Anyone who has ever visited me or spent time around me, from college to now, know that I am always in need of a big(ger) closet.
Many would consider me fashion-savvy; one friend recently joked that she finally saw me with a wrinkle in my shirt for the first time in nearly six years of knowing me. I don’t tend to follow any types of trends; instead, I buy what I like, what catches my eye, and make it a creative ensemble of my own vision and imagination. Many times, I can take some of the same old clothes and switch pieces up in a way that makes my outfits look brand new.
With so many unique pieces in my wardrobe, I have always been drawn to apartments and houses that had large walk-in closets; they are second on my wish list only after a large kitchen with an island. It’s necessary for me, with everything that is in my collection. And it’s sad that, even with a closet almost bursting with stuff now, I want more clothes. My future wife and I are going to have an interesting conversation about closet space, but I digress…
How many of us remember when “War Room” was released about a year ago? It was one of the biggest Christian films to hit theaters in years and was a number one box office film (despite negative reviews, but I won’t address that right now). The movie sparked so many devotionals, study groups and Bible studies, prayer strategies and even caused many Christians to clear out a closet in their house to make room for a prayer closet — a war room — like Miss Clara and the Jordans did in the film (by the way, who WOULDN’T want to have a grandmother like Miss Clara in their life?).
I was one of them.
“But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.” — Matt. 6:6
Jesus made it very clear that prayer is a private and intimate conversation between a person and God, but until I saw “War Room,” I never really considered having an actual room dedicated to prayer. After the movie, I saw many people making room for a prayer closet in their lives, so I did as well. And I began to see a difference almost immediately.
Now, my prayer closet is the narrow hallway closet in my apartment; the closet is about eight feet tall and maybe four feet wide. I’m at least six feet tall and my broad, football player shoulders just graze the walls if I walk in straight, so I can’t close the door physically because I don’t fit. But I still made do with what I had; I began writing out prayer points, strategies, topics, Scriptures, and it became a place where I held devotions and kept my prayer book logs once I filled them up (I’m almost done filling out book four).
But this summer, I haven’t been in the prayer closet as much as I probably should have been. I say should have as opposed to could have because of the summer that I faced.
Summer 2016, has been one of the most emotionally draining summers of my young life. Throughout the entire summer, I have felt like the devil just took baseball bats to my soul, beating me down continually until they broke, then grabbing another bat and hitting with renewed force and energy.
I’ve spent the summer fighting my emotions; feelings of anger, disgust and bitterness as I continually poured over reports of black men and women, young and old, continually gunned down and feeling mentally drained as people scrambled to cover their tracks in the shootings. Some of the cases, in my mind, had no justification for their tragic ends, but it only showed the division across the nation; one half of my social media was flooded with hashtags of victims’ names and Black Lives Matter and posts of historical pain and anger, while the other half brushed off the claims as “isolated cases”, pointing to “black on black crime” as a reason to ignore the protests of police brutality and returning to their comfortable lives of only having to worry about people liking their new haircuts, preparing for their vacations and trips, spending time with their friends and family without a care for the rest of the world. Am I saying that I’m looking for sympathy? I don’t think so, but it definitely showed me that there is two different worlds in America, and sometimes, I feel torn between the two of them.
Then, June 12 came; one of the worst mass shooting in modern American history rocked my beloved city, Orlando. Nearly 50 people, including the shooter, were killed during a hostage situation late that Saturday night into early Sunday morning at Pulse Nightclub, a local gay bar and nightclub downtown. Anger and hurt was poured all over the city. That Sunday, my phone began blowing up; my editor wanted me to come into the office to do some reporting, but I told them I was already in downtown Orlando, several blocks away from the shooting, and could do some live reporting. I ended up spending an entire hot day in a full shirt and tie, comforting people, talking to those hurting. So many people knew victims, were worried about victims, shared stories of how they almost went to the club that night. As evening came and the rain came, so did, finally, my tears. But I didn’t have long; by the following Wednesday, I was back in Orlando, doing follow-up reports and writing all day again, still fighting and holding back my own tears and emotions.
After about two weeks of focusing on Pulse, I thought I could escape; a week-long cruise with my family to the Caribbean was a great way to erase the pain and hurt of June, right? Oh, if only.
I returned to Florida just in time for Fourth of July. The following three days after the holiday, I was slammed with more news of police shooting black men and, now, people reacting by attacking, and killing, police officers. It was too much, especially to see the division that it caused among people in my life. Suddenly, friends and classmates I had never heard from in years popped up on social media, divided between #BlackLivesMatter and #BlueLivesMatter. Arguments and fights broke out everywhere and I felt like I was constantly slapped in the face, torn, stuck in the middle, a black male news reporter, where one side wanted me to side with my career and the other side wanted me to side with my culture.
But, there was a moment of light; my editor approached me about writing a special report about what the #BlackLivesMatter movement meant to me and even wanted me to include a personal column about the movement, being a young African-American male and having been a victim of profiling and police brutality in my own personal life. I won’t lie; it was the scariest, boldest and most honest report of my life, and for me to share it with more than 100,000 people in my community was nerve-wrecking. But I did it and it sparked a LOT of conversations. Many people reached out to tell me how refreshing it was, how raw and honest my thoughts and fears were and how much it put things into perspective. But of course, with the good comes the bad; the threats, the hate mail, even finding someone trying to slash my tires after work one day. It just threw me into such a whirlwind of emotion that, when August came and my birthday began to approach, I honestly didn’t wan to celebrate (one, I was so swamped by work, I didn’t really have time to plan anything, but I just was too stuck in my emotions).
Why am I pouring all of this out? Because, honestly, I was (and still have been) hit so hard with these types of stories back to back to back to back to back…that I never had time to process one before the next came up. Even more, there are so many cases that never were reported that I know about that people didn’t rage over. It takes a heavy toll on your mind when your brain has no more room for all of these thoughts to process, but you almost have to keep pressing forward because you know the next day, the next case will flash across your computer screen and reach your desk.
Which is why I think I need a bigger prayer closet. I have allowed my emotions to come and consume me in such a way, that I never turned to prayer and gave everything to God. A part of me still holds on to the idea that I can’t go to God and admit ‘Yes, I’m angry, I’m pissed off, I’m frustrated.’ Instead, I keep everything bottled up inside until I implode from the inside out.
But this is not the time for me to breakdown; this is the time for me to breakthrough. Breakthrough the barriers of hate, anger, despair, confusion, division and everything else the enemy is stirring up. This is the time that I need to seek God more than ever before; devote more time in prayer, spend more time in my prayer closet instead of my emotions.
“All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.” — 2 Corinthians 5:18-20
Clearly, the world that I live in is greatly divided across so many lines; racial, political, economical, spiritual, religious…so many things divide the human race from forgetting the one thing that unites us all; we are HUMANS, people with thoughts and emotions. And until we see each other that way, that every person matters to God, that ever life lost, separated from Him, is a life lost and wasted. He has called us that have been reconciled to Him to bring others home, connecting other people to Him and His love.
No matter what happens next, the first step in all of this is to go back to my prayer closet and speak to God about HOW to take this step of reconciliation forward, of how He wants to use me, my words, my heart, my gifts and my talents to bring about that very change that we always hear quoted: Be the change you want to see in the world? Well, Jesus, I know I can’t make that change happen without You, so let’s have a conversation about this change that You want to see in this world through me.
Miss Clara, where are you? We got some PRAYING TO DO!!! *in my very best, old, Southern Baptist voice* IT’S PRAYING TIME!!!
The Book of James 