to leave behind that will deteriorate. I pray that I live my life in such a way that I leave a righteous inheritance.

What inheritance are you leaving your children’s children?

Happy Mother-In-Laws Day

2010-10-23T15:20:00.000-07:00

This Sunday, October 24, is Mother-in-Laws Day. Did you forget to mark it on your calendar? Do you plan on buying flowers for that special lady in your life? How about a card?

For so many, the notion of a mother-in-law and a celebration just don’t go together. A recent poll showed that 51 percent of the women surveyed would rather clean their house than spend time with their mother-in-law. Almost 30 percent would rather have a root canal than spend time with the mother of their husband. The stereotypes and jokes about mother-in-laws abound. Some in-laws are outlaws—
wreaking havoc in the marital relationships of their children. Whole websites have been dedicated to mother-in-law horror stories.

It may have to do with the difficulty some parents have letting go. Some mothers may loathe the fact that they will not be the number one woman in their son’s life anymore. Others may think, and they might even be right, that the person their daughter has chosen is all wrong and not Mr. Right. But what they fail to understand is that the choice is their child’s and that by mistreating, ignoring or harboring ill will toward their child’s spouse they damage relationships, hurt the family and cause their child stress and strife as the child balances loving their spouse and parent.

My mother-in-law could have hated me. When my husband and I married 18 years ago, my husband left his job and moved to England to join me on a fellowship. He had just been offered a position at another newspaper that he had dreamed of working for one day. But instead, he chose to support me and we packed up and moved to England along with his sons from his first marriage. If I was a mother, I might have been more than a little concerned about my son.

But if my mother-in-law had any feelings, I never knew it. All I ever received from her was love and acceptance. Before we got married I asked if I could call her Mom. It just felt right. She said yes and she has been just that to me ever since. I am her daughter. She makes no difference during Christmas. She doesn’t come to my house to critique or criticize. But I know I can call her if I need advice. She gives me words of wisdom and encouragement. There is always a gift or card for me on my birthday and Mother’s Day. I’d rather spend time in her kitchen talking and laughing any day rather than washing my dishes.

I appreciate her for the son she raised and the many lessons she taught him. I’m glad she taught him how to cook and she didn’t dog me out because he had to teach me how to cook-- my cooking repertoire limited to spaghetti and a few other dishes when I got married. I appreciate the wonderful son she raised-- a man who loves, honors, and respects the woman who gave him life and loves, honors and respects me, the mother of his children. I appreciate how she taught her son that one day his wife would be number one. But by not demanding to be number one, she did not lose a son but gained a daughter.

She has taught me how to be a mother-in-law. Just as I can only hope to be half the mother that my own mother was and still is to me, I hope I will be half the mother-in-law that Gwendolyn Marie Clincy has been to me. One of these days my son and daughter may choose to marry and start their own families. I will accept who they choose to love. I understand it will be their choice and their family but it won’t mean that I won’t or can’t be an important part of that new union. I will respect their choices and always be willing to give a helpful hand or advice. If I have a problem or concern, I pray that our relationship will be one that we can honestly talk and that they will always feel free to come to me. I will tell them my mother-in-law’s lesson—only two people can come between a husband and a wife and that is a husband and wife. I will tell them, “Don’t let anyone, including me, come between what God has joined together.” But if it doesn’t last, I will be there. Spouses may change. But I will always be their mother.

There are other mother-in-laws like Gwendolyn Clincy who defy the stereotype of the mean, meddling mother-in-law. And I hope that their families celebrate them on Sunday and every day.

As for me, I might call my mother-in-law on Sunday and wish her a Happy Mother-In-Laws Day. Tell her that I love and her and appreciate her. Soon, I will take her to lunch. But I might wait until Mother’s Day to buy flowers. She is my mother-in-law by marriage. But she is a mother to me in my heart.

My Heavenly Home

2010-06-18T10:06:00.000-07:00

But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body. Philippians 3:20-21

“At death you won’t leave home—you’ll go home.” –Rick Warren, Purpose Driven Life

At various times in my life, I have lived overseas. I have lived in Spain and England. For that time period that I lived in those foreign counties, they were my “home.”

I lived there. I had an address. I ate, slept and attended school. I made friends, walked for miles, rode the bus, went to church and even partied a little. In Spain I lived in a small bedroom in an apartment of a Spanish family. In England my family lived in a townhouse with a garage and we bought a car.

In Spain, I eventually learned how to speak the language. In England I learned the nuances between American and British English. I learned my new homes cultures and customs. I learned to love things about the places I lived. I even picked up some of their habits. In Spain, I bought sunflower seeds from the street vendors. In England I drank tea with milk and ate Cadbury chocolate and Worcestershire potato chips. Fish and chips became staples in my diet.

But no matter how long I lived in these foreign countries—whether a matter of months in a semester in Spain or years in England earning a degree—those places were not my home.

The day came when it was time to board a plane and go back to the United States of America—the place where I was born. Home.

No matter how comfortable I became in my new surroundings, I always knew I was just a foreigner passing through. I was an American. My roots and my home were in the good ole U.S. of A.

This thought gives me comfort as I think about leaving this earthly tabernacle one day. This world is not my home. I’m just a foreigner passing through. My real home is in heaven with my Father.

Life is just a vapor. We are here today and gone tomorrow. I was reminded of that last month when two beautiful women I knew died one after the other. My son’s P.E. teacher fought a valiant fight against breast cancer for months. The other woman was a young mother with a husband and two sons. She was the former PTO president, active in the schools, community and her church. We worked together in the PTO.

Sometimes a momentary flash of fear comes when I think of leaving this existence. I like it here. It’s what I know. I don’t want to go. I’ve picked up some of the customs. I speak the language. But then I remember this is not my real home.

I pray that I don’t leave here until I accomplish the task that I was sent here to do. In Spain, I finished my course. In England, I earned the credits for my degree. Mission accomplished. I pray that like King David, I fulfill God’s purpose for my life in my times. My life is in His hands. I don’t want to waste a minute, but I know sometimes I have. But while I’m here, I pray, “Lord, use me for your glory.”

Even when I was overseas, sometimes I got a taste of home. McDonald’s was a treat. There was an assurance when I passed the American embassy or saw the U.S. flag, that I had a little piece of home, even in the midst of a foreign land. I had American friends, folks who spoke my native language. And in the body of Christ, we should have a little piece of home--folks who speak our language and a little taste of heaven when we enter into God’s presence. When I see the cross and remember the blood that Jesus shed for me so that I can be reconciled to God, I remember that that blood has sealed my citizenship in God’s kingdom.

I believe that one day I will turn in this suit of flesh and put on a new glorious body. When I leave this body, I’m going home. I’m going to be with my Father, Abba, Daddy God. I will be reunited with my family.I will see some familiar faces of those who have gone before me. I will see Jesus, my brother, friend, Savior and Redeemer.

I’ll be home.

Being Trained to Reign: The Blessing of Obedience

2010-06-11T09:51:00.000-07:00

“My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.” John 10:27

We have welcomed a new member to the Fountain family. He is cute as a button and thank God sleeps through the night now. He likes his Winnie the Pooh toy and is still a baby in many ways--except this baby likes to chew his rawhide bone and nip at my son’s pants’ leg.

Our new family member is of the four-legged canine variety and the last few weeks have been devoted to training our puppy. I have read booklets and online guides on everything from housetraining your puppy to teaching him how to follow commands, walk on a leash or go to his bathroom spot and go in an expeditious manner (which will really come in handy when these warm summer days turn into cold winter ones).

One thing that keeps coming across is that consistency and repetition are key to training a puppy. You have to say the same command and expect him to do the same thing every time. The puppy has to know that you’re the boss, the Alpha dog, the one that’s in charge. He has to learn your voice and your command and follow your directions every single time. And then you have to reward the puppy for the correct behavior, whether that reward be praise or an actual treat to eat. He has to know your voice. He has to learn that there is a reward in obedience.

We also have to know our master’s voice. We have to do exactly what he tells us to do every time. God is in charge. Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. The Holy Spirit is our guide and leash, teaching and leading us to truth. The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof. He is the boss.

What is the result of repeatedly doing what God tells us to do? A disciplined life. A life that is pleasing to our master. When we do what God tells us to do, we’ll have fewer accidents that our master will have to clean up. We won’t keep going back to our same old stinky messes. We won’t bite at those who are trying to love us and snap at strangers. We won’t destroy what is valuable.

His commands are easy to hear. Just read the bible. They’re right there in black and white. They are also easy to understand. Most of them are summed up in this: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind; and, Love your neighbor as yourself.” It will take some practice and a lifetime of repetition. And just like the commands I’m teaching our puppy, some are a little harder to learn than others. “Sit” was relatively easy to teach him. But “stay” and “come” are a little harder. Isn’t it the same with us? We want to go our own way. But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. Jesus said, “Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.”

When my precious puppy knows how to act in my house, I won’t have to worry about accidents stinking up the place. I won’t have to worry about him tearing up the house and destroying my shoes or furniture. He will be socialized and won’t snap at or bite people. When I can trust my puppy, I will give him more reign over the house. He will be able to be free because he’s been trained.

We are also being trained to reign one day.

“Here is a trustworthy saying:
If we died with him,
we will also live with him;
If we endure,
we will also reign with him.”
2 Timothy 2:11-12a

Listen to God's voice and follow his commands. One day you will hear the praise, “Well done, my good and faithful servant.” There’s definitely a blessing in obedience.

Note: This is not a photo of our puppy, but he does look a whole lot like this puppy who I have just used for illustration purposes.

Name Calling

2010-04-30T09:01:00.000-07:00

“Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.”

Philippians 2:10-11

Whenever I visit my elderly cousin, she quizzes me about my children’s names.

“Your kids have them African names?” she says.

“Yes,” I reply.

“But they’re American,” says my 92-year old cousin.

“African-American,” I say.

We laugh and I once again explain the meaning of their names and the hope that my husband and I have for them in the names that we have given them.

Names are powerful. They usually have a meaning. What we call our children matters. Too many of our children have been called the wrong things: lazy, good for nothing just like your no good daddy, stupid, ugly, retarded, a female dog. The list goes on and on.
We’ve all been called “out of our name” in our lives. We say sticks and stones may break our bones but names will never hurt me, but the fact is that name-calling can hurt and even leave scars, just like literal sticks and stones battering our bodies. What a pain it is for a child who has to suffer the abuse of name calling. How it hurts a parent’s heart when their child comes home and says the kids called me stupid or retarded or gay or whatever the put down that is currently in fashion.

I tell my daughter from time to time, “It doesn’t matter what people call you, but what do you answer to.”

What I am trying to convey to her is that what people call you on a particular day is not your identity. Who you are is much deeper than that and if you really know who you are, what people say might still sting, but it won’t incapacitate you.

In the bible, people often chose names that reflected the circumstances of the child’s birth. Sometimes they named the child for what they hoped their character would be or what their future might hold. But whatever our parents or people name us, God has a name for us. He can change the name that people call us and help us to become the name and purpose that He has planned for us.

Abram became Abraham, father of many. Jacob was transformed from a heel grabbing deceiver to Israel, one who wrestles with God. Impulsive, wavering Simon became Peter, a rock.

People may have called you a failure. Someone might have said you weren’t attractive. Perhaps you were told you might not amount to much. Maybe some of what they said was even the truth. Or maybe you have been saying the wrong things about yourself to yourself. But as God’s children, we have a new name. He changes our name and position. Our new name is More than a Conqueror. Now we are called a royal priesthood. Our identity has been changed to free, justified, sanctified and made acceptable in Jesus Christ. Your new name is Redeemed.

I can have a new name because I have called upon the name of Jesus and believed. “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved (Acts 4:12).” The greatest name that we can call is the name of Jesus. There is power in the name of Jesus. Call his name. That’s the best name-calling you can do.

Christmas Lights and Daffodils

2010-04-02T19:02:00.000-07:00

“In him was life; and the life was the light of men.” John 1:4

Outside my living room window two symbols of seasons have converged. Christmas lights and daffodils.

Christmas lights still adorn my bushes—reminders of the holidays and the season not so long ago when snow covered the grass and bushes and most of the trees were naked or wrapped in ice.

Now the yellow heads of the daffodils have poked out and bask in the sunlight. The trees are starting to bud. But my evergreen tree is still decked out with Christmas lights.

Now that the warmer days have come, one day I will take the time to unravel the lights from the bushes and put them in plastic bins until the season rolls around again. But for now I smile as I look out and see the lights and daffodils and contemplate their meaning
and who they represent.

Because the light of the world was born in Bethlehem, I can live again. I was dead in sin but I have life through Jesus Christ. Jesus makes dead things come alive. No matter what the season is in my life, I can see Christ and he makes all things new. He brings hope, life and light.

During the winter, the daffodils were there. They were just buried. It wasn’t their time yet.

In the fullness of time, God sent His son. For 30 years, he wasn’t in the spotlight. He lived in obscurity—a carpenter’s son from Nazareth. He died an inglorious death on a Roman cross. He was buried. He was dead.

But early Sunday morning, it was His season. He rose from the dead. He is alive and He brings eternal life to all who believe on Him. He is the light of the world and He is the way, the truth and the life. Christmas lights and daffodils.

When Things Fall Apart: Part II

2010-03-22T10:32:00.000-07:00

My closet is on the road to recovery. A few months ago, my closet collapsed. As I hung up an item of clothing, everything came crashing down. For about a week, a mountain of clothes lay at the side of my bed as I sorted what should go back in the closet. It took me much longer to sort my clothes than it did for my husband to fix the shelves in my closet that had buckled under the weight of too much stuff.

My husband was amazed when he went into the closet to fix it. What he found was a makeshift system of empty shoe boxes that I had rigged to support the shelves. You see, the first shelf had broken many months before, possibly even years ago. But I had kept going, finding a temporary solution that became permanent until it just didn’t work anymore.

And then another shelf broke and rather than bother my husband (or maybe hear him fuss about the state of my closet), I propped another box under the broken shelf to keep it steady. It seemed to be working just fine.

By the time it all fell apart I probably had three shoe boxes, very sturdy ones, holding up the shelves.

But one day, it all just fell apart.

I thought about how much our lives are like my closet. We use temporary fixes to prop ourselves up rather than deal with and correct the real problem. What is intended to just hold things up for a minute, become permanent fixtures in our lives. After a while, we have so many props that we just get used to them and even forget that we have put them there. Or maybe we don’t want to do the work that’s required to sort out the old stuff we have carried around since high school. Things we don’t wear anymore but for sentimental reasons, just can’t seem to let go. Maybe we don’t want others to see the state of our lives, how messy it has gotten and how many boxes are holding us up, that instead of asking for the help we need, we just go on. It’s working for us—or so we think, until it all falls apart.

What are the boxes propping you up? Is it the anger or bitterness you hold on to? Is it a memory or hurt from the past that binds you? Perhaps it is fear of failure or of the unknown that paralyzes you and keeps you from stretching out and trying something new? Maybe it is denial or just choosing not to deal with the mess you have accumulated in your life. Is your box a diversion like drugs, alcohol, sex or shopping that keeps you from dealing with the real issues?

Sometimes the box was a good temporary fix at one time, but now you have the resources to make a change, but complacency and comfort have kept you in those patterns of behavior. Boxes keep you from tackling the task of cleaning out the stuff that really needs to go. What are the boxes that make you complacent?

I’m glad my closet fell apart. It looks much better now. My husband has replaced the hardware and fixed the shelves with the warning that they weren’t made to withstand all that stuff.

It reminds me of another admonition from Hebrews 12: 1 ,2: “Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

Let the Master mend you, clean out your closet and get rid of any boxes that have been propping up your broken places.

When Things Fall Apart

2010-01-25T10:21:00.000-08:00

My closet collapsed this morning. I was hanging up a suit I wore yesterday and as soon as I hung it up, my closet fell down. Although the suit was hanging there just yesterday, I guess the hooks that held up the shelf said, “I just can’t take it anymore.”

As a result I had to take all of my clothes out of the closet. They are spread out across my bed. I have been meaning to clean my closet for years. Now my closet falling apart has forced the situation. Things that I have not worn for years will go into the garbage bag headed for the Salvation Army. Instead of clogging my closet, they can be a blessing to someone who needs it.

As I look at my now empty closet, I see it as an opportunity. An opportunity to get rid of the old, maybe bring in a few new. A chance to see what I really have and to start using those things I have forgotten I had.

When things fall apart in our lives it also can be an opportunity. It can be frustrating and a lot of hard work. As I look at the pile of clothes that now occupy my bed, I think --another thing to do that I hadn’t really planned on doing today. But it can be a blessing to me and others.

When things in our life break it may be a chance to get rid of the stuff that was loading us down and crowding us out. When the things that had been holding us up say, “I just can’t take one more thing,” it can help us remove the clutter and focus on what’s important. When things fall apart it help us see what’s really in our lives and what we need to get rid of and the important things we need to keep or maybe take to the cleaners, sew on a new button and restore. It might help us get organized or force us to face something that we have been meaning to get to for years, but haven’t had the heart or courage or fortitude to face. Maybe we just didn’t know where to even start.

But when things fall apart, we have no choice. Will we let our “stuff” lay in ruins on the floor or will we pick it up, sort it out and start again? Will it be a never-ending tragedy or the start of an opportunity?

Divorce, sickness, relationship problems, tragic circumstances, the death of a loved one, just plain old life--all of these things can bring our world crashing down like my closet. What will we do? Will it become a blessing eventually or will it become bitterness, fear or complacency?

My husband will fix my closet shelves. I will also buy more storage and take a lot of stuff to the Salvation Army or give it to others who need it or will use it. But when things are stabilized again and I start putting my clothes back in the closet, the load will be lighter. Someone else will be blessed from the bounty of my closet. And after I’ve done the work, I will smile when I open the closet and turn on the light.

The Year in Review--Number One

2009-12-28T17:43:00.001-08:00

Happy New Year. May God bless you and yours in the New Year and may you walk in the purpose that He has for your life.

Here it is. The most viewed posting on At the Well for 2009. It was written as a result of one of my morning quiet times. Sometimes the thoughts and reflections from those early morning sessions with God and His Word before the kids are up and the hustle and bustle of the day have started turn into posts. Not only did this receive the most viewings, but I also believe the most comments, some of them sent to me via email which were not posted on the blog.

Enjoy, share with a friend or leave your own comment. I will be sending out a poll for your votes on your top picks. I look forward to hearing from you in the New Year.

Peace and Blessings.

Why Does Jesus Ask Obvious Questions?

The Year in Review--Numbers 4, 3 and 2

2009-12-28T17:42:00.001-08:00

Here are the number 2, 3 and 4 most read stories and postings on At the Well this year. Let me say a word about each of them.

Miss California was written in response to the hoopla over Miss California saying that marriage should be between a man and a woman during the Miss USA pageant.

Soweto Freedom Song is a video produced by my husband, John W. Fountain. It chronicles his travels to South Africa in 2006 with Rev. Jesse Jackson. This video has been viewed more than 29,000 times on YouTube.

Baggie Books is about me reading to my son's first grade class last year and (somewhat to my surprise) really struck a chord.

Enjoy and share with a friend.

4. Miss California

3. Soweto Freedom Song

2. Baggie Books

The Year in Review--Numbers 7, 6 and 5

2009-12-28T17:40:00.000-08:00

Here are number 5 to 7 of the most viewed stories on At the Well from 2009. Two of them are written by my husband--author, journalist, professor--John W. Fountain.

Enjoy for the first time, or again, and share with a friend.

7. Still Searching

6. A Cut Connects Father and Son

5. Service vs. Status

The Year in Review--Numbers 10, 9 and 8

2009-12-28T17:23:00.000-08:00

Starting today, I will repost the 10 most viewed posts on At the Well for 2009. If you missed them the first time around, I hope you enjoy them this go round. If you read them the first time, I hope you enjoy them again and share them with a friend.

I will repost three a day and on New Year's Eve I will post the most read story on At the Well for the year and ask you for your comments and votes for which ones are your top choices to be included in an upcoming book.

10. Stuff vs. Substance

9. Plow in Season

8. Thank You, Mamie

The Greatest Gift

2009-12-24T10:40:00.000-08:00

"On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh." Matthew 2:11

As we celebrate Christmas, we can become overwhelmed with cooking, decorating and shopping for the perfect gift. I love seeing the presents under the tree. I remember the anticipation of seeing what Santa left under the tree when I was a child.

Now the excitement comes from seeing the faces of my children as they discover what Santa has left and open the other gifts from family and friends.

But with all the emphasis on buying gifts for others, sometimes, we lose sight of the greatest gift of all.

This Christmas, my prayer is that we will give our "gifts" of worship to the greatest gift of all--God's gift of love, His Son Jesus Christ. The wise men brought Jesus presents fit for a king. May we give him our presence and sit and His feet and learn of Him and praise and worship Him for who He is--the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. May He be the treasure that we cherish and may we be His hands, feet and heart to a dying world.

I pray that this Christmas season, you will treasure the priceless gifts of family and friendship. I pray that you will know and experience the presence of the precious gift of our Savior this Christmas, New Year, new decade and forever.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

P.S.--Last November, I started this blog because of the encouragement of my husband. It was a gift to me. He designed the site and got me started blogging. I thank him for that present. I hope that this year something was written that encouraged, edified or enlightened you.

After Christmas, I will be reposting some of the most viewed entries of At the Well--a sort of year in review. After I have posted the top 10 I will be asking you to vote for your favorites which I hope to include in an upcoming book.

Thank you for your prayers and support of At the Well.

Dancing with the Stars

2009-11-23T08:39:00.000-08:00

“Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life—in order that I may boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor for nothing.” Philippians 2: 14-16

I love watching the television program “Dancing with the Stars.” When the “stars” are announced every season, I choose my favorites and those who I believe will make it to the finale and those who will get the boot early.

The transformation of some of the celebrities is truly amazing. Sometimes celebrities who I thought would be utter failures turn out to be fantastic dancers. (Sorry, I ever doubted you Warren Sapp. Who would have known that a 300-something pound defensive tackle would be so light on his feet?) Some of the celebrities perform as expected. (Tom DeLay, why did you stay so long?)

But it’s really wonderful to see celebrities who really weren’t dancers transformed into professional ballroom dancers. (Gilles, you were robbed last season). This season, Kelly Osbourne has had a metamorphosis. Before the show, she said she was miserable, depressed and wore a size 10. During the weeks of training and dancing, her life and body have been transformed. Now she says that she is happy, confident and wears a size 2.

The key to success is to trust the professional partner. They know what they’re doing. They are the pros.

It takes a lot of hard work and pain sometimes. They have to practice for hours. Sometimes the dancers are injured. Sometimes it seems as if the pros are asking the celebrities to do the impossible. They have to face sometimes brutal criticism from the judges. But if they trust in their professional partner, learn the dances, practice and stop complaining and arguing with the pro, they usually get a very good result.

God is the perfect partner. If we follow His lead, we will make it to the finals and win the prize (Philippians 3:14). We can’t go at our own pace or do our own choreography and expect to win in this life. Sometimes we have to press pass the pain and the injuries that life deals us. We have to practice what we preach and perfect our steps in His Word. We need to be in step with the One who knows what He’s doing. We have to trust God.

As Paul writes in Philippians, if we continue to “work out our salvation with fear and trembling” God will work in us to will and to act according to his good purpose (Philippians 2: 12-13). God has a purpose for us. He wants us all to be stars. He wants us all to reflect his glorious light. He wants our light to shine so bright that men will see our good works and glorify our Father in heaven. But if we are always complaining and arguing and sin is in our lives, our lights become dim.

We need to shine like stars in this dark, depraved world. People will see the transformation in us from the time we have spent dancing with the perfect partner.

The Ugly Side of Anonymity

2009-11-04T09:00:00.000-08:00

When my father was growing up in Louisiana in the 1930s, the Ku Klux Klan would harass and hang black men. They wore their Klan cloaks to hide their faces and came in the night to do their damage. My grandfather told my father, “Real men sleep on sheets. They don’t wear them.”

Now in our technologically advanced days, people are still wearing sheets of anonymity to do damage. Only their cloak is anonymity on the Internet. They use this anonymity to spew hate-filled, nasty comments.

They are not interested in engaging in a meaningful, intellectual discussion. They just want to spout their often racist or hateful perspectives for the world to see, but they don’t want the world to see who they are. They are like a person who throws a brick through and window and then runs away or the Klansman who hides behind a mask and does his dirt in the dark. They are only interested in exercising their power to inflict damage.

I have stopped reading the comments at the end of many stories, especially if it’s about President Obama or the First Lady. One web site allowed a comment to be posted in which the person called the president’s daughter a whore. Others allow commenters to call the First Lady a gorilla. During the campaign, some media sites had to take down the comment sections because they were so filled with racist, nasty, negative comments about Obama.

When my husband wrote an essay that was published in the Chicago Tribune about the homeless this summer, I was disappointed by all the mean-spirited comments directed at the homeless. People were not interested in dealing with the issue, but just wanted to put people down.

But it’s even worse when it becomes a matter of life and death. There have been online bullying cases where young people have committed suicide because of the abuse. Reputations have been ruined because of what some anonymous person posted for the world to see.

When you do not put your name on something you do not take ownership of the remarks and feel like you can say whatever you want to say with no repercussions. They say things they wouldn’t have the nerve to say in person because they have the cloak of anonymity. But there are repercussions, even if it is poisoning the atmosphere with your hate or negativity.

Anonymity has its place.

It’s important sometimes for people to be able to tell what’s going on with the assurance of anonymity in some situations. Whistleblowers have made a positive difference by coming forward. People who have something relevant to share but because of the delicate or embarrassing nature don’t want to use their names should have some anonymity. If someone witnesses a crime or knows of misconduct in a corporation or institution, they should have anonymity in some cases so that a greater good can happen or an evil can be stopped.

But anonymity should not be used for ugliness.

As a journalism student, I was taught to be very careful and wary of using anonymous sources. Are they reliable? Why do they need to be anonymous? Are they credible?

I had my own recent brush with the ugliness of anonymity.

I wrote a blog about reading baggie books to my son’s first grade class and mentioned that I was Time Magazine College Student of the Year. I received a response that there was no such award and the anonymous invective, “That’s a lie.”

Well, dear anonymous reader, should you happen to be reading this, in 1989 I was one of about 20 (not sure the exact number so don’t call me a lie) college students from around the country to receive the Time College Achievement Award. I shortened it to College Student of the Year in the blog because the point wasn’t about my accomplishments.

The point of the column was that if it had not been for my mother sitting at the table and taking time with me in first grade, all those later accomplishments would not have been possible. The point was that if we take the time to read and spend time with our children, we can make a difference.

If the person had cared to leave their name I could have clarified the matter personally. I could have even sent them a picture of the award or the full-page ad with my photo that ran in Time Magazine. But from the tone of their response they weren’t about that anyway.

It’s the same with the health care debate this summer. People aren’t really interested in clarification or having a civil conversation. Like Congressman Joe Wilson, they just throw rocks and say, “You lie.” Even though, they are the ones who don’t have all of their facts straight.

Weebles Wobble But They Don't Fall Down

2009-11-02T06:00:00.000-08:00

“Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, to the only wise God our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever. Amen.” Jude 24, 25

When I was a child I had some little toys called weebles. Do you remember weebles? If you don’t remember the toy maybe you remember the commercial with the little song, “Weebles wobble but they don’t fall down.”

I used to love playing with the little characters that were shaped like eggs. You could push them down but they would wobble and come right back up. They never completely fell over.

The origin of these toys was the Romper Room punching clown. The little weebles were fashioned after the large punching bag clown on Romper Room, a show for preschoolers. The toddlers would punch and push the inflatable clown and it would always come back up with a smile on its face. I had one of those clowns too that I loved to punch around.

I also used to wait with anticipation for the end of Romper Room show when the lady would look through her “magic mirror” (actually an open hoop with a handle) and name all of the children that she saw in television land. “I see Mary and Scott and Julie and Johnny.”

I was always disappointed because she never said my name.

Sometimes we feel like a weeble. Sometimes our faith is a little wobbly. We doubt. We are full of fear. The circumstances of life knock us down. Disappointments, fear and failure punch us in the face and it’s hard to get up. We feel like we are down for the count.

I’m not sure about the science of it all, but I think that what makes the weeble able to spring back upright is its shape and that it’s heavier on the bottom than the top. All of its weight is at the bottom.

If we believe in Jesus Christ, we ought to have something down deep in us that’s heavier than the world around us.

“For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.” 2 Corinthians 4:17

We have the weight of glory—God’s glory. We have God’s presence and power. And we have this treasure in earthen weebly wobbly vessels so that the power is not from us but from God when we get back up.

Just like the weebles were patterned after the Romper Room clown, we were made in God’s image. And if you really want to know what God looks like, all you have to do is look at Jesus, “who is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of every creature.” Colossians 1:15.

Jesus was harassed and ridiculed. He was mocked and scorned. He was berated and hated. But he kept getting back up. He was rejected by family and abandoned by his closest friends. He felt pain, but he didn't let it keep him down. He was a man of sorrow, acquainted with grief. But he didn’t fall over. He was wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities. But he didn’t stay down.

And then they nailed him to a cross. It looked like Satan had finally delivered the knock-out punch. It was finished. Over. Done. They laid him in a tomb. And he was down Friday night. He was down all day Saturday. It looked like he was down for the count Saturday night.

But early Sunday morning, he got up.

And because he got up, I can get up. Even when life throws us a sucker punch, we can get up. We just have to remember the weight that is within us, the power that God has given us and the pattern that Jesus set before us.

I was always disappointed because the Romper Room lady never said my name or saw me, a little black girl in Kankakee, through her magic mirror. I would be standing in front of the t.v. saying, “Say, Monica. Say, Monica.” But she never did.

But I’m so glad, He knows my name and He sees me. He calls me by my name. When I wobble, He lets me know He is able to keep me from falling.

Roots

2009-10-08T11:24:00.000-07:00

Chris Rock's documentary "Good Hair" opens in theaters in major markets on Friday, Oct. 9th and nationwide on Oct. 23rd. The film explores black folks preoccupation with "good hair" or straight hair and the billion dollar black hair care industry which is primarily controlled by whites and Asians.

Seeing Rock on Oprah and other media outlets, made me laugh and shake my head at the same time. It also reminded me of an essay entitled "Roots" that I wrote almost exactly eight years ago for a creative writing class. The essay explores my own journey with the question of "good hair."

October 4, 2001

I am addicted to perm. That is permanent relaxer, the chemical mixture Black women have been using for years to make our naturally curly hair super straight. I can’t tell you exactly when I had my first hit. It was some time before puberty, around the age of eight or nine. It was some time when my mother got tired of wrestling with me and hearing my moans and groans as she tried to straighten my hair with the hot comb on the kitchen stove.

This whole pressing process usually took place on a Saturday. I remember the freedom of a Saturday afternoon in the basement pretending to be a “Soul Train” dancer, whipping around my luxurious locks, a mane of un-straightened hair. And then it was time for the comb. My unruly super-Afro would be tamed into silky shiny strands of ponytails. The shampoo part was fun for the most part, although bending your head over the sink could get a little uncomfortable after a while. But it was the smell of the burning hair and grease, the pressing part that was always a pain. More than once my ear felt the wrath of my wiggling and was seared by the hot comb.

Finally, my mother tired of the struggle and she turned to the perm. What else was a mother to do? Your hair can’t be nappy. Everyone else’s hair is straight. Straight is pretty. Nappy is bad.

So my first trip was made into the dark, dank basement where a bright beauty shop awaited behind a door. It was Annie and Mariah’s shop. They were members of my father’s Baptist church. One time, when my mother had to leave town suddenly to attend to her ailing father, Mariah came to my house to do my hair for school. My father had made a feeble attempt, but had plaited my hair like he probably used to braid the mule’s tail when he was growing up on the farm in the South. I took one look at my hair in the mirror and started to cry. I couldn’t go to school like that. The kids would call me Kizzy, Kunta Kinte’s daughter, with all those little braids sticking out of my head like Medusa, or maybe I would be christened Buckwheat for the rest of my life. Mariah came to the rescue and did my hair in a presentable style of barrettes and ponytails.

At eight or nine, it was time to leave the press and curl behind and go to the next level, the perm. The white cream was applied to the roots of my hair and when the process was over my hair was silky smooth and straight. I still had to endure the curling process, but my hair would be straight, at least for six weeks when the “touch-up” was required. At times, if you had scratched your head before the “touch-up,” your scalp would burn as if it were on fire and you would be almost running to the shampoo bowl to rinse the perm out. But such was the sacrifice for straight hair.

This addiction to straight hair has other inconveniences. Swimming is a hassle. If you don’t wash the chlorine our right away, your hair will break out. And who wants to go through all the hassle of shampooing, blow drying and curling your hair? The first agenda when you enter a new city is to find a good Black hairdresser, which is sometimes easier said than done. It’s not easy finding a person who knows what to do with Black hair in England or Spain.

At times I have considered opting for a more natural style. I love Lauryn Hill’s locks and Venus and Serena’s braids. Then the fear of change comes. I would have to start from scratch to grow locks. How would I look with an almost bald head? What would I do while it is growing out? Is my head shaped funny? How will I look? How will people react? Will I have the styling versatility that my “unnatural” hair provides?

Then there are the questions that go beyond the physical. Am I trying to live up to some European standard of beauty? Can you be an enlightened Black woman and down for the cause without dreadlocks or an Afro? Isn’t my blackness contained in more than just the way I wear my hair? In New York City last summer I saw sisters with straight hair, nappy hair, bald heads, dreadlocks and braids. They were all beautiful and their styles were as beautiful and varied as their skin tones.

When I add up the costs of this addiction, it really makes me want to cut my hair off and declare myself perm free. It costs almost $40 to visit the hair dresser every two weeks and almost $60 for a touch up. My mother’s oldest sister recently gave up the perm and cut her hair in a flattering, short Afro. Everyone was surprised. I think to myself if she can do it in her 60s, surely I can do it in my 30s. But as my hair starts to revert around the edges and the comb becomes harder to pull through, the perm calls. I give in to the familiar and call for an appointment for a touch up. “Maybe next time,” I think to myself.

My daughter is five. I tried to press her hair once a few years ago. My mother gave me the hot comb as if to say, “It’s time.” I took a tiny strand in the front of her soft, fluffy brown hair and applied the comb. The smell of burnt hair wafted in the air. The comb was too hot. I put the comb in the drawer and have never used it again. My daughter wears her hair with braids and beads, barrettes and ponytails. It is not super straight, but has a slight natural curly wave. Someday I may succumb to the comb and press her hair so that she can wear cute little Shirley Temple curls or maybe I will blow dry it. But I will know in a few days or weeks it will return to its natural state and I will not be responsible for giving her an addiction to perm.

She is free to be natural and the choice will be hers one day if she chooses to chemically alter her hair. I’ll let her know she’s beautiful no matter how she chooses to wear her hair and that her beauty does not come from the mane on her head, but from her heart.

A School That Works

2009-09-04T09:13:00.000-07:00

The conversation usually goes the same way. Whenever I’m with a group of parents the question comes up. It may take different forms but it deals with the same dilemma.

“Where’s your daughter going to high school?” they ask me. Or my question to them may be, “How is the high school?” if I know they have children attending a local high school.

Now the question even encompasses junior high school and even fourth grade as anxious parents ponder what school their child will attend and the school’s scores on national tests. The angst arises from the fear that many parents in my community have of what lies beyond the safety and success of our local elementary school to the horror stories that we have heard about the junior high and high schools in our south suburban school system.

You hear the stories about children being hijacked for their homework. Parents who have children who have graduated or who still attend the local high schools roll their eyes toward the heavens when you ask them about the high schools. Some assure you that this one is better than that one or if your child is in the gifted program, they will do just fine. If they’re an athlete they might have some insulation from the less than desirable elements. Others tell tales of children beating on desk and rapping while the teacher stands powerless before them. You hear about the parade of principals who have gone through the schools, low test scores, lack of discipline and even guns brought to school.

Some pay for private schools. This is an option that is less than desirable when I look at my property tax bill. Then there are other considerations. I suspect some of the parents who have decided to send their child to the nearby Catholic high school have made that decision as a way to get away from the black and brown children who have taken over the public schools rather than just seeking a better education. Will my brown babies really receive a good education in such an environment? We hear the horror stories of young black men who have been harassed and mistreated at the private school. Will my children as my husband says be “culturally” safe?

Our dilemma is not as severe as others. At least we can contemplate sending our child to a private school. And even with its shortcomings, our south suburban system's problems pale in comparison to the plethora of problems in many school districts, especially in urban communities, across this country where schools have failed and many just don’t work.

Given the dilemma, we contemplate driving our children to the West Side of Chicago to a school that works.

On the West Side of Chicago, Providence-St. Mel has been educating children for years and doing an incredible job. All of their graduates, 100 percent, go to college, many to top-tier colleges. St. Mel does this, not in the suburbs, but in the heart of the city. In a place where folks said green grass wouldn’t grow, St. Mel sits on a lush green lawn and raises black and brown children to reach academic heights.

Providence-St. Mel is my husband’s alma mater and it is a school that I would love for my own children to attend.

Here is an article that my husband John wrote about St. Mel and its impact that appears in the September 4, 2009 issue of the Chicago Sun-Times: Here by God's Grace and St. Mel's

A feature-length documentary titled “The Providence Effect” about the wonderful work done at St. Mel will be released in September in theaters across the country. To see a trailer of the movie, click here: The Providence Effect. A listing of theaters where the movie will be shown is also listed. On Sept. 25, it will open at the theater in Country Club Hills for my south suburban readers. It will also play in theaters in New York City, New Jersey, Los Angeles and Washington D.C.

Why Does Jesus Ask Obvious Questions?

2009-08-26T15:58:00.001-07:00

Why does Jesus ask obvious questions?

He asks a blind man, “What do you want me to do for you?” (Mark 10:51) Duh. Isn’t it obvious Jesus? I want to see.

He asks a man who has been paralyzed for 38 years, “Do you want to get well?”( John 5: 6) Who wouldn’t want to get well? Of course, Jesus. I want to walk.

At times it seems like Jesus ask not only obvious but downright ridiculous questions.

“How many loaves do you have,” he asked his disciples when faced with thousands of hungry people. (Matthew 15:34) What difference does it make Jesus how many loaves we have? Even a year’s worth of wages wouldn’t be enough to feed all these folks. Or he asks Mary and Martha, “Where have you laid him?” (John 11: 34) What difference does it make Jesus? He stinks by now. Lazarus has been dead for days. You’re too late. If you had been here he wouldn’t have died. But it’s too late now Jesus.

Maybe Jesus asks what seems like obvious or ridiculous questions for the same reason we ask our children questions. Sometimes I will ask my children something that I already know the answer.

“Did you clean your room?”

“What happened in school today?”

“What do you want?”

“What did you say?”

I want to see if they are going to tell the truth. Are they going to be honest? Are they trying to fool me and themselves? I might ask them a question already knowing what they need but I want to see where their head is at and what’s on their mind. Do they really know what they want and what it might entail or the responsibility that goes along with it? Why do they want it?

We ask our children obvious questions because we want them to recognize who they are talking to. We are their parents. We love them. We want what’s best for them. Most times they have come to us because they believe we have the power to grant or deny their request.

Unlike us as human parents, Jesus has the power to not only grant our requests but to do exceedingly and abundantly above what we can ask or even think. Before he left this earth, Jesus declared, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” (Matthew 28: 18) He already knows what we need, but are we going to be honest and come clean about where we’re really at in our situation. And if he says he has something else for us or tells us to wait, are we willing to accept his authority? We want blessings but are we willing to accept the responsibility. We want the promise but are we willing to go through the process.

Jesus has the ability to make something out of nothing. He can supply our needs according to his riches in glory. He can bring life to dead situations in our lives. But he wants us to recognize who he is. He is God. He has the power. He just asks another question, “Do you believe?”

What About the Homeless?

2009-08-26T15:30:00.000-07:00

“…I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.” Matthew 25:40

Recently I was walking in downtown Chicago. There’s nothing better than downtown Chicago on a summer’s evening. Beautiful flowers grace the median of Michigan Avenue. The sounds of a violin or the rapid beat of boys beating drums pierce the air. Most pedestrians stroll, enjoying the beauty of the last breath of summer.

But in the midst of the beauty of downtown Chicago, there is also the ugly reality of the homeless--men and women who carry their life’s possessions on their back. I don’t get to the city regularly so I forget how many homeless people spend their day begging along Michigan Avenue. Is it my imagination or are there more of them than there used to be? They come up and ask for money. I don’t want to reach in my purse to hunt for a few dollars in the middle of the street. Apologetically, I say sorry—feeling sad that I couldn’t help in some small way. Sometimes I try not to see them or make eye contact hoping that I won’t be faced with saying no. I resolve in my mind to remember to carry a few dollars in my pocket next time so that I’ll have something readily available or tell myself that I will make a donation to the Salvation Army or another charity that helps the homeless.

We should all be concerned about those who are less fortunate. But unfortunately, many people who are blessed see those who are less fortunate as a nuisance who put themselves in that situation. I was surprised when my 13-year-old daughter said her friend commented that she would not help the homeless.

“Homeless man shouldn’t have gotten himself into that position,” her friend said.

And this is from a 13-year-old girl. But unfortunately children get those attitudes from adults. Instead of feeling compassion or a sense of “There but for the grace of God go I” too many of us have a condescending attitude. In spite of the bad choices people may make and the unfortunate circumstances that those decisions may place them, God calls us to help those in need. You might be living in a house in the suburbs today, but as the recent economic crisis has shown, many of us are just one paycheck, layoff or medical crisis away from being homeless. When we help the least of these it’s as if we are doing it for God.

My husband, John, a professor of journalism at Roosevelt University in downtown Chicago, had one of his journalism classes explore homelessness in Chicago during the spring of 2009. The multimedia project included photographs, videos, podcasts, articles and essays. The work that they produced is displayed at the web site, When the City Turns Cold.

John also wrote an essay about the homeless and his class project which appeared in the Chicago Tribune on July 12, 2009. Click here to read the article Now, I See, which also appeared on the web site Op Ed News.

Candy Straws

2009-08-21T15:57:00.000-07:00

“But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.” 1 Corinthians 2:9

My seven-year-old son loves candy.

If I would let him, he would watch television and eat candy all day. His favorite candy is candy straws. His eyes light up with excitement and his tongue even hangs out in anticipation when I buy him candy straws. He’ll even do a little dance in the aisle of Walgreens when I’m buying him candy straws.

Sometimes I will buy him candy without him knowing. I store it on a high shelf in the kitchen above his reach and eyesight. He doesn’t know that it’s up there because he’s not tall enough to see it. He has not grown enough to see the good thing that is in store for him.

I usually don’t give him the whole package all at once. It’s too much sugar at once for his little system to handle. I also want to teach him not to eat it all at once, but how to save some for later. I want to reward him for being an obedient child and following my word. It is a pleasure to reward a good child. But sometimes I buy it just because he’s mine.

When he doesn’t know that I’ve already bought candy, sometimes at the store he will ask if he can have some candy and I say I already have some for you at home. You will get it in time. That answer at times brings whining or complaining. Sometimes that attitude of ingratitude makes his wait even longer. I may wait to give it to him, but it is his candy. I bought it just for him.

God has prepared some things for us. We’re just not tall enough to see it yet. We have not matured enough to see or handle the blessing. Maybe we’re walking in disobedience or in a spirit of complaining like the children of Israel who delayed their promise by 40 years by their disobedience and complaining attitude.

God wants to give it to us. It’s his gift just for us. If we as human parents know how to give our children good gifts how much more so does our Heavenly Father? One of his greatest gifts for those who love him is his love. He gives us the gift of his presence in our lives and the promise that that He will never leave us or forsake us. Even when we don’t feel like He is there or we don’t see his hand in our lives, He is still there.

Let’s grow up in Him and continue to wait upon the Lord. He will give us what we need and even the desires of our heart at the right time or we will grow up enough in our faith that we will be able to see it with our spiritual eyes. Or maybe, like my son, we will come to know that even if we can’t see it, it doesn’t mean it’s not there.

Special Series: Babbie Mason - Part 3

2009-07-08T12:35:00.000-07:00

Here’s the final segment of my interview with gospel recording artist Babbie Mason. Picking up where we left off on finding her place in the body of Christ that is neither black nor white, but embraces all of God’s children as one.

To enjoy more of Babbie’s music and find out more about her ministry, please go to her web site, www.babbie.com.

Special Series: Babbie Mason - Part 2

2009-07-05T12:31:00.000-07:00

Here's part two of my interview with gospel music artist Babbie Mason. We pick up where we left off with Babbie talking about how the Lord led her from the brink of becoming a Marine to ministering the gospel of Jesus Christ to the world in song.

Liberty

2009-07-04T12:44:00.000-07:00

“Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.”
Galatians 5:2

Today across the United States of America, we celebrate freedom. We call ourselves the “Land of Liberty” because of the principles of freedom that our country was founded upon. The Bill of Rights in our constitution enumerates some of those freedoms. Freedom of religion, speech, the press, petition and assembly are a few of the rights that we have guaranteed as citizens of this great country.

Liberty is defined as freedom from control, interference, obligation or restriction. The founding fathers wanted freedom from the control of Great Britain. This freedom was so important to the founding fathers that they were willing to fight for it. In 1775, Patrick Henry famously said, “Give me liberty or give me death.”

I celebrate the freedoms that we have as citizens of the United States. I celebrate that fact that we are not perfect but that we are striving to form a more perfect union. I celebrate the fact that African Americans have gone from being recognized in our constitution as only a fraction of a person to an African-American man becoming the president of this country.

The freedoms that we enjoy in the United States are wonderful and our liberty makes us a beacon to millions who have come to our shores seeking opportunity and freedom from tyranny and poverty.

But the most important liberty that we can ever experience is the liberty of the saving grace of Jesus Christ.

Freedom isn’t free. Thousands have shed their blood to ensure our freedoms in this country. Christ shed his blood to ensure our freedom for eternity.

Jesus read from the prophet Isaiah about his purpose. “The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound…” Isaiah 61:1

Jesus has set us free and gives his followers the power to proclaim that liberty to others and open up the prisons of those who are in bondage to sin and the pain of the past.

We have been freed from sin because of the sacrifice that Jesus made on the cross. We are no longer under sin’s control, interference, obligation or restriction. When we accept what Jesus has done in setting us free, we are free from the consequences of sin. We are saved. We are free from the power of sin. God has sent the Holy Spirit to lead us and guide us into all righteousness and pricks our heart to repentance when we do sin. We do not have to be entangled again in bondage. One day we will be free from the presence of sin.

When we do not have liberty in Christ, we are already dead. We are dead in our sins and trespasses as the scriptures say. But Jesus has come to give us life and that more abundantly. Now that’s something to celebrate.

Special Series: Babbie Mason - Part 1

2009-07-02T12:34:00.000-07:00

Gospel singer, songwriter and award-winning recording artist Babbie Mason has carried the Good News across the globe, spreading the message of hope and love through Jesus Christ. With a God-given gift of a silky voice and the lyrical talents to capture the soul, she has created for more than three decades an unmistakable sound-- a music that continues to lead hundreds of thousands, if not millions to a place of worship.

She penned the award-winning classic, “All Arise”, one of the most recorded songs in Christian music and noted recording artists such as Cece Winans, Larnelle Harris, Helen Baylor and the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir have recorded her compositions.

Earlier this year, I sat down with Babbie Mason to talk about her faith, her walk, her journey and her music. To hear the first segment of my interview with Babbie Mason, just press play above.

To learn more about Babbie Mason, visit her web site at www.babbie.com.

Remembering Michael

2009-06-26T09:41:00.000-07:00

When my husband read the breaking news alert from his Blackberry, I literally felt my heart sink. Michael Jackson was taken to the hospital. Then he told me he had died. I grabbed my heart.

“That’s my childhood,” I said.

My husband said he had not died. At that point it was just a rumor. I prayed that he would be alright. But later the rumor proved to be true. A sadness settled in my heart.

Michael Jackson was dead.

I never saw Michael Jackson in life, but he was so much a part of my life. I grew up with Michael Jackson. The year I was born, 1968, the Jackson 5 signed with Motown. Jackson 5 posters were taped to my bedroom wall. The first album I ever bought was “Off the Wall.” Who could ever forget the Black History program in high school when students recreated “Thriller” on stage? Who can forget the thrill of seeing the video “Thriller”? Who can forget the electrifying performance on the Motown 25 special when Michael moonwalked across the stage?

I felt a loss, almost like a family member had died. He was like a cousin who you grew up with but hadn’t seen in years and when you saw them they were a semblance of their former self.

Earlier in the day, I had been at my mother’s house, helping her clean out her basement, taking stuff to the Salvation Army. She had told me if I wanted any of my stuff from college that was taking up space that I should claim it before it was tossed.

I scanned through a box of papers from college and found some of my old columns from when I was a writer for the Daily Illini. The first column I ever wrote for the paper, “Beauty not defined by one set of standards” in October 1987 started out “Michael Jackson is a stranger to me.”

I went on to write: “Michael no longer looks like the Michael that I use to know. His nose is pointed, his skin is pale and his curly hair hangs down his back. He has changed. Some people say that he let success go to his head. Some say he’s on an ego trip. Some say he is a weirdo. I say he’s giving America what it wants.”

Besides his increasingly strange appearance and behavior, allegations of child abuse dogged Michael in his later years. Whenever I saw Michael Jackson’s face in recent years, I would feel a little sad. Gone was the beautiful, flat nose, brown-skinned African-American boy with the Afro, replaced by a frail ghost of man. A man who constantly seemed to be trying to be Peter Pan and recreate a childhood that was lost to celebrity and abuse. A man who was surrounded by people who would tell him anything he wanted to hear and squandered his fortune. A man addicted to plastic surgery, trying to recreate himself into I don’t know what but whose face seemed to be falling apart.

I told my husband this morning that at least it seemed that Michael had found some happiness with his children and being a father. I hope that was the case.

Such a tragic life. Such a musical genius who brought such joy with his music but who had such sadness and isolation in his own life. His songs rang throughout my head. I laughed when I thought about Aunt Marj thinking “Beat It” was a gospel song and that Michael Jackson was saying “Jesus, just Jesus.” I thought of the beginning of my wedding video where the music underscoring photos of my husband and me was “Remember the Time” by Michael Jackson. I kept humming “I’ll Be There.” I thought of high school and junior high school and how Michael Jackson’s songs were always in the background.

I shed a tear for Michael Jackson this morning. I will miss you Michael. But I’m glad that I will always have your music and memories. You have provided a soundtrack for my life.

Thank You, Mamie

2009-06-23T10:03:00.000-07:00

On June 15 and 16th, my husband and I conducted a workshop in Pembroke, Ill. Last year, we did a two-week journalism workshop in Pembroke and established the iWriteADream journalism program. The workshop this year taught 5th-8th grade students how to do research and produce a powerpoint presentation. For their research topic, we chose "From the Maafa to the Presidency: A Change Has Come. "

Students researched African-American history from the Middle Passage in which millions of Africans died while being transported from their homeland to slavery (Maafa is derived from the Swahili term for disaster) to the election of the first African-American president.

While preparing for the workshop, we collected photos. Some of those photos were of Emmitt Till and his mother, Mamie Till Mobley. Emmitt's death was noted as one of the leading events that motivated the American Civil Rights Movement. Emmitt was 14 years old when his mother sent him to visit relatives in Mississippi. He was brutally murdered after he allegedly whistled at a white woman in a store. His mother courageously chose to have his casket open during his funeral so that the world could see the face of racial hatred.

Seeing those photos and recalling the struggle and the strength of my ancestors inspired this poem.

Thank You, Mamie

June 15, 2009

By Monica Fountain

Thank you, Mamie
For letting me see
Your baby boy

Thank you for opening
The coffin
So the world could see
A catastrophe

Brought by hate
A racial tsunami
That consumed your
Beautiful boy
On that fateful night

Thank you for giving
Us the courage
To fight

Thank you for letting
Us see
The human atrocity
The crime against humanity
On your beautiful
Baby

Thank you, Mamie
For a mother’s love
Courage and strength
To stand up for right
To fight
Hate
With love

Thank you

To read more about Mamie Till-Mobley, read her biography, "Death of Innocence: The Story of the Hate Crime that Changed America" written by Till-Mobley and Christopher Benson.

To see some of the work done by Pembroke students in the iWriteaDream Writing Workshop in Pembroke, click here.

Brokenness

2009-06-23T09:37:00.000-07:00

Have you ever broken a glass while washing dishes? The shattered pieces are in the water and you have to be very careful or you may cut yourself. A broken glass can hurt you.

Broken people, people who have been damaged by life, can also hurt you. Broken people often damage themselves and others. People who have been broken by a parent, a spouse or even a child who has caused them immeasurable pain may actually cut themselves, seeking to end their own life. They might put drugs or alcohol into their bodies to ease their pain. Perhaps they give their bodies to others trying to find solace in sex. Oftentimes, they lash out at others, not even realizing that they are venting the pain pent up inside.

Broken by the critical words of a parent. Broken by the betrayal of a spouse. Broken by the disappointment of a child deeply loved. Broken by a violation of your body. Broken by an abortion. Broken by someone who should have been there, should have cared, should have protected or provided for you but just wasn’t there or didn’t seem to care.

It’s a cliché, but it is true. Hurt people hurt people. Most often, the person that they hurt is themselves.

Once a glass has shattered, it is impossible to put it back together again. And it is impossible by human endeavor alone to put broken people back together again and make them whole. We might patch them up and seal the cracks. But we cannot make them new again.

Only God can put broken people back together again.

Only God can heal some wounds. They are so deep. They are so devastating. The injury is so catastrophic. The heart has broken into so many pieces that it is like a shattered glass. It cannot be fixed or replaced in the natural. It takes the supernatural to not only put the pieces back together but to make us brand new. A new creation.

How does God do this? Through his Son, Jesus Christ. Why is Jesus able to fix our brokenness? Because he was broken for us.

“And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me.” Luke 22:19

Jesus was broken for us. And through his brokenness, we can be healed.

“But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed." Isaiah 53:5.

God wants to heal you. But do you have the faith to believe? Do you have enough faith to say, “Lord, help my unbelief.” Even if you have been broken so long you can’t believe that a pain-free existence is possible, just open your mouth and say, “Jesus, help me.” Open your heart. It’s scary because it’s been broken by people. This pain is impossible.

But with God all things are possible.

"Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." 2 Corinthians 5:17

A Cut Connects Father and Son

2009-06-20T14:43:00.000-07:00

This beautiful essay by my husband, John W. Fountain, appears in the June 21, 2009 edition of the Chicago Sun-Times. It speaks to the importance of the time we make to spend with our children--those precious memories that children remember and that impact their lives long after the toys have been thrown away and the clothes and shoes outgrown.

Happy Father's Day to all of the wonderful fathers like my husband John who have been there for their children from the day they were born and also for those who have been a father to those whose fathers were not there.

Cutting my son's hair lets us share priceless, intimate moments

Baggie Books

2009-06-04T16:18:00.000-07:00

Every Thursday I volunteer in my son’s first grade class. I listen to the students read their “baggie books.” They are supposed to read their books which they keep in a plastic pouch every week. The books are on various levels from one to twenty.

“Are you coming to read with us today?” they ask me in the morning when I drop off my son.

At the beginning of the school year some of the children were on level one and could barely read “a”, “and” or “the”. Now some of those same children are reading fluently.

Over the school year, I have seen their reading skills and confidence improve.

One little boy’s face beamed with pride when I praised his improved reading skills and moved him to the next level.

“I am so proud of you,” I said.

“Could you show the teacher?” he asked.

To some of them, I say, “You read like a t.v. news broadcaster. “ To others I say, “That’s my doctor” or “You’re my lawyer.”

I know about the value of an encouraging word and someone taking time to work with a child and speak possibilities into their life. And I also know that at school may be the only place where some of those children may receive an encouraging word or have an adult read to or with them.

I also personally know about the lasting impact that learning how to read can have on a person’s life and the importance of first grade.

I remember being in the bottom reading group in first grade. And although it was a long time ago, I remember the shame. I remember the frustration. I also vividly remember my mother sitting at our kitchen table with me, working with me on reading. I remember the sting of her popping my hand with an extension cord when my focus had waned and her patience had withered.

In this day and age when corporal punishment is frowned upon, some may question her old school techniques. Trust me. It was not a beat down, just a quick rap on the knuckles to get my attention. But the message was clear. Learning and reading is important and I’m going to sit here and stick with you until you get it--even if I have to beat you until you get it.

I steadily moved up in the reading groups. I started making “A”s. I became a part of the academically talented or gifted program. Honor roll student. Illinois State Scholar, National Merit Scholar. Full ride to the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. Summa cum laude. Time Magazine College Achievement Award in 1989. British Marshall Scholar.

And it all started at that kitchen table in first grade.

I say all that not to toot my own horn, but to say what is possible. The honor really goes to my mother who sat at the table with me, who always expected excellence from me. My parents valued education and paid me money for every A (yes, paying kids for grades is an incentive—a good one). My mother came to the school and was a mother for other children when their parents never showed up. She had my P.E. teacher change my grade from a B to an A.

“Did she dress out?”

“Yes,” the teacher replied.

“Did she participate?”

“Yes.”

“Then she gets an A.”

“ Yes, ma’am.”

What if I hadn’t had a mother who cared enough to help me overcome whatever obstacle was holding me back in first grade?

What would happen if more parents took the time to read to their child every day? What would be the impact in our neighborhoods and country if instead of marching and protesting pastors and their congregations went and read to a little boy or girl in their neighborhood school?

Marching and protesting are all well and good and often needed but what is absolutely necessary is that we take responsibility for our children’s education. As President Obama often says, we can and should spend more money in our schools, but parents also have to turn the television off and read to their children. We need to invest in books and computers instead of the latest fashions.

One little girl who reads beautifully now was in the lower levels earlier in the year. She expressed her frustration to me one day and said that so and so was on such and such a level and she was where she was.

I told her first of all to not believe everything someone tells you, because they might not be on the level that you think they are. I also told her my story of being in the first grade and in the lowest reading group. I told her to keep practicing and she would move up.

Now she is in the top reading group and one of the best readers in the class.

Maybe one day she will be a Rhodes Scholar and she’ll look back and say it all started with baggie books.

The class made me a special thank you book for reading with them this year. It brought tears to my eyes. They drew pictures of us reading together. I’ve read a lot of books since my year in first grade, but few have been as touching as the one from Ms. Curran’s first grade class 2008-2009.

Miss California

2009-05-28T07:17:00.000-07:00

I really empathized with Miss California in April. I know about losing a title because of one pageant question.

Many years ago, I was a contestant in the Miss Teen Kankakee pageant. I felt the crown was within my reach. That is until I came to that pesky question section.

They asked me some question about being a lawyer. "Hey," I thought. "I don’t want to be a lawyer. The other contestant, Lisa, wants to be a lawyer. That question’s not for me."

I stumbled and bumbled through an answer, totally taken off my game by the unexpected question. I ended up with the second place trophy and stayed in bed mourning the next day, until my father finally told me to get up.

That question had cost me the crown.

Miss California, Carrie Prejean, said she believed she lost the Miss USA crown when celebrity blogger judge Perez Hilton asked her if she believed same-sex marriage should be legal across the country.

“Vermont recently became the fourth state to legalize same-sex marriage,” Hilton said. “Do you think every state should follow suit, why or why not?”

Prejean, like me, also seemed to bumble a bit and be caught off guard at first before she gave the following answer:

"I think it's great Americans are able to choose one or the other," she said. "We live in a land that you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage. And you know what in my country, in my family I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anybody there, but that's how I was raised and that's how I think it should be, between a man and a woman."

In the end, Miss California was named the first runner up, but ended up getting more attention for that one answer than Miss “What’s Her Name” who actually won the crown.

Later, Hilton described Prejean as a dumb “b” (rhymes with itch). She has been lauded and lambasted for her answer. She has been interviewed and appeared in commercials defending traditional marriage. Photos of her posing in lingerie have been posted on the Web.

It’s strange to me that someone would be publicly derided because they state a belief that marriage is between a man and a woman. How did we come to this point? For all of human existence and in every culture that I know of, marriage has been defined as between a man and a woman. Does it now make you an oddball to say what has been the case throughout human history or that would have seemed a few years ago to be an obvious and ridiculous question?

The first amendment of the U.S. Constitution ensures American citizens certain rights, including freedom of speech and freedom of religion. Perez Hilton asked the question and Miss California gave him an answer. She expressed what she believed. By the way, her answer was the same basic answer that has been given by President Barack Obama and other politicians including California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger when asked about same-sex marriage.

I do not see same-sex marriage as a question of civil rights. I believe in equal rights for all citizens. An adult person of sound mind should be able to leave their property to whomever they wish. People should also be able to say who they want to make health choices for them if they are incapacitated and who they want to receive benefits from their death.

But I also believe in the Bible. I believe that God’s Word and his law supersede man’s law. And I believe, like Miss California, and many others, that marriage is between a man and a woman. And that marriage is not a civil rights issue but an institution ordained by God. It always has been and it always will be.

Man may change his laws. The California Supreme Court recently upheld Proposition 8 which defines marriage as between a man and a woman. One day, that may not be the case in this country. Man may redefine marriage. But whatever man may say, what God says will remain and be true-- yesterday, today and forever.

"And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh."
Genesis 2:22-24

Service vs. Status

2009-05-28T07:11:00.000-07:00

For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."
Luke 14:11(NIV)

One Sabbath, Jesus was dining at the home of a prominent Pharisee. He noticed how the guests were jockeying for positions at the table.

He gave those there a bit of advice. He told them when someone invites you to a feast, don’t sit yourself in the seat of honor because you might be asked to move. Instead, Jesus said to take the lowest place and let the host sit you in the seat of honor.

“For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted,” Jesus said.

If Jesus came to some of our churches today, I’m afraid he would find the same scenario.

Many people are jockeying for positions of power. Some are always clawing and scratching to be on top. They cherish their position, but they don’t have a heart for people. They want to have big names and be recognized. But they don’t want to spend time and energy doing the real work of ministry.

They want to have status, but they don’t want to serve.

It’s human to want acknowledgement and appreciation. But what is the motive of our service?Are we looking for status or to serve?

Jesus said the greatest in his kingdom are those who serve. Jesus was the Son of God. But he could wash his disciples’ feet. The Creator could crouch down and wash the dirty dusty feet of his creation. Jesus was able to do this because he knew who he was and he knew his purpose.

Jesus said, “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:45)

When we know our purpose and our value in Christ, we don’t have to claw and crave for recognition. When our emphasis is service, not status, Jesus himself will place us in a seat of honor.

Just a Mom

2009-05-10T05:29:00.000-07:00

“Mom, when are you going to get a job?”

“I have a job. I take care of you.”

“No. I mean a real job.”

So went the conversation with my son Malik and daughter Imani. The next day was “Take Your Son or Daughter to Work Day” and I figure my children were feeling deprived. They didn’t have a place to go. Dad worked as a professor downtown in the evening, so they knew they couldn’t go to work with him. Although Malik suggested he might go to Starbucks with Dad, a place he knows his father often does a lot of writing during the day.

“I work from home,” I explained.

“But when are you going to get a real job?” Malik asked.

I went into a brief dissertation of what the “job” of motherhood involved, but to a 7-year-old boy, being a mom was not a real job. A real job entailed getting up and going somewhere every day. A real job was not what Mom did.

I understand. For him being a mother was not a “job.” It was who I am.

I used to have the same conundrum when people would ask me “What do you do?”

For many of the last 17 years, I have been a stay-at-home mother. And sometimes I felt dumbfounded when asked the question, “What do you do?”

In my own mind, I figured the expectation was to have a sterling resume of accomplishments, awards and accolades. It almost seemed like a disappointment or that I was living below my potential to say I was a stay-at-home mother. Many times I felt like a failure because I could not say my professional accomplishments.

Although we pay lip service as a society to motherhood being the most important job in the world, so many mothers are made to feel that what they do is not significant.

I met a young mother in Florida in February who was raising two pre-schoolers. Her husband lamented that when she met people and they asked her what she did, she would reply, “I’m just a mom.”

“She’s incredible,” said her husband. “I try to tell her that what she does is the most important thing in the world.”

Just a mom. How often do mothers, whether stay at home or “working” mothers who go outside of the home every day and bare the awesome privilege and responsibility of motherhood feel that way.

I’m glad to say now that I was able to encourage that mother and tell her how I had felt the same way.

I don’t know exactly when it changed. I don't know exactly when I stopped feeling like I had to almost apologize for being "just a mom." Maybe I just stopped caring about what others definition of success and expectations were and started feeling comfortable in my own skin and about my own life decisions. Maybe I just decided to believe that God’s Word was true and that my worth was not determined by what I did but by who I was and whose I was.

It’s not just about the question, “What do you do?” I think the more important question is “Who are you?”

What do you believe in? What have you invested your life in? In 100 years from now, what will you have left that really matters? I believe our character and what we have poured into the lives of others are the some of the things that will stand the test of time and that transfer on to the next generation and beyond.

My son wrote me a pre-Mother’s Day card the other day. It read, “You’re a cool mom. I decided you need a cool card.” Inside the card was a drawing of him and me driving in the car under a sunny sky.

I’m just a mom. A cool mom. Just a cool mom with the best “job” in the world.

Spiritual Heritage

2009-04-12T07:02:00.000-07:00

“For you have heard my vows, O God; you have given me the heritage of those who fear your name.” Psalm 61:5

As a child, I often heard my father’s gravelly baritone throughout the house.

“Guide me, O Thou, Great Jehovah, pilgrim through this barren land.”

On Sunday mornings as he was getting ready for church or during the week as he was going about his day, a song would swell up in him and just bubble out.

“I am weak but though art mighty, hold me with Thou powerful hand.”

As a child, I really couldn’t appreciate what I considered his “old-fashioned” singing or even understand why he would be singing or how a song could grow inside of you to the point that it erupted from your soul in an explosion of praise and worship.

As an adult, I am so grateful for the spiritual heritage that my parents passed down to me, from the “old-fashioned” songs that now resonate in my soul to the living example lived out every day before me of what it meant to love God and His people.

A heritage is something that is passed down from preceding generations.

I thank God that my parents passed down to me not only sayings that I now find myself repeating to my own children, but that they also lived a life that I could emulate.

“God gave you some sense,” my mother would say. Now I hear myself repeating those words.
I saw my mother feed the hungry, visit the sick in the hospital and the elderly in the nursing home. I saw her care for the less fortunate, even bringing folks in from the street and fixing them breakfast. She has given away money, clothes, food or whatever anyone has needed. I saw her be a mother to so many others.

“If you can’t say Amen, at least look Amen.”

I heard my father say many a Sunday morning as he stood in the pulpit to preach. Now when I speak I find myself saying those same words sometimes.

I saw my father be a voice for the powerless and fight injustice wherever he found it. He preached every Sunday, but that was only a small part of what he did. He counseled couples and wayward teens. He married and buried, comforted and challenged. He arose from his bed in the middle of the night to help a family cope with tragedy. He was a father to so many.

There are so many other things that I could say but there is not enough time and space to say all that I received from my parents and others, some who have gone on to be with the Lord. But I am so grateful that even though they have left us physically—Mother Green, Grandmother Hagler, Aunt Marjorie, Elder Davis, Rev. Bond—that their spiritual heritage remains.

Now I sing throughout my house, even louder than my father. My kids must think I’m crazy as I am going through my day, washing dishes or whatever, and just break out in a song.

“If the Lord, never did anything else for me, He’s done enough.”

But I hope that I am leaving them a heritage not just by what I say or sing, but what I do every day, that one day they will pass on to their children.

Copeland-isms

2009-04-12T06:00:00.000-07:00

“Evil is incapable of a perfect plan.”

“If you can’t say ‘Amen,’ at least look ‘Amen.’”

“A man who deserves a long introduction doesn’t need it. A man who needs a long introduction doesn’t deserve it.”

For those of you who know my father, Rev. William H. Copeland Jr., you might have heard some of the above statements that he has made over the years. There are so many. Some I may have forgotten. Perhaps there was something he said that made a great impression in your life.

I’m collecting some of these “Copeland-isms” as I’ve heard them called. If you have some that you would like to share, please leave them in the comment section or send an email to MonicaAttheWell@aol.com.

Prayer Warriors

2009-04-11T08:59:00.000-07:00

Brother to Brother Column

Prayer Warriors

"I have never seen anybody more ready and willing to pray than Grandmother. She didn't mess around when it came to calling on Jesus. While spending the night at her house through the years, I had heard the telephone ring in the middle of the night, then Grandmother's raspy but soothing voice praying aloud, pleading for God to intervene in some situation for the caller on the other end. . . . It was like she had a hot line to heaven and that God was one of her bosom buddies.”

From “True Vine: A Young Black Man’s Journey of Faith, Hope and Clarity”

by John W. Fountain

Missing Grandmother

By John W. Fountain

The years so soon fade

Faces, like the shade--

They disappear,before our eyes

And seas of tears

Despite our cries.

And hope springs anew,

Eternal like the grass

That lives to wither,

whose life shall pass,

But that long lingers in the consciousness of spring,

In all of us human,

In every living breathing moving thing.

And come morning sun

Or days darkened and done

Or whatever life's sum

Will soon come

Will rise

Will stir

Will revive

Will soon be made again alive

Like new mint leaves before our eyes

And new emerald trees that know not our cries that once drifted up,

Away, toward dreary, cloud-patched skies

And our eternal ties

to loved ones past,

to our future and to the years of past,

Which quickly fade

That do not last

That disappear

Like withering grass

Will soon spring eternal

Forever

perfect in the Son

When this life's season is done,

And we are one with Him.

Precious Memories

2009-04-11T07:00:00.000-07:00

“The memory of the righteous will be a blessing…” Proverbs 10:7

We all have those special people who have made an impact in our lives. Share your memories of those who have left a mark on your life by the words they said and the lives they led.

Just leave a comment or send an email to MonicaAttheWell@aol.com and I will post them in the future.

Plow in Season

2009-04-08T10:27:00.000-07:00

“A sluggard does not plow in season; so at harvest time he looks but finds nothing.”

Proverbs 20:4

Devotional:

Every day I’m looking for a hint of green. A glimmer of a plant poking its head through the dirt. Although there is snow on the ground in April, I have already planted my seeds, preparing for my vegetable garden. Although I am still wearing my winter coat, I know that the warm air is coming sooner or later. Soon, it will be time to go into my little garden patch and start turning over the soil in preparation to plant the seedlings that are currently growing in my living room window.

I’m looking for signs of growth every day. I get excited when I see speck of green poking through the brown dirt, knowing that each now tiny plant will grow into a harvest of tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers. I know that I have to start in April if I want to have tomatoes in August.

Just as we prepare for a natural harvest of fruits and vegetables, if we want to see a spiritual harvest in our lives, we need to plow in season. We can’t be weary in well doing or at harvest time, we will look up and find nothing. We have to prepare to plant. We have to cultivate the ground to make it ready for the seed. We need to break up the soil and turn it over. After the seed is planted and starts to grow we have to water, weed and fertilize. We have to prune and stake. Finally, we get to harvest the fruit of our labor.

Sometimes we get sluggish in our spiritual gardening. We don’t plant or hide the word of God in our heart that we might not sin against God. We don’t break up old habits and bad attitudes that make our hearts too hard to receive God’s word. We fail to weed out sin. We let bitterness grow and strangle our growth. We fail to fertilize and fortify ourselves with fasting and prayer or prune away everything that’s not like God.

If we want to see a harvest in our lives and in the lives of those around us, we have to plow in season. We have to do the work that is required now and practice the spiritual disciplines that will cause us to grow personally and that will empower us to touch the lives of others with the love and power of the gospel.

It’s hard work. It sometimes seems like a long wait. But in the end it’s worth it.

I see a little hint of green now, but I’m looking forward to biting into a ripe, red tomato at harvest time.

Reflection:

What type of harvest are you looking for in your spiritual life?

In what areas do you want to grow spiritually?

Application:

· Take a minute to write down your daily activities and how much time you spend on each. Then calculate how much of that time is spent praying, reading or studying God’s word or doing another activity that promotes spiritual growth.

· Commit to praying every day. It doesn’t have to be an hour. It could be a minute in the morning in the shower. But take time to talk to talk to God and then take time to hear what He is saying to you through His word—the Bible.

· Commit to reading the Bible every day—even if you just start by reading a verse a day. Proverbs is a good place to start if you don’t know where to begin. There are 31 Proverbs, one for every day of the month.

· Forgive the person who hurt you. Forgiving someone does not mean that you condone or forget the wrong they might have done to you. It does not even mean that you have reconciliation. But if you forgive, you free yourself. When you forgive, you don’t allow bitterness to take root in your heart and stunt your spiritual growth.

Scriptures:

Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. Matthew 3:8

I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. John 15:5

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven:
A time to be born and a time to die,
A time to plant and a time to uproot. Ecclesiastes 3:1-2

No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. Hebrews 12:11

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Ephesians 6:9

Prayer:

Dear God,

Thank you for giving me everything I need to grow in you. Let me delight in you and make me like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season.

Amen.

Prayer Breakfast: Women of Faith Delivering the Love of Christ

2009-04-02T10:11:00.000-07:00

For those of you in the Chicago area, I will be speaking at a prayer breakfast on Saturday, April 18th at the Zion Gate Missionary Baptist Church in my hometown of Kankakee, Illinois.

The theme of the breakfast which is being sponsored by the women's mission ministry is

"Women of Faith Delivering the Love of Christ."

I hope to see you there.

Peace and Blessings,

Monica

When: April 18, 2009 at 9 a.m.

Where: Zion Gate Missionary Baptist Church

752 E. Oak St., Kankakee, IL 60901

Get directions

Cost: $12.00 (Tickets are available at the door)

For more information, contact the church at 815-939-2343.

Lost and Found

2009-03-30T19:23:00.000-07:00

“Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Does she not light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.’ In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

Luke 15: 8-10

I knew immediately that it was gone. My hand felt lighter. Although it weighs much less than an ounce, I could feel at once something was missing. I looked at my left hand and a pain pierced my heart. My diamond was gone.

My wedding ring had a gaping hole. It must have come out while I was packing my groceries. I searched through every bag I had put into the minivan. It had to fallen off while I was putting the groceries in the bag because I would have noticed it was missing when I paid the cashier. I would have noticed it was missing when I picked up the yogurt or sorted through the chickens.

I had known for a while that one of the mountings was broken. I intended to get it fixed, but it seemed like it could wait. One mounting was missing but there were still four others holding it down. I would have it remounted one day, but there were so many other things that needed to be done. I could live with a missing mounting. It would get fixed one of these days.

But now it was gone.

I remembered when my husband gave it to me. A pear-shaped diamond. It was just what I wanted. I remembered how much he sacrificed to buy it. His sacrifice was something that I appreciated more and more over the years as I understood how much it cost not only financially, but emotionally for him to invest in. I tried to remember it was just a thing. But I said, “God, I loved that ring.” I loved what it represented.

The tears flowed as I drove home. I prayed. And I made up in my mind to look through every bag again when I got home.

I thought about the parable in the Bible about the woman who lost her coin. Palestinian women received ten silver coins as a wedding gift. Besides their monetary value, these coins held sentimental value like that of a wedding ring, and to lose one would be distressing. The coin was precious. My ring was precious to me. I thought about how much more precious my children and husband, my family and friends were than the ring. The ring could be replaced. Those people and relationships could not be.

But I still wanted my diamond.

I was starting to feel that it was hopeless and pointless, but I still emptied my pockets. I emptied my purse. I sat on my family room floor and carefully searched every bag, even the ones I knew that the cashier had packed and not me. I came to the last bag. It was a double bag. I searched the inside bag. Nothing. But I felt a little chip between the bags. It was probably just a food particle. It couldn’t possibly be my diamond. A flicker of hope.

I reached down and there it was-- a small clear stone. Thank you, Jesus! I cried. I shouted. I rejoiced. What was lost had been found. I immediately went to the jewelry store to have the stone remounted into my ring. I told the associate at the jewelry store about finding my lost diamond.

“It’s a miracle,” she said. She informed me that it would cost a little over a $100 to repair the ring, but to replace the stone would have cost thousands.

She said that the ring would be back in a week and while they were repairing it, they would also resize it, clean it and polish it. “It will be as good as new,” she promised.

Just like my ring and the coin in the parable, people are precious to God. Precious does not just mean something is valuable. But is valuable because it is valued by the owner. Jesus Christ bought us with his own blood. We really weren’t worth much. Just dust. But God valued us and loved us so much that He gave His only begotten son.

The tears rolled down my cheeks in the car as I drove home from the grocery store that day, mourning the loss of my diamond. My tears flowed for a lost stone. But how often do I cry over lost souls who are dying every day? Do I weep over the souls of men? Jesus wept when his friend Lazarus died. Jesus cried over the city of Jerusalem. Do I mourn for those who leave this world without knowing the greatest love of all? Do I put off telling a friend about the love of Jesus, figuring I’ll get around to it one day? Do I not properly appreciate the value of people’s lives and their need for Christ?

Jesus sacrificed his very life for our salvation. He paid the price. We were small, but he valued us and made us valuable. Through his blood, he made us brand new. My lost diamond had taught me a valuable lesson. I need to cry more. But after I’m done crying, I need to get up and diligently seek the lost.

Sistergirlfriend

2009-03-11T15:22:00.001-07:00

I read a post this morning from my friend Lisa's wonderful web site, Single Moms and More. I've known Lisa since I can't remember. We grew up together in my hometown of Kankakee, Ill. We were in Sunday School together. We wrote our future married names and the names of our future children in homeroom during high school. I am the godmother of her oldest child.

I was surprised when I read a post on her blog about domestic violence and she mentioned "Monica" as a friend who she knew she could turn to for the unvarnished truth when she needed to hear it.

"I needed someone who would give it to me straight, no chaser. And I knew I could count on Monica to not sugarcoat anything," she wrote in another related post.

I was surprised and honored by the compliment. We all need friends who will love us enough to tell us the truth in love. It made me laugh because I thought of other friends who have said through the years, "You keeps it real." or "No matter what crazy idea I came to you with you would just say, OK. Have you thought about going back to school?"

Reading Lisa's posts reminded me of how blessed I have been through the years with wonderful women as friends. I always wanted a sister. When I was growing up, I told my parents I wanted a baby sister or a dog. I got a poodle named Pierre.

But through the years, God has blessed me with some very special sistergirlfriends. Some years ago, I wrote a poem for a Kwanzaa celebration for a group that I belonged to called Mocha Moms, which is a group for stay-at-home mothers of color. This poem is a compilation of sistergirlfriend moments that I have shared with others and some are experiences of others that they have shared with me that I incorporated into this poem. But it expresses my love and gratitude for all the grace, beauty, strength, wisdom and love of my phenomenal sistergirlfriends.

Mocha Mom Kwanzaa Celebration
Dec. 26, 2003

Sistergirlfriend
By Monica Fountain

I came tonight to talk about
Unity
Among the sisters especially
Because they say Black women
Can be
You know—catty
Or sometimes they just say we’re B’s
Female dogs
Lassies

But the truth is
They just can’t see
Our love
Our bond
Our unity

So this odes to you
My sister
My girl
My friend

For all the things through the years
You’ve been

Sistergirlfriend
Remember when
We stayed up all night
Talking about him
Trying to figure out
How many kids we’d have when we was grown
Making up their names
Playing tricks on the phone
And we watched “Roots” and got so mad
We wanted to beat up every white person
Who crossed our path
Thank you Sistergirlfriend
For making me laugh

Sistergirlfriend
Acting crazy together
Even having babies together
1,2,3 and then you went for four
And I said I just can’t have no mo’

Sistergirlfriend
Remember when
We stayed out in the cold that night
Talking about the struggle for civil rights
Our hopes for our children and family
I told you when I was 6, my uncle molested me
You’ve always listened to me
Even if my idea was crazy
When I was pregnant, you called me
When I had the baby, you fed me
When my son was sick, you came to the hospital and prayed with me
Thank you for sharing your pain
Your dreams, your hopes with me

Thank you, Sistergirlfriend for keeping
The Unity
In the Black Family
Working in your community
Holding things together
Taking something from nothing and making it better
Supporting your man
Making him think that idea came from him
Changing diapers, wiping a snotty nose
Doing homework, dishes and the laundry
Loving your family
Keeping the unity

In you I see me
Beauty, strength, power, dignity
Thank you for making me the
Best I can be
My sister, my girl, my friend
You bring me together
Make me whole
We’re one in spirit, heart and soul

I’m talking unity
Umoja
And this is for you
Sistergirlfriend
Mama Mocha

Still Searching

2009-03-06T14:32:00.000-08:00

In 2005, the Washington Post published an essay by my husband John W. Fountain entitled "No Place for Me." The essay literally went around the world, published in newspapers across the country, overseas and forwarded via email to thousands. The impact of the essay and the discussion that it generated were phenomenal. John received thousands of emails from people of every denomination (even atheist), race and walk of life.

Below is an excerpt from the original essay (please click "No Place for Me" to read the full essay) and some recent poetic thoughts from John.

MRF

“…I am the grandson of a pastor and am myself a licensed minister. I love God and I love the church. I know church-speak and feel as comfortable shouting hallelujahs and amens and lifting my hands in the sanctuary as I do putting on my socks.

Yet I now feel disconnected. I am disconnected. Not necessarily from God, but from the church.

Somewhere along the way, for us, for me, the church -- the collective of black churches of the Christian faith, regardless of denomination -- lost its meaning, its relevance. It seems to have no discernible message for what ails the 21st-century black male soul…”

From Washington Post essay “No Place for Me” by John W. Fountain

Still Searching for the Church I Once Knew
By John W. Fountain

I sit here, no place for me
The sanctuary filled with psalm and praise,
though I am mostly in a haze
Stuck between the memories of times past
When the spirit was high
When I stood on Sunday's
Clinging to my last
Hope
Of one-suit days
And heart-felt praise
And yet, I sit dazed
Feeling like a fish out of water
Like a son with no father
Under the incandescent lights
Pews half filled
The usual sights
And yet I feel here
So un-Christ like

Noise
And rhythm and motion
Yet no plan for the sick,
The widows
The poor
For brothers who need so much more

Just commotion

And yet,
I love this place
Where I found grace and the wisdom of the church mothers
Who mothered me
And fathered me
A spiritual son to maturity
But now full grown
It feels so wrong
Even as my feet pat to song
Another song
Ringing: “Thank the Lord for Jesus”
Everybody singing
Everybody singing
Just singing
Just singing
Just
Singing
Just
Sing-ing
...Just.

Toy Guns Not Child's Play

2009-03-01T21:47:00.001-08:00

Brother to Brother Column

By John W. Fountain

My son Malik’s big brown eyes lit up as the woman, a distant relative, handed him a gift, still tightly packaged and glistening in the sun as children at our family reunion in Indianapolis, frolicked on a summer afternoon, their voices drifting on a breeze.

Malik tightly held the toy in his spidery fingers as she walked away. By the time we arrived most of the assortment of gifts annually given to children had been dispensed. My son’s face shone with glee. Mine twisted.

“Uh, I’m sorry Malik, but uh, you can’t have that.”

“Why not?” my son asked, staring up at me.

“Because…,” I said, “Because it’s a gun.”

“But it’s only a water gun, Daddy,” Malik responded, not loosening his grip. “What’s wrong with a water gun?”

“It’s a gun, Malik. You can’t have guns,” I said, though internally, I was at war: My angst over guns marked by my wife’s and my decision that our children should not have guns of any kind versus the innocence of a gift that only shoots water, given to a son to whom I would gladly give the world.

It is not as much opposition to guns as it is to gun violence, though some might say they are the same. As a former Chicago crime reporter, I have witnessed the toll of guns in the hands of young men with hair-trigger tempers and a moral void that enables them to kill and kill again.

I have witnessed a summer’s weekend carnage inside the Cook County coroner’s deepfreeze filled with cold, lifeless bodies of young black men wearing orange toe tags. I have stood at the edge of a pool of blood on a basketball court and looked into the aching eyes of mothers and fathers, written the public epitaphs of far more young victims of gun violence than I care to recollect.

Guns don’t shoot people—people do. I know, I know. But what I also came to know, growing up on the West Side, is that guns in the hands of young men who looked like me led to the premature demise of so many young men who looked like me. And as a man, I came to believe that unrestricted access to guns is one thing. But this is another: A culture of misogyny, self-hatred and the absence of moral lessons—chief among them, “Thou shalt not kill”—a culture that inevitably produces calloused young killers.

I am not anti-gun as much as I am pro-life—the lives of my son, and my daughter, and my neighbors’ sons and daughters. And our stance reflects a belief that no matter how much we as a people march, or call for stricter gun laws or more police—that unless we do something to change the culture, we can only expect more of the same. That our greatest threat is not the enemy from without but within. That ultimately we must heal ourselves.

We see our ban as one small step in raising a black boy who respects the sanctity of human life and grows up to be a black man.

Together, Malik and I walked over to a picnic table where I spotted the relative who had given him the gun.

“Something wrong?” she asked.

“Uh, yes,” I said, “It’s the gun. He can’t have a gun.”

I instructed Malik to hand it back. A few moments later, after rifling through a bag of leftover gifts, she emerged with a package of little lizards—perfect. Malik smiled.

Inside I still wondered whether I had done the right thing, until we returned home that evening and the television blared with news of more shootings, this time of three boys fatally shot while sitting in a car in Maywood. And I knew I had.

Living Water - Toy Gun - John W. Fountain

Stuff vs. Substance

2009-02-23T19:36:00.000-08:00

“Better to be nobody and yet have a servant than pretend to be somebody and have no food.” Proverbs 12:9

The book of Proverbs is rich. Whenever I read it, I find so many nuggets of wisdom. When I was reading today, I came across the verse highlighted above, and it spoke to me, it said, “Stop fronting!” “Be for real!” “Stop perpetrating!”

And I began to wonder whether the reason our country, so many businesses and so many families are in the economic mess that we are in is because we were trying to pretend like we had something or perhaps because we on some level believe that our possessions make us “somebody.”

And I can’t help but wonder whether instead of being honest with our financial circumstances or learning to be content with what we have, we haven’t acted like we can live on credit today and keep rolling over our debt for tomorrow. Except now the bills have come due and we find ourselves bankrupt. We have, as the scripture says, “no food.”

For we seem to have valued stuff more than substance.

Far too many of us have lived above our means, trying to keep up with Joneses often unaware that the Joneses were themselves often drowning in debt.

What’s amazing to me is I have met truly wealthy people. People who had Picassos hanging on their walls. People who didn’t just have a job, but who owned the company. And you couldn’t tell that they were rich. They drove an old Chevy, not a Ferrari. They weren’t dripping in excess.

But I know grown folks who don’t live in their own house but drive luxury cars. From the wardrobes of some I have seen, you would have thought they were a millionaire, but they could barely pay their bills.

Sometimes my children and I walk around our neighborhood when the weather is nice. The kids are amazed by some of the houses. “Look at that house. Oooh, they have a swimming pool. They got a big house.”

In those times, I remind them that it’s all right to admire nice things but not to be enthralled by or in awe of stuff, because in the end, that’s all it is, just stuff. I tell them to be grateful for their house, because it is God’s blessing to us. I remind them that somebody out there simply wishes they had a roof over their head. That some family is living in a car. That someone is living under a bridge.

And this much I remind myself: My house may not be as large as the home of R. Kelly who happens to live in my neighborhood. But I wouldn’t trade my “mansion” for his any day. I wouldn’t trade my small patch of garden and roses in my backyard for someone else’s emerald acres. I love my fireplace in the winter time and my sun porch in the summer. But more importantly, I wouldn’t trade the love and peace that fill the space God has blessed the Fountain family to occupy. I thank God for house and food and all things in between.

And I thank Him that I am somebody, not because of my stuff, but because of whose I am.

Truth and Consequences

2009-02-23T19:12:00.000-08:00

“The man of integrity walks securely, but he who takes crooked paths will be found out.” Proverbs 10:9

What is up with Roland Burris?

My new senator seems to be having a problem. The biggest problem is that his story keeps changing. It seems like just yesterday he was standing in the rain outside of the U.S. Capitol, surrounded by a horde of media as he fought to be seated in the United States Senate. Now I see pictures of him running from reporters.

The problem is that Burris was appointed by our now former and infamous governor, Rod Blagojevich. Although Blagojevich was under a cloud of suspicion for allegedly trying to sell the Senate seat of President Barack Obama, Roland Burris’ reputation was that of a man of political integrity. As a condition of securing that seat, Burris had to appear before the Illinois House impeachment panel and testify about the circumstances surrounding his appointment.

During that hearing, Burris told the committee he had no contact with anyone in the governor’s office before the governor appointed him in late December to replace President Obama in the U.S. Senate. Then his story changed. He later told the committee that he had been contacted by a friend of the governor. Then his story changed again. He now says that he actually had contact with five people in Blagojevich’s camp, including the governor’s brother who asked Burris to raise money for the ex-governor.

Now Burris’s reputation is under fire. And a chorus of colleagues, columnists and newspapers is calling for his resignation. I don’t know how all of this will turn out, but I do know that if Burris had told the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, from the beginning, he wouldn’t be hearing calls for his resignation right now. Some might argue that if he had told the whole truth, he might not have the Senate seat right now. Except, he won’t have it anyway, if it comes out that he lied or if the FBI has tapes of him talking with the governor’s brother about fundraising.

For now, it just makes it appear that Burris was willing to do anything to become a senator, at least to withhold the truth. He says he has nothing to hide, but it sure looks like he does.

I am reminded of a scripture that urges us to flee even the appearance of evil. And also another that says your good name and reputation are more valuable than gold. And I might add, in this case, even more valuable than a Senate seat.

A Breakthrough Weekend

2009-02-12T16:42:00.000-08:00

Florida in February. That's where I have the privilege of sitting at this moment--in a beautiful resort and spa in Sanibel, Florida. For the next few days I will be blogging from the Break Away Conference in Florida where my husband will be speaking on Friday. Breakthrough is a ministry on the West Side of Chicago that provides services for homeless men and women and ministries for youth and families.

My husband, John W. Fountain, will be talking about growing up on the West Side. Gospel singer Babbie Mason is singing right now and Dr. Tony Evans of the Urban Alternative will be teaching.

Stay tuned.

At the Well

Top At the Well postings for January 2012

What's Your Vision? Get Focused

Steps to Success in 2012: See It, Say It, Believe It, Build It

Top At the Well postings for December 2011

Happy 2012 from At the Well

Don't Give Up

The Ministry of Naps

What Happens When We Praise?

21 Days of Praise

Top At the Well postings for October 2011

Memo to Girls' Clothing Manufacturers

To Sweet or Not to Sweet

Advice for Your 16-year-old Self

You Never Know What's Wrapped Up in a Child

Top At the Well Postings for September 2011

Tending Our Gardens: What We Need to Have a Harvest

Tending Our Gardens: Got Fruit?

Tending Our Gardens: Flowers, No Fruit

Just Another Day: 9/11/01

Top At the Well Postings for August 2011

From Freedom Riders to Flash Mobs

43 Lessons I’ve Learned in 43 Years

Bird Sense

Going in Circles

The Power of One and a Little Encouragement

The Truth at Last

About the Book and Prologue

Absent but Always Present

Celebrating Fatherhood

Run Your Race

Meditations on the Ministry of Motherhood

If a Robin Can Say Thank You

A Righteous Inheritance

Happy Mother-In-Laws Day

My Heavenly Home

Being Trained to Reign: The Blessing of Obedience

Name Calling

Christmas Lights and Daffodils

When Things Fall Apart: Part II

When Things Fall Apart

The Year in Review--Number One

The Year in Review--Numbers 4, 3 and 2

The Year in Review--Numbers 7, 6 and 5

The Year in Review--Numbers 10, 9 and 8

The Greatest Gift

Dancing with the Stars

The Ugly Side of Anonymity

Weebles Wobble But They Don't Fall Down

Roots

A School That Works

Why Does Jesus Ask Obvious Questions?

What About the Homeless?

Candy Straws

Special Series: Babbie Mason - Part 3

Special Series: Babbie Mason - Part 2

Liberty

Special Series: Babbie Mason - Part 1

Remembering Michael

Thank You, Mamie

Brokenness

A Cut Connects Father and Son

Baggie Books

Miss California

Service vs. Status

Just a Mom

Spiritual Heritage

Copeland-isms

Prayer Warriors

Precious Memories

Plow in Season

Prayer Breakfast: Women of Faith Delivering the Love of Christ

Lost and Found

Sistergirlfriend

Still Searching

Toy Guns Not Child's Play

Stuff vs. Substance

Truth and Consequences

A Breakthrough Weekend