Black Women Have It Going On

Good day from Colorado, where the peaks are tall and my faith is secured in Christ Jesus! Thanks for stopping by my blog, where we discuss life, faith, and the long walk toward healing.

There is a silence that settles over a house when a mother is carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders. In the Garden of Gethsemane, our Savior sat in the darkness, sweating drops of blood over a “cup” He had to drink for us. Sometimes, we witness our parents sitting in their own dark gardens, trying to manage a harvest that is being divided between two worlds.

I remember catching my mom crying one day. She was sitting on her bed in the dark, the curtains pulled tight, just silently weeping. She was exhausted from working two 8-hour jobs—16 hours a day. But she wasn’t just working for the two of us in the house; she was working to ensure my two older sisters in Louisiana were well-clothed and had wonderful Christmases. She was pouring her life into the daughters she had left behind, while my brother and I received whatever she could “scrape up” for us.

As a child, I wanted to wave a magic wand and fix her pain, but I didn’t realize she was drinking a cup of “survival” and “guilt” at the same time. She was at the forge 16 hours a day, so tired she couldn’t see the neglect my brother and I faced. Her love was a divided labor, and the cost was a house where the curtains were often closed and the tears were often silent.

People might judge the “mess” of a struggling mother, but they don’t see the woman fighting to prove she hasn’t failed the children who aren’t under her roof. You might have grown up in a house where you felt like an afterthought, but today we recognize that even in the dark, God was sustaining a woman who was trying to be a mother to four while only having the strength for one.

The Takeaway for Us

• The Weight of Guilt: Sometimes parents over-provide for the ones they left to compensate for not being there, often at the expense of the ones who are there.
• The Burden of the Cup: We can acknowledge the pain of being “the one who got the scraps” while still having compassion for the impossible load our parents tried to carry.

Community Challenge

Have you ever felt like the “scraps” of your parent’s time or resources went to you while others got the “best”? How do you find the grace to forgive the disparity and focus on the healing God is doing in you today?

Scripture & Prayer

• Scripture: “But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith…” — 1 Timothy 5:8 (KJV) (Looking at the weight of the biblical mandate she was trying so hard to fulfill).
• Prayer: Father, I ask for healing in the places where I felt like “less than” in my own home. I thank You for the strength You gave my mother to work those double shifts, and I ask for the grace to release the resentment of the divided harvests. Let my worth be found in You alone. Amen.

The Spiritual Seal

Remember: You are not defined by the years the locusts have eaten, but by the new thing God is doing in your life today. The tomb is empty, and your story is rising. See you Tuesday!