food

Pig Foot Mary: The Woman Who Pushed Her Future Down the Street

February 24, 2026February 24, 2026Posted in Black History Month, faith, food, God, inspiration, money, relationships, UncategorizedTagged Black History Month, celebration, critical race theory, empty, faith, food, gift, GodLeave a comment

Before food trucks. Before catering contracts.
Before pop-up kitchens. There was a formerly enslaved Black woman pushing a baby carriage filled with pickled pig’s feet.

Her name was Lillian Harris Dean. History remembers her as Pig Foot Mary. And what some would have called scraps, she called strategy.

Born in Mississippi around 1870. She migrated north during the Great Migration era. She was reported a woman of large stature (striking fear in even some men).

THE BABY CARRIAGE BEGINNING

After emancipation, economic opportunity for Black women was painfully narrow. Formal loans were not available. Property ownership was rare. Protection under the law was inconsistent at best.

So Mary did what resilient women have always done. She looked at what she had.
She cooked pig’s feet — inexpensive cuts that working people could afford — and loaded them into a baby carriage. That’s right no baby, just a baby carriage purchased with two of the five dollars she arrived with and a tin pot she brought with her.

Then she walked the streets of Washington, D.C., selling directly to laborers, porters, and government workers who had migrated from the South but desperate for a taste of home cooking lacking in the industrial north.

No storefront. No investors. No safety net.
Just legs, grit, and a carriage. That carriage gave her mobility. Mobility gave her customers. Customers gave her capital.
Capital gave her options. Consistency built reputation. Reputation built revenue.

From those early street sales, though unable to read, she negotiated contracts with suppliers, opened restaurants, operated boarding houses, acquired property, and became one of the wealthiest Black women in New York City during her time. She later married a prominent black lawyer she had hired to keep her financial empire safe.

Later in life, she faced legal troubles that interrupted her business, a common vulnerability for Black entrepreneurs in that era. When her power and influence started to invade beyond the black community and into white upper Manhattan, a racist court system convicted her of running a disorderly house. After her release from prison, she retired to California.

She did not inherit influence. She built it.
She did not wait for approval. She moved.

Pig Foot Mary represents a pattern we see over and over in Black history:
Innovation born from restriction.
Mobility created from limitation.
Enterprise rising from overlooked ingredients.

She took something humble and made it sustaining.

“She considers a field and buys it; out of her earnings she plants a vineyard.” — Proverbs 31:16

Mary did not own fields at first. She owned a route. But the principle is the same.
Use what you have. Work what you have.
Move what you have.

CARRY THIS WITH YOU
You may be waiting for a storefront when all you have is a carriage. Push anyway.

You may be waiting for funding when all you have is a recipe. Cook anyway.

You may be waiting for someone to validate the vision. Walk anyway.

BREADCRUMB

Sometimes the business plan is wrapped in something people underestimate. And sometimes the thing you’re pushing… is actually pushing you into destiny.

We see you, Lillian Harris Dean for turning a baby carriage into a business model. We see you for feeding working hands and building wealth from what others discarded.

Bread Crumbs — for those coming after us.
Victorious without reward. Still here.

The Hymn Before the Headline

February 13, 2026February 13, 2026Posted in Black History Month, cancer, christmas, faith, food, God, inspiration, love, selfhelp, UncategorizedTagged Black History Month, celebration, christian, church, college, critical race theory, faithLeave a comment

Before it was debated,
Before it was dissected on timelines and talk shows, it was a hymn.

Originally titled
Lift Every Voice and Sing (The Negro National Hymn)

Hymn.

Not rebellion. Not replacement.

Hymn.

Written in 1900 by James Weldon Johnson, and set to music by his brother John Rosamond Johnson, it was first sung by Black schoolchildren who were barely a generation removed from bondage.

And still they sang.

Psalm 98 says, “Sing unto the Lord a new song.”

Our ancestors did.

They sang through Jim Crow.
They sang through separate water fountains.
They sang when hoses knocked bodies down and dogs were turned loose.
They sang when grief had no courtroom relief.

This hymn was not written to divide a nation.
It was written to steady a people.

When it shows up on a Super Bowl stage,
that is not intrusion.
That is history breathing.

A hymn is not about replacing anything.
It is about remembering.

Black History Month is not about exclusion.
It is about acknowledgment.

And acknowledgment is not an attack.
It is truth standing upright.

So when we lift every voice,
we are not asking permission.

We are honoring inheritance.

Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us.
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us.

Some songs survive because they are catchy.
This one survived because it carried us.

To the children who first sang it.
To the elders who kept it in the pews.
To every voice that trembled but did not stop

Bread Crumbs — for those coming after us.
Victorious without reward. Still here..

LEWIS LATIMER: HE MADE THE LIGHT

February 9, 2026February 9, 2026Posted in Black History Month, faith, food, God, health, inspiration, love, money, relationships, selfhelpTagged Black History Month, celebration, childhood, christian, critical race theory, GodLeave a comment

Black history is not only about who struck the match.
It is also about who made sure the light did not go out.
Lewis Howard Latimer understood that.
Born in 1848 to parents who had escaped enslavement, he taught himself to read, draw, and engineer in a world that did not expect brilliance from him—and was not structured to reward it.
History remembers the spark.
Latimer worked on the endurance.
In 1884, he joined the Edison Electric Light Company as a draftsman.
He was not hired to be the face of innovation.
He was brought in to make the work hold.
While others are credited with inventing the light bulb, Lewis Latimer improved it.
He developed a carbon filament that made electric light durable, affordable, and practical—light that could last in ordinary homes, not just demonstrations.
Without his work, the light would have remained fragile.
Exclusive.
Unreliable.
And the light was not his only contribution.
Latimer also:
– drafted critical technical drawings for early telephone technology
– designed an evaporative air-conditioning system
– improved safety and sanitation systems for railroad cars
– trained others, documented processes, and quietly strengthened industries that carried other people’s names
Important work.
Essential work.
Weight-bearing work.

Lewis Latimer lived long enough to see the world changed by the light he helped sustain.
He died in 1928—not wealthy, not widely celebrated—but respected by those who understood the work.
His legacy lived on in homes lit safely, cities made brighter, systems made usable.
If you have ever been the one who made something work instead of making it visible—
If you have refined what others rushed through—
If you have strengthened what others started—
If you have stayed faithful long after the applause moved on—
This story stands with you.
“Let your light so shine before others…” — Matthew 5:16

Lewis Latimer did not create the first light.
He made sure it endured.
Some people are called to begin things.
Others are called to make them last.
This, too, is history.
This, too, is weight-bearing work.

Lewis Latimer stands with you.
God sees the work that makes light reliable — not just remarkable.

We see you, Lewis.
We honor the way you made the light last.

Bread Crumbs — for those coming after us.
Victorious without reward. Still here.

James Hemings: He Changed the Taste

February 7, 2026February 6, 2026Posted in Black History Month, faith, food, God, inspiration, love, UncategorizedTagged Black History Month, christian, critical race theory, God, HopeLeave a comment

James Hemings shaped a nation’s palate while the nation refused to speak his name.

Born enslaved in the 18th century, James Hemings lived and worked at Monticello under Thomas Jefferson.

He was trained as a chef in France, mastering techniques most Americans had never seen or tasted. He learned sauces, pastries, ice creams, and refined methods that transformed how food was prepared and served.

When he returned to America, those techniques came with him.
They became American.
Macaroni and cheese.
Refined sauces.
Elegant plating.
Desserts meant to be lingered over.
These weren’t trends.
They were foundations.
And James Hemings was the hands behind them.

James Hemings cooked at the highest tables — yet he did not own himself.
He was expected to create beauty while living without freedom.
To refine taste while enduring injustice.
To elevate others while remaining invisible.

He was also the older brother of Sally Hemings.
Both siblings lived under the same roof at Monticello.
Both were bound to the same man.
Both carried different burdens of the same system.
James navigated his captivity through skill, restraint, and intellect.
And still — he negotiated his freedom.

He didn’t storm the kitchen.
He didn’t burn it down.
He bargained carefully, strategically, and bravely — securing his release in exchange for training his replacement, his brother, Peter

Freedom came late.
Recognition never really came at all.
He died young. Just two months after securing his freedom.
His influence lived on without attribution.
He was victorious without reward.

James Hemings reminds us that culture is often shaped by people whose names history forgets — but whose work it cannot erase.

“Give us this day our daily bread.” — Matthew 6:11
Bread is sustenance.
Bread is culture.
Bread is memory.

What we eat carries history — whether we name it or not.
James Hemings fed a nation that did not know his name.

If you have ever poured skill into work that bore someone else’s signature,
created beauty in a place that did not fully see you,
shaped something lasting without receiving credit,
or learned excellence under pressure and restraint,
James Hemings stands with you.

God sees the hands that prepare nourishment — not just for bodies, but for culture itself.

We see you, James.
We honor the way you changed the taste.

Bread Crumbs — for those coming after us.
Victorious without reward. Still here.

Love, Chelle

Historical Context & Image Note:
This reflection draws from documented Monticello and Hemings family records; no verified historical photograph of James Hemings exists, so a respectful illustration is used in place of a photographic image.

Robert Smalls: He Knew the Way Through

February 4, 2026Posted in Black History Month, faith, food, God, inspiration, love, relationships, workTagged Black History Month, childhood, critical race theory, faith, Family, fight memories, gift, God, Hope, Jeremiah, workLeave a comment

Robert Smalls was born enslaved in South Carolina, in a world where freedom was forbidden and intelligence was dangerous.

But Robert learned the waterways.
He learned the tides.
He learned the rhythms of ships and schedules and signals.
And when the moment came, he used what he knew.

In 1862, Robert Smalls did something no one thought possible. He commandeered a Confederate ship, the CSS Planter, disguised himself in the captain’s uniform, navigated past enemy forts using the correct signals — and delivered himself, his family, and others to freedom.

He did not fire a single shot.
He trusted knowledge.
He trusted timing.
And he trusted that God had already made a way through the water.

In my own family, there are those who make a “not quite” substantiated claim to Robert Smalls — simply because his last name appears in our family line.
I don’t have records to prove it or disprove it.
I don’t make the claim as fact. But who can deny greatness.

However, the instinct matters.
Because sometimes what we are really claiming is not blood —
but admiration.
Not lineage —
but legacy.

Robert Smalls didn’t stop with freedom.
He went on to serve in the U.S. Navy, help recruit Black soldiers, become a U.S. Congressman, and fight for education, voting rights, and dignity for formerly enslaved people.

And still — he faced resistance.
He was pushed aside.
His leadership was minimized.
His voice was not always welcomed in the halls he helped open.

He was victorious without reward in more ways than one.

More than a century after his courage changed the course of history, the nation finally spoke his name aloud.
In 2023, the U.S. Navy commissioned a ship in his honor — the USS Robert Smalls.

It did not restore what had been denied.
It did not erase the years of resistance he faced.
It did not repay the cost of standing firm in a country slow to remember.
But it did stand as a quiet admission.
The Navy knew who led that ship long before history said it plainly.

And eventually, even delayed recognition had to follow truth.

Robert Smalls teaches us that God often prepares people long before the moment arrives.
“I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” — Isaiah 43:19

Robert didn’t create the river.
He learned it.
He didn’t invent the escape.
He recognized the opening.

Faith sometimes looks like courage.
Sometimes it looks like preparation.

And sometimes it looks like steering calmly through danger because you know where the water leads.

For the One Reading This Today

If you have ever:

prepared quietly for something no one else saw coming

felt drawn to a story because it felt familiar in your spirit

honored someone not because they were yours — but because they were right

trusted God to guide you through impossible terrain

Robert Smalls stands with you.

You don’t have to claim someone as family to carry their courage forward.
Legacy travels deeper than blood.

We see you, Robert.
We honor the way you led others through.

Bread Crumbs — for those coming after us.
Victorious without reward. Still here.

Love, Chelle

My Survivor Song Knows My Name.

February 1, 2026February 1, 2026Posted in faith, food, health, inspiration, love, relationships, selfhelp, UncategorizedTagged bloganuary, christian, christianity, faith, Family, forgive tears, giving, healing, Life, Love, mental healthLeave a comment

I was listening to one of my favorite songs—“He Knows My Name”—and my emotions spilled out before I could stop them.
It happens like that sometimes.
After a rough moment.
After allowing myself—again—to be hurt by someone who never really took the time to know me.
Not my heart.
Not my story.
Not the way I learned to survive.

I didn’t even realize how much I was carrying until that song started playing.
And suddenly, there it was—grief, relief, truth—all at once.

Because here’s the greatest thing about God:
He knows my name.
And not just my name—He knows my nickname too.
The one spoken by people who love me.
The one I only answer to when I feel safe.

He knows me with the mask—the strong one, the capable one, the superhero version that keeps showing up.

And He knows me without it—the tired, tender, still-hoping version I don’t always let the world see.

The real me.
Not the performance.
Not the usefulness.
Not the resilience résumé.

This song reminds me that I don’t confuse God.
I don’t disappoint Him by being human.
I don’t have to explain myself into being worthy of love.
It’s my Survivor Song because it tells the truth I forget when I’m hurting:
I am already known.
Already named.
Already held.
And when I rest in His arms, I don’t need armor.
I don’t need a script.
I don’t need to be brave for one more minute.
I am safe.

With and without the mask.
With and without the cape.
Somewhere along the way, I learned to confuse being needed with being known.
But God never made that mistake.

So today, if you’re feeling unseen—
if you’re nursing the quiet ache of being misunderstood—
let the reminder rise up like a song in your chest.
You are known by name.
You are held without pretending.
You are safe in His arms.
And sometimes… surviving looks like letting yourself be known—first by God, and then by yourself.
“I have called you by name; you are Mine.” — Isaiah 43:1

Love, Chelle

Reframing The Heart

January 31, 2026January 31, 2026Posted in cancer, faith, food, God, inspiration, love, relationships, selfhelp, UncategorizedTagged bloganuary, Breast cancer, celebration, christian, dailyprompt, faith, food, forgive tears, grow season, Jesus, Love, mental healthLeave a comment

Somewhere along the way, many of us learned a quiet lie —
not from God, but from human interpretation.

We learned it from what was modeled, praised, or rewarded.
From homes, churches, systems, and relationships that mistook endurance for faithfulness and exhaustion for virtue.

Most people were doing the best they could with what they knew — but they were still human.
And without realizing it, we carried those lessons into our understanding of God.

I know this because I have done it myself.

I confused being loved with doing to be loved.
I mixed up belief with performance.
And I carried that misunderstanding into my faith and called it obedience.

But that is not God’s heart.

God does not delight in depletion.
He delights in wholeness.

Jesus did not invite people to follow Him so they could replace Him.
He did not ask them to become saviors, fixers, or endless wells.
He asked them to come — as they were — and to unlearn what fear had taught them about love.

Scripture never praises burnout.
It praises obedience rooted in love, not fear.
It honors service that flows from being seen — not from trying to be noticed.

When Jesus said, “Come to Me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest,”
He was not offering a reward for those who gave the most.
He was correcting what people had been taught about God.

If your kindness comes from feeling unseen,
if your faith feels like constant output,
if your love has slowly turned into self-erasure —
that may be something you learned, but it is not something God requires.

God does not need you emptied to be faithful.
He desires you rooted, restored, and whole.

Being needed is not the same as being loved.
And God’s love has never required you to disappear.

God, help me separate Your voice from the voices that shaped me.
Heal what I learned in survival mode.
Teach me Your heart — not a human version of it.

Love, Chelle
DefyGravityWithoutWings.com

Powder, Not Prison (and Apparently Winter Storms Have Names Now)

January 30, 2026January 30, 2026Posted in faith, food, God, inspiration, love, relationships, UncategorizedTagged bloganuary, Breast cancer, childhood, christian, christianity, food, God, grow season, presentsLeave a comment

So here’s something I learned this week:
winter storms have names.
I was today-years-old when I found out they name winter storms the same way they name summer hurricanes. And wouldn’t you know it—the one that iced me into my house and blocked me from my greenhouse was named Fern.
Fern.
A plant name.
A green thing.
A symbol of life.
Make it make sense.
Winter Storm Fern didn’t just bring cold—she brought audacity. It was so cold one day that my front door wouldn’t even open. Not stuck—sealed. As if the house itself said, “Nope. You live here now.”
When the door finally did open the next day, I stepped outside and immediately thought,
“Oh. I was happier not knowing.”
That kind of cold doesn’t invite you out.
It humbles you back inside.
Now here we are again. More snow coming Saturday—and again on Wednesday. But this time, they’re calling for powder, not ice.
And apparently, there’s a difference.
Ice traps you.
Powder covers you.
Ice shuts doors.
Powder rests gently on what’s still alive underneath.
Some seasons don’t stop growth—they insulate it.
Under the white blanket, the soil is still breathing. Roots haven’t resigned. Seeds aren’t panicking. They know winter may come labeled and official, but it never gets the final word.
“Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines… yet I will rejoice in the Lord.”
— Habakkuk 3:17–18
Faith isn’t pretending winter isn’t winter.
It’s recognizing the difference between what freezes you and what simply passes through.
Winter Storm Fern may have sealed my door for a day.
She may have iced the path to the greenhouse.
But she didn’t cancel the harvest.
Dead and dormant are not the same.
Covered and defeated are not synonyms.
Spring is not offended by powder.
And I’ve learned not to argue with doors God temporarily keeps shut.

Love, Chelle

When the Tool Ate the Manuscript (and Almost My Heart)

January 29, 2026Posted in cancer, cancer, chemotherapy, christmas, faith, food, God, health, inspiration, love, money, relationships, selfhelp, UncategorizedTagged bloganuary, christian, christianity, christmas, dailyprompt, empty, faith, Family, food, Friendship, God, woman, work1 Comment

Let me tell you what almost took me out.

For weeks—WEEKS—I have been doing the holy, unglamorous work of editing and reorganizing a soon-to-be book.
Moving chapters.
Fixing commas that think they run things.
Re-threading stories.
Listening for where God was nudging—and where I was just rambling.

This was faithful work. Quiet work.
The kind nobody claps for.

And then…
The tool I use to assist and “catch mistakes” decided to eat my manuscript.

Not nibble.
Not misplace a paragraph.
Eat it.

I have survived cancer, grief, caregiving, deadlines, and ice storms—but watching weeks of careful labor vanish off a screen?
That will make your chest tighten and your salvation flicker for a hot second.

I sat there spiraling:
Did I just lose half a book?
Am I behind now?
Did I just waste weeks of my life arguing with chapter headings?

Cue the dramatic sigh.
Cue me talking to my laptop like it had personally betrayed the family.

And then—grace, wearing sneakers—slid in sideways and whispered:

Your work is not gone.
You are not behind.
We did not lose half a book.

Because real work doesn’t live only in files.
It lives in muscle memory, lived experience, and a heart that’s been steeped in the message.

And Scripture backs this up.

“So I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten…”
— Joel 2:25

God restores years, not just results.
Restoration doesn’t always look like retrieval.
What God restores often comes back stronger.

So breathe.
Roll your shoulders.
Open a new document.

The words still know how to find you.
And the story is very much alive.

Love, Chelle
defygravitywithoutwings.com

The Woman At The Table

January 27, 2026Posted in cancer, cancer, chemotherapy, christmas, faith, food, God, health, inspiration, love, money, relationships, selfhelp, UncategorizedTagged Black History Month, bloganuary, Breast cancer, celebration, childhood, christian, christianity, dailyprompt, faith, Family, food, God, grow seasonLeave a comment

Sometimes I miss the house in the middle of the corn fields with no indoor plumbing.
The pot-belly stove that decided when we were warm enough.
The way night fell heavy and close, and everyone settled where they could—sharing rooms, beds, blankets, breath.

I say my room, but that’s a loose word.
Privacy was a luxury we didn’t own.
Still, there was one place that felt like mine:
the narrow view through the keyhole.

Almost every night, after the fires were dampened and the house full of children finally stilled, I would watch my grandmother at her writing table. Her hands folded. Her Bible open. A pen moving slowly, deliberately.

Women of the Bible were her favorite.
Deborah. Ruth. Esther. Mary.
Women who listened closely and lived bravely.

She wrote sermons—real ones. Thoughtful. Scripturally sound. Insightful in ways people did not expect from a woman in those days. Especially a woman who cleaned other people’s houses for a living.

But it was her prayer ritual that marked me.

She prayed in whispers—not because God was quiet, but because love was.
She didn’t want to wake a house full of children.
Except, apparently, the little girl at the keyhole.

I couldn’t hear the words.
But I could see her face.

Sometimes she smiled.
Sometimes she laughed—like she and God shared a private joke.
Sometimes she cried. The kind of crying that doesn’t fall apart, just falls down.

And as I watched—hidden, still, unnoticed—I was learning.
Learning how faith looks when no one is applauding.
Learning that prayer does not need volume to have weight.
Learning that God listens closely to whispers.

When she finished praying, she always reached for the same thing.

A small plastic bread loaf.
One of those coin banks from organizations that fed “poor kids in Africa.”

She would slip a coin inside.
Sometimes a dollar.
Hard-earned. Scrubbed-for. Long-hours-standing money.

Money from a woman the world might have called poor—
but who never believed she was exempt from generosity.

I didn’t understand it then.
But I do now.

That table was a pulpit.
That whispering was power.
That plastic loaf was faith that refused to shrink.
And that keyhole?
It was my first seminary.

And that little girl at the keyhole?
She’s still watching.
Still learning how to pray without performing.
Still believing a few faithful offerings can touch a wide world.

“She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue.” — Proverbs 31:26
“Your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.” — Matthew 6:6

Some of the strongest sermons are whispered after bedtime, preached without microphones, and learned by children watching through keyholes.

Love, Chelle

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