The darkness helps us appreciate light. The cold helps us appreciate heat. The gray helps us appreciate the rainbow of colors. Pain helps us appreciate a healed wound.
Black joy is the single most beautiful, courageous act.
In a world where Black people are the most hated- as evidenced by maternal mortality rates and a slew of other poor health outcomes, the injustice that pervades the “justice” system, police brutality, and the wealth gap, to name a few, Black joy really is resistance.
It’s because of the depths and pains of our experiences that Black joy radiates so much more. It’s because of all I’ve had to endure. And my parents and their parents and their parents before them.
No matter how “good” I’ve had it, my body keeps the score and I know full well deep down in the marrow and in my DNA how hard and cruel this world has been to us.
Black joy is fierce and burns as bright as a thousand burning suns. Black joy is an act of resistance because it says “Despite everything that I have been through, everything that those before me have been through, I am still well! I’m not surviving, I am thriving despite it all!” Black joy is the table made before my enemies.
I thank God for joy. I thank God that because of my pains, I can choose to embrace joy sweeter, softer, and fuller.
And there were times I wish I didn’t have to endure any of the hard stuff. But hindsight has taught me that the hardest parts have matured me. I have strong confidence that it’s because of all of the hardships that I’ve endured that inevitably taught me, molded me, and shaped me to make transformation and recovery my home.
Abundance is my birthright and so is joy.
I am who God says I am, not who others say I am. I’m not even who I say I am! I am light. I am divine. I am God in action.
Thankfully, God rewards me for all of the hardships I choose to endure. He ensures that he’ll make right. And I’m rewarded when I choose to live in the present. I feel joy when I choose to experience God in the warmth of the sun, in the beauty of nature, in the bold colors and the unique shapes and designs in plants and flowers. Designs that only he himself could have created! When I allow myself to experience joy, I know that not only God lives, but I am living too!
When I allow myself to experience joy, I allow God to live through me.
I am God in action. And when I choose joy, I choose love. When I choose joy, I choose hope for my present and my future. When I choose joy, I choose to not let those who wished me harm make me feel little or small or less than. When I choose joy, I choose wholeness and fullness and completeness. When I, a divine Black woman, choose joy, I light up a room and I command attention and people wish that they had what I have. When I choose joy, I am choosing God.
And sometimes I don’t choose joy and that’s okay, too. Because all of the other emotions that exist in the world allow me to rest and revel whenever I choose to return to my home in it. Whenever I do decide to choose it. What I know now is that joy is always within an arm’s reach, and I’m grateful that I can embrace joy like God embraces me.
