In His Likeness w/ AntTBri

Before time, too early, too soon came I into the world. I was born on Mother’s Day 1971 two months before the doctor’s predicted. I entered into the world 3 lbs 9oz and was given a 50/50 chance for survival. My mother tells me I was so small that she dressed me in baby doll clothes and carried me around in a shoe box when she first brought me home from the hospital 6 months weeks after my delivery. She and my father expected me but they were not READY for me when I arrived. They had to get ready or should I say become ready in the moment. I was not a beautiful baby although my father tells me I was…rather a ball head bundle of red skeletal mass with contraptions that aided in my breathing. So I don’t imagine they got a lot of the oohs and aahs most parents receive when friends and family view and visit newborns. I’m sure the look and care of me was a HUGE adjustment for these youngsters speedily growing into adults.  There are no pictures to confirm the struggle of my early beginning only scars from the tubing used to keep me alive that I learned to view as beauty marks and the stories my parents tell.

So what if your blessing arrives before you’re READY and he/she is not packaged pretty? They don’t fit the normal expectation of yourself and others? They have complications, markings, scars, contingencies that need to be configured or considered as you plan to give them care. Or what if you yourself appear unattractive, underdeveloped, and unussual to Yourself?  What will you see, accept, and even address when you gaze upon the blessing? Will the noted differences cause you to distance yourself, or divert your attention elsewhere?  Or will the difference distinguish your care of them or yourself? It would seem character care would trump cosmetic concerns any day. What adjustments will you make? What if you are allowed a glimpse or preview of what’s developing before you reach or get to the celebratory moment?  Is that the prophetic…seeing the blessing before you can see it? Speaking those things that are not as if they are until they become.  Do you wait until actualization or begin preparing, allowing your heart to feel prematurely?  If not how do you work your faith for what will be eventually? So then, do we wait to pray, praise, and procliam what God said would be?

I don’t know what sustained or kept my parents hopeful during those times of great testing and trial as to they did not know Jesus or have the benefit of an AntTBri. Who is not afraid to talk about all sides of the equation of life and love, who is transparent enough to reveal the struggle and propose a strategy in how to get to the good when we’re facing the bad. I was not an easy child to parent (physical conditions) and I was an even worst adolescent (psychological conflicts), not to mention the challenges I still yet present as an adult (the manner in which I share my passion). I speak of and to the weakness of my own development and often expose others to the horrors of life in hopes that they will benefit from “knowing”.  It is true I am a 50/50 gamble…there is a 50% chance what I say will produce a positive outcome and a 50% chance that what and why I say will be misunderstood, not appreciated, or won’t make a bit of difference at all.  So why risk it because the “what if to the positive” is worth the investment of care I hope to invigorate and character I hope to inspire.  God’s way works…from my very core I’m writing, working, living and loving to help others see God correctly. Sometimes it comes out beautifully and other times it’s just a skeletal representation of a greater context. I am most appreciative of the sacrifices my parents made to parent me…I understand the skill and strategy they had to adapt to accommodate all that comes with and from me but somehow by the grace of God they continuously make the adjustment to support and love me. I anticipate the heart God is preparing to be the one to love me will understand and be willing to make the necessary adjustments to accomidate my purpose, passion, and proclamations.

Sometimes I write or speak to the right now, most times I write and speak to what’s up and coming be we READY or not because the context will help prepare us for the proper perception we should have when attempting to live and love in His likeness. Premature before time declarations, discourse, and discussions are very much a part of my strategy of interjecting another perspective or way to look at a situation or find a solution to the here and now that will benefit us positively in the future. Things known need not be explained… but I dare not assume my nieces, sisters, family and friends know what to do with their hearts especially in terms of their living and loving in God’s likeness. So I candidly share heart postures derived from the biblical understanding of what love is.  It has been my observation over the years that we fail not because we fail to understand applications but because we lack the necessary skills to make adjustments.  There is a whole lot of talk about the right and wrongs of life and love but who’s speaking to those things not easily explained or understood? What do I do with what I feel, how do I appropriate the Word when I don’t want to…when what’s happening isn’t exact to what I’m experiencing? How do I hold on or hold out when everything in me wants to cave into living needs based?  Who’s addressing how to negotiate wait, not yet or in the meantime?  Who questions our motives of loving, or encourages mannerisms that are in agreement with the Word? Love and life are a process…is it appropriate to walk with people through the process in hopes that they will make better, advantageous decisions of life and love? And in doing so We should not say he/she is not the one for you; or tell people what and how to feel; nor can we make them feel bad about what they choose to do but we can use our example and voice to plate up the platter so they can see and hopefully choose for themselves the biblical definition of love and life lived according to the Word of God without the consequence of choices made outside of his leading and direction. Live and love in His likeness that others may develop whole be they early, too soon, or before time ~AntTBri