Well, Won’t You Look at You?

I’m just going to tell ya’ll the truth – life has been a whole lot different since I moved to Brownsville, a once bustling Metropolis on the south side of Chicago; seeing a Black mommy doing yoga in front of the lakefront while her babies dawdle in the grass and Black daddies show their pre-teens how to pump gas at the corner store around the way; driving a quick six minutes to my church on Sunday mornings; and grabbing some collard greens and yams from the soul food restaurant downstairs; my world is changing. I walk out of my home, and someone says, “Good morning! Have a good day.” When I’m carrying my groceries in from the car, the grandmama at the elevator holds the door for me with a very much needed, “Bless your heart.” I am affirmed. In this place it is okay to be myself, be Black, be a woman. I am seen here, and I am reminded that it is okay to be seen for who I am.

Can you imagine, for five seconds, the power you feel in being seen? Can you remember what you felt like the last time you were actively being valued? It is such an ethereal experience that it becomes cyclical. In the act of being valued, you become more authentic, more comfortable in valuing who YOU are, how YOU think, how YOU feel, and how YOU believe.

This experience is parallel to what it has felt like to be in the presence of God lately. The more that I unpack His word and seek the wisdom of scripture through prayer, to really know it, really gather the historical and social context (read: what was going on during this time, who was having a problem with who, what problematic issue that God had to straighten out for Himself) to then apply to my own circumstance, the more I am at ease in knowing that God sees me down here loving and struggling and praying and living. I can KNOW, through His sovereign word, that God has a plan to prosper me on this Earth and how to go about accessing His power for our good. Because I believe He is who He says He is, I trust that I can plant my seeds without seeing the whole garden because HE sees me and my experience, that the direction and protection and E L E V A T I O N of my life is in living in alignment with the word of God (or trying desperately to do so and failing regularly). MY faith is in believing AND THEN seeing.

The gift of the book of Psalms is widely known as the heart of the bible as well as a comprehensive guide to “every thought, every impulse, every emotion that sweeps over the soul,” according to Dr. J. Vernon McGee. In Psalm 2, Kind David was running for his life from a wayward, murderous son, from a tattered rap sheet, and still very much with the anointing of God still on his life. This Psalm is a mixture of, “How many rise up against me!” and “You are my shield…and lift my head”, to “…I cry aloud…” then “He answers me from His holy hill”, and from “…God will not deliver him…” to “I lie down and sleep; I wake again, because the Lord sustains me.” There is a palpable trust in this Psalm, and from that trust, I have the confidence that I am following the God that hears and heals, that my God values who I am and what I have been through and all of my stuff, to still see me through and give me peace along the way.

I stand up in this peace. I stand up in knowing who I am (and being committed to continuing to figure her out). I stand up in knowing that my feelings and my daily work and my bills and my speaking engagements on Saturday afternoons and my courting with the nice brother from the Walmart are recognized by God and that I am precious in His sight. Talk about affirmation! Whew… to be seen.