I am honored to be with you tonight at virtuous Sisters
Social Club’s premier meeting. I do not
take it lightly that I have been asked to be the first speaker. I have an assignment, which is simply to
speak a few moments on life. Now that
seems rather general. Yet, life’s events and its effect on human behavior is
always a major topic in any serious conversation I have. My friends who have
taken such time with me will confirm that. So, today I am going to tell you a
couple of stories from my life that I hope will get each of you to think about your own stories, connect some dots, make changes
where you find a change is needed and
encourage you to follow your heart.
History:
My bio-mom was a promiscuous teenager who had lost her dad
at about 4 years old. She looked for love in all the wrong places and found
children without fathers instead. I was the second. Given to my paternal
grandparents who reared me as their own. I too lost my “dad” at age 27 months . Momma had breast cancer. With death coming
earlier than she had anticipated she began a crash course in what today I call “practical
life and character building skills”, she used saying and oral history to
educate her young granddaughter. Her goal was as she said to make sure I could
take care of myself when she would not be there to teach me any longer. Daddy sent momma back to school as a
teenager. I know nothing about his educational background except that their
best friends had studied at FAM-C, and it seemed important to them that their
sons went to college and that I should one day go to FAMU their school of
preference for higher education. To make a long story short only my uncle went.
Without momma’s instructions, my troubled and abused teen years would have done
me in. Still I made many choices that
were not in my best interest. Today I
can see with my 20/20 hindsight that I did forget whose child I am. My behaviors went against what I had been
taught. It seems even now strange that I never enjoyed the behaviors that I
deeply held as unbecoming of the person I am, yet I engaged in these
activities. I disliked being view as
someone who “thinks she’s better than everyone else” or” who forgot where she
came from.” Therefore, I tried to fit in. What I found was that having grown up
in a family, which valued education, reading, art, travel and self sufficiency
caused me to appear “bourgeois” to those whose life experiences and training
were different from mine. However, the latter was just what I had done. Forgot
where I had come from. I forgot that I
had somewhere to go. I forgot that “God blesses the child who has his own” (the
way that saying was taught to me.) That I have a right and responsibilities to
do better than those who were before me and to teach my own children that they
are to do better than I do. I did not know until after momma and uncle Bobby’s
deaths that everyone’s family was not like ours.
My momma owned her own business; daddy left her with a home,
other property a toddler and a teenage son. Being that he was 22 years older
than she was now makes sense that she would start a saying with “your
granddaddy told me”.
Today I am a season woman who remembers who I am and whose child
I am. I no longer try to fit in. When I
discovered that becoming a nurse; having the opportunity to speak and sing
before thousands ,travel, plan and host events, earn money, volunteer to raise
money for charities, help those who have been victims of abuse by people and
nature and my propensity to educate ,all of which I played and dreamed of as a
child. Was just the setup for a life I could be happy with. I have been to other countries; I have sung
before kings, I have had honors that still leave me in awe at the thought of them.
Yes, I still dislike when I even hear someone make the statement that someone
has forgotten where he or she came from or “they think”. Why? Because I know that, the person making
the statement does not know his own power. He does not know that where you have
been or where you came from need not dictate where you can go.
What are you to get out of my story, a story that for the
sake of time I must leave so much out?
Only this that if you were to connect the dots in your life
you may just fine your true calling, you
will see that you are more than your past and that that past can show
you where you are suppose to go. What
did you play as a child? What do you
really like doing? What type of actives do you love? Can you earn a living with them? Would this
be a hobby you can really enjoy? Does it frighten you? Is there anyone already
doing it? Or is it waiting for you to create it?
You do not have to be what
everyone wants you to be. Nor do you have to do what others want you to do.
Yes, there are limits in freedom. However, I am speaking to persons who are
free, believers, who are free to be good and do good. Persons who do not have
to stay where they came from unless they desire to. People who have the freedom
to remake themselves. It does not matter
your age, your color or your gender. I
am going to leave you with this. My grandmamma said that there is no excuse for
bad behavior, I can’t is dead and he is not coming back. The best way to get
even with with the person who would choose to be your enemy or spreads lies
about you is to outlive them; the world owes you nothing, and every generation
should live better than the one before it. I am adding this. Everything does not have to
be I win you lose. I have found that I win- you win is possible. By pooling and or sharing skills and
resources we can be winners. One example
only will I give. If I sell shoes, you make leather goods, someone else is a
tanner and sells pre tanned leather, the tanner need only be your supplier
to make him happy, he has a regular
customer, you supply me with shoes and bags you are happy I am your customer. I
sell shoes to persons who look at the leather and workmanship of my shoes and
are satisfied I’m happy because I have customers. We are
winners.
If you are not happy with who you are or what you are, make
a change. Not because someone else doesn’t like you the way you are or has a
negative view of what you are or what
you do. What is most important isWhat is
most important is your opinion of
yourself. Scripture say to love others as you love yourself. As, similar to,
like. Comparable to. I have met persons who I do not want to have love me as they love themselves. They hate themselves, have no self-esteem
they don’t have any self respect. How can that person love me.
I have learned to love myself, to care for me first, to
remember who I am and to whom I belong. I will not deliberately harm you, I
will not because in order to practice agape I have to make a choice. Agape
means to intentionally chose to promote good will where ill will has been
generated. Besides it would be beneath me I am a favored daughter of the King
of kings, creator of the universe. A force to be reckoned with. And so are you.
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