Resources to Help You Start a Conversation and Educate for Change

Every time a moment comes up to talk about something that matters take the moment and opportunity to speak up and speak truth to your kids, your communities, your neighbors, your co-works, your family and friends.

Repent.

Step in an listen to people that are different than you.

Listen to their experiences.

Learn.

Humble yourself.

I don’t have all the answers, and I know you don’t either. Let’s learn together. Let’s be better together. Let’s educate ourselves together.

This is what I know- we need to educate ourselves. We can not depend on everyone else to educate us. Or solve issues for us. We need to be the change. We need to step out, and not be silent.

With that said here’s some resources and things to help you on your journey that I have found helpful for myself and family.

F O R T H E A D U L T S

Some books on where you can start;

Just Mercy by Bryan Stevensen

Be the Bridge by Latasha Morrison

Some encouraging & educating voices;

Carlos Whitaker

Latasha Morrison

Oh Happy Dani

The Conscious Kid

Austin Channing Brown

Here Wee Read

EJI

Restoration House

Websites:

Equal Justice Initiative

Be The Bridge

Watch:

True Justice: Bryan Stevenson’s Fight for Equality

Just Mercy (the movie) - streaming for free on all streaming services during the month of June. Amazon prime video linked here.

Image via Oh Happy Dani

F O R Y O U R K I D S

For me, it’s important to have a collection of books, story books and history books that educate. I also want my kids to see themselves & kids like them on the pages, and a diverse group of children represented. Here’s a few I think are worth the purchase for this reason.

Books:

All Eyes on You box Set

Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History

Skin like Mine

Hair Like Mine

A Kids Book About Racism

Little Leaders: Exceptional Black Men in History

Ansley’s Big Bake Off

When God Made You

Martin Luther King Jr

Watch: Melody An American Girl Story - this movie gives you a look at racism and segregation from the narrative Melody an American girl story. This is a good way, that is age appropriate for your kids to begin to understand history and racism.

image via Oh Happy Dani

Some articles to educate about history and context;

The Tulsa Massacre

Juneteenth

A Calendar of Racial Injustice - a guide to helping you understand racial injustices in our history.

Dr. Martin Luther King’s Letter from the Birmingham Jail

Understand Your Implicit Bias

“attitudes and stero types we have with out even recgonizing it.”

• good article here

• take this quiz
  
  I’m not an expert. I’m on a journey just like you. With that being said, these are some resources that have helped me and I hope they are encouraging and helpful for you as well. Thank you for letting me share.

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• some links contain affiliate links.

Returning to this Sacred Space.

For as long as I can remember I’ve been a writer. It started with my journals as a kid, and has grown from there. In case you missed it I took an un intentional break from this space for over a year now. It didn’t start out that way, but as my time and schedule began to fill up with other writing projects (that I loved working on) I started to feel less and less inspired to use this space. I through myself into the working I was doing for other publications and projects. I enjoyed so much what I was working on, and that was a good season.

Sometimes seasons end unexpectedly, as did this one. I took a break once again and took some time to think, pray and figure out what the next season might look like. I took a social media break for sometime, before returning with a clear mind and vision. And while I came back to my other platforms, this space remained silent. Intentionally.

This year, I challenged myself to flourish. To grow and change. God has done some awesome things in my heart this last year, that I’ve loved sharing with my community on social media. As I sit here on the last day of 2018, I know it’s time to return here. To share more words, more experiences, and more community than I can fit into tiny Instagram squares.

Tomorrow, I’m launching a podcast! Something that has been on my heart for a year now, it’s coming to fruition and I’m so excited to share it with you! You can listen to the trailer episode of the ‘Flourish Together’ podcast here. I hope you’ll subscribe and follow along, I’m so excited to share this journey with you!

Thank you to returning to this space with me, I’m so excited to continue to flourish together.

Encouragement for a Heart that Desires Community.

I've been thinking a lot about community and this time of year. The holidays always bring out a natural sense of community and gathering in people. We have or attend tons of holiday events from the beginning of October till the end of the new year. We have ugly sweater parties, gift exchanges, Thanksgiving, and school Christmas programs just to name a few.

None of those things are wrong, I myself enjoy a great gathering event. But, I try to encourage myself to not just see those events as community. They are great stepping stones and they are a great gateway to something more that God would want to do in our hearts where it's concerning community. 

You see, true community is not about what happens in the four walls of your church or what happens in your small group. Although those things are a great start, but authentic community is about happens after you leave those places.

Do you invite someone or a family out to lunch after church? Do we make plans to see each other and be in each other's lives beyond Sunday morning? Do our homes and our lives have an open door policy so that a friend can just drop by so say hello or stop over when they need someone to lean on?

This is where true community lives. 

It lives in the moments when we stretch ourselves and step outside out comfort zone to reach out to others and be involved in their lives.

Not when it's built into our schedule, when it's messy and maybe doesn't always make sense. True community is not about what's convienant for me but about ways that I can encourage and reach others.

True and authentic community happens when I care more about loving on others and less about myself and how it makes me feel. 

When I care about meeting others where they are at. When I care about meeting their needs. When I make a phone call to a friend and talk about her day instead of mine. When we invite families into our home for a meal not because it's a special occasion but because it's Tuesday evening and that's worth celebrating. 

If you're searching today for community and maybe you haven't found it yet, I encourage you to start acting out the community you'd want to see in your own life.

Take that risk and invite that new person to coffee and form a friendship. Take a meal to someone who needs it but isn't expecting it at all. Have people into your home and love on them. Make the effort to nurture relationships beyond what happens at church. 

I promise you, you'll find it. 

And even more so God will bless it. 

Community & Setting the Table.

Happy Monday friends! Today I want to talk about community and what it means to prepare our hearts. 

As I was setting the table for family dinner one night God was gently reminding me that community starts here at setting the table. Not so much not literally but more it starts with preparing our hearts for community to happen. 

That could mean stepping outside your comfort zone, that could mean opening your home when you don't usually, that could mean freeing up more time in your schedule when you know you need to cultivate relationships. 

I truly believe that we all want and desire God given community, but it's not just going to drop in our laps. We have to make it happen, we have to step outside of ourselves and create it. This is where we set the table, join me for today's chat; 

In what ways do you feel God's nudging to 'set the table?' In what ways can you go outside your comfort zone and create an atmosphere for community? Can you read out this week to someone and begin creating community?

That Friend You Have, She Can't Be Your Everything.

That friend you have she wasn't made to be your everything. She can't replace your relationship with Jesus and she can't fill a void only Jesus can. 

I know you want her to be able to walk through every season with you. 

I know you want to spend every moment of free time you have together. 

I know you want to have meaningful conversations and break through the small talk. 

One of the biggest mistakes I've made in friendship is thinking that all friends are created equal and just just aren't. Just as all people are not the same, they don't have the same response or likes as everyone. 

Because God made us all different. 

Maybe that friend you have is only going to walk through a season with you.

Maybe she's only going to call you on the weekends.

Maybe she's not going to call at all and needs a little extra nudge from you. 

I've wanted deep relationships with people who just didn't have the ability to go there.

I've wanted them to care about me the way I care about them, and they just didn't. 

One of the biggest lessons God has taught me is that that friend I have or that friendship I am trying hard to build she can't be my everything. 

She can't replace my relationship with Him. 

I've gotten into trouble, I've been hurt and offended trying to make this friend be something she can't be, give something she can't give.

Instead the Lord is teaching me, while friendship is valuable, building community is His heart, you can't put your everything into one person.

I have friendships that I go really deep with and we talk about everything, we share our sorrows and our dreams with each other.

I have other friendships that are fun and silly, they aren't deep but they fill a different friendship need and that's ok.

What I am learning is to be thankful for the friendships he has placed in my life. I'm learning to be present where he has me and who he has me with. 

I'm learning to lay down the areas of friendship to him and not put so much pressure on this person to fulfill needs only Jesus can. 

It has taken me a while to get to this place, a while to realize the mistakes and pressures I was putting on myself and others.

If you're struggling with friendships today, I encourage you to consider this today; 

Consider asking Jesus to show you the areas of friendship your struggling with. The people you are struggling with. 

Asking yourself; do they encourage my relationship with Christ? Do they make me want to be better? 

Do they point me towards the cross? Do I have an unhealthy relationship with them and an unhealthy expectation of them?

I know that friendships at times can seem lonely and hard at times, but may we consider in those seasons to draw closer to the Lord and remember that he can heal and he can bring restoration to even the most difficult relationships.

"Greater love has no one that this, they he lay down his life for his friends." John 15:13

Jesus did this for us. He was the ultimate friend. 

God has taught me to focus on the quality and not the quantity. I am thankful today for a handful of really great friends God has placed in my life. But here's the truth and I hope you catch this; they are all so different. Not one of them the same. I have different relationships with each of them, but they all mean something to me in my life. They all make up different parts of my life and God uses them in different was in my life. 

And that is ok. That is good. That is God's faithfulness to me in friendships.