After my very good doctor’s appt today, my husband & I went to a restaurant a bit out of our way, but I insisted because I wanted to see my fav waitress, Theresa Ann Hatch . Long story short, a couple from Columbus, Ohio were also drawn to detour and find Satterwhites. After they left, Theresa tells us that the gentleman said God told him to pay for our meal. When I ran out to find them in the parking lot he says she wasn’t supposed to tell me but since I was there……..he read all the mail in my heart from all the letters I have ever written to God. Had me crying in the parking lot. Talked my hearts desires and my need for rest and that God doesn’t expect a minster like me to try to rescue the whole world but do my part. He also said I need to get in my head how much God loves me and not just in a generic sense.
He never gave me a chance to say a word, so everything he said was 100% from God. They held on to me, and it brought a peace that I can not describe. Oddly my eyes were still dilated from my retina appt so I couldn’t get a grasp of what they looked like, just that they had a glow about them that wasn’t hurting my eyes like the sun does when your eyes are dilated. I don’t know if God will allow me to see them again in this life as they were just passing through, but My God, My God, I believe I entertained angels.
I had a discussion recently with someone about mental health in the church. We need to be okay not to be okay every single day and support each other. Pray. Get Counseling. Then, pray some more. Below is what poured from my heart:
Forgive Me. I lied to you.
I lied to you a lot.
A clever, cute, quip.. “blessed and highly flavored.”
Yes. I am blessed.
But the flavor of the month is salty.
Salty attitude
Salty sarcasm
Both to cover up the flavor of decade.
Salty tears.
See I am a child of the Most High God.
Above and Not beneath
Head and Not the tail.
World Class Devil Stomping Overcomer
Remember??
You ain’t supposed to know that my weeping endured for more than just a night.
Tell me, is it joy in the morning?
Or joy in the mourning?
Or joy for the mourning while I am mourning in the morning.?
Am I a sinner because my mourning dont feel blessed?
Or right now cause I ain’t comforted ?
Or I don’t wanna be a peacemaker this time?
Am I a sinner because I am still trying to forgive but can’t ever forget ?
Hands in places they should not be
Eyes on things they should not see
Tattooing my flesh & heart worthless but powerful words that should not be.
That won’t let me be
My poor in spirit just feels broke.
Even with all I have……worked for and given,
Isn’t it strange that I miss the home without the indoor plumbing where we were all together….living.
I was only meek because I was taught to be. Choked first by the annotate to never let them see me sweat.
Another time by a well armed versed.
And then again by my own brown skin.
I tried … even crowned my way thru it.
But chemo was persecution
Radiation was an insult
Diagnosis was an assault on my character .
I try to rejoice and be glad…..or at least appear that way.
Honestly I do know that there is greater in the Kingdom.
I can’t remember who’s social media page I saw it on, so I can’t give proper credit, but this paraphrased sentence shook me to my core.
“Never Tell A Person, ‘you got this’ when they ask for help because obviously they don’t or they wouldn’t be talking to you.“
I know it is something I have said thinking I was be encouraging, but could my pat on the back have seemed dismissive? Did I trivialize a pain that was greater for you than I feel in myself or for myself? Could you have needed a soft place to land and I simply elevated you to somewhere higher to fall from?
I think back to when I was at the height of my cancer battle. Folks would say “oh you got this” or “you are so strong.” In actuality, I was screaming on the inside, needing a shoulder to cry on and desperate for an old school laying on of oil anointed hands. When all my treatments were over, I politely smiled when asked if I was good now. I really should have loudly voiced, “oh heck no, I’m fighting extreme depression, I feel like I’m going crazy, please don’t abandon me.”
Ooooooo forgive me, I did mean well and I oft see past today and into your future. I still envision great things on the horizon. But at the time you need a Word, I will now tell you God got you and let’s see how we can walk through this.
There may be nothing I can do in the natural but be a voice in the darkness or a bit of sunshine clearing shadowing places. Truly, that may be all you need. Or I can point you to some resources beyond me. In wisdom, we will talk to the Father first about what is best for you.
Now bear with me, it may take me awhile to shake that cheerful cliché. But for today, I pray that whatever is disturbing your mind, your heart or your body be washed in the Presence of the Almighty. That you be hugged by the best comforting of the Holy Spirit. That the provision, healing, and freedom purchased by Christ at Calvary be revealed and afforded to you. That every wound be mended and every resource for a Balm in Gilead soothe every where you hurt.
I pray that today you see that God got this and God got you. And that you are never far from one willing to walk it through with you.
In less than 24 hours, he will be officially an adult, and I will be able to stop using my husband’s AARP card and have my own.
I helped deliver this marvel and he has stolen every birthday since. He was born a little blue, and the doctor said “here grandma, you wake him up.” So, I roughed him up with love and anointing oil on my hands….praying all the while and thanking God for that first cry. Ironically, he is the only one of my grands who actually calls me grandma. I guess he heard with the doctor said.
This morning, I take another first cry for a sweet boy who now becomes a man.
Happy tears because he is now smarter than I could have ever dreamed, more loving than I could have imagined, and his future is so bright that the sun has competition.
As joyful as this triumph is, a few nervous tears as he goes to college, achieves his dream career, meets his future mate, and perhaps a brood of 6.5 feet tall children like himself. Selfish, I know, but I will always want him to let me hold him in my heart the way I did in the pic below.
Thank you, Josiah Gillison and Teonna Tull-Roberts, for the best birthday present ever.
Virginia’s quest to erase the enslavement of human beings from memory will not make it cease to have existed. I don’t teach this to my children and to their children to foster hatred but rather to show them how incredible our people are to have survived and thrived despite circumstances forced on our ancestors by american greed. Yet no one asks my Jewish brothers to forget and water down the Holocaust. No one asks the american Japanese to deny the California concentration camps. No one asks my Indian heritage to dry the Trail of Tears.
We are watered down because whenever we choose to remember we become powerful. An attempt to drown us in engineered miseducation. Reminiscent of our bloodlines drowned in the Atlantic for being too strong to make passage.
Fearful folks discriminate and suppress what and whom they are intimidated by most. Black History Month is about strength and success against incredible odds. Slavery is american history dripping in greed, oppression and supposed superiority. No need to sugar coat it or pad it with cotton. My ancestors cultivated both of those.
Oddly, the State of Virginia worried about a recent governor in “black face.” Need to be more worried about the one who has no problem showing who he really is.
While I waited to hear back on a very special “flight”, I was awaken around 1 a.m. with an amazing feeling of God expressing His love to this person.
It is what I prayed for my very special friend who found Christ late in life and went on to do some amazing things for the Kingdom. Though I know God honored his service with extended life and people who loved him and his infectious laughter, I asked that he would feel an amazing sense of being loved “just because” God does.
It made me giggle with joy and pray my beloved Doc C did too.
I also pray now for some folks in my life who have not come to know Christ for varying reasons. You may think I am nuts sometimes, but I try to impress on you that God is good despite life circumstances or the hand you have been dealt. I want you to know this love and why it makes me Peaceful when you wonder why I am not falling apart.
It’s not about rules or regulations or anything remotely religious. Its about a God who loves you, hurts for you, moves for you and works it out if we pay attention. Nobody is trying to change you. But this love does it when you truly let it in.
It’s not about being a religious freak or perfection……have you met me yet? LOL. Being set apart for God is what being Holy is. And that being set apart is based on you feeling His love and never wanting Him not to know yours. Your actions follow suit.
God loves you the way you are. His love improves you and uses your flaws to love on others. If you truly know me, then you only love me because God loved me first. If any flaw in me has steered you away from Christ…..I beg you to forgive me and let’s fix it.
To the person who feels like they are going thru hell and that God does not care. Look again. Look again.
He is there in the friend who sent you ginger snaps when chemo would not let you eat. He is there is the nurse who smiled at you just a little extra to get you thru. He is there is the coworker who sends you an emoji every morning to motivate you to live. He is there in the person who sent you food for no reason. He is there in the 100 bill somebody felt they just had to give you and you needed it.
He is there in the songs that bring you joy. He is there in the counseling sessions. He is there in the eyeglass cleaner delivered every Christmas (you know who you are.) He is there when your grandkids overwhelm you with kisses.
He is there through tough times and sorrows. He holds you when no one else will. And you wonder why you didn’t lose your mind…it was Him holding it together.
And this is for a very specific friend: He was there in every Star Wars movie. He was there in every recipe you perfected. He was there and used Optimus Prime to bring a message. He was there in Bumblee. And for Pete’s sake He is there with them crazy cats of yours. Lol. He was there during our elementary school days when you would hear my church choir wooing you but we’re afraid to come in because segregation still existed. Who do you think made us sing so freaking loud!!!! . He sent a ram in the bush to get you out of a bad situation as a child. Your family was not perfect. No earthly family is. But God whispered more times than you noticed and He is still whispering.
To all of us, just because the Red Sea has not parted for you or you have not noticed a burning bush yet, does not mean God has not loved you. People disappoint you. They disappoint God. But His love overcomes and with some focus….We can see it everywhere and in everything.
I write this with tears in my eyes because today….more than anything I want my friends and loved ones to giggle with God’s Presence today. I want to arise in Glory someday to see our comedy club section. Filled to the brim with the joy of God’s love.
Please if you need me to show you the way…..reach out to me. I’m coming for you….but hoping you catch me first.
My husband’s latest scans came back clean. Whew just in time to put a little Christmas cheer back.
My “partner in crime” cousin’s suspected breast cancer turned out to be nothing. I think she is happy I bug folks about smash-a-grams.
The Lord put me in the path of a young man who needed a Christian stranger to look past color, gender and class to “read his mail”. He thought he had hit a psychic reading which gave an inroad to talk about WHO a word of knowledge really comes from.
Then an unexpected last minute dessert order that I really didn’t know how to charge for, helped pay for 6 new sets of thermals for donation to Blessing Warriors RVA Inc. .
All I need now is for no one to offer me fruit cake and this will be the best Christmas ever.
YOUR LESSON FOR TODAY. A few days ago I was going to toss it because the other early blooms had died and it was looking rough. But I choose to cut away the dead parts and sure up the soil for what looked like one last shoot. I tied her to a bamboo stick for support. And within days this happens!!!
So take note, no matter what life looks like you will bloom again. Just remember: 1. Let Go of the dead habits and toxic folks along for the ride. 2. Check your roots and use some self care to fertilize your path 3. Tie yourself to a good support system Faith – Family – Good Friends and pro counseling!
-In Loving Memory of Edelmira Brown. November 1969 – October 2022
defygravitywithoutwings.com 