I been writing. Aaaactually, I been writing writing. Yep, two writings!
Sharing my words sometimes feels like sharing my money, you know? But maybe you don’t. For those of us who hold words near and very dear like we’re gently and lovingly coddling a newborn baby, words are currency. (Baaayby, words are currency?! Good thing this is copyrighted because that was simply genius! 🤣)
Words are currency because, as I often say “words mean things” and “wars have been started by words”. When people don’t support you, it hurts. Oh baby it can hurt like a knife in the gut, or at least what I imagine that’d feel like. Thankfully, the only knife in the gut I had was a scalpel but I was sedated (surgery y’all, it was surgery!).
Conversely, when words or love and kindness are shared with me, it can feel like a million bucks! (From my lips to God’s ears!)
Anywho, I’ve been writing… In secret? Like definitely not at all in secret though because I’ve been posting to my public blog and there are millions reading it! Oh, my bad, I spelled dozens wrong. HA! (Interjecting from 8/12/24– The joke is on ME because thousandssssss have read my blog and this post is among the most read! 🤯🙌🏾🙏🏾✨💃🏾) But I haven’t been sharing freely and widely across social media because I’m doing this thing where I’m building my blog posting muskles (as in muscles, but put with some umph and to make it extra skrength!).
I love writing and writing loves me. 🫶🏾❤️🤲🏾🙏🏾
And yes, I’ve been hoarding these words like financial anorexics hoard money in their bank accounts. Waiting. Building. Hoping. Waiting for courage to come, knowing that in due time, it will. Building a repertoire so when the time is right, when the emotions and spirit and everything is just so, you can share and spend with ease and grace. Hoping I’ll stick with it this time. And I will. Of that, I am certain. All of these things are true.
[Side note: can you let me be human?! Yes, I know I’m a loudmouth talking about I’m courageous and whatnot, but sometimes, you know that’s me building my courage muscle, yes?! That I gotta speak things as though they were and not as though they are because ya girl be quaking in her knee high leather boots sometimes! But even when my knees quake, I still show up and show out. I lovingly and gently demand courage of myself. I speak it over myself and have been for years. I’m leading Children’s Church and I’ve even been teaching that to the lil babes for the past couple of months! I do things I’m afraid of to prove to myself that I can. To prove that God can! To prove to me that with God, I really can! To prove that in my weakness, He strengthens me. And when I feel fear, I can move forward with courage. So puhlease let me be human. Like, encourage me [en-courage, it’s right there in the word!] in love but don’t hit me with the “Et tu, Brute?” because sometimes when you do it I’m surprised that you’re surprised that I don’t feel fear. I do! I most definitely does! I put on my clothes of courage and gentleness and love and kindness and whatever else I need to pick it up and move along. Sometimes, I just get dressed a lil slower than others, is all. 🤭 But I di-Jo (that’s Joval for “I digress”).]
Words are currency because like money, I share my words knowing that “generosity begets generosity” (that’s Bible, not me!). I share my words knowing that the good I send with them is the good that will be returned to me.
And like money, I save them and I count them and I honor them and I respect them because I know that “in due time”, I will be “exalted” (see 1 Peter 5:6), reaping the benefits and rewards of my diligence.
Tonight, one of my homegirls from nursing school texted me. We were in a lil text convo and I told her I’ve been writing and shared my blog post with her, Reclaiming My Power: The Truth About Being An Angry Black Woman. It kinda came up in convo. (Okay, sometimes I make it come up. Tomato, tomato!) Her response had me running for the proverbial hills (aka my kitchen), fleeing to take cover, to ugly cry beautifully in peace. I began listening to her voicemail while I was on a virtual co-working session:
“I literally just read the excerpt and I love everything about it! Not because you’re talking about real things, but because you’re also including the Word to back those things up. So I just wanted to call you directly and let you know, thank you for putting that out there into the atmosphere! ‘I am angry. I am Black. I am a woman. But I am not an angry Black woman.’ Yaaas! Okay, that was it, that’s all I wanted to say.”
– my nursing school homie
While in the kitchen, I made some tea in one of my favorite mugs (though, all my mugs are my fav but again, tomato, tomato!):
This comes 36 hours and 6 minutes after I sent this message to my Black writer’s group (oh, hello number 6, I see you!):
So, My Dearest Reader, please know that I pray for you. I hope, trust, pray, and speak the best for you and about you, like I do for myself. Trusting that The Truth greets you at your doorstep, and that you invite her in like an eager host to a guest on a cold winter night. May the truth of the words you read here liberate you. May you find hope and meaning and life in them. Not in my words, but in the Word that I write about. This is, after all, why I’m here. This is, after all, part of my Purpose.
And since I’ve been in a call and response kinda mood lately (and because I know the elders and the youngin’s alike will appreciate this), please join me in reading the final verse of Psalm 19 aloud. And if you don’t believe in the Bible, I offer this as an invitation for you to make your own meaning of it. That you relate to it as you relate to the God, Spirit, etc. of your understanding, or search for the comparable passage in your spiritual or religious text that renews you and fills you with life, love, and meaning:
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord, my Strength and my Redeemer.
Psalm 19:14 KJ21
And as you may know by now, I loves me the Message translation! So let’s read that together, too, because it hits just a bit different:
There’s more: God’s Word warns us of danger and directs us to hidden treasure. Otherwise how will we find our way? Or know when we play the fool? Clean the slate, God, so we can start the day fresh! Keep me from stupid sins, from thinking I can take over your work; Then I can start this day sun-washed, scrubbed clean of the grime of sin. These are the words in my mouth; these are what I chew on and pray. Accept them when I place them on the morning altar, O God, my Altar-Rock, God, Priest-of-My-Altar.
Psalm 19:11-14 MSG
And so it is. Amen.
