childhood

Ketanji Brown Jackson -When preparation meets history.

March 13, 2026March 13, 2026Posted in Uncategorized, inspiration, relationships, God, work, Black History Month, women's history monthTagged Black History Month, celebration, childhood, christian, faith, women's history monthLeave a comment

Some victories do not come bursting through the door.
They come with their shoes in their hand.
With grace under pressure.
With long study hours, quiet discipline, and the kind of strength that has learned how to hold itself still.

Ketanji Brown Jackson was born in Washington, D.C., in 1970 and raised in Miami.
She went to Harvard, graduating from college in 1992 and law school in 1996, serving along the way on the Harvard Law Review.
She clerked for Justice Stephen Breyer.
Worked as a public defender.
Served on the United States Sentencing Commission.
Became a federal judge in 2013.
Rose to the D.C. Circuit in 2021.

Nothing about her path says sudden.
Everything about it says prepared.
And maybe that is what makes this kind of history so holy.
Because on April 7, 2022, when the Senate confirmed her by a 53 to 47 vote, and on June 30, 2022, when she was sworn in as the 104th Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, becoming the first Black woman ever to serve there, it was not the beginning of her worth.
It was the public naming of what had already been true.
Brilliant.
Capable.
Measured.
Ready.

She became the first former federal public defender to sit on that Court.
Only the sixth woman in its history.

A Black woman in a seat this nation took far too long to imagine her in, though women like her have always been here carrying wisdom, justice, memory, and backbone in places that rarely gave them the microphone.

So no, her presence does not just say look what happened.
It says look what endured.
Look what kept going.
Look what kept studying.
Look what kept showing up polished and prepared while carrying the weight of being doubted before speaking.
For every door that opened late
For every gift that had to prove itself twice
For every girl taught to be excellent and careful at the same time
Her presence speaks.
Not just I made it.
But women like her have always been here.

Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.
Joshua 1:9

And maybe that is the part I love most.
Not just that she made it to the room
but that God walked her all the way there.

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

You Are Black History

February 28, 2026February 28, 2026Posted in Black History Month, faith, God, inspiration, love, relationships, Uncategorized, workTagged Black History Month, childhood, christian, christianity, christmas, church, college, critical race theory, faith, FamilyLeave a comment

Black history does not live only in textbooks, timelines, or framed portraits. It lives in you.

It lives in the prayers your grandmother whispered that no one recorded. It lives in the courage it took for your parents and grandparents to keep going when quitting would have been easier.

It lives in the way you show up to work, to church, to community, to family — even when the reward is unclear.

Black history is not only something that happened. It is something that is still happening.

It is made every time you choose dignity over bitterness. Every time you carry joy in a system that profits from your exhaustion. Every time you tell the truth — even quietly. Every time you endure, love, build, teach, heal, or believe anyway.

Some names were written down. Many were not.
Some stories were celebrated. Many were survived.
But history is not only what is remembered — it is what continues.

You stand on the shoulders of those who were victorious without reward. Those who served faithfully without applause. Those who planted seeds they would never live to see bloom.

Their courage flows through you.

And we have always known how to leave something behind.

Breadcrumbs on the ground when the path was uncertain. Hushpuppies tossed not as waste, but as wisdom — a way to distract danger long enough to keep moving. Cornrows braided tight to the scalp, not only as beauty or tradition, but as memory — paths etched into hair, holding maps to water, to safety, to freedom.

What could not be written down was carried. What could not be spoken aloud was encoded. What could not be protected by law was protected by love, community, and God.

This was not myth. This was method.
A people learning how to survive systems designed to erase them — by remembering anyway.

If you are still leaving breadcrumbs for those coming behind you… still marking the way quietly… still choosing faith, dignity, and care when no one is watching…
You are doing what has always been done.

You are part of a holy lineage of guidance and endurance. A living echo of the God who makes a way where none seems visible and leads His people forward, step by step.

“Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”
— Galatians 6:9
“Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”
— Psalm 119:105

If you are still standing, still hoping, still loving, still reaching for God and for one another — you are Black history in motion.
Not just because of where you came from, but because of how you choose to live.

We see you. We honor you. You matter.
Love, Chelle

George Henry White: The Last Voice Before the Silence

February 20, 2026February 20, 2026Posted in Black History Month, faith, God, inspiration, love, relationshipsTagged Black History Month, Breast cancer, celebration, childhood, christian, critical race theoryLeave a comment

George Henry White (1852–1918) was the final African American to serve in the United States Congress at the close of Reconstruction. When he left office in 1901, Black representation in Congress disappeared for nearly three decades.

Born in Bladen County, North Carolina, to a free father and a mother who had been enslaved, White came of age in the uncertain promise of Reconstruction. He attended Freedmen’s schools, graduated from Howard University in 1877, became a teacher, then a lawyer, and entered public service during a narrow window when Black political participation was still possible in the South.

Elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1896 and reelected in 1898, he served as the only Black member of Congress during his tenure.

While in office, he:

• Introduced the first federal anti-lynching bill in 1900
• Spoke against voter suppression and racial violence
• Defended equal protection under the law
• Warned that disenfranchisement would wound the nation itself

As Jim Crow laws tightened and Black voters were systematically removed from the ballot, White chose not to seek reelection in a system engineered to silence his people.

On January 29, 1901, he delivered his farewell address. In it he declared:

“This… is perhaps the Negroes’ temporary farewell to the American Congress; but… Phoenix-like he will rise up some day and come again.”

It was not wishful thinking. It was vision.

Twenty-eight years later, Oscar Stanton De Priest returned Black representation to Congress in 1929. Since that return, more than 160 African Americans have served in the United States Congress.

White’s prophecy stretched further still. The groundwork laid by those who endured Reconstruction and its collapse helped clear the path for Thurgood Marshall on the Supreme Court, Barack Obama in the White House, and Ketanji Brown Jackson becoming the first Black woman Justice of the United States Supreme Court.

He did not see those milestones.

But he named the future in a moment designed to erase it.

After Congress, White practiced law, helped establish the Black town of Whitesboro, New Jersey, and founded a Black-owned bank in Philadelphia.

He was the last of an era.
And the prophet of the next one.

Scripture

“Write the vision and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it.
For the vision is yet for an appointed time… though it tarry, wait for it;
because it will surely come.”
— Habakkuk 2:2–3

BREADCRUMB

Sometimes the assignment is not to hold the seat,
but to hold the prophecy.

SALUTE

We see you, George Henry White —
for legislating in hostile air,
for introducing justice when it would not pass,
for declaring return when disappearance looked certain.

You stood at the edge of erasure
and named the future anyway.

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

Lucy Diggs Slowe — The Woman Who Wouldn’t Play Small

February 13, 2026Posted in Black History Month, God, inspiration, UncategorizedTagged Black History Month, childhood, faith, GodLeave a comment

Lucy Diggs Slowe was born in 1885, right here in Virginia. Sharp-minded. Observant. The kind of girl who noticed early on when the rules didn’t quite add up—and instead of shrugging, she kept the numbers in her head.
Lucy loved learning, but she loved fairness more.

She went to college at a time when that alone made a statement. Then she went and won a national tennis championship, not because she was trying to make history, but because she liked to compete and she was good at it. First Black woman to do that. No speeches. No victory lap. Just excellence.

Later, at Howard University, Lucy started seeing something that bothered her. Black women students were being monitored, managed, and micromanaged—while Black men were being prepared for leadership.

Lucy didn’t raise her voice about it. She raised the standard.

She became the Dean of Women and pushed back on rules that treated grown women like children. She fought for privacy, dignity, and the right for Black women to become themselves without apology or supervision disguised as concern.

And when she saw young Black women needing each other, she helped start Alpha Kappa Alpha—not for prestige, but so they’d have sisterhood, scholarship, and somewhere solid to stand. Lucy didn’t perform rebellion.
She practiced alignment.

SCRIPTURE CONTEXT
“Do not be conformed to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” — Romans 12:2

BEFORE YOU MOVE ON
Where have you learned to make yourself smaller just to keep the peace? Lucy reminds us that refusing to conform isn’t arrogance—it’s obedience to who God made you to be.

Some people don’t change the room by entering it.
They change it by refusing to play along.

We see you, Lucy Diggs Slowe — for standing firm when shrinking was expected.

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

Prathia Hall — The Woman Who Put the Dream in the Air

February 11, 2026Posted in Black History Month, faith, God, inspiration, relationships, workTagged Black History Month, childhood, christianity, church, critical race theoryLeave a comment

Prathia Hall was a preacher—and I don’t mean honorary, invited-once-a-year preacher. I mean called, trained, Scripture-handling, fire-in-her-bones preacher. That alone put her at odds with the world she was born into.
She came up in the middle of the Civil Rights Movement, not watching it on television, but working it. Organizing. Marching. Preaching. Sitting in mass meetings where faith wasn’t decoration—it was fuel.

And Prathia knew words mattered.
She preached with rhythm and Scripture braided together. Not shouting just to shout. Not performing. She preached like someone who believed God was actually listening—and that people were, too.

One night, after a church had been bombed, Prathia stood in the rubble and began to pray out loud. And as she prayed, she kept saying a phrase again and again:
“I have a dream…”
Not as a speech.
As a prayer.

That cadence—the hope, the structure, the repetition—later showed up on a much bigger stage through Dr. King. History remembers the microphone. It often forgets the woman who helped tune the sound.

Prathia Hall kept preaching anyway.
She worked with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), helped train young leaders, and taught theology that didn’t separate heaven from justice. She believed faith was supposed to interrupt oppression, not soothe it.
She didn’t chase credit.
She chased truth.

“So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” — Romans 10:17

SIT WITH THIS
Who taught you how to speak hope before the world was ready to hear it? And where might God be asking you to keep saying the thing—even if someone else gets the credit later?

BREADCRUMB
Some words don’t echo right away.
They wait—until the world is ready to hear them.

We see you, Prathia Hall — for preaching freedom into the air before it had a stage.

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.

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

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

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

Stone Soup For A Restless World

January 27, 2026Posted in faith, food, God, health, inspiration, love, relationships, selfhelp, UncategorizedTagged bloganuary, celebration, childhood, christian, church, dailyprompt, faith, Family, foodLeave a comment

(Inspired by the traditional folktale “Stone Soup”)
There is an old folktale—often called Stone Soup—with roots in European oral tradition, passed from voice to voice long before it ever lived on a printed page. No single author can claim it, because it belongs to the people. To grandmothers. To kitchens. To cold evenings and tired hearts.
My grandma told me this story when I was a child.
In it, strangers arrive in a village with nothing but a pot, water, and a stone. The villagers insist they have nothing to give. Nothing extra. Nothing to spare. But as the pot begins to simmer, curiosity loosens fists. A carrot appears. Then an onion. A potato. A handful of herbs. What begins as nothing becomes a feast—not because of the stone, but because everyone adds what they already had.
“All the believers were together and had everything in common.”
— Acts 2:44
What my grandmother made sure I understood wasn’t cleverness or trickery.
It was this: waste nothing, because even the smallest thing can become enough.
That lesson followed me into adulthood and straight into my freezer.
I freeze the little bits.
The half cup of vegetables left after dinner.
The last spoonful of beans.
The scraps that don’t look like a meal on their own.
And on nights like this—when the world feels heavy, when the news is loud, when unrest simmers hotter than any stove—I pull out those frozen fragments. I drop my own version of a stone into broth. I add spices. I stir. And somehow, once again, there is soup.
Scripture reminds us that when we bring what we have—no matter how small—God knows how to make it enough.
“Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others.”
— 1 Peter 4:10
Nothing fancy.
Nothing wasteful.
Nothing done alone.
Wouldn’t it be lovely—
in a world so divided, so guarded, so afraid of scarcity—
if we could remember how to do this together?
Not fix everything.
Not agree on everything.
Just show up with what we have.
A carrot. A story. A pot. A willingness.
Stone Soup reminds us that abundance doesn’t start with excess.
It starts with shared heat.
With open hands.
With the quiet decision to believe that together is still possible.
Tonight, I’ll keep stirring.
And I’ll keep believing.
Love, Chelle
DefyGravityWithoutWings.com

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