Tag: God

As You Social Distance – Don’t Distance Socially

Tracy Graves Stevens

Don’t Distance, Socially

Friends – this entry is being written in the eighth month of the Covid-19 pandemic where we are being told to ‘social distance’. It is also during a time of political anxiety due to the upcoming elections and racial unrest that is creating divisions throughout our nation. It is being written during a time where there are hybrid models in place guiding everything from how we shop, to how our children are being taught. There are also ongoing safety concerns limiting how we socialize and even worship. While inconvenient, these precautions are intended to help us avoid the impacts of catching or spreading this insidious virus wherever possible. Unfortunately, it also creates an underlying risk of a subtle isolation as part of the new ways of engaging.

In recent months we have seen protests, protests of the protests, hurricanes, economic swings, and much more. I must admit, I am weary. I am weary from Covid-19, weary from the challenges of keeping my child engaged during these quarantine months, and weary from recent events that have pinnacled into an apprehension of allowing my family to step outside for anything. As we are being urged to ‘socially distance’ to stay safe, I have to admit, I miss the engagement and interaction of the pre-Covid19 days. I am a hugger by nature, so it feels awkward to wave or air-bump elbows. I am getting used to it, but I feel some days like a disconnected soul looking for another soul to connect to.

And this brings me to my topic today – as we social distance to stay safe, let’s be mindful not to ‘socially distance’ from each other.  

Love Neighbor and Yourself

Friends – as tensions escalate due to experiences relating to race and injustice, I am just as weary.  I am old enough to remember times in my upbringing when I have been called names by departing residents as the complexion of the neighborhood changed in the 1970s. Over the years, as my faith grew, my heart opened to a greater empathy for all because that is what the Bible says to do. I was fortunate to have a mother who, despite racial injustice in her own life, taught me to love unconditionally. She would always say “Let love prevail” and so, that is what I learned to do. While all relationships are not so genial, this has kept peace in my soul in all of my interactions over the years. To this day I am grateful for her lessons and I have gained some awesome relationships as a result.

But today, I am weary. I feel like these recent months, also during a medical pandemic, have served well to beat the emotional life out of me. Almost like running a marathon on a hot day with little water, I want to finish well but my energy is getting low. That is when I am reminded of one of my favorite passages in the Bible in Mark 12:30-31 (New International Version) –

30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.

 31 The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.

Let’s Connect

As life tries to widen the areas that connect us all, make every effort to not become distant in the core areas that bring us together. In our humanity, we need each other – and that is what God intended when He said to ‘love your neighbor’. But don’t miss a critical component of this edict and that is we must love our neighbor as ourselves. This requires self-love that expands beyond the individual being. The love of ‘self’ begins when we see how much God loves us.  We matter to Him! When the dots of this love connection all play out, we are all better in the end. That sets the stage for a peace that is directly tied to our social relationships.

So again, as you ‘social distance’, please don’t distance socially. Let us stay connected, in Jesus’ Name!

God Kept Me

Tracy Graves Stevens
The meaning of the Cross is always protecting me

God Kept Me

That is my testimony. God kept me.  Just like the song lyrics say, God kept me.  Through the valleys and uncertainties, God has kept me. The experiences of my life’s journey remind me of how God’s cover stays with us always.  God kept me, and He keeps you too.

Looking in the Rearview

It has been one year since I published my book, “What Just Happened?  Living the Redeemed Life, When All Hell Breaks Loose.”  An eventful year filled with testimonies from others who were touched by my story and the busyness that comes from taking that initial step of going from personal privacy to transparency on a more public level. It has been a year where I have had to face my fears as well as my strengths and weakness.  I’ve had to break down personal barriers to my esteem and identity because it is not easy putting your story ‘out there’.  I realize that my life has been crazy and wondrous all at the same time.  I also got more connected to the gifts God has poured into me as I put that ‘social butterfly’ tendency I’ve always had (that sometimes annoys my husband) to work. Who knew that my chattiness was really a gift to be used?  I didn’t know but God did.  It was also a time where I saw God open doors that could only have been opened because of the experiences I had gone through.  This year only added to the ‘awe’ I already knew about our awesome God!

Finding My Way

This new season didn’t just begin in the last year, it really started three years ago with the transition of a career I had always known and my mother’s illness and ultimate death. As I mentioned in my book, when these events happened, I lost my foundation.  I not only lost my income but my identity as I knew it (at least in my mind).  Things changed so drastically for me that the coping skills I have used my entire life didn’t work for me.  I prayed and cried so much that they became my daily norm.  That is where the lyrics to the song “I Almost Let Go” by Kurt Carr & the Kurt Carr Singers came into play:

I almost let go
I felt like I couldn’t take life anymore
My problems had me bound
Depression weighed me down

But God held me close
So I wouldn’t let go
God’s mercy kept me
So I wouldn’t let go

Way – Found

The Lord’s presence in my life sustained me and pulled me up in my grief.  His mercy allowed me to recognize I still had breath and could take a small step each day.  The book was the culmination of the journaling I did to heal through the process. Only God could take that season of my life and turn it into something that I could speak about as a blessing! As I look back on how God loved me through my loss I realize – it had to happen the way it happened.  God needed to give me the understanding I now have for the new places He is taking me in my career, ministry, and life.  Just like salvation, life comes from death.  Gain comes from loss.  Lessons come from pain and healing eventually comes from hurt.   God kept me, and He keeps you too.

That is Living the RedeemedLife. You are not alone, and God really has a plan and purpose for your life, through all of the ups and the downs. 

You are Redeemed, Restored and Rejoiced! 

#LivingtheRedeemedLife

The Ups and Downs of Thanksgiving

Tracy Graves Stevens

Heart picture for grief

Thanksgiving Day signals the beginning of the frenzy of the holiday season.  For some,  it is a reminder of the wonderful birth of our risen Savior, Jesus Christ.  And for others, it is the beginning of the shopping season (and discounts) leading up to Christmas.   For many, it is both! It is during this time, I am reminded of the many things I have to be thankful for.  There are the obvious things like my family and my health.  As I age though, these things are taking on new meanings and shapes but I am still thankful.  Most days, just to be able to wake up and embrace the newness of the day is something I cherish.

The Value of My Alabaster Box

I actually started writing this blog before Thanksgiving but the emotion of the week took over. This year, I have to admit, I am struggling.  I wasn’t struggling to be thankful, no, God has blessed and kept me.   For some reason this year I am reminded of that delicate balance of how blessings can also have that distinction of being fulfilling and painstaking at the same time.   See, for me (and many others) the Thanksgiving season is a stark reminder of those things that have passed on in life.  It is a reminder of the now empty chair that used to be occupied by a loved one.

Tough Times…At Times

This is now the third Thanksgiving where all of the family’s parents (mine and my in-laws) are absent.  Though we have grown accustomed to this new existence it is still a void that we busily ignore while cooking and hustling through the festivities.  The week of Thanksgiving is especially hard for me because it is also the week my mother’s health took a turn for the worse and she never recovered.  My mother loved the fellowship of Thanksgiving; the grocery shopping, the cooking, the crowded kitchen, she loved it!  It was her lack of wanting to participate in the planning three years ago that signaled something was very wrong.  She went into hospice care right after that holiday and went on to Glory shortly afterward.

I recognize this holiday season can be tough for so many of us.  Though gratitude is at the core of our hearts, some of our memories have a tinge of pain connected due to loss, grief, and change.  I think about the song by CeCe Winans where she sings about people not knowing the pain behind the oil in her alabaster box.  I cry when I hear that song because I truly can empathize.

Hope Still Lies Ahead

It is also during these times when I also realize there is nothing in this world that God is not aware of or understands.  It is during these times I cry out to Him because I trust He knows what is in my heart.  When I feel the void of my mothers presence, like when I am looking for her oyster dressing recipe, He says “I know My child, I hear your tears.”  It is during this time He also reminds me that she is fine with Him and it is alright to feel sad because He knows the love we had for each other.  God knew what He was doing when He allowed her to have me and the feelings of grief when she passed away.  He knows about the bond of mother and daughter.  He knows about the grief and the emptiness we feel when family, friends, and sometimes even things, are no longer with us.  God created everything and He understands.  We are not alone.

Turn to God’s Word

It is during times like this I believe we have to turn to His voice in the Bible to get the strength to get through.  If the holiday season is a bit tough for you – the following are points to remember to help you along:

  • Rejoice in all things, pray continually and be forever grateful.   (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18)
  • For everything, there is a season so trouble doesn’t last forever. (Ecclesiastes 3:1)
  • God promised He will give us the strength to get through the things we face. God didn’t say life would be easy but He did say He would never leave us.  (Isaiah 41:10, 1 Peter 5:10)
  • God can take the most heartwrenching situations and use them for good. (Romans 8:28)
  • God says our sacrifice of Thanksgiving is what He desires and when we call on Him, He is the one who will deliver us. (Psalm 50:13-15)

My friends, for those memories, your grief, that unwanted life change and that need that seems to be continually unfilled – God says to bring it all to Him.  He understands and can carry you through.  Give it to Him, with Thanksgiving.

#LivingTheRedeemedLife

You Are God – Alone

Tracy Graves Stevens

Hello God – Are You Out There?

Is God losing control of things?  We are living in times that can make you go “hmmm…”.  Times that can leave you guessing where the parents are in some communities, countries, and nations.  Times where boundaries are continually tested and in some cases even torn down.  Now, in some cases, this is not a bad thing.  As one whose parents grew up during the civil rights era, I know there are times when the rules at hand need to be revised and the only way to do it is to question the applicability and rationale in place when they were created.  Using the litmus test of the Bible on how we should love and live together that was a no-brainer but some days I look around me and wonder – what is going on?!

I was recently involved in a discussion with friends and we began to talk about ‘wars and rumors of wars’ similar to the scripture Matthew 24:6.  What I found interesting was the somewhat casual talk about ‘if we are involved in a nuclear war this is what I would do’.  Huh?  Thankfully, I have not been involved with this in my lifetime but my thoughts drifted to wondering who would even be around to tell their survival story if it did happen?  The discussion was almost as casual as running out of milk and needing to go to the store to replace it after the impending hurricane has passed – get my point?  These topics can make you anxious and scare you.  My pre-teen daughter even stated to me after a recent newscast “I want to live to be an adult so I hope we don’t have a nuclear war”.  Believe me, this led to a long discussion about faith and tomorrow not being promised but ugh…not a great topic to have with my beloved child.

The Sovereignty of God

This brings me to what has become one of my favorite verses in the Bible,  2 Chronicles 20:6 –

6 …“Lord, the God of our ancestors, are you not the God who is in heaven? You rule over all the kingdoms of the nations. Power and might are in your hand, and no one can withstand you.

It reminds me that God is fully aware and in control of all things that happen around us.  God ‘rules over kingdoms [physical and spiritual] and nations’.  This scripture lets us all know that even the most unpleasant things in this world can lay the groundwork for His glorious plan.  Yes, evil exists – and because of the free will God has given us, not everyone is going to do righteous things – but God is still in control and has not abdicated His authority.  God is sovereign.  Some things may be difficult to watch or experience and some things are unto death – this is sad but true.  God is still God and He implores those of us that are still standing to love our way through and to seek His love and guidance.  That is what I told my daughter. Yes, it can be a bit scary but if you know Jesus, there is nothing to be anxious about (Philippians 4:6).  Since we have the Bible (and the New Testament) we know how this story ultimately ends.

So when those scary thoughts creep in or the events around us make no sense at all – Live your life and love!

Thank you, Lord, that You Are God – Alone!