Common Sense Reborn

Side-by-Side

²¹So the LORD GOD caused the man to fall into a deep sleep. While the man slept, the LORD GOD took a part of the man’s side and closed up the opening. ²²Then the LORD GOD made a woman from the side, and He brought her to the man. (Genesis 2:21-22)

Greetings readers. It has been a while. Nearly a month since my last post. So, grab your coffee or tea, get comfortable, and lock-in. I have some words to share.

I have started following a page on Instagram. I had every intention of fasting from social media during Lent, but the devil drove me to those platforms on Ash Wednesday. But what the devil meant for evil, God quickly made the most of the opportunity, and my Instagram algorithm introduced me to a profile titled “unfoldthescripture”. The digital creator of this profile writes “Helping you understand Scripture deeply and live it boldly.” From this creator’s first post I read of theirs, I instantly started following the content due to the depth of the writing and how I am learning something new with each post. On February 13, the creator wrote a post referencing the verses above to point out that the Hebrew word for “rib” is “tsela”, which more accurately translates to “side”, or “chamber”, often referring to the side of a person. The creator of “unfold the scripture” goes on to write that God created Eve to stand side-by-side with Adam. God chose the Tsela to create Eve, as opposed to the heel (to give man control over woman), or the head (to give woman control over man-although, let’s be honest, women are much smarter than men). God created Eve from Adam’s “Tsela” to be his equal, to stand as his partner through life, to be there to lift Adam up when he stumbled, and for Adam to do the same for Eve.

This is not a post about marriage. This is a post about respect and the treatment of women. In January, my wife’s family, which is my family, was rocked by a horrific event of domestic violence. If you missed that post, an ex-boyfriend had forced his way into his ex-girlfriend’s place of employment and murdered her in cold blood before turning his firearms on an innocent witness. This monster shot that witness four times, once with a shotgun, three times with a 9mm pistol. Only by the grace of God did that witness survive. That witness is my wife’s niece. She is slowly recovering from that nightmare, and we praise God for keeping her safe. Her co-worker was saved by angels and brought to Heaven to escape this disgusting side of existence. Her name is Myshaela Burnham, and she was just 29-years-old.

What drove me back to social media on Ash Wednesday was when my wife sent me a text message with news that has rocked our family to the very core. A younger cousin of my wife’s was brutally beaten to death by her boyfriend. This young lady is just four years older than our firstborn, and that generation of sweet girls were all very close when they were little. When our son was just a baby, my wife’s family took our daughter and her three cousins to do a professional family photo shoot with our son. Those pictures were beautiful, a true blessing to capture a special bond between cousins and siblings. Destiny Chambers stood out in the picture as the only brunette surrounded by three younger blonde cousins. Destiny’s smile was radiant, and in the picture she has her arms wrapped around our son, who has the sweetest little smile on his face. This was eight-year-old Destiny Chambers. While we lived in Bradenton, our daughter spent much more time with Destiny, but after we moved back to the Savannah area, our interaction with Destiny was limited to the Thanksgivings when she made the trip up with her grandfather, my wife’s uncle. I remember the last time I saw Destiny, was a flash of her running out of Nanny’s kitchen to go ride four-wheelers. The eight-year-old I remembered had grown into a teenager in a blink of the eye.

Now, thanks to the weakness of a man, this family will never get to see Destiny thrive in this world. This family will never get to see wedding photos of Destiny marrying a man of worth. This family will never get to see how amazing of a mother Destiny would have been. This family will no longer have Thanksgiving, or any other holiday, where that special generation of cousins reunites to share stories of success and struggles, laugh over memories of their childhood, motivate each other to achieve greatness in their lives. A weak man brutalized this beautiful soul and freed her from the chains of this dark, defeated world. The only peace I have with this entire, disgusting incident is knowing that Nanny and Jesus were there in that house when she was brutalized. I know with even more clarity why God called our Nanny home last year. She had to be there, ready to prepare a meal at Jesus’ table for when Destiny walked through those gates.

It is horrific tragedies like this where the enemy wants our first reaction to be anger at God. To shout out those questions of “how can you let this happen?” But that is such an ignorant response. God did not let this happen. WE let this happen. We as this “great” Christian society let this happen. We do not lift up women as equals. We do not raise boys to be men to do the same. We ignore the signs. We have put men who are abusers of women in two of the most powerful positions of our country. A pedophile as the President, who has admitted to sexually abusing women in braggadocious speech, and yet so many continue to support this weak man in the spite of mounting evidence of his ties with one of the most high profile sex trafficking rings in American history. And an alcoholic, sexual abuser as the Secretary of Defense. America, for the rest of the world, seems to love to abuse women. I mean, we are the only country not acting on the evidence being released in the Epstein’s files, and we continue to be trying to protect names from being fully redacted and truly exposed. The United Kingdom has more of a spine than this pathetic country.

When I learned of Destiny’s murder, I was not mad at God. I was mad at men. I was mad at parents who failed to raise this specific man to be a decent human being, to respect women, to learn how to manage his anger and emotions. It is reasonable to believe that the man who murdered Destiny had been abused as a child. I was mad at our justice system, for excusing abuse against women with little slaps on the wrist. Now the center of our country’s Department of Justice holds a banner of POTUS (Pedophile of the United States) draping down the center of their headquarters in Washington, DC that echoes hitler’s propaganda from 1930s Nazi Germany. I was also mad at myself. For not being more involved in Destiny’s life. For not ensuring she knew how to safely walk away from an abusive relationship before it got to the point it did, the point where it was too late. I was mad at myself for showing restraint in pointing out the hypocrisy of this nation and the Christian Nationalist movement. I was mad at myself for not standing up and speaking out.

Enough is enough. I will no longer be silent. I will continue to use this platform to speak out against the abuse of men in positions of power for how they treat others. Silence is complacency, and I am far from being complacent. I yearn to be more like Jesus every day, and the one thing that drove Jesus to flip tables and drive sinners away with a whip was the hypocrisy of those who committed atrocities in the name of His Father. Now that same hypocrisy is thriving in this country in the name of Jesus, and it has gone on long enough. It is time for us all, if we claim to be Christians, to take a long look in the mirror and ask ourselves, what kind of man are we? Are we man enough to stand up for the least of us? To stand up for the ones that Jesus LITERALLY commanded us to stand up for: the widow, the orphan, the foreigner, the poor, the hungry, the thirsty, the sick, and the oppressed? Matthew 25:41-46 captures these words from Jesus:

_⁴¹“Then the King will turn to those on the left and say, ‘Away with you, you cursed ones, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his demons. ⁴²For I was hungry, and you didn’t feed me. I was thirsty, and you didn’t give me a drink. ⁴³I was a stranger, and you didn’t invite me into your home. I was naked, and you didn’t give me clothing. I was sick and in prison and you didn’t visit me.’

⁴⁴“Then they will reply, ‘Lord, when did we ever see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and not help you?”

⁴⁵“And he will answer, ‘I tell you the truth, when you refused to help the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were refusing to help me.’

⁴⁶“And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous will got into eternal life.”

If you, or someone you know, are victims of Domestic Abuse, help is here. Obviously, any with any emergency, call 911. But other resources are available before it gets to that point. The National Domestic Abuse Hotline is here. Get involved. Stand up and speak out against this horrific epidemic that continues to plague this country. Enough is enough. We can fix this if we stand against the evil of this world and protect the victims, standing with them side-by-side.