THE CHAIR.

PRE-NOTE: I have been really sick but fighting to get this to you unscathed. Pain and 🤒 won’t let go

Still, I fight on.  Hours late, but here. Will have to come back to add photos. Here goes nuttin…


📫 THE CHAIR STAYS. 🪑💜
Beloveds,

I need to tell you something about the chair.
Not a chair.


The chair.


The one sitting beside me.
The one I keep putting into these pictures.
The one that might look empty if you do not know what you are looking at.
It is not empty.
It has never been empty.

That chair is there on purpose.
When I first started imagining this little world we have been building together, I kept seeing a chair beside me.



Sometimes we are fishing.
Sometimes we are sitting near the water.
Sometimes we are traveling.
Sometimes we are laughing.
Sometimes I am tired.
Sometimes I am thinking.
Sometimes I am simply looking out at this beautiful, complicated 🌎 and wondering what God is teaching me next.

But there is a chair.


🪑
And the chair stays.
Because somewhere along the way, I realized what it meant.

The chair is an invitation.



It says:
Come sit with me.
You do not have to believe everything I believe.
You do not have to look like me.
You do not have to sound like me.
You do not have to vote like me.
You do not have to worship like me—or worship at all.



You do not have to understand everything about my life.
And I do not have to understand everything about yours.
You can still sit down.
💜
That matters to me.
Because too many people have spent their lives wondering whether there is a chair for them.
Some of us learned very early what it feels like to walk into a room and wonder:



Where am I supposed to sit?
Some know what it feels like to be left out.
Some know what it feels like to be misunderstood.
Some know what it feels like to be tolerated instead of welcomed.
Some know what it feels like to have people decide who you are before you ever get the opportunity to introduce yourself.



Some have been told directly that the table was not built for them.
And some were technically allowed at the table but were made to feel every single minute that somebody wished they were not there.
I know something about wanting to belong.
And maybe that is one reason this chair matters so much to me.
I cannot fix every table.
I cannot make every room welcoming.
I cannot force anybody to see another human being with compassion.



But I can decide what happens beside me.
And beside me?
There is a chair.

🪑
For the person who believes.
For the person who doubts.
For the person who has questions.
For the person who is angry.
For the person who is grieving.
For the person who has made a mess.
For the person rebuilding after the mess.


For the person who feels strong today.
For the person barely hanging on.
For the person everybody notices.

And especially for the person who has gotten used to being overlooked.
Sit down.

You do not have to perform first.
You do not have to explain yourself into worthiness.
You do not have to make yourself smaller so I can feel bigger.
And I do not have to disappear so you can belong either.
There is room for both of us.



That may be one of the most important things I am learning.
Making room for you does not require erasing me.
And being fully me does not require pushing you out of the chair.
We can be different.
We can disagree.
We can ask hard questions.
We can correct one another.
We can learn.
We can laugh.



We can occasionally get on one another’s nerves. 🤣
We can even have to repair something we broke between us.
And still—the chair stays.

🪑💜
Because belonging cannot mean, “You may stay as long as you never disappoint me.”


That is not belonging.
That is probation.
Love has to be sturdier than that.
Grace has to be bigger than that.
Community has to be brave enough for that.
And Lord knows, I am still learning how to do it.


I am learning that loving people does not mean pretending harm did not happen.
I am learning that forgiveness does not mean abandoning boundaries.
I am learning that listening does not require surrendering my own voice.
I am learning that disagreement does not automatically make somebody my enemy.



And I am learning that sometimes the bravest thing we can do after something has gone wrong is look at the chair and say:

No.
Leave it there.
We are going to try again.
💜


That is the world I want my love to keep showing.

Not a perfect world.
Not a world where everybody suddenly agrees.
Not a world where difference disappears.
I do not want that world.
I want this one.



A world full of colors.
Cultures.
Accents.
Bodies.
Abilities.
Stories.
Questions.
Faith.
Doubt.
Music.
Laughter.
Tears.


People still becoming.
People still learning.
People still getting some act right. 🤣
People still discovering that somebody else’s humanity does not threaten their own.


And wherever I am in that world—
Paris.
Chicago.
At the ocean.
At the Grand Canyon.
In a library.
On a sidewalk.
Fishing somewhere with absolutely no idea whether I am doing it correctly. 🎣🤣
There will be another chair.

🪑


Maybe sometimes somebody will be sitting in it.
Maybe sometimes it will appear empty.
But now you know.
It isn’t empty.
It is holding space.
For conversation.
For possibility.
For reconciliation.
For curiosity.
For friendship.
For somebody I have not met yet.


Maybe even for you.
So when you see that chair  show itself from now on, do not ask:
Who forgot to sit there?
Remember what it means.


It means:
YOU ARE WELCOME HERE.
Pull up a seat.
Bring your story.
Bring your questions.
Bring your whole complicated self.
I will bring mine too.

We do not have to become the same person to sit beside one another.
We just have to remember that the person in the other chair is a human being whose life matters.


And Beloveds—your life matters to me.
So wherever this journey takes us next, I already know one thing.
The scenery will change.
I will change.
You will change.
We will learn things.
We will unlearn things.
We will laugh.
We may cry.


We might even have to move the furniture around sometimes. 🤣

But that chair?
THE CHAIR STAYS.
🪑💜
Asking for A Friend,
Cassandra

I have tried since after midnight to have this scheduled for 6:30.  God and life had other plans. Be encouraged… RISE

#YourLifeMattersToMe
Note: One step. One step. One step. You are loved. You are ¹ alone. Keep on being…YOU!
Unapologetically His. ❤️

THE