I thought I wanted to be an actress for a long time, because it seemed so easy to understand everyone else but not myself. My focus was on what people thought of me and who they wanted me to be instead of focusing on just being me. I put everyone else ahead of me. I mean, that is what the Good Book says, right? Put others before you? 

How does a self-proclaimed Christian feel so under- and overwhelmed, even sometimes feeling both at the same time. How can I feel so empty in a room full of seemingly happy, singing church folk? Why does anxiety seem to follow me like the plague?

Christian-ese

I grew up in church, literally going to church in my mother’s tummy. However, I did not start my journey with God (for real, for real) until I got into a car accident while in college (typical, right?). In between high school and going to college I started going to clubs and partying with a friend. I was having fun until one day my friend fell asleep at the wheel while driving us home at four in the morning. (Yes, we eventually found a club that stayed open until three in the morning.) My friend dropped off another college buddy at home when I fell asleep. I woke up to the car rocking violently. We had crashed into a ditch on the side of the road. 

Angels watching over me

Neither of us were hurt but the sound prompted a neighbor in that area to call the police. Standing there with the cop and looking at the car covered in mud, I was thinking to myself, “This could have been much worse, I could have lost my life had this gone differently.” I realized I was out of alignment and that God was sending me a message. This is when I started my journey to finding God, and where the internal chaos began.

• “How can I feel so empty when God is love?”
• “If I’m more than a conquer, why can’t I conquer anything?”
• “If He’s my peace, why am I full of anxiety?”
• “If He’s my healer, why am I in so much pain?”
• “If He hears every prayer, why hasn’t He answered any of mine?”

My search

I struggled to find my light, my purpose. I was sure not everyone had a purpose, because I hadn’t found mine. “God doesn’t have a master plan for EVERYONE. I mean, He’s busy running the world.” That was my thought process. But I realized that God is not like us. He can do more than two things at a time and even certain things he put in automation (like the sunrise and sunset).

I spent most of my adult life searching for God, not realizing I had found Him, and He was seeing me through a journey; a journey to learn to enjoy the journey. (This was not exciting to me at first.)

In my quest to find God and my purpose in life God showed me my purpose is to be loved and to share my life and the good news with others. This may be obvious to you, but it was not for me. I was that person that wanted something to do. Just give me something to do… sort of what is taught in the book, the Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren; however, I found this to be a journey to nowhere.

It wasn’t until my former pastor said in a bible study meeting to the attendees, “You and God are not in a business relationship.” That is when I really realized my “religiousity” was off. I remember thinking, “We’re not? …Huh.” Maybe my business training had something to do with this mindset with God. (Or the fact that my search for God led me to many prosperity-preaching churches…) Either way, I’ve come to learn and unlearn many things in my walk with the Lord.

My experience as a black woman

As much as I want to believe that my color does not matter, my experiences in life have proven otherwise. I have accepted that my life as a black woman is very nuanced. It was not until college, and then while in corporate America, that I realized that I was really black. I grew up in a predominately black suburban neighborhood and attended a predominately white church. (As kids we didn’t really know, we had black Sunday school teachers that taught only us every Sunday.) I realized that there was a glass ceiling for people who looked like me and started to see hard truths of how black women are treated in personal and professional settings. It was around this time that I began to open my eyes to how I was viewed by the men and women around me –from my skin, to my, hair, to the way I carry myself. Black women have been disrespected and degraded by people within and without the black community – these realizations have peppered my experience as a Christ-follower and gave me inspiration to create this blog.