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There is no need to be judgmental. And although her influence is instrumental, we all have sins of our own. She just sings hers a little louder. We’re just seeking someone to look up to. And she was looking to be influenced so one day she could be influential. But I’ve learned we should be careful of our desire to admire people who we think we’d like to be. I don’t know you yet, but if you run across this here are my words of admonition. Set up some kind of moral basis for yourself. Don’t get too disheartened if you stray from the standard you set up in your youth and innocence. It happens to the best of us. Stay nostalgic however. Always yearn to return to the standard you once set for yourself. Understand that time changes things. Time ages things. Time may taint your innocence, and you may become two-faced with your sins. Some days rationality and morality will discern your reason; other days you may be emotionally reasoned. You’ll feel like a hypocrite, and you will get tired of it all. However, you will just have to learn from your mistakes. People will always judge you, and you will always have preconceptions of people. Never act as one who is infallible. Never try to convince people of your character, but rather let your actions paint a caricature of you. Again, be careful who you choose to look up to. If you’re not about what many guys will come at you for, then be careful around females who are. For he neglected bowflex and chose to exercise his index between her legs. She allowed it. Then the index became a little denser. Now she’s an addict. My mother always told me that her mother always told her , “Show me your friends, and I’ll show you who you are.” So show me someone striving for perfection only in utter hopes of achieving some kind of excellence. I hope I told you and showed you I love you, so when another man tells you this it won’t temporarily fill a void in your heart. And “Unto third and fourth generation” of me may cause you and your seed to do somethings that will make God displeased. So please forgive me. I’m just writing to you from future aspirations of me…your father to be. And I would like to say again that I love you. I’ll start practicing from now because pain has caused me to use this phrase lightly. And “Mama/Daddy I love you. My blog speaks for me, but hope I made you proud.” I hope she makes you proud. For if I reap what I have sowed life will owe me a basket of woes. Therefore, I want you know that I love you in the way I treat all the other daughters around me…. So say a prayer for me. Please. The devil will soon be coming for me. I think I have relayed to you what I needed to. I understand my voice grows faint with my age, but my words still carry relevance. I hope God allows me to recieve you from my Womb to Be. Until then, stay safe while I strive to show my love for you. So please forgive me Keke, Corey, Ms. Rose, Ms. Peña, Kay, and young Des. Thanks.
To my precious little lady,
Your Father
Lately I’ve been thinking that I’m good, cause my palms always been closed to the drugs. I look around and figure that I’m straight; two decades passed still haven’t opted to smash. I’ll be flying out the state to my birthplace, with my family thinking I’m about my work. Public image probably looking kinda sharp, as long as they don’t catch me in my room. They say the world is coming to an end, so I’m eclectic in my ways to pass the time. I use religion as a comfort for my mind, because I’d die before getting jail raped for my soul. But then the Bible told me turn the other cheek, but how when there’s so much pride to hold. Nah nah, as long as it’s something I can control, I’d like it for my ass to remain closed.
Heaven bound but I barely even pray. And when I pray I’m probably about to eat.
Heaven bound but I barely even sleep. I guess I’m waiting for the Lord to judge my soul.
This is the confessions of a child, who never really cared about the wealth. Instead he prayed to talk to all these girls, probably thinking it would help his mental health. And his mama always confiscating phones, cause it’s 6 am and he’s still on the phone. Then she asks him why he’s gotta be extreme, then doctor doctor says he’s messing up his health. He was looking for the truth inside a lie, from the misconceptions he created about himself. Then heartbreak came and hit him with the truth. No one can replace the love you have for you.
Heaven bound and I’m trying to see the light. I’m trying to separate my feelings from the truth.
Heaven bound and I’m trekking through this life. I’m trying to find the love I once had for You.
“God has declared your healing even before you were yet healed. He has already declared you victory over every habitual sin even before you experienced the victory.” –Earlene Dotson
When I read this passage I had two immediate emotional responses. At first, I was elated because I have recently experienced victory over an addiction I have been struggling with for years. I was unsure how I was ever going to get over this addiction, and I just figured that my victory would come in my latter years of life when my compulsions eventually faded or when I got married. My second emotional response to this passage was skepticism. It sounded good at first because I recently had an experience in which this passage was proven to be true; however, I couldn’t help but think about all of the other people who were still struggling with an addiction or those individuals who have died from their addiction. Did God neglect or forget to provide victory for these people?
I believe He has done neither of the two, but that’s easy for me to say seeing that I have recently experienced the victory enunciated in the passage above. So where is the help for those drowning in their addiction? Where is their saving grace? What about those who have already died due to an over-indulgence in their addiction? Why didn’t God stretch out His helping hand to them?
I am not God, but I can use what God has done for me as proof that he provides a way out. I had struggled with this addiction for years, and I did not see how I was going to get over it while I was still youthful. I would pray and pray for God to aid me in overcoming my addiction, but it just seemed as if He had turned His ear against me. So I stopped praying. Nothing changed. Finally, over this past summer and last semester I was faced with the most emotional and physical pain I have probably ever had to endure. While I was being tortured by these two forms of pain, I did not see why I was presented with this trial I had no control over. Like most people, I imagined God would reach down and gently take away my desire to continue indulging in this sin I had struggled with for so many years. After all I was/am His child, so He was obligated to be delicate with me. Right? As Christians, we are many times shown the loving and merciful side of God. We are conditioned to believe that all of the mediums God’s uses to save us will be pleasant to our bodies and our souls. When we are faced with a situation that literally shakes the foundations of life that we presently stand on we fold. A lot of the times we crumble under the pressure. Through cognitive distortions such as emotional reasoning, we run to harmful outlets seeking comfort and relief from our problems. We refuse to attribute any process that will seriously challenge us physically, mentally, or emotionally to God. We have become soft and fluffy, expecting our belief in God to disqualify us from pain.
I have found that pain can refine a person however. Pain is what instigated me to form rituals for my days prior to my victory: Wake up. Proceed to my car. Cry for an hour. Put my clothes on and pick out the facade I was going to wear for the day. Go to class. Come home and then cry for about another two to three hours. Attempt to study. Go to bed. Repeat. Pain is what coerced me to take part in harmful outlets in order to gain peace of mind. Pain has left it’s permanent signature all over my body. Pain has taken me to some of the most undesirable places. Pain almost caused me to stop…. This pain has also lead to receive victory over a sin that I have lost thousands of hours of my life to. This pain has set me free from the slavery of striving to satisfy other’s views and opinions of me. This pain has prodded me to share my experience with you, hoping that some of the words I say will potentially have an impact on your life. This pain has helped me to finally find something that I have been searching for my entire life…myself.
God used a very painful experience to set me free. Learn to embrace the trails you are faced with. They could be the tool God is using to refine you into the person you were always meant to be.
Blessings.
My life, like many of yours, is composed of many intricacies unknown to others. I have been told that since I was born I’ve had to fight for life. I won’t reproduce to you a cliché story about my near death experience upon exiting the womb, but I will say that my impaired birth did lead me to have mild complications throughout my childhood. These complications would later cause me to sketch a skewed image of myself.
I was the fastest kid in my class for the majority of my elementary career. When I was in third grade, I was chosen to race against two of the other fastest kids in my elementary school. They were both older than me, so I was pretty nervous to race against them. The day finally came for us to race, and I placed last as I expected. I lost the race from close behind however. This probably would have been a great opportunity for me to feed my emaciated ego…if my classmates had not witnessed the raced. After seeing me run that day, my classmates would soon coerce me to play a game called cops and robbers in P.E class. It was simply tag with an embellished title. They were the cops. I was the robber.
“1. 2. 3. GO!” I began to sprint. Those with the duty of enforcing the law upon me were left in the dust. That only lasted for a couple of seconds however. I should have known better, but I wasn’t going to seem weak.”You are under arrest!” In a moment, I was being man handled by the majority of the girls and guys in my class. “Put your hands behind your back!” Crap. They got me. Silence. “Don’t try anything funny.” Almost there. Almost there. A couple minutes had passed, and they were getting too comfortable having me as their prisoner…. “He’s getting away!” I was gone, and they were anger. They would soon be pacified as they saw my sprint become a light jog then a feeble walk. “Don’t worry about it. We got him!” They handled me with even more force than before. Or maybe it was just the feeling of my body going into a sharp decline. “I bet you won’t try to run again!” Their grip on me was much tighter than first time, and I knew they wanted me to fuel the little adrenaline rushes I was giving them. “Don’t try anything stupid!” I silently gasp for air. “Haha, you won’t escape this time!” The wheezing became heavy. My symptoms were drowned out by their taunting. Enough. “N…N..Nooo. No your…your not going anywhere. S…STOP HIM!” My self-esteem would not be lowered as they surrounded me and instigated me to break free. The air I tried to breathe then stopped registering to my lungs. “Gotcha! I bet you won’t…are…ummm are you okay Bakari?’ Blackness. Stars. Pockets empty. No inhaler. “Give him space! Bakari! Bakari, breathe in and out into this paper bag. Your mother is coming with your inhaler. ” My first attack. They stood in awe. I felt weak. Never again.
8th grade…“Okay, so your choices are Gatlinburg (Tennessee), Disney World, or St. Louis.” Bloody class trip. I knew swimming would be involved. I had formed a fancy for delicacies such as bread with humus or chips and salsa. They could no longer say I would blow away in the wind if a storm passed through. In fact, they said the opposite. “Wow, boy your putting on a little weight there.” “You used to be so skinny! What happened?” A nice little dynamite for my ego. There was not much to demolish though. I was only about fifteen pounds overweight, but in my head I became obese. I was already self-conscious, but now I had become a faithful slave to their opinion. “Don’t think about the burn, think about what you’re going to earn. Come on, push yourself!” My chest remained tight. My lungs continued to burn. I kept exercising.
Days…weeks…months…A quarter mile became a half a mile. A half a mile became a mile. A mile became two miles. The scale began to register lower numbers. The comments began to lessen. I worked hard. I worked really hard. A daily two mile run became part of my religion. I ran for the relative that commented on my weight gain. I ran for the older cousin who was shocked to see me chubby after not seeing me for a few years. I ran for my haggard ego in hopes to feed it with the weight I lost.
Class trip was approaching…School. Homework. Treadmill. School. Homework. Treadmill. School. Homework. Treadmill. Dang. You weren’t supposed to eat after six. Okay, run an extra two miles. School. Homework. Treadmill. School. Homework. Treadmill. School. Homework. Treadmill. Oh shoot. You really pigged out tonight. But it’s Friday night. You know your mom won’t let you exercise. Proceed to the guest bathroom in the basement. Open the toilet lid. Fingers ready? Okay, stick em’ in and shove em’ down. Gag reflex. Try again. Chokes. Try harder. That’s good, but you know you really messed up tonight. You need to bring up some more. Just stick them down fast. Don’t think about it. AWYKXGTHKR!!! Okay cool. Now clean up this mess before your mom sees this. A few days pass. I messed up again. Repeat.
I cherish these memories, and I have recently made some more. These days, however, the question just rings in my head, “Extremist or extremely passionate? Extremist or extremely passionate?”
A time comes when one must free himself from the views and opinions of others in order to live. Act accordingly.
A lot of energy has been expended. So now we put our guards up because we must conserve everything that is left of us. Not much. We have become pain stakened. “Lonely or alone?”, those are two totally different statements. Just be patient. It’s just something about this present congregation aka my generation. I’m just saying. In accordance with Adam and Eve, my generation conceived the notion that “we were meant to be”…together. The junction of him and her would last forever. This kind of commitment would need love however. What is love though? Can we despise ourselves yet love another? Can we chastise our being yet love the others? He was broken, but his arms were left wide open to receive her…and she was a dreamer. She dreamed that he would be different from the other guys. And although he let go of his other ties with women, he was still slipping. Cause he was still gripping, another girls behind in his mind, but it’s fine. She was a dime! Then his conscience would bite him, and he would give in and tell his girl that he was mentally sinning. She would respond, “You can cheat on me, but just don’t leave me. You know I’d do anything to appease thee!” He’d say, “Oh for real? Cool, get down on your knees b.” It was tragic, how her moral code just disappeared like magic. The next thing you know he was an addict, and he spent the rest of the relationship trying to cut the habit. He swung at immorality like he was at Lambrick! Stop the madness! He knew there would be no exchange after he got some brain, so why complain? Well, because she told him it was okay. Girl what are you saying? “I can’t risk the loss. Too much energy has been expended.” Oh, so we should go on pretending we’re going to work this out? “What’s the problem dear? Every time it happens now…I get aroused!” Please close your mouth. I’m trying to leave you with something to hold onto. “It’s too late for that. I belong to you.”
Sooner than later the rationale came through, and he sat there thinking what the hell to do. She was unmoved as he presented his case. In a moment, all the good things he had done for her would suddenly be erased from her memory. She silently repeated to herself, “You can cheat on me, but just don’t leave me. You know I’d do anything to appease thee!” He’d have flashbacks of the times he’d say, “Babe pretty please, drop down to your knees. Could you do it just for me?” This conversation was not going on in real life however. She just stood listening to him state his claims. They all registered as excuses, and all she could think was, “How could he do this?” But they came to a consensus. They agreed to part ways for the summer and pray to Allah for the answers and just hope that he would answer. He got back to them. They had no future in store…. A lot of energy had been expended. Now they have their guards up in order to conserve everything that is left of them.
Be careful…cause it’s not much…
This girl learned to love pain. She was no sadist, but she did learn to embrace pain. After all, she had been conditioned to be that way. She wasn’t the strongest kid growing up, although she had a big heart. She wasn’t the smartest kid in the class, although she had a fierce determination. For most of her childhood and adolescent life she lived by a simple theory. “Be kind. Keep quiet.” It was those two principles that keep her self-esteem from being lowered even more by her peers. If she was quiet enough, she wouldn’t draw extra attention to herself. If she was nice enough, she could dodge a couple of jokes. This worked for the most part. She was never required to face herself, so she became complacent with having the dirt as her neighbors and friends. Her parents did not challenge the misbelief’s she had about herself. In fact, some of the harmless jokes they made about her contributed to the accumulation of some of her insecurities. Life for her was no harder than life for any other kids her age. There were no traumatic experiences to be discussed nor cried over.
Middle school…
The insecurities that flourished for the majority of her life were finally challenged. She could no longer hold onto the insecurity of having wickedly crooked teeth. Her braces fixed that. She was no longer handicapped, unable to sprint more than a few feet before passing out. Her persistence and determination in her exercise regimen had strengthened her lungs. She could for miles at a time now. Facial scares that were acquired during her childhood began to fade away due to years of proper treatment. She began to dress well, and she steadily began to become somewhat fashionable. Physically, she transforming into a very pretty girl. Mentally, nothing changed.
High school…
More guys started to notice her. Her figure began to accentuate, and her face cleared from puberty. She looked like a totally different person, and guys were not hesitant to tell her how attractive she was. Then she got a boyfriend…and got hurt. Then another boyfriend…and returned that hurt. Then one more boyfriend…and got scarred. This was nothing new to her however. She got to the point where she was used to feeling low. She would pray for things to get better, but deep down inside she seemed to contradict her prayers. Although she said she wanted to get better, she was so accustomed to feeling down. She was almost content with inhabiting ground. She was the dirt those above her treaded upon. She was the mud that those living in the clouds rained on. If there ever was a time she was happy, she would anticipate the pain of sorrow because had grown to love it. A true masochist.
We may stay afloat in our sorrows or swim in our victories. -thepositivendeavour“Forgiveness is the attitude you have towards a person and life after you have been hurt.” -thepositivendeavour
Just Some Thoughts... 