"Life"

The Amazing Thing About Life Is That You Get to Live It

From the first time I was aware of my breathing, what color my skin was, who God was to me, and how everything connected to life, I was extremely disappointed that one day it would all come to an end. I don't know the day, the time, or the hour, but I was ready for it to end before I began to live. I began to plan my exit without realizing or understanding that the middle is where it counts and where the true work is.

The spirit of fear had taken me to the end of life, and I hadn't tapped into my purpose yet. I hadn't tapped into the experience of life, nor did I understand what faith was about and how it, alone, would carry me to the future that was meant for me. I had never considered that my ancestors had prayed for a better life for me without even knowing my name, without knowing my mother's name, and without knowing my grandfather's name and so on. They prayed for my life to be purposed, and they made a great sacrifice for me by doing so. I could not comprehend that I was robbing them of the seed of faith they had planted on my behalf for a life that they wanted but were not able to live.

I now know that I am a part of a cycle of life that goes back as far as my research led me — and then some. What I know for sure is that I am a part of God's DNA. God breathed into me my purpose and the journey that allows me to experience more good than bad. Genesis 2:7 says, "Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living creature."

Life for me has not always been a great experience, but it has made me stronger. I grew up without a father, and with a mother who was never consistent with showing me love, with a family who didn't live out loud and own their truth.

Unbeknownst to us, we were continuing a cycle that was given to us by humans and not ordained for us by God. I believe that my family was only living to get through the day and was dwelling in the past, never looking toward the future for a better outcome. Whenever I witnessed my aunts and my mother engaging with each other, there always seemed to be a sense of anger and bitterness that they understood they lived in and that they would not let go. I always had the impression that this made them happy, and it never made sense to me.

As I look back, I think the expectation for a purposeful life was never high enough for them to embrace, so they never lived; they only existed. I truly believe that my mother and her siblings never understood their history, nor did they understand their own purpose that God had for them and that what was for one was not for the other but together they could be a powerful force. I don't think they understood that it was impossible for them to pass the spirit of excellence to me and their other children.

My goal in life, from as far back as I can remember, has always been to find out how the cycle of life began for me and my generation. I first had to embrace who I was and become a lover of life. This would be a challenge that I would never achieve until I understood forgiveness, until I embraced my history, and until I understood who God was to me and His purpose for me and me alone. The next thing for me to understand was that with each setback, fall, bump in the road, knockout, or knockdown that life had afforded me, I had to truly understand that life still goes on, especially when I want it to end.

In life, our goal should be to understand fully that with each setback there is the opportunity to allow God to set us up for the next level in our journey. We can never go to the next level until we fully understand the test. Each test then becomes our testimony to help others overcome their tests. This becomes a pattern that ensures that the next person who walks through his or her problem, situation, or obstacle will be allowed to walk through it with the confidence in knowing that he or she will make it out and be victorious in life.

While we are assisting others in their journey, we must assure them that mistakes will happen and that they will have obstacles in the road every now and then, and that they will fall. But through it all, they will have the ability to get back up and start over to pursue their purposed life that was destined for them to achieve.

There is an old spiritual song that says, "If I can help somebody, then my living shall not be in vain." Service is the key, being selfless is the example, and giving to those who are in need is the blueprint for a life well lived.

To truly understand the meaning of life, you must first understand the cycle of life. When you have embraced the meaning of sharing your experience with others, then and only then will you walk in your truth. As for me, in order for the cycle of life to work effectively, it has always started with God and embracing my ancestors and the seeds that they planted. Now I get to live in the fullness of God while operating in my truth. The process for me to operate in my truth and to get to where I am going has been to relearn, rethink, and redo all that has been taught to me over the years that has never really agreed with my spirit.

What I heard from my elders and what I learned from what I saw and what I embraced from them was ego. Ego has always been the biggest problem in my family. Ego has taught me to do, move, and sometimes speak without thinking, to live without breathing, and to never trust who I was called to be. That was a hard pill for me to swallow.

I soon discovered that this is what I was taught by my mother. I am certain that she had no idea that this was a cycle; that she was continuing this trait from her father, and it was passed to him from his parents and the slave owners who owned them.

I also learned to embrace being absent while being present. This trait I learned from my father, who has never been present in my life. I later learned that his Baptist minister father, Edward Robertson, was never a part of his life, and he passed this trait on to my father.

Both of my parents took on the broken spirit of rejection, and I became the result of two lustful people who saw sex as love. This was the result of their one encounter: my mother's first sexual experience and my father's lust for women. Their need to feel wanted was passed on to me.

I was conceived on September 18, 1967. It was my mother's twenty-first birthday. Both of my parents were still dealing with the spirit of rejection, brokenness, and pain given to them through the cycle of life through their parents until their deaths. I have made it my personal goal to break the cycle.

A lot of what I saw in them that was wrong, I see in me. I have often wanted to fix that part of me that felt unloved and unwanted and needed to be validated. My problem was that I lived in fear and shame. I never allowed myself to move to the next level that was for me. Many times, sex, drugs, and alcohol became my escape from reality, and they were setting me up for failure....