I don’t remember being baptized, but I know that ever since
my senior year of high school I have been drowned in the river of love from the
Lord and I can’t seem to get up.
Sometimes I am able to come up from this river and catch my
breath but when I do come up I feel the heat of oppression on the other side. I
feel the flames of stress, hunger, and poverty when I am not covered in his
love.
I am left with third degree burns from a history of violence
and careless attitudes that leave my skin falling from its bones. My skin is
beaten to the white meat from the bashings from being a poor black girl wanting
to fit in in a society that expects me to be pregnant by 15 and unable to
finish high school. Shoot, they’re probably surprised I made it this far. I am
on fire from poor education, a minimum wage that does not equate to a living
wage, and the constant bashing from society to rise to their low expectations.
My eyes are bruised from witnessing the murders of my
brothers and the sexual abuse of my sisters. My lips are sealed quiet by a
world that expects me to be silent when hatred opens its filthy mouth and spews
venomous lies that lead to the death of this “free” nation. My arms and legs
are whipped and left with ugly scars until I am willing to conform to society’s
views and beliefs that I am nothing but a poor black girl who abuses the system
and should be looked down upon because I will bring no real contribution to
this world. I am beaten, broken, and belittled until I am flushed back into the
river of God’s love.
I once again drown into his love and all my frowns are
erased from my poor little black face and I am again basked in the love of the
Lord. I am no longer chained to my shackles of poverty and gender inequality. I
believe that I can make the same as a man who has the same title and the same
position and I do not have to prove myself to a world that should already
accept me as I am. I stay this way for days, weeks, maybe months and then I am
again forced out of the river to a world filled with hate. A world filled with
unwarranted bombings, sacrificial killings, and kidnapping of girls who are my
little sister’s age and then I am hoping, wishing, and praying to be back in
that river.
I want to be back in that river. I want to hear the waves of
the water rushing past my ears and swallowing me whole. I want to feel the
water in my nostrils and get bruised from the roaring waves because I know that
when I am basked in this river, everything seems okay. Everything is okay.
Everything the Lord does is okay and he will make a way out of no way. And
sometimes, more often than not, when I do find myself slipping into the flames
of this world, I am reminded that the Lord’s love will encompass me again and I
will continue to be in his river of eternal life and I am again drowning. I am
drowning in his purpose.
