The past 2.5 years of my life have been an uprooting of everything I ever knew, wanted or thought my life should be. It helped me to dig deep and question all that I have ever done or knew. But this journey actually began far before this time. It started at birth but I’m going to fast forward to the beginning of my blogging journey in 2009. No one wants to go through decades of pivots.
I started to have confidence in my voice during my mid-20s. I’ve always been vocal but my voice shook most times I spoke. If I spoke at all. I was considered a shy kid even though I wasn’t. I am an introvert yet no one knew what that was growing up. Since no one really noticed me until I spoke up, what I had to say didn’t seem to matter. Or so I thought.
For years I would notice when things would be headed off the rails and give solutions. Then told they were not going to be used. Only for them to be used and someone else got credit for them. That burned me up inside. Each time it happened I felt I needed to distance myself away from the activity, organization or idea because it obviously wasn’t meant for me.
I could not have been more wrong.
What I have come to realize after years of yelling, crying and stomping as I spoke to my mom about the pivots life has taken me on is that I am a light. I was a light. I will always be a light.
Why point am I trying to make?
That the pivots life sent me on didn’t always have to happen. I wasn’t strong enough, confident or aware that my voice was a lot more powerful than I realized. I took those pivots out of despair, frustration and hurt to be honest. Most often thinking those pivots were the voice of God when in reality they were fear, doubt, annoyance that what I presented was taken by someone else for them to not only receive credit but to get paid from it as well.
So I kept making pivots. Well I can’t pivot anymore. I can’t keep running away from what I was given to do. Yes, there are times to move on but moving on doesn’t always mean to make a major pivot in your life. It just means that part of the assignment you’ve been given is complete.
In the past 11 years, I have gone from educator to enlightened. I am freeing myself of misinformation and ignorance so I can fully, completely, unashamedly, unshakably realize all that God has for me in the pivot I agreed to make just a couple of months ago.
Since my voice is strong. Since my voice gets people to listen whether they admit it or not. Since my voice sends out ideas that others find useful. And I have this fighting spirit. It’s only right that I combine the two and speak out against injustice especially the injustice that started and stems from the church.
Through pivots I have learned it’s not about me getting credit or being recognized. (Even though it would be nice sometimes, just saying.) It’s more about the ideas that God gives to me to get out into the world and do the good they are meant to do. For those who take them and destroy the idea because it didn’t come from them first, God will sort them out. The idea is what matters. Not who make the idea a reality. If staying in the background doing the necessary work to help dismantle structures of racism and white supremacy so God’s Word can truly be realized, then that’s what I’ll do.
To me, being enlightened means unlearning all that was forced upon me to keep me not just in “my place” but to prevent me from challenging the thoughts and ideas that was thrust into my psyche.
While the journey has had its ups and downs, I wouldn’t change it for anything. I still have no regrets in life. I made each and every decision knowing there will be consequences involved. And I stand by those decisions. To all the pivots that I took too soon, I pray that the ideas planted will be taken up by someone else and continued as the world needs things that will help people do better, live better and be better.
As I have a week left of being 35, I want to take the time to reflect on all that I’ve been through. To know that none of that broke me. To see that none of the pivots stopped me. To embrace the unknown. If anything, the pivots until I was positioned helped me to gain experiences that will enrich the enlightenment I have reached.
I am a Millennial Black Christian Blogger because I believe not just in God or that Jesus died so I can have life. But that the Word of God is the light I will follow in this life. Being enlightened has helped me to think from a more informed, open, aware perspective. That is based on the Word of God. I believe that we are to be kind to one another (treat people how they deserve to be treated). Call them out when they do wrong. And let God handle the rest.
Yes, pivoting has cost me so much. I have lost more than I can ever explain. But at the end of the day, I would do it all over again if it means being in the stage of enlightenment that I’ve reached at this moment.
Pivots in life will happen. We have to know when to take it, when not to and when that pivot will lead us down a path we were never meant to be on.
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