Category: health

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They Grow While You’re Gone

Posted in cancer, faith, God, inspiration, love, relationships, UncategorizedTagged , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment


It’s 5:30 a.m.
I’m sipping my coffee, staring out the window into the darkness… somehow convinced I can see trouble in my garden from 100 feet away.

Don’t judge me… but I really considered stepping out there in my robe in 35 degrees to go check on my plant babies.

And somewhere between that first sip and the silence… I caught myself.

This isn’t about seeds.

This is about how easily my mind will grab hold of something—anything—and worry it to death.

Work stress that doesn’t clock out when I do.
Money questions that don’t always have quick answers.
A newborn I just prayed over in the hospital,
with whispers of concern about her ability to thrive.
Friends walking through the slow, sacred heartbreak of losing their parents…
and me carrying pieces of that with them.

All real things. All things that matter. All things experienced before.
And yet…

Look how quickly my heart starts hovering over them, like it’s my job to make sure everything turns out alright. Like if I think about it enough, check it enough, replay it enough…

I can help God along.

But I can’t.

Because even when I am doing the work of God, it is still God who is working.
I am not the outcome.
I am not the fixer.
I am not the one holding it all together.

I am just… hands in the soil.
Faithful to plant.
Faithful to water.
Faithful to show up.

But the growing?
The healing?
The sustaining?

That was never mine.

And if I’m not careful, I will let the weight of what I care about pull me out of the very places God is calling me to be present.

Sitting here with my coffee, trying to manage what He already has in His hands…
while He’s already prepared a seat for me somewhere else today.

There is a time to plant.
A time to water.
And then… a time to trust.
Not anxious trust.
Not hovering trust.
Real trust.

The kind that finishes the coffee,
gets dressed, and walks into the day
without carrying what God never assigned me to hold.

So I’m going where I’m supposed to be.
And I’m leaving the garden…
and everything it represents…
right where it is.

Because what God has already taken responsibility for does not need my worry added to it.

Even the good things don’t get to compete
with obedience.

“To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.”
— Ecclesiastes 3:1

Love, Chelle

DefyGravityWithoutWings.com

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Reaching Beyond the Sky – Mae Jemison

Posted in Black History Month, God, health, inspiration, love, relationships, women's history monthTagged , , , , , , Leave a comment

Sometimes the dream is bigger than the sky.

Mae Jemison grew up in Chicago at a time when few girls were encouraged to pursue careers in science. But curiosity has a way of ignoring limits. From a young age, Jemison loved science, space, and the endless possibilities of the universe.

She studied chemical engineering at Stanford University and later earned her medical degree from Cornell University. Her talents stretched across science, medicine, and international humanitarian work.

But one dream remained constant. Space.

In 1987, Mae Jemison was selected by NASA to join its astronaut program. Five years later, in 1992, she made history aboard the space shuttle Endeavour, becoming the first Black woman to travel into space.

As she orbited the Earth, Jemison carried not only scientific experiments but also the hopes of countless young people who had never imagined someone who looked like them reaching the stars.

Jeremiah 29 reminds us, “For I know the plans I have for you… plans to give you hope and a future.”

Mae Jemison’s journey reminds us that sometimes the future God imagines for us stretches far beyond the horizon we can see.

She once said something beautifully simple:

“Never limit yourself because of others’ limited imagination.”

And by refusing those limits, she helped expand the dreams of generations.

Sometimes the sky is not the limit.

Sometimes it is only the beginning.

Mae Jemison looked up at the stars and believed she belonged there. And through courage, education, and determination, she proved that dreams often grow larger when we refuse to shrink them.

The path to the future begins with one person believing that the horizon can move.

Steps From Our Sisters
Honoring the Women Who Marched Before Us

Curated by
Michelle Gillison-Robinson
DefyGravityWithoutWings.com

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From Braces to Gold – Wilma Rudolph

Posted in Black History Month, God, health, inspiration, selfhelp, women's history monthTagged , , , , Leave a comment


(June 23, 1940 – November 12, 1994)
Sometimes history runs faster than doubt.
Wilma Rudolph was born prematurely in Tennessee and spent much of her early childhood battling illnesses, including polio. Doctors warned that she might never walk normally again.
For years she wore a leg brace.
But Rudolph’s family refused to surrender to that prediction. With determination, therapy, and relentless support from her mother, Wilma eventually began walking without assistance.
Soon she began running. And she did not stop.
There is a verse in Philippians that says, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” For Wilma Rudolph, those words would come to life in the most extraordinary way.
By the time she reached the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome, Rudolph had become one of the fastest women in the world. There she made history, winning three gold medals in track and field, becoming the first American woman to achieve that feat in a single Olympic Games.
Her victories were not only athletic triumphs. They were symbols.
At a time when segregation still divided much of America, Rudolph returned home to Tennessee and insisted that her hometown parade honoring her victory be integrated. It became the first racially integrated public celebration in Clarksville’s history.
Wilma Rudolph ran past more than competitors. She ran past expectations. And in doing so, she reminded the world that sometimes faith, courage, and persistence can carry us farther than anyone ever imagined.
Sometimes the world writes a story about what you cannot do.
Wilma Rudolph once wore a leg brace and was told she might never walk normally again. Later, she became the fastest woman in the world.
The miracle is not always that the path is easy. Sometimes the miracle is that you keep moving forward anyway.


Steps From Our Sisters
Honoring the Women Who Marched Before Us
Curated by
Michelle Gillison-Robinson
DefyGravityWithoutWings.com

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The Doctor Who Chose to Heal the Forgotten – Rebecca Lee Crumpler

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(February 8, 1831 – March 9, 1895)

Sometimes healing begins where others refuse to go.

Rebecca Lee Crumpler grew up in a time when medicine was almost entirely closed to women, and especially to African Americans. Yet she believed deeply in the power of caring for the sick and protecting the vulnerable.

In 1864 she became the first Black woman in the United States to earn a medical degree.

After the Civil War ended, Crumpler moved to Virginia, where she treated newly freed men, women, and children who had little access to medical care. The conditions were difficult, resources were scarce, and prejudice remained strong.

But she continued her work.

Crumpler believed that knowledge should serve compassion. She later wrote A Book of Medical Discourses, one of the first medical texts written by an African American physician.

There is a verse in Jeremiah that says, “Heal me, Lord, and I will be healed.”

Rebecca Lee Crumpler answered that prayer not only with faith but with skill, dedication, and love for those who had long been ignored.

Sometimes the most powerful medicine
is the courage to care.

Bread Crumbs

Service does not always appear glamorous.

Rebecca Lee Crumpler chose to practice medicine where the need was greatest and recognition was smallest.

She reminds us that compassion often requires perseverance.

Sometimes the calling God places on your life
is simply to heal what others have overlooked.

Steps From Our Sisters
Honoring the Women Who Marched Before Us

Curated by
Michelle Gillison-Robinson
DefyGravityWithoutWings.com

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Unshakable

Posted in God, health, law, love, war, workTagged , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

My son-in-love, Kamau, posted that he was booking a flight to Africa. There was a storm coming, he said, and somebody needed to build shelters for the giraffes.

He displayed a picture like it was urgent.
Dark sky. Lightning splitting it wide open.
Giraffes standing tall in the open plain.

He might have been joking (hard to tell with him.) Because that is Kamau.  Compassion wrapped in comedy. Protection tucked inside a punchline. A heart that sees danger and immediately asks, Who needs covering?
I love that about him. ( Don’t tell him I said that.)

But when I looked closer at the picture,
those giraffes were not panicking. They were not lowering themselves to the ground.
They were not scattering. They were standing.

Unshakable. Unmovable.
Storm pressing in. Mortal danger possible.
And yet their necks were lifted.
Their legs planted.
Their bodies steady in the wind.

It made me think of Psalm 91:
“He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. Under His feathers you will find refuge.”

Those giraffes looked uncovered. But they were not unprotected. They looked exposed.
But they were not outside of shadow. Psalm 91 does not promise the absence of storms. It promises covering in the middle of them.

And then Psalm 46:10 settles it:
“Be still, and know that I am God.”


Not be frantic. Not be consumed. Not be undone. Be still. Still like you trust the One who commands the sky. Still like you believe the storm does not get the final word. Still like your roots run deeper than what threatens you.

We are living in days where thunder travels across oceans. International conflict crackles like lightning. Voices rise. Fear spreads.

But maybe faith looks like a giraffe in a storm.
Not dramatic. Not reckless. Just anchored.
Unshakable. Unmovable.

And I smiled again. Because my son-in-love thought he was just telling a joke. Instead… he helped me write a sermon about faith standing firm in adversity.

He is going to be so embarrassed when he reads this. Make sure you tease him for me.

Love, Chelle
DefyGravityWithoutWings.com

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Hattie McDaniel, First In  A Segregated Room

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In 1940, Hattie McDaniel became the first African American to win an Academy Award. She won Best Supporting Actress for her role as Mammy in Gone with the Wind (1939). She was also the first African American ever nominated for an Oscar. History shifted that night.


And yet, at the ceremony held at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, she was required to sit at a small segregated table against the wall, apart from her white castmates. Victory. With boundaries.


When the film premiered in Atlanta in 1939, Georgia’s Jim Crow laws barred Black cast members from attending. It is widely reported that her co-star Clark Gable objected strongly and threatened not to appear in protest. Accounts say Hattie encouraged him to attend, understanding the political climate and the fragile footing of her position in Hollywood. Public outrage from powerful allies could make headlines. But she would still have to live and work inside the system afterward. Strategy is not surrender.


MORE THAN MAMMY
Hattie McDaniel was born in Kansas to parents who had been enslaved.

She was among the first Black women to sing on American radio in the 1920s, a successful blues performer before Hollywood and recorded 16 blues sides between 1926 and 1929. She appeared in over 300 films, though many roles went uncredited. Her best known other major films are Alice Adams, In This Our Life, Since You Went Away, and Song of the South.

She became one of the highest-paid Black entertainers of her era and later starred in the radio show Beulah, becoming one of the first Black women to headline a nationally broadcast radio program.

In 1952, she became one of the first Black women to star in a television series when Beulah moved to television.

She holds two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame — one for motion pictures and one for radio.


All of this was before Rosa Parks. Before Martin Luther King Jr. became a national figure. Before the Civil Rights Act.

Jim Crow was law. Black actors were largely confined to domestic or servile roles. Many within the Black community criticized those portrayals for reinforcing stereotypes.

Hattie’s response was pragmatic and pointed: “I’d rather play a maid than be one.”

Being first does not mean being free. McDaniel died of breast cancer on October 26, 1952, at age 59 in Woodland Hills, California. Her final wish to be buried in the Hollywood Cemetery was denied due to its segregation policy at the time.  Decades later, a memorial plaque was placed in her honor.

In  2006, she was honored with a US postage stamp, and in 2010, she was inducted into the Colorado Women’s Hall of Fame.

In 2006, the Academy replaced her long-missing Oscar, confiscated by IRS debt, with a replica, formally acknowledging her historic win.  The original was to have been displayed at Howard University but went missing in the 1970s

Notably, no other Black woman would win an Oscar for 50 years after Hattie. Not until Whoopie Goldberg won for Best Supporting Actress in Ghost.

Galatians 6:9

“Let us not grow weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.”


CARRY THIS WITH YOU
Sometimes the door that opens to you is imperfect. Sometimes the room is segregated.
Sometimes you are allowed in — but only to the edge.

Hattie McDaniel walked in anyway. Not because the system was fair. But because excellence inside limitation still moves history forward.


BREADCRUMB
What opportunity are you resisting because the conditions are not ideal? Being the first often means carrying contradictions so others can inherit clarity.


SALUTE
We see you, Hattie McDaniel — for becoming the first when the room was not ready, and for claiming victory in a nation that tried to seat you in the shadows.

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

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A.D. King – The Other King

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Before history narrowed the movement to one name, there were two brothers.

Alfred Daniel Williams King. Born in 1930. Preacher. Organizer. Strategist. Three years younger than Martin Luther King Jr. but standing in the same danger.

When Birmingham, Alabama became ground zero in 1963, A.D. did not visit. He moved there.
Birmingham was nicknamed “Bombingham” because of the frequency of racial terror bombings. Churches. Homes. Black neighborhoods.

A.D. helped lead mass meetings and demonstrations alongside Fred Shuttlesworth and Ralph Abernathy. While Martin carried the national microphone, A.D. carried the local weight: Organizing. Stabilizing. Coordinating.
Keeping frightened communities steady.

He was arrested during the Birmingham Campaign.His home was bombed.  While Martin wrote “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” A.D. was outside holding the infrastructure together.

Movements do not survive on speeches alone.
They survive on people whose names do not trend. After Martin was assassinated in 1968, A.D. stepped further into leadership. 
One year later, in 1969, A.D. King was found drowned in his swimming pool at just 38 years old. The death was ruled accidental. But many in the community questioned how a strong adult man, familiar with his own pool, could drown under unclear circumstances.

No national day of mourning. No holiday. No monument echoing his name. History has a habit of compressing movements into a single face. But there were always second lines. Siblings. Strategists. The ones who held meetings when the cameras left.

We still do it today. We elevate one leader.
We forget the organizers. We chant one name.
We overlook the network. A.D. King represents that hidden layer.

He stood in the same fire. Faced the same threats. Carried the same calling. But the spotlight did not linger.

Micah 6:8

“He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?”

CARRY THIS WITH YOU
If your work is not visible, is it still valuable? Of course it is.  If your name is not printed, is your impact erased? Of course not.

BREADCRUMB
History may narrow the headline. But heaven keeps fuller records.

We see you, A.D. King — for carrying weight without applause.

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

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Freedom House Ambulance Service.  They Built The System

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In the late 1960s, Pittsburgh’s Hill District was a historic Black neighborhood — culturally rich, economically battered.

Urban renewal had displaced families and shuttered businesses. Hospitals were distant. Emergency transport was often handled by funeral homes or police wagons with little medical training. In Black neighborhoods across America, ambulance service frequently meant delay without treatment.

People were dying not only from injury —
but from the absence of care.

In 1967, that absence met resistance.

Out of the Hill District came the Freedom House Ambulance Service — one of the first professionally trained paramedic units in the United States.

Under the medical vision of Peter Safar, a pioneer of CPR and modern resuscitation, and through the clinical leadership of Nancy Caroline, Freedom House became more than an experiment.

Nancy Caroline did not observe from a distance.
She wrote curriculum.
She rode in the ambulances.
She trained the men personally.
She demanded mastery.

She helped build one of the nation’s first structured paramedic training programs and later authored Emergency Care in the Streets, a foundational EMS textbook used across the country and internationally.

The standards were not lowered for the Hill District.
They were raised.

The men recruited into Freedom House were largely unemployed Black residents. Some were Vietnam veterans. Many had been labeled “untrainable.”

They became among the first paramedics in America.

Among the early paramedics were:

John Moon
Mitchell Brown
Timothy McCall
Wesley Lee
Walter Brown
Dennis Williams

And others whose names history is still restoring.

They mastered advanced cardiac life support, airway management, trauma stabilization, and mobile intensive care techniques. They responded to thousands of calls. Their survival rates were strong. Their professionalism undeniable.

They were not ambulance drivers.
They were architects of modern emergency medicine.

In 1975, the City of Pittsburgh dissolved Freedom House and created a new municipal EMS system.

The training model remained.
The protocols remained.
The infrastructure remained.

The leadership did not.

The new city EMS became predominantly white.
The Black paramedics who had proven the model were no longer centered in the system they built.

Their experiment became policy.
Their innovation became ordinance.
Their presence became history.

Public memory credited institutions.
The Hill District remembered who carried the stretchers.

Several Freedom House members continued careers in emergency medicine and public service. Others carried the quiet distinction of having transformed pre-hospital care long before the country was ready to credit them.

Modern EMS systems and structured 911 response protocols carry their fingerprints.

They were not a pilot program.
They were a foundation.

“The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.” — Psalm 118:22


BREADCRUMB
Sometimes the rejected become the infrastructure.



We see you, Freedom House:
John Moon.
Mitchell Brown.
Timothy McCall.
Wesley Lee.
Walter Brown.
Dennis Williams.
And the others whose names deserve light.
You brought intensive care into neglected streets. You professionalized emergency response in America.


You turned crisis into curriculum.

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

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LEWIS LATIMER: HE MADE THE LIGHT

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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.

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Barbara Johns: She Was Fifteen and Would Not Wait

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Barbara Johns was fifteen years old when she decided that waiting politely for justice was no longer an option.


In 1951, in Prince Edward County, Virginia, Barbara was a student at Robert Russa Moton High School — a segregated Black school with no gym, no cafeteria, overcrowded classrooms, and tar-paper shacks used as makeshift buildings. Meanwhile, white students nearby learned in brick schools with resources and space.


Barbara saw it.
Barbara lived it.


And Barbara refused to accept it.


Without permission from adults, administrators, or movement leaders, she organized a student strike. She convinced her classmates to walk out, not knowing if anyone would listen — only knowing that staying silent was no longer an option.


Adults were furious.
Leaders were nervous.
Teachers were afraid they would lose their jobs.


Barbara’s name was almost removed from the complaint.
But the case moved forward anyway.
Her courage became part of Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, one of the five cases folded into Brown v. Board of Education.


History changed.
And Barbara Johns?
She received death threats.
She had to leave her hometown.
She lived the rest of her life quietly.
Her name was rarely spoken when Brown was celebrated.
She was victorious without reward.


Barbara Johns teaches us something uncomfortable and holy:
Sometimes the people who force history to move are the ones most quickly pushed out of the picture.
She was young.
She was female.
She was uncompromising.
And she was inconvenient.


“Let no one despise you for your youth.” — 1 Timothy 4:12


Barbara didn’t wait to be older.
She didn’t wait to be chosen.
She didn’t wait to be safe.
She acted — and the system scrambled to catch up.


If you have ever been told you were too young to understand, spoken truth that made adults uncomfortable, sparked change and then watched others take credit, or paid a personal cost for doing the right thing early — Barbara Johns stands with you.


She reminds us that courage does not require credentials — only conviction.
She lit the match.
The world tells the story without her name.
But God remembers.


We see you, Barbara.
We tell it right.


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


Love, Chelle