Reflections From an Open Heart

Marriage, Mama E, and the Future

This morning, I woke up reflecting on the early days of my marriage.

There are a lot of people around me right now who are jumping the broom. It is a beautiful thing to see young love take root and blossom. To see men and women commit to one another in the presence of God and those who love them and care for them!

When we first got married, I had just been promoted while working part-time at the City of Birmingham Mayor’s Office and serving as a youth pastor. We were so young and full of life, excited about all the possibilities of what could be and all the places we’d go! From the moment we were married, we were serving. I was living in a discipleship house in Fairfield, AL, with a group of guys who were passionate about Jesus and seeing the city restored.

Fairfield was a hard but beautiful place! We found love, community, and purpose there.

Fairfield is a historic city that has fallen on hard times over the last 20 to 30 years. Once a booming city that housed the headquarters of U.S. Steel and the Birmingham Southern Railroad, and was home to the Tennessee Coal, Iron & Railroad Company, a thriving rehabilitation hospital (Lloyd Noland Hospital), and the Historically Black College Miles College.

It is also the home of Grace House Ministries. Started in 1992 by Lois Coleman, affectionately known as Mama Lois, Grace House is a place of restoration, safety, and stability for girls in the foster care system. I first encountered this ministry through our friends Tim and Ericka Frye. I met Tim in 2010 at a multi-ministry space called the Advocate Center. We were there for a series of gatherings called Alabama Awaking. That was the height of the racial reconciliation and revival movement that swept across America in the mid-90s, driven by mass gatherings like Promise Keepers and The Call.

As one of a few Black people at the gathering, Tim and I hit it off pretty quickly. We were both nursing fledgling rap careers at the time. We had a deep love for Jesus and, to use the term popular back then in Evangelical and Pentecostal circles, for the African American Community. We had a passion for what Dr. John Perkins, founder of the Christian Community Development Association, called the Three Rs: Reconciliation, Redistribution, and Relocation. We strongly believed in moving into the community to be part of what God was doing among the marginalized and neglected in society.

Tim and his then-wife, Ericka, were both working for Grace House at the time and lived in Fairfield. As we became friends, I would visit their home for worship nights and prayer gatherings. Building my family of faith amongst like-minded people. Fairfield is also the place where my wife and I fell in love.

It was over prayer and worship sessions at their home that we found ourselves praying, serving, and seeking Jesus in the midst of the city. It was long talks with Tim and Ericka that helped us navigate courtship and engagement. Tim and Ericka managed the discipleship house where I lived, and we moved into an apartment upstairs when we got married to oversee it. They prayed with us, sat with us, counseled us, and showed us what it meant to love Jesus and love one another.

That was such a formative time in our lives. I would affectionately refer to Ercka as Mama E, because she was a spiritual mother whose lips were always dripping with gospel truth, motherly kindness, and godly wisdom. She could both encourage me and correct me in grace, humility, and love.

I woke up this morning thinking about that time in our lives, the love we received, and God’s goodness and grace towards us. I will always be grateful to God for those times, they made me the man that I am today!

Unfortunately, we will never have those times again, at least not in the same way with the same people.

Mama E passed away a few years ago, and before her untimely death, she and Tim divorced, and she went from Ericka Frye back to Ericka Robbins, but she was always Mama E to me. Those years, during and after Covid, were hard on her, and by then we had moved from Fairfield to a smaller home for our still-young family and had planted a church in the Gate City neighborhood of Birmingham, AL.

I regret that during some of those final years, we weren’t as close. We would talk occasionally, but Mama E had been worn down by the dissolution of her marriage and the weight that followed. She carried so much for so many people. We also shared a common challenge; we both struggled through bouts of intense respiratory issues. Mama E had asthma and would have severe flare-ups, and so did I, especially when I was younger. We both got hit really hard with Covid.

I can still remember my wife sitting on the porch as I arrived home in the late summer of 2023. She asked me about my day, and then asked me to sit down, and shared that Mama E had passed.

I didn’t know what to do.

During that season of life, I was going through a pretty difficult time at work. I was leading an organization that had lost $300,000 from our annual budget due to intentional sabotage by another leader in our city who was supposed to be a brother in Christ. I found myself fighting daily battles to keep my staff and programming going, while at times wrestling with certain members of the board for internal and external support.

I was numb, confused, and exhausted.

While my wife and I sat on the porch, I received a call from my brother and an amazing man of God, Jarred. He was Ericka’s pastor and friend, and he called me to tell me of Ericka’s passing as well. We both just sat silently on the phone, trying to encourage each other, but not knowing what to say. We were so used to leading through tragedy and difficulty that we did what we did best: show up for others. All we could do was pray about it and keep moving, because if we sat in silence too long, we would be consumed by grief and loss.

As I look back on that time in my life, I am amazed that we made it through.

We didn’t make it through unscathed, but we survived. It took me over a year to actually grieve Ericka’s passing. It would come with leaving the organization I was leading, and slowing down to be with God and myself to really process through the loss.

But this morning, I am no longer grieving, but grateful. I am grateful to God for Ericka and the role she and Tim played in our lives. I am grateful for their love and kindness. I am grateful for the wisdom and for the faithful presence they brought into our lives. I am grateful that I can still hear Mama E’s voice in my heart saying, “Dannyson, are you willing to count the cost?” Or encouraging me to keep singing.

So, yes, I woke up this morning thinking about marriage and what has helped us endure these almost 13 years. I am grateful for what has been and for what will be!

The song below is what I woke up to this morning: