Black Women Have It Going On

“For nothing is hidden that will not be made manifest, nor is anything secret that will not be known and come to light.” — Luke 8:17 (ESV)

What I love about the public lineage of Jesus is the raw honesty of it. The Bible doesn’t “edit” the family tree; it includes the broken, the dysfunctional, and the scandalous. We accept His truth without blinking, yet when it comes to our own genealogy, we often recoil. We want the heroes, but we want to bury the villains.

But on my own tree, there is a man whose story I have kept secret—until now.

Decades before I was even a thought, this man betrayed his wife. He didn’t just break a vow; he brought home a physical consequence in the form of a venereal disease. But the selfishness didn’t stop at the betrayal. Rather than owning his sin and caring for the woman he hurt, he forced his young son to take his mother to the doctor for treatment.

Can you imagine the weight on that son’s shoulders? The confusion? The secondary trauma of being made a witness to a father’s infidelity and a mother’s humiliation?

The man who committed the “crime” exempted himself from the fallout altogether. He handed over a heavy bag of guilt and shame to his child and walked away clean.

That is the essence of a selfish world. People will drag you into their mess, hand you the bill, and leave you to pay it. For years, I didn’t think this story was relevant to my life. But as I’ve begun to wake up the unconscious side of my mind, I realize it is the definition of the “undercurrents” I face today.

Whether it’s a 30-year-old secret or a modern-day demand from a “friend,” the pattern is the same: Selfish people expect you to manage the consequences of their choices so they don’t have to.

I’ve chosen not to publish the names in this story to protect living family members from the ripples of the past. But I am publishing the truth of the pattern. We must stop being the “drivers” for other people’s dysfunction. We can document the truth without being destroyed by it.

A Prayer for Breaking the Cycle

Heavenly Father,
Thank You for the truth that sets us free. I ask for Your healing over the generational wounds that have been passed down through silence and shame. Give me the wisdom to recognize when I am being asked to carry a “bag of guilt” that does not belong to me. Help me to honor the truth of the past without letting it dictate the peace of my future.
Amen.