I’ve always been a dreamer. I’ve probably spent the majority of my life dreaming about my surroundings. Some would say that’s a lack of focus, a disconnect with reality. I don’t really care. For me it was a war tactic. Dreaming has pushed me to pursue impossible situations. It has allowed me to believe in the impossible. My dream is more real than a fake friend’s pledge of loyalty, or a crooked politician’s promise to heal my broken city’s streets. Maybe this dreaming deficiency made it easier for my heart to accept Jesus as my Lord. My Savior. I needed a helper, a hero in my story. When I was a child, all my issues or inconveniences seemed to be far off. I could go play at the park or sing a song in my room, and all my cares just magically disappeared. I could watch Poetic Justice and pretend it was the story of my parents. I could dream that they were overseas and planning a trip to come and get me soon. Sometimes I would tell friends at school my father was in prison for murder. I even forged a letter and brought it to school in fifth grade. My friends almost went for it, until one of them pointed out all of the spelling errors.
I learned about Jesus as a young girl. Learned the Lord’s Prayer, took Communion, sang about how He has the whole world, but that to me was a church thing. I knew how to say prayers at night, but I never heard Him saying anything back to me. For a long time, I secretly thought to myself I was too bad. I bought that God was good, mainly because despite all I’d been through, I still saw the good in the world. Things like music, trees, sunshine, my grandparents. MeMau would sit with me every night and say my prayers with me. When she left my room, I would lie in bed and stare at the ceiling and attempt to talk to God.
Now you lay me down to sleep
I’m still up, Lord, thinking …
What’s wrong with me?
I hate me!
I wish I would die.
I’m weird and I’m always thinking
I’m sad and lonely
Why won’t you ever talk to me?
My skin is black and my hair is curly
The boys call me ugly.
I am ugly.
I wish I had a momma and a daddy
Are you there?
I’m sorry I’m so bad
Please help me.
I really didn’t know much about the person of God. How to access Him, His friendship. Most of the times I would feel extremely guilty and unworthy to the point where I wouldn’t even try to learn anymore. Kenya’s murder brought me to my knees and to the end of myself. I couldn’t sleep at night. I was smoking marijuana and going through alcohol bottles nonstop. I moved on to cigarettes and prescription pills. I became promiscuous, giving my body away. I would go out Monday through Sunday, drinking and partying. I would start fights in the clubs, throwing alcohol bottles and dancing on tables. I was angry. I needed to know that was okay. It was okay to be angry. I thought it was fun at the time, but that’s because I suppressed the truth, the pain.
The truth was I was afraid. Afraid that God didn’t want me, that I wasn’t enough. That somehow, I was not a part of His chosen few and that I would not only live a life of inadequacy but spend an eternity in hell too. I was afraid something was wrong with me. I wanted to be “good.” I just couldn’t. I didn’t have the tools. Wrong was too easy, too accessible, and it felt “good.” It was an answer to my hurt no matter how temporary, or how horrible I would feel in the end. I didn’t know another way; it wasn’t necessarily that I didn’t want another way. I would learn songs at church, but what I really needed to learn is how to live. How to accept Jesus. Why He wasn’t answering me when I prayed. Why I couldn’t seem to understand His concepts. Why I would be up all night terrified, tormented in my thoughts, incapable of believing that Jesus could love me. It would have helped to know how God worked, to hear about how He prepares things, how He works in His own time. It would have helped to know about sin and that He sent His son Jesus to die for me, to take my place in suffering. It would have helped to know about faith, a simple childlike belief in Jesus. In all my years in church, I never heard anyone talk about their torment, their fear. I thought I was crazy, like mentally insane, truly. I must be super evil, I would think to myself, unsaveable.