Category Archives: What Do You Think? Wednesday

Discipline Gone Wrong

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What Do You Think? Wednesday
Sometimes disciplining a child biblically can be hard when the child is rebellious and hell-bent on remaining that way. Their behavior and attitude make you want to punch them. I know I’m not the only recovering strong black woman who feels this way. A lot of us, other women and daddies, too, feel this way. But the punching, slapping, cussing and throwing kids and things at kids’ way is not the way to discipline, regardless of their actions. Read more of my thoughts on this as I delve into what the Creflo Dollar child discipline ruckus should remind Christian parents about disciplining our children. This is my latest EEW column, which begins below. Read it and tell me what you think:

I told you about the time I wanted to punch Josh and the time I wanted to cuss him out and the time of the showdown. I have had my mommy moments when I have wanted to take my kids out of the world that I brought them into. But how does the discipline moment for the Christian get to the point where the police are involved, not because someone in a public bathroom witnessed, disagreed with your methods and called the police, but your own child called them to your house?

By now you have heard this is what happened to Creflo Dollar, the megachurch pastor of World Changers Church International in College Park, GA. News reports say Dollar and his 15-year-old daughter argued because he said she couldn’t go to a party. At some point the verbal sparring got physical, with Dollar allegedly choking, slapping, punching, and hitting his daughter with a shoe, though he denies punching his daughter.

Dollar says he was just trying to restrain her after she hit him. According to the incident report, Alexandria Dollar, 19, sister of the 15 year old, says her father “put both hands around her sister’s neck and choked her for about five seconds.” She also alleges that her dad grabbed her sister by the shoulders and slapped her in the face. And the 15 year old on the 911 call says the reported incident was “not the first time.” Dollar was arrested, taken to Fayette County Jail and released on $5,000 bond. He faces misdemeanor charges of simple battery and cruelty to children.

This incident disturbs me on a number of levels: that a girl seems to have been abused at the hands of her father; that the man involved declares to be a representative of God; that all of child discipline will be under greater scrutiny; and that this mars the church, God’s glory and Christianity. By Dollar’s own admission, he wrestled his daughter to the ground. I wasn’t there and don’t know all the details, but I don’t believe that a 50-year-old man has any business physically restraining a 15-year-old girl for any reason. The situation got out of hand, but how does child discipline in the home of Christians get this far? I don’t know for sure in Dollar’s case, but let me help us be mindful of what Scripture says that gives us insight into how we might avoid his fiasco happening to us:

Read more here.

More Mercy

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What Do You Think? Wednesday

A thought from my journal:

We must have mercy on others, true mercy that comes from a heart that recognizes the misery of sin. God has mercy upon the sinner to pardon her from the consequences of sin and provides an opportunity to be relieved of the misery of sin. The consequences of sin are the just results we receive for engaging in sin. The misery is the shame and other emotional turmoil we experience as a result of sin. We may still be in sin or may have been delivered from it, but if we don’t recognize God’s mercy in its totality—us not receiving the consequences we deserve and God not requiring we walk in guilt—we will remain miserable. We don’t believe we have been fully pardoned and don’t believe God can (and wants to) use us to His glory. We cannot become our version of God and deny mercy to others and even ourselves. Truly we will be people most miserable and live in a world more intensely miserable than we could imagine.

There is no misery allowed! Stop wallowing in sin. Ask God for and trust that He will give you forgiveness and pass the same on to others (1 John 1:9).

What do you think causes us to reject God’s mercy and not have mercy on others? Please, tell me what you think.

Using the Wrong Tools

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What Do You Think? Wednesday

About two months ago my husband bought us a new set of knives. I was so thankful that I would finally have the tool I needed to open up those young coconuts that I had recently incorporated into my food regime. Before I got the proper knife, a Santoku, I used a regular kitchen blade that required me to hack a coconut several times, splattering its woody shavings all around my kitchen. After draining stray shavings from the water and removing shreds from the meat, I was finally able to use the coconut water and its meat in a variety of drinks and meals. I hated the mess that the wrong tool caused; the damage was totally avoidable, thus unnecessary. The wrong tool—person, method, message, or any wrong instrument used to get a job done can cause a great big mess like using a blade instead of a Santoku when opening up a young coconut. With the wrong tool, we can leave a friendship hanging in the balance, damage a professional rapport, nullify a winning project and close the ears of those who need to hear from us.

At times we, recovering strong black women, in an effort to keep up pace, might in haste use the wrong tool to get a job done. We may speak harshly when correcting the children, huff to convey frustration with a co-worker, roll our eyes in anger at the husband, take back a task assigned to a worker or yell at a slow driver. Of course these are just some examples of wrong tools used to inflame and bring great damage to those receiving your tool. Undoubtedly cleaning up a coconut and then using it is less of a problem than damaging people and having to deal with them in the tool shattering aftermath. We must consider AND use the proper tool to bring about the best outcome. Choose your tools wisely so you don’t make and have to clean up an avoidable mess.

What tools have you used that have caused unintended and avoidable damage? What tools do you know you need to use instead of those you’ve used in haste? Please, let me know what you think.

Give ‘Em a Break

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What Do You Think? Wednesday
Yesterday I took a break. I didn’t educate the children or cook and I talked a long time to one of my best girlfriends. I decided to just do it, after thinking about it and then my son asking if he could have the day off. I’m so glad I did. I didn’t know my mom would have a friend come pick her up to get out of the house so I didn’t have to see that she got her lunch, dinner or early evening medication. Apart from leading a counseling session with my husband and getting the boys from the sitter’s, I had a day off. Days like this don’t come easily. We have to just take them sometimes, especially as recovering strong black women.

As recovering strong black women, people still don’t often expect that we need a break or that we need anything, sometimes including a mad love affair. Of course, as a Bible-believing Christian that doesn’t believe in fornication or adultery, I am speaking of the sexual fidelity kind. I’m speaking of a love where attraction is mutual, one of mind and heart, simple and complex sacrifices and quiet enjoyment, just sitting. This seems to be the type of love, except for the post-marital consummation part, that Olivia Pope and Fitzgerald Grant have on the new ABC hit drama Scandal. For those of you who didn’t watch Scandal, whose season finale was last week, I can tell you this not-so-secret aspect of the show: Pope (played by Kerry Washington), a smart, compassionate and politically savvy black woman who is a “fixer,” is having an affair with Grant (played by Tony Goldwyn), the idealistic married white male president of the United States and a philanderer. Though her passion is deep, Pope (whose character is based on the real life Judy Smith*, who is a fixer A.K.A. a crisis management expert) knows that abandoning the notion of a happy-ever-after life with the president is the best fix for the nation, for the free world and, by extension, for her. So, as a good fixer does, she abandons her desire and saves the day for all.

This show is well-written with complex characters and storylines so it’s hard for me to easily place Pope into traditional black women stereotypes as easily as the writer who compared Pope to Thomas Jefferson’s widely believed black slave mistress Sally Hemmings. Pope—the go-to woman—is smart, savvy, tough, compassionate, pretty and a sharp dresser with class, though that class is compromised with her adulterous affair. But her affair and her crying after making a rule for her staff not to cry are two of the main reasons that I like her; these weaknesses (for a lack of a better term because I think crying is a human’s most cathartic weapon) show she is real, can be real outside of Thursday nights on ABC. For her realness, displaying a gamut of emotions, strengths and weaknesses, I believe, for the most part, Pope transcends the stereotypes and offers a character to which many recovering strong black women, or any go-to women, can relate.

Though Pope is well put together, she still has love she can’t pursue. She’s no asexual mammy, snap-back-atcha sapphire or sleezy jezebel, but she is a career successful woman without a love to call her own. This is no stereotype but is the reality of many successful black women and another aspect that makes Pope’s character real. Some may look at race—that of Pope’s and Grant’s—and slap on the stereotypes, but I’m giving the Scandal writers what I gave myself yesterday—a break. Perhaps Pope’s end will be different from her beginning. The writers will determine that and they just may steer Pope further away from age-old stereotypes. The writer of my life—God Himself—created my story where I have been released from manmade bondages. I just have to follow His script (Ephesians 2:4-5, 10, Jeremiah 29:11).

Whether you watched Scandal or not, please tell me what you think.

*Note: Judy Smith didn’t have an affair with a US President.

Defending Marriage as God’s Institution

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What Do You Think? Wednesday

As I stated on my Facebook page Monday, I have been ruminating on President Obama’s announcement of his personal opinion in favor of homosexuals being able to marry. I stated then that I don’t agree with his opinion but believed I needed to say more. As one who writes publicly I believe I need to say publicly more than I disagree. So this post gives some of my early thoughts that I’m sure will develop as I come to conclusions I have not yet reached.

First, this post is first and foremost a Christian’s response (mine) to a fellow Christian (President Obama) with whom I disagree. Second, I want to explore how a personal opinion impacts political decisions. And finally, as I always do, particularly on a What Do You Think? Wednesday, I want to invite you to give me your opinion that may add to the debate (not tear down anyone for their opinions).

“In the beginning God…” (Genesis 1:1). This begins the Christian narrative of creation. God existed before He created anything. When He did, He decided to create the heavens and earth and what would dwell in each and how each would operate. He created land animals, sea animals, plants, trees, insects and other species that fit into some sort of system. He decided how the ecosystem would work. He decided how the family system would work. “And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, ‘This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh’” (Genesis 2:22-24). And Jesus repeats this standard in Matthew 19:4-6: “He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”

Genesis gives us God’s design for marital relationships—between a man and a woman—and Jesus expounds upon this, first repeating the original design and stating that divorce breaks apart God’s intent for men and women coming together in marriage. We know that divorce happens but that doesn’t change what God’s intent is for marriage. As some might believe, God is not speaking in isolated terms in Genesis when he specifies a man and a woman. This mention goes beyond Adam and Eve, as Jesus uses Genesis to make a proclamation of God’s doing, His putting a man and woman together. So, by application, divorce is not just individuals separating from one another but individuals separating—tearing apart—the original meaning of marriage to make it something new. “What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate” (Matthew 19:6b). I believe redefining marriage is a tearing apart of God’s original intent for His institution therefore I do not and cannot support homosexual marriage.

And though I have used the narrative of the creator defining how His creation is to be from the Bible, the Christian’s guidebook, this is not a narrative limited to Christianity. As a Christian who believes all Scripture was given by inspiration of God and is beneficial for instruction in righteousness and that God desires that no man should perish, I believe His word and the intent of His word is applicable to all mankind (2 Timothy 3:16; 2 Peter 3:9). As a Christian who recognizes the authority of my creator over my life and the life of all mankind that He created, I believe I must follow His intentions and not my opinions, whatever they may be. Sure, God created us with free will, but He wants us to freely choose the best that He has for us. There are deadly consequences when we don’t choose what He wants for us (Deuteronomy 30). These consequences are not just for individual participants, but God doesn’t approve of people approving others who choose opposite of what He would want (Romans 1:32).

Though I don’t agree with President Obama’s support for gay marriage, I am not yet clear how my disagreement affects my support of him or any candidate who supports gay marriage or any other issue with which I disagree. I am well aware of the latest cliché “Obama is the president not the pastor of the United States.” Actually, this statement is not entirely true. Any individual put in charge of anything has been given the job of shepherding (pastoring) their responsibility. President Obama has been given the responsibility of shepherding the nation and thus the people that comprise the nation. He is to defend the constitution,which still has the Defense of Marriage Act and uphold the laws of the land, including the Defense of Marriage Act that defines marriage as between a man and a woman.

With that in mind, how much of an impact do personal opinions impact the job of shepherding and, therefore, affect the sheep? I know my personal opinions impact how I shepherd those under my leadership. I also know that my opinions impact how I support someone, including casting a vote in favor of political candidates. I know that it’s unlikely that I will agree with every decision a candidate makes. This is true in marriage or any relationship any of us has. We—I—just have to decide what issues are deal breakers. Can a candidate’s personal opinion translate into political policy? It could. With Mitt Romney as a Mormon, a member of a cult, and one whose business practices clearly seem to economically and otherwise disenfranchise those less fortunate than he, and President Obama who seems to have opinions and actions based mostly on political expediency, I am in a quandary. I have prayed and am committed to praying as to who will have my vote. I want to be in God’s will not my own. And only God can guide me in that way.

What do you think about President Obama’s support of gay marriage? Does his opinion affect your opinion of him? If so, how? Should a candidate’s support of gay marriage cause you not to support that person? Please, tell me what you think.