Category Archives: Recovery

Activate Healing

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Forgiving others can be hard, but the act is necessary. Notice that I said act because forgiving is not words we say but actions we perform. But before speaking to or doing for another, we must acknowledge that we have an issue with that person. Doing this can be hard for everyone, including traditional strong black women who tend to ignore pains inflicted on us; our lives are so full of activities that we may think we don’t have time to stop to deal with someone who has offended us. Or maybe we don’t want to admit that someone hurt our feelings because doing so makes us look weak. And perhaps we think being vulnerable is not a position we can afford to be in.

Well, we must risk missing a deadline and being vulnerable so that we make amends. This is for our health and the health of others. In keeping with my observance of National Poetry Month, I posted the poem The Making of Unforgiveness on Friday. On Saturday I ministered at a women’s retreat on the topic of forgiveness. In one exercise I had the women rewrite this poem to reflect someone who they hadn’t forgiven. I had them title their poem My Making of Unforgiveness. The women began to unearth things, many they had buried years ago. By their own admission, through this exercise many women began to heal. I challenge you to rewrite the poem to fit your situation and let me know the effect the process has on you. I look forward to hearing from you.

Copyright 2010 by Rhonda J. Smith

My First White Friend, Again

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My God sister, Gracie, has always been a prophetess in my life. We don’t talk much, but this woman, 15 years my senior, has always been connected to me in the spirit. Recently she sent me a journal right after I had just given one away. Then she sent me a book on prayer when I had just committed to more in-depth prayer. Only the Lord could have led her like that. Years ago, when I was steeped in rebellion, her prophetic voice through a letter warned me of the consequences of selling certain greeting cards in my company’s We Dare to Go There line. And then there was the more subtle admonition about me not having any white friends; she sent me the book My First White Friend: Confessions on Race, Love, and Forgiveness by Patricia Raybon.

Raybon talks about her journey to forgive whites and her father because of his “[r]ules about always being better than the white people, so they couldn’t find anything wrong with you even if they tried hard.” These rules caused her to seek perfection and to please others and these unrealistic expectations eventually made her feel less than enough. But instead of remaining mad at her father, at her first white friend who befriended her despite others’ expectations and all white people in general, Raybon chose to forgive so she could love herself and others, regardless of their race or shortcomings. Her awakening had me ready to meet my first white friend, again. That was about 15 years ago, and my contact with white people was limited. There were a few at work, but they mostly kept to themselves. And the ones in grad school ignored me outside of colloquiums and group projects. I never reached out to them because I remember how my relationship with Stephie ended and I didn’t want to chance that again until I met Natalia.

Natalia and I are members of the same church. She and her family started attending and eventually joined last year after hearing our pastor on the radio. God has called her and her husband, Bill, to plant a multicultural church in an Arab American community. They believe God led them to Evangel to prepare them for their call. When I found this out during our brief talks in the nursery as we cared for our children, I believed their call is from God. See, she’s not the typical “white girl” that I usually find in a black community. You know the ones who get their hair done at black salons, date black guys and walk and talk in ways that “out black you.” Natalia is effervescent, yet soft spoken, and on first glance may appear to be the typical liberal, “we are the world” white woman. But I watched her and noticed that she didn’t try to stand out or fit in. She just was, is, a woman who is confident in her white skin and comfortable with me in my black skin. I found this to be true outside the pleasantries of church.

During our first phone conversation we talked about motherhood, marriage, feminism, Biblical womanhood, writing, college, spiritual gifts, and a lot more, including race. I told her my Stephie story, and she apologized, not on behalf of whites who had wronged blacks but because of the pain of rejection that I felt. “No one should have to go through that because of who they are,” she said. It was that comment, her framing her thoughts based on a Biblical worldview, and the overall spiritual and intellectual tone and comfort of our conversation that I knew Natalia was my sister. Not just because Jesus Christ is both of our Savior but because she knows who she is, she flows in who she is and freely embraces others with the love of Christ. Natalia is my first white friend, again, but I believe she will be my last. I don’t see any need for a do over because I believe this first white friendship will last.

Copyright 2010 by Rhonda J. Smith

Identity Crisis

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A little more than a year ago my 7-year-old son, Joshua, had an identity crisis. He said the pretty ladies were white and he wanted to be white. Oh, you know my heart sunk. My son didn’t think his momma was pretty. He despised how his grandmothers, aunts and friends look. Blinking to hold back tears, catch my breath and move the lump from my throat, I asked him did he know what he was saying meant. I asked him did he know that he was saying that he didn’t think his momma was pretty. He thought for a second and then said, “Yes. The pretty ladies are white. You don’t have clothes like the ladies at the casino.”

Joshua, 7 years old

I couldn’t hear what Joshua was trying to say. I saw little children picking the white baby doll over the black baby doll. I thought, “How could this happen? He has an Afrocentric mother, parents who love him and affirm his blackness. He’s around positive and progressive black people. He owns and reads books with black images. And he doesn’t watch that much TV. How could a baby like mine say he wanted to be white?” And I felt like a failure. I hadn’t instilled cultural pride into my child and now he was telling me so. After the nanosecond of these thoughts flooding my mind I thought to ask him WHY he wanted to be white. He reasoned: “All the white people wear nice clothes. The black children on TV don’t have food and clothes and hell is dark. I want us to be white.”

With his one hour of television a week, which included pleas to help poor children in Africa, casino billboards with fancy dressed white people, and lessons on salvation, Joshua had ascertained that all things white must be good and all things black must be bad, and he didn’t want any of us to have any part of anything bad. And though what he was saying revealed a bad situation, I was relieved. At 6, my son was a critical thinker and he wanted what he perceived to be the best for him and his family. Now the task was to teach him about propaganda meant to entice and make him feel less than others.

I thought I would deluge him with the history of black oppression at the hands of whites, saturate my home with more Afrocentric images, become involved in former activities where he would see me dressed in formal clothes and be around those I knew who flaunted their money and status. But as a strong black woman in recovery who is healing from racial and social pride, I knew these were bad ideas. They would perpetuate in Joshua what I was trying to get rid of in me. So I did what I should have done in the first place: pray.

In the middle of the night, Proverbs 6:25 came to my mind and I knew God was giving me the answer to help my son and others who may be competitive to the point of being covetous. “Lust not after her beauty in thine heart; neither let her take thee with her eyelids.” This ‘her’ was the ‘strange woman’ in verse 24 and though the strange woman here is interpreted whore, the Hebrew word also means “foreign; someone not like you.” And the word lust is the same Hebrew word for covet. Joshua loves the Bible and constantly looks for applications in his life. I knew we needed to revisit The 10 Commandments, specifically “Thou shalt not covet” because God was saying at the root of Joshua’s identity crisis was an issue with covetousness. Joshua was coveting his neighbor’s skin color and possessions, and I was convinced that Joshua would get this. He did.

On his own, Joshua said, “I’m telling God, ‘I know you gave me this skin color, but I don’t want it. I want white skin.” Then he looked embarrassed and curious, like he had just been scolded and knew what the consequences would be if he didn’t stop coveting. Joshua learned the lesson immediately and there has been no more talk about wanting to be white. This lesson, along with teaching that God created ‘all nations of men,’ has helped Joshua understand that his being black was no accident but an intentional incident, and because of that he has no reason to covet. Joshua is my hero because he took the word of God and immediately applied it to his life. Also, Joshua now is quite proud to be black, constantly expressing awe and joy when discovering blacks’ accomplishments. I’m just working on his ability to love all the nations of people God has created and not seek to return hate for hate. As we reflect on the state of black people during this Black History Month, I think Joshua’s lessons are good for us all.

Copyright 2010 by Rhonda J. Smith

The Actions of Babes

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If you pay close attention to children, you can see some spiritual lessons at work. This happened the other day when I was helping my 2-year-old son Nathaniel take off his shirt. I was pulling it up to pull it off, but right when I got to the bridge of his nose, he began to panic. Apparently I wasn’t going fast enough for him so to counter his anxiety he began to pull the shirt down to keep it on. I had to tell him—scream almost so he could hear me above his cries, to let me take his shirt off my way, for him to take his hands off, so that he would be okay and that we would meet the goal of his shirt coming off.

Seeing Nathaniel at work against me made me think of how we often do with God. We ask for His help, and though we may see progress, we begin to panic because we are not meeting our goal as fast as we think we should. We get involved, working against what God is trying to do and end up doing opposite of what He intends to do, working against God and our goal.

I encourage you today: Let God be God and let Him work for you the way He wants to. Remember, when we get our grubby hands involved there will definitely be a mess (Isaiah 64:6). But when God is at work, we have perfection, and when we trust Him to do what He does, He will keep us safe and we will reach our goal (Psalm 18:30).

Copyright 2010 by Rhonda J. Smith

Freedom in Christ

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There has been a lot talk about freedom this week. From rescuing Haitians from the ravages of their country to examining the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., freedom rings in my ears. Even though this freedom talk has been on a global scale, I haven’t been able to keep from thinking about what freedom means to me personally.

On Sunday, I couldn’t go to church. Joshua was sick. He had a cold and a hacking cough so we were homebound, keeping the church free of his germs. I was disappointed. I love my children and would do whatever I can to give them proper care, but this morning I wondered if my mothering had taken its toll, yet again.

I remember the poem I wrote and can now see that my focus has been on my strength instead of God’s strength to mother, and I realize this is so much larger than my failure to mother God’s way, but it is a failure to follow the freedom of Christ.

This is real freedom, when you lose your will and way and follow that of Jesus Christ. I once thought I was free when I was a rebel, saying and doing what I wanted with little regard to how others felt. I had loosed the will and ways others, but found I was lonely with this behavior. With friends not as daring, I was often alone with my maverick ways. Then I got older, and I realized that my choices of freedom always impacted someone else’s choices of freedom, often limiting them. Freedom has its limits. But if freedom has its limits, is freedom what it is designed to mean? Can there truly be self-determination, lack of restrictions, autonomy, or sovereignty when what we do and say restrict others, even ourselves?

    It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery (Galatians 5:1).

With the freedom of Christ, we are no longer obligated to develop processes and strategies but are free to follow in the path set before us. Walking outside of the freedom of Christ throws us back to the bondage of slavery—being a slave to ourselves and others, working hard against man’s intrinsic selfishness and rebellion that challenge our “freedom.” Freedom in Christ allows us the privilege of Jesus fighting for us when people come against our choice to serve Him (Romans 8:31).

Though I wonder if the definition of freedom needs to be altered the way we many times use it, I know that the freedom that Christ offers is unchanging. Our challenge—my challenge—is to give up our way to freedom and allow the freedom of Jesus Christ to have its way. Then and only then can we truly be free.

Copyright 2010 by Rhonda J. Smith