In my community people see me as mother, minister and leader. I am also wife, sister, daughter, niece, cousin, auntie, godmother and friend. In all of these roles I put my best supportive foot forward because I am in love with God. That is my foundation for survival. God has kept me through hard times, picked me up out of the darkest moments, convinced me that I was wrong when I thought I was too weak to complete my tasks.
But even with a strong love like that, I still have shaky faith moments. I admit it because I am tired of feeling guilty about my secret – that sometimes I am broken. There. I said it. I am that vase that has been put back together again and still holds valuable content. Even with the emotional scarring of poverty, racism and white supremacy, which I have faced from the beginning of my womanhood until even just last month, I remain present and ready to work because I do not allow myself to doubt God. Well, I doubt myself as part of my personal assessments and I struggle at times with remembering that I am actually very strong. I don’t always believe it because I see my failures and my shortcomings. I hear my internal excuses and worries. How do I keep going? How do I keep doing it?
God has taken me – the introvert, the scared short fat girl – and poured into me gifts that are undeniable. He has given me chance after chance to get it right and to try it again to do better. And since I believe that God is not crazy and that God is wiser than me, I have trained myself to actively trust God.
There are times when I stay strong for so long that I become exhausted and do you know what I do? I seriously go to bed and rest. I let my Creator get through to me and remind me that I need to rest and regroup. We assess together what went well and what needs adapting. Then I worship God. Yep, right there in the bed, I praise him for the revival, the attention, and the healing. That’s when I know it is time to get up and go back into the world again. It’s when I can see the sun peeping through the clouds again, that I know I am ready for more work, more love, more life.
It took me a very long time to learn that it’s okay to get weary – that it’s smart to slow down stop rest and restart. I’m just so grateful that I figured it out. The key for me is God. That’s the key. That’s the bottom line to every single thing.
