It's just Me Abby

I found a small handmade book in my son’s backpack. 

“Life Blog: My life as a trip.” by Oliver Wilton. 

He writes, “My life is like a trip. I move a lot. I only stay at a house for two or one years, maybe three years. We move a lot to tell the gospel.”

It goes on for two more sentences and then it ends. I already love everything about this little book. 

But something deep within me wants him to be able to end it with, “and then we made roots.”

It was his 9th birthday a few of weeks ago. For his class celebration we had to write about something unique that happened each year he’s been alive.

What we found most unique was that our family had moved to a new country or state seven of the nine years of his young life.  

At the beginning of this year we moved back to New Orleans, Louisiana. The birth place of my husband and all three of my sons. 

Honestly, I never thought I wanted to move back. I’m drawn to big cities with an international flair. Not a small Gotham city. I reminded my husband that regularly before we moved. And even after. 

My kids’ new school is not exactly close to where we live. My commute every morning to drop them all off is roughly one and a half hours. The afternoon pickup takes almost two hours. With the police force on the decline, the city relies on high speed cameras to detect any speeding. There are over 15 cameras on our daily school route and I have already received 3 tickets in the mail. And guess what, Greg Wilton? It’s not my fault because you’re the one that moved our family here.

Two days ago there was a shooting just outside New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary where we live. My husband, who happened to be outside and at the front of the campus, heard it happen and ran to help. 

It was a targeted drive by. A young man in the passenger seat was killed instantly and his mother, who was driving, was severely injured. How do you comfort a woman with multiple gun shot wounds lying on the ground wailing, “My baby, my baby.”? I can’t imagine the images my husband carries of the weeping mother and her dead son. 

This is the second shooting to take place in front of our campus within the last 3 weeks. 

Dr. Jamie Dew, president of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, couldn’t say it more perfectly for anyone desiring to pursue a degree in preparation for ministry, “Prepare here, serve anywhere.” 

Hearing about stories like this disturbs the pooh out of so many people.  

New Orleans, the modern day Sodom and Gomorrah. Best stay as far away as you can. Be safe! Don’t corrupt yourselves. 

 Maybe that’s why I’ve fallen in love with this city all over again. It’s the wicked Nineveh that God has compassion on. 

How could I be the Jonah that runs away? 

What this city needs, and every other dark, slippery place alike, are torches lighting it up with the gospel.

Torches like my friend Bailee who works at a coffee shop in Tremaine. As I write this I am sitting inside her shop with my London fog listening to her right now share with some coworkers and customers about her college paper she just wrote and submitted entitled Did Jesus Die for Everybody?

I’ll root family deep into New Orleans if it means lighting it up torch by torch with the compassion and love of Jesus.

And my family will share Jesus with as many people as we can, light up every Mardi Gras, go to as many Saints games as possible, try every restaurant, eat lots of beignets, expand our waistlines, and none of it will be my fault.

Hear that, Greg Wilton? 

Not. My. Fault.