This is a Blog of Transparency
For those of you who have seen my posts on my social media, and follow my life, the current issues of this country has placed a hold on many things in my life. As a black woman there are so many things I would like to speak on regarding the current state of events. I will leave that for another blog post.
Instead I would like to speak on how it has effected my heart and how God has restored me back to a place where I no longer feel broken and hurt. If you are currently struggling with brokenness of any capacity, this is for you.
Let me start from the beginning.
We all know the people who have been unfollowing, un friending, un liking pages and friends every New Years. You might be that person, which is fine.
For myself, I never put myself in that position just because of someone disagreeing or not believing in what I believe in. I always used it as an opportunity to minister to someone, or even debate with someone to understand their mind and help them understand mine.
This has allowed for me to meet so many people through my social media and gain connections I never thought I could have.
Recently, I realized that there are so many people who I have allowed to enter into my space that only bring negativity, and do not support my business, my goals or my dreams. It effected how I thought of myself, how I interacted on a daily basis with my audience and even you all who read my blogs.
My self esteem has been really low, with not knowing if my posts are good enough. Not knowing if my work is what it needs to be.
I was just driving this morning telling God that I have based my work in the perception of others instead on what God has asked me to do. Hence the need for this post to help others in their brokenness.
I got hurt
When I heard of the murder of Breonna Taylor and then shortly afterwards of George Floyd, symptoms of trauma seeped into my life. This is a recurring feeling when I see or hear of an incident related to black people and our oppression. So even though the situation itself was painful and I was and still am angry about it, I wasn’t hurt directly from the incidents. Rather I was hurt from the people in my circle, in my corner who have displayed feelings of racism and hatred towards my people.
These are people who I allowed in my space, who I gave my time and energy to, people who I gave power to, and when the time came for them to bring love and support, they abused the power and cast me aside.
I was angry and disappointed. So much so that I decided to separate myself completely from them. My attitude running wild and my fingers constantly typing my feelings and thoughts on the screen as if my words would change their racism.
It didn’t.
I think that my world shifted so much that I didn’t realize that I stopped asking God for His advice and opinion. I was so wrapped up in my anger and my hurt that I completely fell off of the path I was on.
During this time of fury, God was speaking to me through the book of Ezekiel. If you’ve ever read that book, it’s bone chilling to hear the wrath of God and what His anger can do.
Now as I read I hear His voice clear on what He’s doing on Earth, yet at the time I thought this wrath and anger was towards me.
Many times I would hear Him say, I will destroy them, and they will know who I am and turn away from themselves to follow me.
I realized then that I had gotten so far away from God and allowed myself to be hurt just by something a person said. I believed that because it’s important to me, it needs to be important to everyone else. The problem arises when I didn’t give it to God and allow for Him to change their hearts, or speak through me. I missed opportunities to minister to someone and I turned people away from wanting to hear the word of God through me because I used my anger in some non productive ways:
- Debating, arguing, blocking and un friending.
- I even thought about leaving my church because I was hurt and mad at people who didn’t react the way I wanted to.
My hurt ran deep and I had to take a good look at myself and see where the problem lied.
God showed me that instead of learning how to deal with problems head on, I would rather run away and not deal with it. There’s so much He said, but that’s the one thing that stuck out to me. I realized that I gave so much power to others, and instead of remaining steadfast and unmovable through Christ, I allowed brokenness and hurt to take control of my life.
2 Corinthians 5:17
This morning, as I was driving to work, I cried for the first time in a long time (don’t worry I was still driving safely). I cried to God because I knew the pain in my heart was wrecking havoc in my life.
I remembered how it felt before I rededicated my life to Christ. I was always depressed, and always miserable. Trying to find solace any way I could and I didn’t want to go back to that.
I cried while remembering what God says in His word. 2 Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!”
What an amazing gift from God that is.
He reminded me that His death on the cross was because of an eternal love to me. He reminded me that He doesn’t want me to be broken. He doesn’t want to see me in pain. What kind of a father would want that?
He asked me, why won’t I give these feelings to Him and why am I keeping it all to myself?
It’s so easy to try to figure it out on my own, but I can’t. YOU CAN’T.
Its so easy to try to change people but YOU CAN’T.