Beloveds,
Your story is NOT over. Be encouraged.
Stand!
Fight!
Try!
Believe!
In YOU!
You are never alone. Still really sick but standing TEN TOES down on faith, hope, and love.
I love me some YOU. SO DOES HE!
Cassandra
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
🔑 IT’S NEVER TIME TO QUIT — PIECE THREE
COLUMBO DIDN’T NEED TO KNOW EVERYTHING.
Beloveds,
I have apparently become Columbo.
🤣🕵🏿♀️
Not intentionally.
Nobody issued me the trench coat.
I did not apply for the position.
But after spending an absolutely ridiculous amount of time trying to figure out why my posts suddenly would not behave, I found myself doing exactly what Columbo does.
Looking.
Thinking.
Walking away.
Coming back.
Trying something.
Discovering that wasn’t it.
Looking again.
And then:
“Just one more thing…”
👀
That might be one of the most useful things I have learned about perseverance.
Sometimes perseverance is not courage first.
Sometimes it is curiosity.
🔑
We usually tell stories about perseverance after everything has worked out.
That makes them sound much prettier than they felt while somebody was living them.
We say:
She kept going.
He refused to give up.
They persevered.
Wonderful.
But what did “kept going” actually LOOK like?
Because sometimes it looks remarkably unimpressive.
🤣
Try something.
Nope.
Try something else.
Still nope.
Get irritated.
Take a break.
Come back.
Ask a different question.
Realize you have been solving the wrong problem.
👀
Now THAT will humble you.
🔑
I had been looking at my posting problem and thinking one thing was wrong.
Then another.
Then another.
At some point, the problem itself became less interesting to me than the assumptions I was making about it.
What if the problem isn’t where I think it is?
What if what LOOKS wrong is not actually what IS wrong?
What changed?
What stayed the same?
What haven’t I tested?
What am I assuming because it worked yesterday?
And—
just one more thing…
🤣🕵🏿♀️
What if I don’t need the whole answer yet?
🔑
That question matters.
Because sometimes we quit when we cannot see the entire road.
We think we need certainty before taking another step.
We want the solution.
The plan.
The explanation.
The guarantee.
The map with a cheerful little arrow announcing:
YOU ARE HERE.
And preferably another one saying:
EVERYTHING WORKS OUT RIGHT OVER THERE.
🤣
Life has been extremely inconsiderate about providing those maps.
So maybe I don’t need to know everything.
Maybe I need to know the next useful thing.
🔑
What can I learn from what just happened?
What changed?
What did not?
What have I already ruled out?
What deserves another attempt?
What absolutely does NOT deserve another attempt?
Do I need more effort?
Or better information?
Do I need to keep pushing?
Or stop long enough to notice what all that pushing has been hiding?
Do I need an answer?
Or do I need a better question?
👀
There it is.
🔑
Sometimes the key is not an answer.
Sometimes the key is the question that finally opens something.
That changes how I think about failure too.
A failed attempt can feel like:
I couldn’t do it.
But curiosity says:
Interesting.
That didn’t work.
Why?
What did it teach me?
What do I know now that I did not know five minutes ago?
What happens if I change ONE thing?
That failed attempt just became information.
It did not become prophecy.
It cannot tell me what I will never accomplish.
It can only tell me what happened THIS time, under THESE conditions, using THIS method.
That is a much smaller statement.
And smaller statements leave room for possibility.
🔑
Beloveds, maybe there is something in your life you cannot figure out right now.
I am not going to hand you a motivational poster and tell you to TRY HARDER.
Sometimes trying harder is exactly how we wear ourselves out doing the wrong thing more efficiently.
👀🤣
Instead, I’m handing you Columbo’s question.
“Just one more thing…”
🕵🏿♀️
What haven’t you asked yet?
Maybe:
What am I assuming?
What am I afraid the answer will be?
What changed?
What keeps repeating?
What have I learned?
Who could help me see what I cannot see from where I am standing?
What happens if I rest?
What happens if I change the method?
What happens if I stop demanding that today’s information answer tomorrow’s questions?
What if I am not stuck?
What if I am still investigating?
🔑
I like that.
Still investigating.
Because there are seasons when I genuinely do not know what comes next.
And I am learning that “I don’t know” does not automatically mean:
There is nowhere to go.
Sometimes it simply means:
I don’t know.
Yet.
So I can stay curious.
I can look again.
I can ask another question.
I can change my mind when the evidence changes.
I can admit when my first theory was wrong.
I can rest without closing the case.
And when I am ready—
👀
“Just one more thing…”
🤣🕵🏿♀️🔑
Maybe perseverance isn’t always charging forward.
Sometimes it is refusing to let confusion have the final word.
Sometimes it is staying curious long enough to discover that the problem was never quite what you thought it was.
And sometimes the next step isn’t an answer.
It’s a better question.
You matter to me.
Cassandra
#YourLifeMattersToMe
One step. One step. One step.
You are loved.
You are NOT alone.
Keep on being…YOU!
Just stopped by, beloveds, to ask…
How are you—really?
Not the answer you give because somebody is waiting, somebody needs something, or you do not feel like unpacking the whole suitcase today.
I mean you.
Have you eaten something?
Had some water?
Taken your medicine?
Rested before your body had to submit a written complaint to management? 🤣
Have you laughed today?
Cried if you needed to?
Sat quietly without turning your quiet into another assignment?
And if the honest answer is, “Cassandra, today has been doing entirely too much,” that answer is welcome here too.
You do not have to turn a hard day into a testimony before bedtime.
You do not have to make your struggle sound inspiring so somebody else can be comfortable with it.
You do not have to explain every bruise life left where nobody could see it.
Maybe you are celebrating.
Maybe you are surviving.
Maybe you are somewhere between “Won’t He do it!” and “Lord, what exactly are We doing?” 😭🤣
Whatever you believe, do not believe, or are still figuring out, there is room for your honest answer here.
If words are too expensive tonight, leave one emoji.
If even that is too much, just know I stopped by and left the porch light on.
There is a chair for you.
There is no admission test.
You matter to me.
So tell me, beloveds:
How are you—really?
Comment with a word, an emoji, or whatever you have.
Share this with somebody who may need a loving knock on the door.
Like, subscribe, and follow so we can keep checking on one another.
🔑
Asking for A Friend,
Cassandra
#YourLifeMattersToMe
🔑 IT’S NEVER TIME TO QUIT — PIECE ONE
SOMETIMES THE WAY YOU REFUSE TO QUIT IS BY REFUSING TO KEEP GOING THE SAME WAY.
Beloveds,
I want to start this new series by clearing something up.
When I say, “It’s never time to quit,” I do NOT mean you should keep pushing yourself until there is nothing left of you.
I do not mean you cannot stop.
I do not mean you cannot rest.
I do not mean you cannot change your mind.
I do not mean you cannot ask for help.
I do not mean you have to keep using a method that is hurting you just because it used to work.
And I definitely do not mean that exhaustion is evidence that you simply need to try harder.
👀
Nah, fam.
Sometimes you need to sit down.
🪑
Sometimes you need to sleep.
Sometimes you need to cry.
Sometimes you need to laugh.
Sometimes you need to admit, “This is not working.”
Sometimes you need somebody else.
Sometimes you need a completely different plan.
Sometimes you need to leave something alone for the rest of the day and come back tomorrow.
And sometimes the strongest declaration of “I am not quitting” sounds like:
“I cannot keep doing it THIS way.”
🔑
That distinction matters to me.
Because there have been times in my life when continuing did not look particularly impressive.
There was no inspirational soundtrack.
Nobody was standing nearby applauding.
There was no dramatic finish line waiting for me.
There was just another thing that needed to be figured out.
Another adjustment.
Another frustration.
Another moment when what used to be simple was not simple anymore.
Another moment when I had to decide whether changing the way I did something meant I had failed.
I am learning that it does not.
I can change the method without abandoning the mission.
I can change the pace without abandoning the journey.
I can accept help without surrendering my agency.
I can rest without surrendering my purpose.
I can have a difficult day without declaring that I have a difficult life.
I can say, “Enough for today,” without saying, “I am finished forever.”
Those are not the same sentences.
❤️🩹
Maybe you need to hear that too.
Maybe you have been calling yourself a quitter because you had to stop.
Maybe your body made you stop.
Maybe your finances made you reconsider the plan.
Maybe somebody disappointed you.
Maybe something you thought would work did not.
Maybe you tried again and it STILL did not work.
Maybe you are tired of beginning again.
Maybe you are embarrassed that you need help with something you once handled easily.
Maybe everybody around you seems to be moving while you feel stuck in the same place.
Maybe you are looking at somebody else’s progress and using it as evidence against your own.
Please put down that measuring stick.
🔑
You are allowed to continue differently.
You are allowed to move slowly.
You are allowed to crawl through one season and dance through another.
You are allowed to change directions.
You are allowed to learn.
You are allowed to adapt.
You are allowed to discover that the thing you thought was the destination was only one possible route.
And yes, beloved, you are allowed to REST.
Rest is not quitting.
Changing your strategy is not quitting.
Asking for help is not quitting.
Using a different tool is not quitting.
Taking longer than you expected is not quitting.
Starting again is not quitting.
Beginning from somewhere you never expected to be is not quitting.
Sometimes those things are exactly what continuing looks like.
👩🏿🦼
I know something now that I did not understand in quite the same way before my life changed.
“One step” does not always mean putting one foot in front of another.
Sometimes a step is a decision.
Sometimes a step is asking.
Sometimes a step is accepting.
Sometimes a step is trying something differently.
Sometimes a step is admitting that you are tired.
Sometimes a step is stopping long enough to recover enough strength for the next one.
And sometimes your step will not look like anybody else’s.
It still counts.
One step.
One step.
One step.
🔑
I also want to say something to the people who are exhausted by motivational language.
You know the kind.
KEEP GOING!
PUSH HARDER!
NO EXCUSES!
NEVER STOP!
👀
Listen.
Sometimes you absolutely need to stop.
Human beings are not machines.
And even machines overheat.
🤣
So this series is not going to be about pretending you are limitless.
You have limits.
So do I.
Some limits can change.
Some can be stretched.
Some need to be respected.
Some require accommodations.
Some require another person to come alongside us.
Some require us to grieve what we cannot do the way we once did it.
And none of that makes our lives less valuable.
None of that removes our purpose.
None of that means the story is over.
🔑
There is another sentence I want us to carry through this series:
The hard thing does not get to write the final sentence.
It may write a sentence.
It may write a paragraph.
It may even write an entire chapter you never wanted.
But it does not automatically get the ending.
You are still here.
And while you are here, there are still choices available to you.
There may be fewer choices than you wish you had.
They may not be the choices you expected.
But somewhere in what remains, there may still be a 🔑.
Maybe the key is help.
Maybe the key is rest.
Maybe the key is forgiveness.
Maybe the key is trying again.
Maybe the key is stopping something that is destroying you.
Maybe the key is beginning something you are terrified to begin.
Maybe the key is admitting that the old way is gone.
Maybe the key is discovering another way.
That is what I want us to explore together.
Not some shiny version of perseverance where everybody triumphs before the commercial break.
Real perseverance.
Messy perseverance.
Tired perseverance.
Wheelchair perseverance.
Starting-over perseverance.
“I have absolutely no idea what I am doing but apparently we are doing it anyway” perseverance.
🤣
That kind.
Because I know something about that kind.
And I suspect some of you do too.
So pull up your chair.
🪑
There is room here for the person who is certain.
There is room for the person who is questioning.
There is room for the person who believes as I do.
There is room for the person who does not.
There is room for the person who is hopeful.
There is room for the person who cannot find hope today.
You do not have to resolve everything before you belong here.
You do not have to agree with me before I care about you.
You do not have to become somebody else before your life matters to me.
You matter to me.
🔑
And Cassandra is going to keep saying that.
Because somebody needs to hear it until they can believe it for themselves.
This week we are going to talk about what refusing to quit can actually look like when you are tired.
When you are afraid.
When you are angry.
When you are disappointed.
When you need help.
When the original plan is gone.
When you have to begin again.
And when continuing looks nothing like you imagined it would.
We are not going to pretend any of it is easy.
We are going to look for the 🔑 anyway.
Because sometimes the way you refuse to quit is by refusing to keep going the same way.
And sometimes the bravest thing you can say is:
“This way isn’t working.”
Followed by:
“So let’s find another one.”
🔑
We fight on.
Not recklessly.
Not endlessly.
Not without rest.
Not alone.
But we fight on.
One step.
One step.
One step.
You are loved.
You are NOT alone.
Keep on being…YOU!
Asking for A Friend,
Cassandra
#YourLifeMattersToMe
Unapologetically His.
🔑
MOVIE SATURDAY WITH CASSANDRA
Beloveds,
Pull up a chair.
I have something new for us.
Every Saturday, we’re going to the movies together.
Well…
Sort of.
You don’t have to buy a ticket.
You don’t have to get dressed.
You don’t have to leave your house.
And you certainly don’t have to pay movie-theater prices for popcorn.
Every Saturday at NOON, I’m opening the doors to our little Movie Saturday with Cassandra matinee.
I’ll bring a movie.
You bring you.
That’s it.
Some weeks we’ll laugh.
Some weeks we’ll cry.
Some weeks we’ll probably holler at the screen because somebody in the movie has apparently misplaced ALL their good sense.
Some movies may make us think about family, friendship, race, love, grief, faith, disability, second chances, forgiveness, education, aging, belonging, or what it means to become somebody we didn’t expect to become.
And some weeks?
Beloveds, we may just watch a good movie.
PERIODT.
Everything does not have to become homework.
Sometimes joy gets to simply be joy.
For our very first Movie Saturday, I had two movies in mind.
And My Bestie had opinions.
I had opinions.
There may have been a tiny disagreement.
Okay.
Maybe not tiny.
But after careful consideration, extensive deliberation, and the completely scientific process known as Cassandra picked the one she wanted to watch, we have a winner.
THIS WEEK’S MOVIE:
BACK TO SCHOOL MOM
Starring Kimberly Elise and Loretta Devine.
This one gives us plenty to work with:
Education.
Motherhood.
Second chances.
Unfinished business.
Dreams that didn’t disappear simply because life happened.
And becoming.
I already suspect we’re going to have some THOUGHTS.
But here’s something important about Movie Saturday:
You don’t have to see what I see.
You don’t have to like the character I like.
You might understand somebody I absolutely wanted to fuss at.
You might notice something I completely missed.
You might love the movie.
You might hate it.
You might change your mind halfway through.
So might I.
That’s part of the fun.
Different people can sit on the same couch, watch the same story, and walk away carrying completely different things.
That doesn’t have to separate us.
Sometimes it can help us understand one another better.
And everybody gets a chair here.
Believer.
Nonbeliever.
Questioning.
Certain.
Uncertain.
Movie lover.
Person who hasn’t watched a movie in six months.
Person who comes exclusively for the popcorn.
Whosoeverwill.
Come.
You don’t have to believe what I believe to belong with me.
You don’t have to agree with Cassandra to sit beside Cassandra.
That’s not what the chair is for.
The chair says:
Come as you are.
Watch when you can.
Laugh when something is funny.
Cry if something gets you.
Think if something makes you think.
Disagree when you disagree.
Change your mind if you change your mind.
And if all you get from today’s movie is two hours when life wasn’t asking something from you?
Beloved, that counts too.
❤️
Because maybe movies can do something else for us.
Maybe stories let us borrow somebody else’s eyes for a little while.
Maybe they help us recognize people we’ve misunderstood.
Maybe they remind us of somebody we love.
Maybe they show us something uncomfortable about ourselves.
Maybe they give us language for something we’ve felt but couldn’t quite name.
Maybe they make us laugh until our stomach hurts.
And maybe every once in a while, somewhere in somebody else’s story, we find a little for our own.
That’s worth pulling up a chair for.
So grab your popcorn.
Grab your snacks.
Grab your blanket.
Grab the good chair before somebody else gets it. 藍
And come watch with me.
SATURDAY MATINEE
12:00 PM
BACK TO SCHOOL MOM
https://youtu.be/XdhcIGUOpZk
You don’t have to start precisely at noon.
Noon is just when Cassandra opens the theater doors.
Come when you can.
And after we’ve watched?
Ohhhh, Beloveds.
WE’RE GONNA TALK.
What did you notice?
Who did you understand?
Who got on your LAST nerve?
Did anybody surprise you?
Did anything make you reconsider something you thought you already knew?
Did you laugh?
Did you cry?
Did you yell at your television?
And perhaps most importantly:
Did you enjoy yourself?
Because we’re building something here that has room for serious conversations AND popcorn.
Faith AND questions.
Learning AND laughter.
Different stories.
Different perspectives.
Different people.
Same couch.
One amazing community.
Welcome to Movie Saturday with Cassandra.
The theater is open.
The popcorn is ready.
And there’s a chair here with your name on it.
Come watch a movie with me.
Cassandra
You matter to me.
It’s been a day. Be encouraged .
Cassandra
Today was…
*sigh*
Whew!!
It’s not the 2nd but still…
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
📫 YOU WERE NEVER UGLY. 💔🌎🥹🔑
Beloveds,
Apparently somebody, somewhere, got appointed President of the International Committee of Who Gets to Be Beautiful.
Nobody remembers voting.
Yet somehow, human beings have spent generations walking around with imaginary clipboards deciding:
Too dark.
Too light.
Too fat.
Too thin.
Too loud.
Too quiet.
Wrong hair.
Wrong nose.
Wrong body.
Wrong clothes.
Wrong accent.
Wrong voice.
Wrong neighborhood.
Wrong country.
Wrong way of speaking.
Wrong way of moving through the world.
And some of us received those evaluations before we were old enough to understand that the people holding the clipboards did not actually have any authority.
I was eight years old when “ugly” became more than a word.
Children can learn very early which faces the world celebrates and which ones it mocks. They can learn who gets invited, who gets chased down hallways, who sits at the lunch table surrounded by laughter—and who learns how to eat while pretending being alone does not hurt.
Sometimes a child carries one careless word for decades.
Ugly.
That word can grow up with you.
It can follow you into mirrors.
Into photographs.
Into friendships.
Into dating.
Into marriage.
Into classrooms.
Into workplaces.
Into churches.
Into hospital rooms.
It can even follow you into recovery, when the body you finally learned to love suddenly moves differently, sounds differently, needs different equipment, or requires help doing things it once did without thought.
And that is why this conversation is bigger than beauty.
It is about belonging.
Because humanity has created thousands of sophisticated ways to say:
You would be easier for me to accept if you were a little less you.
Speak differently.
Straighten this.
Hide that.
Lose this.
Change that.
Fix your accent.
Lower your voice.
Control your face.
Make your body less noticeable.
Make your disability less inconvenient.
Make your Blackness less Black.
Make your culture easier for me to understand.
Make your faith quieter.
Make your doubt quieter.
Make your anger prettier.
Make your grief more comfortable.
Make yourself acceptable—
and then perhaps we will let you belong.
Nevertheless.
However.
What if belonging was never theirs to give?
🔑
What if the little girl somebody called ugly was never ugly?
What if the accent somebody mocked was never broken English?
What if the voice somebody dismissed was carrying wisdom they simply had not learned how to hear?
What if the wheelchair was not an eraser?
What if the cane was not a declaration of defeat?
What if scars were not disqualifications?
What if age did not subtract beauty?
What if different was never another word for deficient?
What if the problem was never the human being standing before us—
but the tiny measuring stick we were taught to use?
💔🌎
The world is heartbroken.
And sometimes we keep handing broken measuring sticks to one another.
That is one chain I desperately want us to break.
⛓️ You must look like this to be beautiful.
🔑 No. Human beauty was never manufactured from one template.
⛓️ You must sound like this to be intelligent.
🔑 No. Intelligence has accents.
⛓️ You must move like this to be whole.
🔑 No. Wholeness has wheelchairs, walkers, braces, prosthetics, canes, trembling hands, altered bodies and very creative ways of getting from here to there.
⛓️ You must believe what I believe to sit beside me.
🔑 No. Pull up a chair.
Believer.
Atheist.
Agnostic.
Questioning.
Certain.
Uncertain.
Still figuring the whole thing out.
Come sit.
My faith does not require me to make you smaller so God can be bigger.
I believe God so loved the world.
Not the polished world.
Not the attractive world.
Not the Christian-enough world.
Not the able-bodied world.
Not the English-speaking-with-the-approved-accent world.
The world. 🌎
And if you do not believe any of that?
You still get the chair.
Because you matter to ME.
Not because you agreed with me.
Not because you passed a theology examination.
Not because you became inspirational enough for somebody else’s story.
Not because somebody finally decided you were beautiful.
You matter because you are here.
Maybe somebody called you ugly.
Maybe nobody ever said the word aloud, but they taught it to you anyway.
Maybe they taught it through who they photographed.
Who they dated.
Who they hired.
Who they listened to.
Who they interrupted.
Who they believed.
Who they protected.
Who they mocked.
Who they called “professional.”
Who they called “articulate.”
Who they called “beautiful.”
And who they simply refused to see.
Beloved,
I cannot go backward and sit beside every lonely eight-year-old.
I wish I could.
But I can pull out a chair today.
I can tell the child.
The teenager.
The grown woman.
The grown man.
The elder.
The person staring at a body that has changed.
The person whose speech sounds different.
The person whose accent enters the room before anybody bothers learning their name.
The person who still avoids photographs.
The person who learned to make jokes about themselves before anybody else could.
The person who still hears an old insult when they look into a mirror:
That measuring stick was broken.
Throw it away.
🗑️
Actually—
put it in the recycling bin.
We are trying to be responsible citizens. 🤣🥰
Then come back over here.
We have chairs.
We have room.
We have work to do.
And we have an entire heartbroken world waiting to discover what might happen when human beings stop grading one another and start seeing one another.
I see you.
Not despite the things somebody taught you to hate about yourself.
I am learning to see you with them.
Your face.
Your body.
Your age.
Your history.
Your scars.
Your mobility equipment.
Your language.
Your accent.
Your laugh.
Your silence.
Your questions.
Your magnificent, complicated humanity.
Keep it.
All of it.
You were never required to become somebody else’s definition of beautiful before you became worthy of love.
And perhaps today one of us can find the courage to look into the mirror and tell that old word—
“You tried it.” 🤣
Then hand it its little imaginary clipboard.
Show it the door.
And get on with the holy, hilarious, difficult, beautiful business of being alive.
Because the world does not need another perfectly acceptable human being.
🌎 The world needs YOU.
And Beloved—
#YourLifeMattersToMe.
Asking for A Friend,
Cassandra
#YourLifeMattersToMe
Note: One step. One step. One step. You are loved. You are NOT alone. Keep on being…YOU!
If this found a tender place in you, pull up a chair in the comments. Share it with somebody who spent too many years believing a broken measuring stick. Like it, follow/subscribe, and come back—we are finding keys together every day. 🔑💔🌎🥹
