WHAT IF. 

WHAT IF YOUR PREFERENCE IS REALLY A RULER?

LOVE IN ACTION. IN REAL TIME.

Beloveds, I watched something this morning that reached underneath several conversations I have been having lately.

It was an episode of the Dear Future Wifey Podcast called “God Delivered Us From Our Preferences,” featuring Joshua and Courtney Washington.

You can watch it here:

https://youtu.be/fln2OcdzvZI?si=bz7aLccwfJpPbBY6

According to their preferences, Joshua and Courtney should never have chosen each other.

Joshua did not want to enter a relationship with a woman who already had children.

Courtney had four.

Courtney had also made an inner vow as a child that she would never have Black children.

That vow did not appear from nowhere.

She had been bullied because of the color of her skin.

A wounded Black child tried to protect her future children from experiencing the pain she had experienced.

Her conclusion was harmful.

But before we rush to condemn her conclusion, we must be willing to sit beside the child who reached it.

She was trying to solve an injury with the understanding and power available to her at the time.

Joshua also had a ruler.

He had decided that a woman with children represented a responsibility he did not want.

But Courtney’s children were not defects attached to an otherwise desirable woman.

They were part of the whole life she had already lived.

To receive Courtney, he had to see more than the category he had placed her in.

Both of them had to investigate the rulers beneath their preferences.

And that is where this stopped being only their story.

beloveds, some of our preferences are simply preferences.

Some of them are healthy boundaries.

Some of them are expressions of wisdom, compatibility, safety, and discernment.

But some of the things we call preferences are rulers constructed from fear, injury, racism, ableism, rejection, church culture, family expectations, ego, or the determination never to be hurt that way again.

Sometimes we are not measuring what is good.

We are measuring what feels familiar.

Sometimes we are not protecting our peace.

We are protecting an old wound from ever being examined.

Sometimes we are not exercising discernment.

We are rejecting a complete person because part of that person’s life does not match the picture we created.

Sometimes the ruler is pointed toward somebody else.

Sometimes it is pointed toward us.

I know something about being measured.

I am a Black woman.

I am loud.

I am a woman whose speech changed after a stroke.

I use a wheelchair.

I am a believer.

I am a writer.

I am still Cassandra.

But even that word “still” deserves examination.

“Still Cassandra” must never mean that the present me is valuable only because enough of the former me survived.

Pre-stroke Cassandra is not the preferred model against which post-stroke Cassandra must be measured.

Post-stroke Cassandra is not a damaged reproduction of an original woman.

The woman before the stroke and the woman after the stroke belong to one complete journey.

My wheelchair is not an unwanted responsibility attached to the parts of me people find inspiring.

My changed speech is not an inconvenience people must tolerate before they can reach my intelligence.

My fatigue does not cancel my calling.

My need for assistance does not erase my agency.

My grief does not make me ungrateful.

My joy does not mean nothing hurts.

My strength does not eliminate my right to need tenderness.

My complete humanity does not require me to perform excellence every moment before I am allowed to occupy my chair.

And neither does yours.

The video asked me to consider what happens when we prefer an imagined person over the complete human being God places before us.

Then, while I was processing it, the lesson became real.

Someone who matters deeply to me began diminishing himself after making a mistake.

He took accountability and then kept going until accountability became self-erasure.

He began removing his own chair.

He seemed to believe that honoring my agency required him to surrender his voice, judgment, contribution, humor, and personhood.

I recognized what was happening.

And because I love him, I refused to benefit from his disappearance.

I called Robie back into his chair.

I told him that he mattered to me.

PERIODT.

End story.

My hand does not allow me to type freely or endlessly.

Every word requires something from my body.

But this morning, I chose to type as much as my hand would allow.

Not because I wanted anyone to call it suffering.

Not because I wanted praise for pushing through pain.

I did it because love sometimes chooses to spend something precious.

It was love in action.

In real time.

For the world.

For the beloveds.

For God.

And today, it was for Robie.

I did not help Robie by pretending he had done nothing wrong.

I did not help him by taking responsibility for work that belongs to him.

I did not help him by making myself smaller.

I helped him by refusing to accept a partnership purchased with his disappearance.

That is another ruler we may need to break.

Some of us believe that accountability means crawling beneath the chair.

Some of us believe that repentance requires permanent humiliation.

Some of us believe that if we made a mistake, we must forfeit our voice before anyone will trust our remorse.

Some of us make ourselves so small that the person we harmed must stop processing their own experience and come rescue us.

That is not repair.

Correction does not require disappearance.

Accountability does not require self-destruction.

Humility does not require pretending we have nothing meaningful to contribute.

Love does not need one person to vanish so the other person can remain visible.

There is room for two chairs.

Two whole people can remain present.

One can say, “You hurt me.”

The other can say, “I hear you, and I am responsible.”

One can offer correction.

The other can receive it without collapsing.

Both can think.

Both can speak.

Both can learn.

Both can retain agency.

Both can remain worthy of love.

That is not domination.

That is not obedience disguised as partnership.

That is contribution without takeover.

Correction without erasure.

Agency without isolation.

Love without requiring sameness.

Two chairs.

Both occupied.

So here is today’s love challenge.

Examine one ruler you have been carrying.

Do not immediately condemn yourself for having it.

Ask where it came from.

Ask what happened before you picked it up.

Ask what wound it has been protecting.

Ask whether it is measuring wisdom or merely familiarity.

Ask whom it excludes.

Ask whether it prevents you from seeing the whole person standing before you.

Ask whether that person is someone you love.

Ask whether that person is you.

Then consider telling somebody—without adding a qualification, usefulness test, correction, warning, or “but”:

“You matter to me.”

PERIODT.

End story.

If you believe in God, invite Him into the place where the ruler was made.

Ask Him to reveal every agreement rooted in fear rather than truth.

Ask Him to help you break the ruler without abandoning the wounded person who once needed it.

“Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts.”

—Psalm 139:23, KJV

If you are unsure about God, do not believe, or may never believe, there is still a chair for you here.

You can examine inherited rulers without pretending to share my faith.

You can practice love in action.

You can refuse to reduce another human being to a category.

You can stop demanding that people disappear before you consider them worthy of remaining beside you.

You belong in this conversation too.

beloveds, perhaps healing is not becoming the person we would have preferred to be.

Perhaps healing includes learning to see, love, and understand the complete person who is actually here.

No selected pieces.

No preferred version.

No disposable chair.

The ruler can break.

The key can emerge.

And love can become visible while the moment is still happening.

You matter to me.

PERIODT.

End story.

If this spoke to you, please comment, share, like, subscribe, and follow.

You never know who may need permission to put down the ruler and return to their chair.

🔑

Asking for A Friend,

Cassandra S.

#YourLifeMattersToMe