The Gift of Your Faults

The Gift of Your Faults

Rise up oh daughter of mine

Bow your head low no more

For you have been strengthened from the inside out

And the ceiling has become your floor

Look now at your chosen pathway

The journey you have been on

See the sum of all your mistakes

The miscalculations of all you have done

Know that I will not erase even one!

For this is the gift of your faults

The gift of adversity, tenacity, perseverance and patience with many tries

Wrapped in a package of plain brown paper that you simply did not recognize

So, you ran, resisted, cried out for Me to come and save you

Unaware that this was Me answering with what you need to be the brave you

The mind being released from the thoughts that enslaved you

The flesh dying to the evil that craves you

This is the gift of your faults

For within creation there exists a sweet tension that keeps it all in place

So too there is within you, the wrestle you must face

The gift of a treasure yet still not embraced

The gift of your faults is not a mistake!

Lessons learned, evil spurned, flesh burned, treasures yearned, jury adjourned, intent discerned, fear overturned, victories earned,  no more concern, you have returned.

This is the gift of your faults

So, as you continue remove the lenses that call a thing good or bad

If you surrender it all to me it becomes good in the end

This is the gift of your faults

For with true authenticity

In humble vulnerability

The passion of your intensity

All the parts of you a wanted necessity

Just always take responsibility

For every failed opportunity

To increase your capacity

Of growth in human personality

spiritual identity and God given destiny

This will be the gift of your faults

Charmaine  Hinds December 2018

  

Tale of two marriages- "till death do us part"

I literally heard the story of two marriages and the death of two husbands in two days.

I encountered an old acquaintance that I knew long ago in a church I used to attend. She quickly told me the story of how her husband had just died. In the process of her sharing she asked me if I had known they were divorced as if she felt everyone somehow knew this information. Considering I hadn’t seen or spoke to her for over 16 years I found this question/statement a bit odd. As she told me the story of the breakdown and demise of her marriage with this man I once knew, in truth I have to say I was silent and could only listen. She then shared how he had moved away to another city away from his family and that he had a heart attack in his small apartment all alone and after no one had heard from him for a few days- she had gone to his apartment and found him dead. She had a funeral for him the previous week and as she communicated this sad story to me I could feel and sense the regret and sorrow she was experiencing over the path and outcome of her marriage to this man during her season of grief. She told me that if they had still been together that he would have never died like that- alone and forgotten.

Then I attended a funeral the next day of a good friends father. I listened intently as this man's daughter did the most amazing eulogy with her 5 adult siblings lovingly standing beside her for moral support. Then as the service portion was closing the wife of the man that had passed away from a weakened heart condition shared the following words that I will never forget.

She shared her beautiful relationship with this man and why she was at such peace during all that had happened. She said that she had cared for her husband during the seven months of his palliative care at home with every last bit of love that she had to give to him. She gave him her everything during her last few months with him.
She said she had to do everything for him and it was as if he had gone from being her husband taking care of her to being like her child. She shared as everyone listening laughed out loud about how she had reassured him that when she had to leave him even for 15 minutes to go to the store that she wasn’t thinking about anyone else but him. Her heart was still fully his.
She did not seem resentful about having to do this in any way but quite the opposite, on her beautiful regal face there was a serene sense of peace and joy.
This man had his last days spent with what he treasured the most his family, they were all present when he took his last breath. He was surrounded with the treasures that he had invested in with all his life and they held him as he left this world and crossed over happily into eternity.
This marriage story made me cry and made my heart smile.

When I was pondering these two stories I was watching a Facebook post from a friend as he proposed to his girlfriend and future wife and it dawned on me the significance of these two tales of two marriages.

The investment to share your life with another is not just in the good times. Most wedding vows say something like “till death do us part”. This is a spiritual understanding that says that nothing but death can separate us. Marriage is forever. In a world and time where we have disposable promises and vows can easily be broken. Where honor and respect and love rarely ever intertwine, the covenant of marriage should result in the statement this woman that had been married to her best friend for so many years said, "I poured out all the love I had for him on him and in the end there was nothing more to give". She gave it all.

Wow! In an age where many men don’t honor or love their wives when they aren’t meeting their needs and some women are exerting their rights to be independent. When the fiber of marriage is being torn apart by the unraveling of a single interwoven thread, I received a message of “ till death do us part”.

I heard the message loud and clear and having gone through my share of difficulties in my own marriage through the 29 years, I renewed in my heart to love the man I made a covenant with 3 times ( we have renewed our vows twice) "till death us do part" no matter what the circumstance or situation. And most important to pour out all the love I have for him so in the end I can say "It is well with my soul"

If this story has impacted you like it impacted me then take a moment and pray for two marriages

today.

Black and Loud!

This is for the ones that say black people are so loud, they are vulgar, angry, aggressive, demanding and uncivilized. Why wont they assimilate and become more like us.

I am black and loud

Loud and proud

Yes, I have always been so emotional

Cause my cup ain’t  half empty, it’s a cup that’s full

A woman they say should remain silent

Yes massah, no massah your voice is not your own

Make sure you have permission to talk

Time to speak up- to speak the truth, your truth

Your history, your victory, your message

I be livin loud, livin large

I don’t whisper when I talk

I say it hard

 I don’t say it soft

If your dreams and tomorrow had been suppressed

If you had been cursed and found out you was blessed   

When you finally opened your mouth

I’m sure a scream would come out

The monster you made from an experiment gone bad

Now you wonder why we be so mad

You thought we’d stay broken, downcast and sad

Do I embarrass you with my shout from across the room

Why does what I do reflect back to you?

My laugh so out loud that it makes you uncomfortable

Seeing my sound makes you feel so vulnerable

The intensity of the energy I bring, into your life, into everything

My spirit is strong, rising up from where I belong

But wait, hold up …ain’t you black too?

You ask again, is that anger you hear when I speak?

Chile, maybe just the release of the warrior in me

No need to be in fear

My words are my weapon, lets make it clear

I have made the choice for you to hear my voice

My grammar ain’t off, my intellect intact

I know what I am doing, this be my method for fighting back

In the Silence much has happened, I have seen with my eyes

And the words within me lets out a cry

Saying here am I

Can you see me, feel me, my presence is undeniable

And what has been done has made you liable

My soul has been incarcerated for far too long

Tired of trying to prove I belong

I am created by the same Creator

They hate us because we are so loud

They love us because we are so proud

Loud and proud

Proud to be created with passion, fire, and courage  

Our voice makes a difference in the pilgrimage

As we state our case before the only Judge  

The stereotype made real

 Rappers, spoken word, singers, debaters, word creators

We are the original media masters, using our words so the message is loud

Don’t you love our sound? Vibrations trickling down

The drumbeat, the heartbeat this is our song

Am I disturbing your peace?

Just by being me

Or is that I am unafraid to say what’s on my mind

Seemingly unaware of the place or time

Allowing words to vibrate and ripple throughout the atmosphere

Without hesitation, without fear

I may look like just another angry black woman to you

 But this ain’t  true

Cause I choose to refuse to let myself remain abused

What you hear in my voice is my ancestors echoing what I say

So God can hear his child when she pray

Its time for a change

Amen! Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!

The words come from within and my brain forgets about etiquette,

The right spoon to use or correct place to sit

My mother’s tongue has created a sound

Resounding in my ears and coming to my mouth

I can’t hold it back so I release it out

Hear when I say I am black and loud

I am loud and proud!

Wooo!  WOW

Why Try?

Why Try?

The pain of the past keeps haunting me in my dreams and anxiety creeps into places unseen  The same mistakes keep happening though I have tried to change a thousand times

Why do I keep saying I am sorry…

Why do I keep seeing someone I am not, inauthentic, not the real me, the being created through the mask

Try again, start again, not again around the circle we go like a merry go round 

Seeing the same faces as we past the same markers once again, dizzy I want to get off, jump off but the rides not done yet. Paid for the ticket and so I spin.

Tired, just tired of the same ole same old.  

But the song says “a change is gonna come” Sam tell me when, I need to know when will it happen? If not today then when?  

This body can’t sustain this spirit that has been held back, beat down, and ready to emerge

So onward I surge, looking for my soul tribe that understands that I am more… than mortal flesh

One with the light within I shine on, lighter when the darkness overtakes the day

Feel the waves as I hold my head above water to breathe

You are there with me and so one more try, as I take baby steps forward 

Wobbly, I try to stand in the truth of your words and the facts of the mistakes

Again, I repent and make Teshuva

No one understands that the trauma of youth has covered and hidden the potential of a bright tomorrow

This dark cloud must go, calling on the wind to blow, blow over, for all flesh must die

And left in the flames of fire is just the truth and I   

The pain of the past keeps haunting me in my dreams and anxiety is creeping into places unseen. The same mistakes keep happening, though I have tried a thousand times.

Charmaine Hinds November 5, 2018

Black Tax

I recently watched an episode with Oprah where she has Trevor Noah on Super Soul to discuss his book "Born a Crime" and at one point in the discussion he mentioned a term that resonated with me. It was one of those terms you may have never heard before, but I could somehow tell what it meant because it so accurately described itself. The "Black Tax", as used by Trevor and many others relates to having to continue to pay for the historical sins of the past. Here is his example.

“Growing up with a black mum in apartheid South Africa gave me a very different experience. Simply put, a mixed child walking around with a black woman wasn’t something one saw every day and being her son was indeed a crime. My mum however, was determined that I didn’t feel such pressures and went out of her way to give me a life that truly started with a blank slate.”

The "Black Tax", is a term that has been used in America to mean paying more for things simply because one is black. Just a note, this doesn't always just refer to finances. 

This example I completely understand. I was born a mixed child from a black single mother in Jamaica that was third generation free slave. And the rest of my maternal heritage were slaves in Jamaica with the full African slave experience. My husband has the same situation and we determined to stand in the gap and pay the “black tax” for our children as well. We coined the term “Firstlings” to describe our situation for payment of the black tax. We were the first in our families to accomplish many things. We unfortunately did not have the privilege of climbing on the steps that were created before us by parents and grandparents. This has greatly shifted our educational, social, spiritual, economical and fundamental status. We should have been able to at the minimum begin life at ground zero and work our way up like most other people.

In truth and actuality, the "Black Tax" over the years has been compounded, and we felt like we began at a deficit minus 100. This is the privilege that we are given for being born into a history of colonial oppression, curses to our family line and injustice that has never been fully addressed. 

My husband and myself have used our opportunities and finances to bring our family back up to zero, because the generations who came before us have been raped, robbed and pillaged.

We are the pioneers who made it out of the “ghetto” or “Egypt” and have not truly been able to enjoy the spoils. We have been trying to get “Egypt” out of us and get our children into the promised land. 

 As pioneers from a black family we have had to spend prayers, time, money, and resources ensuring that our loved ones live a "regular" life. This has been a hard journey and an experience that we corporately share with many other black people in Canada, America, South Africa and other places that have suffered from systemic racism. 

Imagine this scenario; you are playing a board game and every time you pass “Go” instead for getting $200 like the other players you somehow get the snakes and ladder experience and have to begin all over again.

I end sharing a quote from Trever Noah that explains many of the effects of the “Black Tax” and “Privilege”. 

“If you think of it like this — you know a lot of the time when you hear people having conversations about white privilege, male privilege and so on, I think sometimes what gets lost is with the word “privilege” comes the connotation of having a good time. You know, people go, “What privilege? I may be a white man but I’m poor. I may be a white man but I’m suffering.” And that is completely true. And sometimes I go, “Maybe in the labeling, it’s almost like it could have gone the other way and it’s like, is it a black disadvantage? Or is it a female disadvantage?” Because we cannot deny that there are certain handicaps that come with these certain labels you know that exist. If you look at the effects of what you’ve lived through in your life, you cannot deny that they compound. You cannot deny that they grow over time. So people who say things like, “Get over it, slavery’s done” or “Get over it, apartheid is over,” then I go, “You cannot get over it because it ending is merely the beginning of your journey.” And so, you think of it like this—in my family, I was the first person in my family who was allowed to go to a white school or a school that was considered white. My grandparents were not taught the things that other people’s grandparents were taught if they were white in the country. And so now, even if we’re not talking about financial inheritance, we’re talking about now educational inheritance. My grandfather and grandmother couldn’t bequeath to me an education that they would have learned because they didn’t get it. My mother, self-taught for many things. She was lucky in that she encountered a missionary and that’s where she learned things that the government wasn’t teaching to many black people. So, there you see someone equalizing or get her back to zero, which is where everyone should be able to start from.”

My prayer will be that as we continue to have conversations such as this one in mainstream that the ears and hearts of all involved will begin to deal with the truth around the feelings that we have so long ignored and pretended that they don’t exist.

Permission Granted

I don’t need your permission so why do I seek your consent?

Do I still need your acceptance just so my soul can be content?

When your clearance of my actions won’t give me an endorsement

My heavenly blessing has been sanctioned by the power of agreement 

You can’t authorize, deputize, legitimatize, anything I am called to do

This will be the very last day that I bow down and seek permission from you

There is no stamp of approval needed to make me seem more real

For there is one who crowned my head and upon me is His seal

Fearfully and wonderfully free to be what He has called me to be

Nothing others have said and done can take this truth of my destiny

So I remove the power of authority that I continue to give away

Walking strong in my design without apology every day

That outrageous lie that I must submit and remember the days of slavery

Where I was bound by chains that denied the very Creator inside of me

I am proud! I say it loud! To every crowd!

I AM Me!

So I take back my banner request for you to tell me it’s ok

The only voice that really matters is the one when I pray

He says… Be who you were called to be

Do the things you were called to do

Live the life you were meant to live

Just align with my design, stay in time, and remember you are mine

And please stop asking for continual permission.

Amen  Charmaine Hinds