Write Off by Cynthia Carlisle Fields

While sitting at lunch today with my Dad, my mind wandered to the days when I worked in the credit industry. I worked for a company that served as a third party lender for PLUS loans. These were federally funded loans that helped parents pay for their children's college education. It was based on credit worthiness and often times a parent's credit history prohibited them from taking advantage of this financial aid program. My company worked with parents who received an initial credit declination in hopes of turning it around to an approval.

Today, my mind thought of the status that would often read, "Write-off." This told us that the creditor after several unsuccessful attempts to collect had simply given up, and wrote the item and the borrower off as a loss. In their opinion that borrower had become a bad business risk and not worth any further effort on their part to collect on the debt. 

I thought about how we as human beings are often written off as bad debt; not worth the effort to save any longer. We are looked at as no longer possessing any value to anyone and so, we are justifiably it may seem, cast into a huge pile of unredeemable rubbish, forgotten, written off. It saddens me to see this practice taking place across the board in our lives as we give up on relationships that we swore were so important to us or turn a blind eye to those struggling and in need. It has become so common place to write each other off simply because we don't measure up to the standards we have created for them. I am even more heartbroken as I watch people leave our churches without knowing why, and without as much as a conversation or act of concern. We have become comfortable with writing each other off without any awareness of what we have left behind.  

I'm so glad that God does not write us off as a loss, bad debt or bad business! We shall forever be in HIS debt for sending His Son to pay the debt for our sins and even though we can never repay it, he does not write us off! Even while putting his plan in place He no doubt knew we would fall, not once, not twice, but over and over again, yet, He has not written us off and he allows us to come to him with a request for an extension, another chance as you will. He accepts our promises to do better and to uphold our end of surrendering our whole lives to his will and even though we fail to fulfill our promises, He still values us as worthy of the attempt to collect our souls for life in eternity with Him!

So, the next time we casually write-off that which God has already deemed priceless, I challenge you to reconsider the price that God paid to save our souls from sin. Bad debt? Perhaps, but still God our father felt we were worth the collection attempt and so he sent his only Son to redeem us and to save us from our sins! He did it just for me, just for you and I'm so glad He did!

The End...

A Letter to the One I Love -By Cynthia Carlisle Fields

I've come to a stage in my life where I find myself spending a lot of time in review. Reviewing my life, choices, challenges, victories and yes, especially my failures. It is that list of failures that has prompted me to write a letter to a very special person in my life. I love this person with all of my heart, but I don't tell them nearly enough how I feel about them. I get so wrapped up in that list of failures that I don't say how much this person means to me, how valuable they are, how wonderful and magnificent they are and that the world would not be the same if she were not here. Every time I forget to do this, that list of failures I spoke about earlier gets longer. So, now is the time, right now, to sit and write a letter to the love of my life and after she reads it, I hope she forgives me for all the times I took her for granted, mistreated her, spoke ill of her and regarded her as less than worthy of love, happiness and joy. 

Dear ME:

I pray that this letter finds you well. First I want to thank you in advance for taking the time to read this letter. You didn't have to because I know you're busy trying to chase that dream that for so long has been deferred. I so admire your belief in that dream and how you refuse to let the naysayers trick you into believing that you can't have that which your heart desires. I know it's hard sometimes keeping the faith strong and pushing ahead. God has given you everything you need to see what others may not...YET! 

You are important---to ME and I haven't always shown you the love you deserve. I've kept you up much too late and gotten you up much too early and fed you the scraps from the table of strangers. I forgot to treat your body like the temple that it is. God's gift deserving of care, loving care, love. For this, I am so sorry. Wonderfully and marvelously made by the very hands of God! I didn't always regard your skin as beautiful, sprinkled with cocoa brown beauty marks passed down from your mother. You always felt ashamed so you covered them and prayed no one would asked about them. Made...by God's hands! 

You are good enough! Just as you are! The curves of your hips, the unruly wave of your hair...is...good...enough! God did this because HE saw a beautiful carmel/black girl in his mind's eye and so he made you! God's hands! Each twist, bump, wrinkle...He Did This..YOU! I should have told you it was okay what you saw in the mirror each day. You studied yourself and so many times you did not approve and I stood with you in silence as you accepted the critical evaluation of yourself. God's hands! His handiwork!! No mistakes because he just doesn't make them!

So you've had your heart broken on more than one occasion, still you secretly though silently pray that by some chance love will find it's way to you. You've convinced yourself that it's you. Not worthy, not good enough, not likable or lovable. Convinced that others, that a man could see your flaws instantly at first glance. And so, it made perfect sense to you why you are alone! God Did Not Make YOU to be alone! His hands...Mercy! I should have told you that it was all a lie! But I neglected you because I was afraid and again I stood by while you cried yourself to sleep night after night and woke up with tear stained cheeks morning after morning! I am so sorry for not taking care of your heart!

Now it's time for me to make amends. It's never to late to get it right and since I know that you possess within you the power and wisdom to forgive, I'm asking you for another chance to be the person that  God made me to be in your life. You are a Queen, you're special, and you're unique! So much so that when God made you, he only made one. Your mission should you choose to accept it is to be the best YOU! God loves you, he has breathed a purpose into your existence that does not include failure, my dear precious woman! Take hold of His hand it's there, I know you can feel it. Open your heart first to Him and then just you wait and see what the God of all things good will do for you!

I've got to go now, for you see, I'm busy too. I hope you read these words and take them to heart. Remember, I love you without question, or reservation, boldly and without shame. No it's not pride or arrogance it's simply assurance because I know that what lies ahead is nothing that God has not already given you the tools to handle! 

 Please keep me in your prayers and you will be in mine. 

Loving you just because,

ME