Black Women Have It Going On

“Apply your heart to instruction and your ears to words of knowledge.” — Proverbs 23:12

Colorado is a breathtaking state, and every day God grants me, I wake up in awe of its beauty. However, there is a lingering sorrow when I realize how much of my life was stolen by my past. For a long time, I didn’t have the mental or emotional ‘room’ to enjoy the adventures a place like this has to offer. Now that I’m older and understand how trauma robs a person of their development, I finally understand why I failed my Critical Thinking class all those years ago.

Unbeknownst to me then, I was so emotionally damaged that I couldn’t see I was my own hurdle. I remember feeling that because the class didn’t immediately ‘wake me up’ or fix my life, it was useless. I wasn’t ready to hear what the professor was saying. There is a famous quote: ‘The teacher will appear when the student is ready to learn.’ I read that in a textbook back then, but I didn’t truly grasp it until years later.

At that time, I was so broken that the only thing that made me feel human was being mistreated—a condition I grew to both love and hate because it was all I knew. When I began my journey as a family historian, I thought I was finding a ‘safe’ hobby. I was fascinated by adding names to my tree because I believed the dead couldn’t hurt me. But how can we think critically about our ancestors’ lives when we haven’t yet processed the impact of our own? I had no clue that my life experiences were still hinging on how well or poorly they had lived theirs. I was looking for safety in the past, only to realize that history—both personal and familial—requires a healthy mind to truly understand it. Let’s pray!

The Prayer:
Lord, thank You for the beauty of Colorado and the beauty of a renewed mind. I ask for Your grace over the years I spent in the dark, unable to learn because I was simply trying to survive. Thank You for being the Ultimate Teacher who waited until I was ready to truly see. As I look into my family’s past, give me the ‘Critical Thinking’ skills to see the truth without being crushed by it. Amen.