when someone cared enough to ask if I was safe at home

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“Is she safe at home?” my friend’s friend asked in a hushed voice as I headed down the hall to the restroom.

I am, but her concern was well placed. The weekend before I had lost my balance while misjudging the distance between my body and a piece of furniture in a spectacularly grace-less moment, slamming my arm hard against solid wood. Two days before my dog had jerked her paw against my chest, leaving a slight purple mark there. And the day before my son – excited about a video game – pointed at the screen in my lap, scratching his nail against my cheek.

This picture only captures my arm that day, but you can see what drew concern from her.

I don’t know her. I probably won’t see her again. But? She cared enough for me to ask a mutual friend the hard and awkward question, “Is she safe at home?”

I am, thankfully. My husband is a refuge for me and our children. But other women and children (and men too) aren’t safe behind closed doors. I wrote about domestic violence in the church for Key Ministry a couple weeks ago, and then I came across this last week.

Abuse happens. Your friend might not say anything, but her injuries might speak for her. Be willing to engage in further conversation when they do.

If you’re wrong – like that well-intentioned friend of a friend was – there’s no harm done. But if you’re right, you might just open a needed door for healing and safety. If you're right, your one question might be the beginning of her rescue.

Let’s all be brave enough to ask the hard questions when our gut senses something is off. It might be weird, sure. But it might just save a life. 

Edited to add: A friend and former co-worker of mine commented on my Facebook page about her own experience in an abusive relationship. I thought what she said was so powerful that I'm bringing it here. In Amy's words, "I would add that sometimes a woman tells others what she wishes were true - that she is safe - when she actually is not. I had friends gently but persistently ask multiple times, and when it turned out I was not indeed safe, those women were there to help, no judgement, no "told you so", so just immediate help. It's better to ask and be wrong, multiple times even, than to not say anything at all. Ask. And keep asking."

Yes and amen. Ask. And keep asking. And then be there to help, creating a non-judgmental space for your friend when she's ready for it. 

Here's to tender hearts!

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Y'all, this week we got some hard-to-swallow news. It wasn't unexpected, but it always hurts to read stark evaluation notes on a child who is so much more than a diagnosis... so my heart was tender today. It would have been sensitive, even without without all the harshness of the past couple weeks tenderizing it day after day before this, but the culmination of everything left me wanting to curl up in a fetal position.

But I went about my day as usual, crossing paths with person after person, most not knowing how raw I felt.

Even this morning selfie with my beloved doesn't give away that I was barely treading water to keep my head above the whirlpool of emotions in which I found myself this morning...

And it struck me, as it often does, that I don't know anyone else's story either.

The man at Bojangles from whom I bought our meal, who did all he could to bring forth smiles from me? The nurse who came for our quarterly assessment of Zoe's care needs? The vet I spoke with on the phone? The mailman who handed me a package? The volunteers who checked us in and then saw us off at day camp?

I don't know their stories. I don't know their raw places. I don't know if they just want to curl up under the covers for an extended holiday like I do.

But I know love. I know compassion. I know Jesus.

So I'm going to do all I can to show all I know to a world in need of it. A smile. Eye contact. An encouraging word. A countenance that says, "I see and value the humanity in you, my friend. We're in this together."

Hate doesn't win. Trucks driven into celebrations don't get the last say on humanity. And evaluation notes don't change the awesomeness of the kid about whom they're written.

After all, maybe our hearts are meant to be tender. Maybe that tenderness isn't the problem; maybe all the hard places we've cultivated to protect ourselves are. Maybe we're supposed to hurt and grieve and mourn sometimes.

Maybe, just maybe, we're not doing it wrong when life seems too much.

Here's to tender hearts, to making a more compassionate world one encounter at a time, and to kids who are so much more than what any label says!

ministry resources I've written elsewhere

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Over the years, I've written pieces here and there for other entities. Here are a few I've dug up from 2012-2013...

special needs ministry quick references guide

This handout is always included in my speaking handouts. I lent it to the Treasuring Christ Curriculum as a resource to be shared on their site. Here is where you can find it.

Becoming A Missional Family

I partnered with Steve Wright and George Tissiere, two pastors at Providence Baptist Church in Raleigh, to write this resource for families. It's a short booklet, and it's available here. 

Some of the Most Unreached People in the United States

D6 asked me to write a piece about people with disabilities as a group largely unreached by the church. It can be found here.

Special Needs Volunteer Orientation Guide

In this resource offered by Building Church Leaders, I join the voices of Amy Julia Becker, Tony Welty, Jackie Mills-Fernald, and contributors from Key Ministry, the United Methodist Church of North Texas, and the editors of Christianity Today. Together we provide guidance on training volunteers to include children with disabilities. Find out more here. 

Maintaining the Message, Modifying the Message

I wrote this article for The Journal of Discipleship and Family Ministry to equip churches to welcome families affected by a diverse range of disabilities. 

An Interview with Shannon Dingle about the Treasuring Christ Curriculum and Ministry to Those with Disabilities

In this piece on the Family Ministry Today, I was interviewed about inclusive ministry and the benefits of scaffolded curricula like Treasuring Christ Curriculum or the more visually rich The Gospel Project by Lifeway (which I would highly recommend over TCC, as The Gospel Project does a far superior job of sensory integration to benefit all learners, especially those with disabilities). Read the full interview here. 

why I consider both Trump and the Alt-Right to be morally dangerous

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Update: I wrote this in June 2016. Now, in November, President-Elect Trump has named one of their leaders, Steve Bannon, as his chief strategist and said Bannon will work as a partner to his chief of staff. Trump supporters and voters who said you'd speak up for my family if my concerns proved right, did you mean it? Now's your chance. Let him know that Bannon isn't an acceptable choice for your non-white friends.

A week and a half ago, Christianity Today featured my thoughts on inclusive ministry for families affected by disability and childhood trauma. I was both thankful and humbled to lend my voice in that outlet.

I'm proud of this piece. I'm grateful to Dan Darling and the folks at Christianity Today for running it. I'm honored to have had so many opportunities to speak up for vulnerable kids and families and encourage the church to love us well.

And then, I discovered the Alt-Right. 

Please be warned, the tweets below are both graphic and horrific. 

But I think we need to see them for what they are, so I'm sharing them along with my thoughts on the issue.

(I know this post might make our family a target again, but I figure I'm probably doing something right if I'm drawing the ire of white supremacists. Thankfully, some of these users have been banned from Twitter for hate, which is why they show up as quotes rather than embedded texts now, but I've provided screen shots as well.)


I know they're sickening (and I censored out a few by not including them here). Also, happy birthday to me, as they were posted the night I turned 34. (Ugh.) But who are these people and the 100+ folks who liked or retweeted their remarks? To answer that, here's a snippet from the always accurate Wikipedia:

“It’s no coincidence that alt-righters who don’t like libertarians or more traditional conservatives often refer to them as “cuckservatives.” The Daily Caller’s Matt Lewis explains the term, “A cuckold, of course, is a legitimate word for the husband of an adulterous wife… (but) the people who throw this term around are most likely referencing a type of pornography whereby a (usually, white) man is ‘humiliated’ (or ironically thrilled) by being forced to watch his wife having sex with another (usually, black) man…

“So what does this have to do with conservatism or politics?” asks Lewis. “By supporting immigration reform, criminal justice reform, etc., a white conservative is therefore surrendering his honor and masculinity…

“A cuckservative is, therefore, a race traitor,” Lewis notes.”

I didn't know what they meant by cucked when I first saw the tweets. Someone dear to me texted, "I don't know what that word means and I'm not going to look it up." I tried not to. I tried to just ignore it all. (Obviously, I didn't succeed in those efforts.)

I'm writing this because I believe these tweets are symptoms of a larger issue. I think we have to speak up against hate. I won't sugarcoat it. The Alt-Right is defined by hate. Not patriotism. Not principle. Not nationalism.

Hate.

This is a hate group, no question. And they've been mobilized by Trump, by their own assertions.

As silence doesn't suit me, the day after the Christianity Today piece and Twitter hate, I shared this on Facebook:

“I couldn’t put the words together last night, and I’m probably going to fumble this too, but I’m no longer shaking in anger so I think I can do this...

I’ve seen people try to downplay racism. I’ve seen people try to downplay rape culture. I’ve seen people try to downplay Trump’s hate speech about race and gender and immigration and disability and so much more.

Usually I try to ignore it. Fighting online battles isn’t beneficial. (And, please, continue to follow my advice about not engaging the Twitter trolls attacking our family, because they won’t go away if they get a rise out of us.)

But sometimes it’s time to say something. When a few dozen cowardly white supremacists who strongly espouse both their love for Hitler and Trump make cruel memes out of our family pictures for fun and write vile comments about how my black immigrant son is going to rape me and my white daughter because that’s what those people do (in addition to calling my husband a cuckold and us both traitors to both our country and our race), I can’t stay silent. I’m not going to engage with them, because they are not worth my time. But? I feel like I need to say that if you’re supporting Trump, I see this as the natural consequence of his violent hate-mongering speech about anyone different. No, he didn’t write those comments, but we’re seeing these groups emboldened by his candidacy. To me, supporting Trump isn’t a political issue; it’s a moral one.

Please, spare me comments about Hillary or any other candidate and their poorly behaved supporters. I know jerks behind computer screens exist in all shades. But? When my family becomes a target from hard right conservative racists over a piece in Christianity Today, I have to say it’s going to be hard for me to stomach anyone’s comments here about how mean those on the left are toward Christians. Nope. Not today.

/end rant”

I don't consider this a political blog post. To me, this is a moral issue, as much as diversity in dolls or outrage about sexual assault are. Dinglefest isn't going to become a blog about politics, but I won't be quiet on this topic. I think it's important to shed light on what our political climate is creating.

I deliberated long and hard before sharing the troubling tweets above. I might go back and remove them at some point, because I don't want to amplify their voices. But? I think we need to be willing to see the ugliness, because I think it's our refusal to look upon hate speech like this that makes us say "I'm shocked!" about Orlando and Charleston while so many of our friends in the LGBT and black communities weren't in the same ways. After all, they've been watching the hate storms brew, while our white and/or heterosexual eyes have looked the other way, simply because our privilege allows that.

So what can we do? 

Listen. Identify those who are marginalized and start listening. Your eyes might just be opened to the hate you've been glossing over without even knowing it.

Love. Create your own love storms, right where you are. (And, please, drop the conditions. Not "I love you, but..." or "I love you if..." or "I love you, even though..." Just communicate "I love you." Period. Full stop. No stipulations.)

Do. Take action - with your voice and your votes and your time and your money - to act against hate and show value to all people.

Finally, I feel compelled to say I do value both Trump and the AltRight. While I don't like their speech, they have a right to express it. As angry and hurt as I was reading their tweets, I know each Twitter handle represents an actual person created by God to do greater things than spread hate online. So please don't interpret this post as a hateful response to hate. No. This is a call for us to look and see the hate storm, but love the people. When everything went down a week and a half ago, a friend asked what she could do. I still stand by my response: "Just be kind. While these are faceless trolls, they are also real people behind a screen. And I can only think that they need a whole lot more kindness in their lives if they're saying what they're saying, even anonymously. So be kind."

I think kindness can be dangerous to this brand of hate. So let's listen, love, and do, all while showing grace to everyone, even those who don't seem to deserve it.