Category: Inspirational

Stand by Your Man

~ Sandi Staton

Ephesians 5:22
Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.

The first time I heard Tammy Wynette sing, “Stand by Your Man,” I wanted to smash the radio.

My marriage had just ended. He was mean and abusive. I was a strong-willed wildcat. He stayed out all night drinking with his buddies. I paced the floors while our three-month-old slept. He told me I was no good. I believed him and cried. A lot. He threatened to leave again and again. I didn’t care anymore. While he was at work, I packed his bags, set them outside the door, and changed the locks. When he came home, his key didn’t work, so he busted through the door. The wildcat in me hissed and growled for him to leave. He kissed his son and left. End of story.

So, the lyrics of Tammy’s number one country hit raised my hackles sky-high. What woman in her right mind is going to stand by her man when he treats her worse than the neighbor’s dog? What woman is going to spit-shine her man’s shoes, wash and iron his lipstick-stained shirts, singing “Oh Happy Day” after he stayed out all night just being a man? And what woman is going to forgive and forget over and over and over again till death do us part?

Not this woman!

If my man wants me to love and trust and respect him plus fulfill his every desire, then he better give me plenty of good reasons. Love and commitment is a two-way street. At least that’s what I thought I heard when we exchanged our wedding vows.

I tell people that it took a real man to love me. And that man is the man I’ve been married to for the past forty-nine years. With his stubborn love, he tore down the barbed wire fence tangled around my bleeding, unbelieving heart. With his patience, he broke through the fortress of fear and distrust. With his integrity, he pried my eyes open and helped me to see that his love for me is as real as the sky above. He adopted my son and raised him as his own. He taught him how to become a real man. And finally, because of his unconditional love for me, I surrender my heart and soul to him. Even through the ups and downs, he keeps loving me with a Christ-like love. He doesn’t always like the strong-willed wildcat in me, but he’s the only man on God’s green earth who could ever make it purr.

He’s a real man.

A real man protects his woman, fights for his woman, loves and encourages and respects his woman. A real man never ever beats his woman into submission or forces his will on her because he’s bigger and stronger. Only weak, insecure little boys in a man’s body does that to a woman.

It angers me when I hear of preachers expecting women to stay with their man no matter what. That she should be the stronger Christian because after all, her man is just a man. Baloney! Preachers that preach that lie need to go back and read the rest of the scripture where the Apostle Paul says in Galatians 5:25, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word.”

It also angers me when a woman allows a man to beat her. And The more she allows it the harder it becomes to take back the power she fearfully gave away. And the beatings go on and on and on till someone ends up dead.

Yes, I’m a fighter for people’s rights, and especially for women’s rights. We’ve been through hell and high water to be recognized as human beings with brains as well as arms and legs and other stuff to allow any man to kick us around. So yes, I take offense when my kindred sisters are being abused and if I’m anywhere near, I will unleash the wildcat in me and it won’t be pretty!

The Day Christmas Died

~ Sandi Staton ~ 5 Comments

It was December 25, 1963; the weirdest, most disturbing Christmas day ever. Rather than jolly St. Nick coming down the chimney, the Grinch came down instead. There were no stockings for him to steal or presents or even a tree. Yet, he stole something from me that Christmas morning. He stole the magic, the awe, and wonder, the anticipation of a rosy-cheeked, wide-eyed child that couldn’t wait for Christmas to get here. He even turned the weather upside down raising the temperature from below freezing to seventy degrees . . . very strange weather for Delaware in December.

Mom went on strike that year. She stopped doing all the mom things like cooking and cleaning and laundry. She crawled into a make-shift bedroom in the attic and lived there for weeks, only coming down to empty the slop jar and re-stock her food and water supply.

I was seventeen, old enough to fend for myself. But, like the rest of the family, I depended on mom to always be there. To always cook our favorite meals. To always keep us in line. To always be a mom.

It wasn’t the first time the Grinch snuck into our house and stole from the family. He never seemed to get his fill of tormenting us with mom’s mental illness. Her brokenness. Her inability to handle the stress of my dad’s lack of communication, and getting a real job, and bill collectors pounding on the door, and my youngest brother getting into trouble with every blink of an eye.

She tried to be strong in spite of her illness. But, she was just a mere child herself when her mother placed her in an orphanage and the orphanage placed her in a foster home where she was severely abused. All she ever wanted was a real family to love and accept her. By the time she finally got that family, her heart was too scarred and fearful to trust and believe that anyone could ever love her. Sadly for all of us, she lived and died a victim of the dire circumstances of her abusive past.

Many Christmas’s have come and gone since that warm, Christmas day when my mother shoved a cardboard box in my hands and said, “Here! I got you and your brothers a pair of ice skates.”

Christmas is like snowflakes; there are no two alike. But, somewhere along the way, we get the notion that every Christmas should be merry and bright and that all our expectations be fulfilled. Instead of feeling peace and joy, we feel guilt and shame for spending too much money or not enough, or that we let people down because we can’t meet their expectations, or that Christmas is completely ruined if families can’t all get together on Christmas day. And worst of all, we get so wrapped up in everything we think Christmas should be that we forget the reason we even celebrate.

Every year I have to remind myself that Christmas isn’t about me and my flimsy efforts to make it perfect for everyone. It’s not about presents under the tree and stockings hung by the chimney with care. It’s not about Santa Baby hurrying down the chimney with a bag full of trinkets. It’s about celebrating the birth of the Christ Child, God’s only Son who came down from Heaven to save the world from sin. It’s about His peace for the anxious, His hope for the hopeless; His healing for the wounded. It’s about families sticking together through thick and thin.

So, here it is, December 25, 2020. Our house is finally back in order after a long, harrowing DIY renovation, but we were too exhausted to decorate. We did, however, sprinkle a few decorations here and there adding a dab of Christmas cheer.

Because our family keeps growing we try to divide Christmas with one another fairly. Our immediate family planned to get together the day after Christmas. Then, COVID-19 changed all that when infecting several family members, so, we postponed getting together until that following Saturday.

And guess what? It couldn’t have been more perfect had we celebrated it on Christmas day. The food was just as good, the kids were just as happy, and the adults were just as exhausted by the time it was all over. And what made this Christmas even more special was having another addition to the family; two-month-old, Micahia Louis Staton, great-grandbaby number seven, and first redhead in four generations.

Yes, things change from year to year. People change. Circumstances change. But one thing that never changes is the endless gift of God’s love and mercy in every second of every passing year. Therein lies the magic of Christmas!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

America is Crying

~ Sandi Staton

Before COVID-19, shopping and eating out used to be a fun thing. We didn’t have to rush around before the stores closed, or wonder how many empty shelves we would find once we got there. We weren’t afraid to cough or sneeze in public or even rub shoulders with our fellow humans.

Strange how swiftly things can change within a short period of time . . . 

The once upon a time buzzing restaurant was a ghost town of empty tables spaced twenty miles apart and rows of empty, sad-looking booths. Even the music lacked its normal vim and vigor.

It was Friday, the day we set aside each week to spend with my husband’s uncle and aunt. We look forward to our time together and laughing at the darnedest things, like the jacked-up prices on the menu, the cold bowl of soup the waitress served, and coffee with a meaner kick than a raging bull. But the dirty plate the waitress put on the table? Not so funny.

The last time we ate there we had the privilege of drinking from real glasses and eating with real tableware, so I wasn’t expecting plastic cups, knives, and forks. Feeling slightly irritated, considering the cost of an arm and a leg to eat there, I was tempted to ask where the ants and checkered table cloth were.

But the thing that really got my blood boiling was walking into the restroom.

I cleaned toilets for a living, on my hands and knees, agonizing over every speck of dirt and grime in every nook and cranny, cleaning and scrubbing around the commodes and baseboards till every stinking germ was gone. Everyday. Five days a week. For fourteen long, agonizing years. I was the Queen of clean. When germs saw me coming, they dropped dead on the spot!

So, you can imagine my disgust when toilets in every stall hadn’t been flushed, one of which was totally clogged with who knows what. Toilet lids were splattered with pee, toilet bowls and baseboards were filthy black, and there was hardly any toilet paper anywhere. I’ve been in cleaner outhouses! But wait! There was a cleaning spray bottle hanging on the handicap door and a dirty cleaning rag laying on the nasty floor.

Feeling like I’d just waded through an underground sewer, I washed and dried my hands, hurried out the door, and headed straight toward the young masked man propped lazily against the desk. Not wanting to butt him too violently into the here and now, I pulled in my horns, and politely asked, “Did someone forget to clean the ladies room?”

With everyone so up in arms about COVID-19 and wearing masks for protection, you’d think restaurants would be more diligent about keeping their restrooms clean! It seems that, when the mask goes on, common sense gets smothered to death; like eating out for instance. No one can eat with a mask over their mouth, so what happens to the germs then? Are they frozen because you wore a mask to the table? Are they in suspended animation? Or do they just curl up and take a little nap somewhere?

In my little pea brain, this mask thing is as ludicrous as taking a bath in a cesspool. And the more I read and understand, the more I realize there is a whole lot more to this pandemic than meets the eye. It’s a political ploy to induce panic and fear in the American people and I refuse to play the game. I refuse to cave in to a government that no longer operates for the good of the American people. A government that has turned its back on God. A government that murders innocent lives, cheats, lies and steals for its own personal gain, and wallows in the lap of luxury at the expense of the American people. A government that protects criminals and punishes victims. A government that sits back and allows cities and homes and businesses to be vandalized and burned to the ground.

In all my 74 years, I never ever thought our nation could be brought down as low as it is today. I never imagined this mighty tower of freedom and justice disintegrating right before my eyes. I love my country and it rips my heart out seeing it ravaged by a greedy, power-hungry democracy gone mad. My only comfort is knowing that God is still in control and that one day, every knee will bow before Him and every tongue will confess that He is God!

If God doesn’t intervene and the American people don’t soon wake up, America as we once knew her will be gone forever. No more freedom. No more justice. No place to run.

I’m Just an Old Soul

~ Sandi Staton

I love old, rusty abandoned trucks overgrown with weeds and wildflowers.

I love weathered, broken fences, rusty, galvanized buckets, cast iron pots and pans, and vintage bowls.

I love dirt roads, streams in the woods, bullfrogs and tadpoles.

I love fireflies, and salamanders and a swing hanging from a tree limb.

I love classical music.

I love joking and cutting up.

I love plain and simple people.

I love honesty and truth.

I love talking and listening.

I love sitting outside in the dark.

I love hearing it rain.

I love mountains and hills and valleys.

I love God, the Great Creator of all the things that I love.

 

Family Isn’t All it’s Cracked Up to Be

~ Sandi Staton

Family is everything to me. But, the family I grew up in was just a tad screwed up. Okay, a lot.

My dad was a man of fewer than a few words. He rarely got involved in my life and preferred to be left alone. Completely. Don’t talk, don’t cause a ruckus, just sit and be quiet. In another room, or better yet, in another house.

My mom was stuck in the twilight zone of her abusive childhood and jerked me in there with her. She yelled a lot, picked her fingers till they bled, and consumed me with her fears and anxieties and worries and sorrow and pain. I was not the perpetrator of her abuse, yet I felt responsible and powerless to fix it. So I sacrificed my stubborn will on the altar of compliance to calm the raging beast within her. But, the inner, strong-willed child refused to die. Thus began a never-ending battle of the wills, a constant fight against her power and control over every corner of my life.

Two of my brothers escaped the madness through substance abuse, the youngest of which spent the majority of his life either in prison or homeless and living on the streets. He traded his wife and kids for the thrills and chills of crime. When his kids grew up, they walked down the same wayward path.

My older brother, whom I never met, suffered severe brain damage caused by encephalitis and was institutionalized when he was three. And my oldest brother drifted here and there, searching for his special place in this world. He was the oldest son of my mother’s first marriage. When my mom married my dad, he didn’t want a snotty-nosed five-year-old, so they left him crying under his grandmother’s bed and moved to another state nine-hundred miles away. Till the day he died, he was searching for love in all the wrong places.

My sister ran away from home when she was fifteen, got pregnant, then got married at the ripe old age of sixteen. When her husband died at the age of forty-one, she found solace in the bottle. After finally admitting she had a serious problem, she went to rehab, joined AA, and turned her life around. Sadly, she died of breast cancer at the age of fifty-seven.

I didn’t do drugs or alcohol. I was picky about whom I dated and was squeaky clean when I got married. I was nineteen. Still wet behind the ears. Naive as a kitten. I believed in God. Went to church, and tried to live a good, clean Christian life in spite of my short-lived, abusive marriage. In spite of being a single mom at the age of twenty-one and barely making ends meet. In spite of sickness and hospital stays. Even in spite of my X-husband’s constant slurs and put-downs and his lack of parenting skills and child support.

I was sugar and spice, and everything nice, a pillar of strength and unshakable faith,  as happy as a circus clown. That’s what I pretended to be on the outside because that’s what everyone wanted me to be and heaven forbid I be anything less. And no one cared what I really felt anyway, so it was easier to live a lie than to let people see the ugly, naked truth.

And the ugly, naked truth is, on the inside, I was an erupting volcano of hurt and anger and boiling rage. A prisoner, bound in chains and living among the tombs of fear and hopelessness, striking out against God and the world and my parents and my siblings and everyone who should have been there for me but never were. On the inside, I was a river of knowledge of how I was supposed to live, but as dry as a desert about how to do it.

Then one day, I snapped, and I fell to my knees before God. That’s when I saw Him clearly for the first time; when I felt His love and mercy and forgiveness as He washed my sinful heart clean. He changed my wayward direction and put me on the heavenly path leading to my eternal home in heaven, where I will be completely free at last.  

When you allow God into your life, He blesses and restores it. He makes it better than you can ever imagine. Although my immediate family relationships never improved, and all but one sibling is dead, God has blessed me through my second marriage and his family. And He continues blessing me through my son and his beautiful, growing family. We have each other’s backs. We love and encourage one another. We allow each other the freedom to be our crazy selves without judgment and ridicule. We don’t bicker and fight. We laugh and have fun. We talk and we listen. We are the family I always wanted growing up. The family I needed to help me grow strong and healthy and to be what God created me to be.

Family is important to God, too. That’s why Satan works so hard to rip it to shreds, beginning with Adam and Eve in the garden. Weaken the family and we weaken the world. Stir up anger and resentment in the family, and we stir up anger and resentment in the world. Someone has to stop the insanity, the deadly sinful disease, from spreading from generation to generation. Someone has to stand up and say, “Enough!”

The majority of the world has never had a healthy family life. But we can all create one by loving our kids and doing everything within our power to make them feel loved and protected and safe from a world gone mad. We can teach them to spread their wings and fly. We can encourage their dreams rather than crushing them in our hands. We can teach them about God the right way, rather than the twisted way we once perceived Him.

I loved my family. As messed up as it was, it wasn’t all bad. My parents were good people, they just didn’t know how to be good parents. They didn’t know how to teach their brood to fly, so they broke their wings instead. Hopefully, though, as we get older we can forgive and move on with our lives. None of us are perfect parents. We just have to keep moving past our own junk and be the best parents and grandparents and great-grandparents we can be.

I’m in this parenting thing for the long haul, learning and growing as I go.

Proverbs 22:6
Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old, he will not depart from it.

Colossians 3:21
Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged.

The Lord is My Shepard . . .

~ Sandi Staton

I used to think that God only loved me when I was good, that He only answered my prayers when I followed all the rules, that His standards were so lofty and steep that I couldn’t do anything but fail.

Then I think of a stupid sheep, always looking for greener pastures, always timid and afraid, always wandering away from the flock and getting injured or cast down and getting their fleece infected with parasites. I think of how they graze on inferior pastures that eventually cause sickness and death. Yet, the good shephard drops everything to find it.

That’s what God does for me and for you. He hunts us down, he binds up our wounds, He picks us up in His arms and carries us back home. No condemnation, no being grounded for a month, no shunning till we can straighten up and do better. None of that garbage that we receive from others when we screw up.

I am a stupid sheep. I wander and stray. I get lost. I get wounded. I get cast down. I don’t have sense enough to take care of myself. If the Good Shepard didn’t love me, He wouldn’t waste His time on me. He wouldn’t dry my tears. He wouldn’t cover my filthy nakedness with His mercy and grace. If He didn’t love me He’d let me die and rot in my sins.

Freedom is Slipping Through Our Fingers

~ Sandi Staton

So, we went to krispy Kreme last evening. They said to wear a mask. I said I can’t eat with a mask on. They said I wouldn’t get served unless I wore one. I said either serve us or not. They said not. So, we walked out.

I follow the rules. Jesus said to obey the laws of the land. But, He didn’t say I had to wear a mask to order a donut. That’s a stupid rule when I just have to take it back off to eat. Besides, it was so cold in there no germ could survive, anyway.

When rules make sense to me, I follow them. But, when they are biased and twisted way out of proportion and are actually causing more harm than good, I rock the boat. I make it thunder and lightning. I make it rain cats and dogs.

I know, I know. Wearing a mask is the new norm these days. Mask-wearers feel justified spitting in non-mask-wearers faces. They feel justified screaming insults and causing bodily harm to those who don’t think and feel as they do. Non-mask-wearers are the culprit for what ails mask-wearers and must be shot down.

Wearing a mask in public is no longer a choice but a requirement if you want to be treated like a “normal” human being in this abnormal world.

I’m not afraid of COVID-19. I’m not afraid of spreading it because I don’t have it. But, I am afraid. I’m afraid of losing my freedom. I’m afraid of getting shot or beat up while walking through the mall because I’m old or not the right color. I’m afraid of socialism. I’m afraid for my grand-kids and great grand-kids. I’m afraid of living in a country that curses God and places a crown on Satan’s head.

Wearing a mask doesn’t prevent the disease that’s sweeping across our nation.

Yes, COVID-19 is horrible. It’s turned our world upside-down. Going out in public is like walking into the twilight zone. People don’t even look like people anymore. When they smile, I can’t see it. When they talk, I can’t understand them. The whole going-out-in-public-thing is so depressing that I’d rather just stay home.

Maybe COVID-19 will end. Maybe it won’t. One thing for certain, it has changed our world forever.

My brain isn’t geared toward politics. I don’t like politics. I don’t trust politics. But, as I look around and see what is happening in our country and what our politicians are allowing to happen, I’m paying more attention. And what I’m seeing and hearing doesn’t take a political genius to know that our government wants to be king over our great nation. Woe to us if it succeeds. Shame on us if we allow it.

What does COVID-19 and wearing a mask have to do with it?

Everything. 

 

Six Reasons Why I Shave My Head

~ Sandi Staton

I felt really stressed this morning, so I shaved my head. I feel so much better now . . .

Okay. There’s a method to my madness. It may not work for you, but it works for me.

1. I don’t like long hair on me. As a kid, I pestered my mother to death to cut off my long, red hair. Kids made fun of me in school and yanked on my ponytail or pigtails till my head hurt.

2. Growing up I lived under the dictatorship of lofty rules and regulations; enslaved to the convictions of others and was rarely allowed to think and choose for myself. Unable to tame my wild, independent spirit, they tried breaking it with the hammer of guilt and shame.    

3. I was a slave to curling, teasing, perming, and burning my scalp with a curling iron. I’d spend hours fixing my hair only to brush it all out and do it again. And again.

4. After years of trying and failing to fit in, I became a hoarder of guilt and anger and rage and stuffed those feelings deep inside so no one would know my dirty little secrets. Then one day something happened; the straw that broke the camel’s back and I snapped and there was no place for all that garbage to go but out. Thankfully, Jesus was there with a big box of bandaids before I bled to death!

5. Like a snake shedding its skin, shaving my head is my proclamation of freedom and growth. I’ve outgrown my old skin of doing it someone else’s way, now I’m doing it my way regardless of what anyone thinks. I’m shedding my old skin and growing a new one just for me. I don’t care if I raise a few eyebrows when I enter a room or walk through the mall. I don’t care that people walk up to me and blatantly ask me if I’m sick. I just don’t care!

6. And last but not least, I can ride in the car with the windows down. I can look in the mirror and every little hair is right where it’s supposed to be. It doesn’t frizz, it doesn’t fall flat, it doesn’t move! Best of all, it’s my choice to shave my head. I’ve allowed too many people to bend and twist and pull me out of shape and it’s been a long, painful struggle to straighten it all back out. I’ve earned the right to live in peace in my own skin whether anyone likes it or not.

Conclusion:
A shaved head is not for everyone and I would never recommend doing it unless you really want to. It will grow back, but not as quickly as you shaved it off! 

2 Corinthians 4:16
Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day.