My mom said, “It never needs watering. It requires no direct sunlight. I don’t have to do anything to it. It just blooms.” It might very well be the perfect plant for me since I’ve never had a green thumb (R.I.P. the several cacti and that one bonzi tree I managed to send on to glory).

A plant that doesn’t need watering? Of course, I had to find out exactly why. A quick Google search revealed, “Waxed amaryllis bulbs are low-maintenance, pre-sprouted bulbs dipped in paraffin wax, containing enough moisture and nutrients to bloom without water or soil.” In my mind, I thought they just grew that way. I wasn’t sure how (hence my Google search), but discovering that they come pre-sprouted and dipped in wax to retain moisture and nutrients clicked for me.

Every so often, I will share a post about how plants and people are similar. As the Grim Reaper of plants, I know all too well that if you neglect (most of ) them, they will die. People are the same; neglect them, and they will die too. Not always physically, but certainly emotionally or spiritually. I know this feeling well. I’m the “strong one.”

Prior to my becoming disabled, very few, if any, people asked whether or not I needed help. Doing my best Olivia Pope impression, I always seemed to have it handled (whatever IT might have been). Now that I am disabled, I get asked more often, but not necessarily because people are really concerned. In the words of the guy who wanted to help me get my wheelchair out of the car, that I was driving, “My mother would never forgive me if I didn’t offer.” Usually, it’s guilt. But I digress.

Even now, I am not the person who asks for help, and most of the time, when it’s offered, I decline unless I genuinely NEED it. That comes from growing up as an only child and learning at a very young age that no one was coming to save me. So I dipped myself in paraffin wax. No one had to check on me because I was low maintenance, and I had enough within me to sustain life. Sounds good, right? Except it’s not.

I became a waxed amaryllis not because I wanted to but because I felt I had to. It offered the protection I wasn’t sure I would get from anyone else. I’d really prefer to be a Peace Lily. “Known for being ‘dramatic,’ it will droop visibly when thirsty and perk up immediately after watering, needing moderate, indirect light to bloom.” It needs care and attention, just not all the time.

I have grown comfortable in my paraffin wax exterior. I have learned to sustain life and look good doing it (waxed amaryllises are gorgeous plants with beautiful blooms). But now, I want something more. Care and attention. I just don’t need it every hour of every waking day. I like being alone. Solitude brings me peace. I enjoy my own company. But sometimes I wish I could remove the wax and be planted in good ground. Emotionally, physically, spiritually, I want to be in my “soft girl era,” and be tended to

like the peace lily I’m meant to be.

This is also the second time I’m reading the book with the Crowned in His Presence Prayer Circle. I find it more impactful to read it in the company of other women, to share the experience and gain insight. Today, we completed “Day 5:Write It Down,” and like I said, this is my third time reading it. But this time, God highlighted something different (as God often does when I read something multiple times).

This quote comes from a story Batterson tells about a young woman named Kimberly. It is part of a prayer she wrote down 10 years before God chose to answer it. It’s a powerful story of what happens when “they that wait on the Lord” is put into practice. But what God showed me was this: What if I ask and receive?

There’s such a thing as fear of failure, but even more prevalent for me (and many others) is the fear of success. What if God answers all my prayers? What if the requests I’ve made suddenly come to pass? What if I fumble the moment? What if God says, “Today’s the Daaaaay!”

The entire premise of the chapter is that if we write down our prayers, our requests, our concerns, then we have a spiritual paper trail. When God answers whatever it is that we prayed for, we can go back and say, “I remember this prayer, and God answered!” So what’s the problem?

If I, you, we put the prayers on paper, they become real, tangible. They are no longer thoughts we think. They are given life, and that can be frightening. Writing our prayers means there’s evidence of our requests. But when you’re afraid they won’t be answered, or you fear screwing up the moment you prayed for, it just feels better to keep it in your mind so nobody knows and God doesn’t have to move. Really, it’s an act of faith, and some of us find faith scary.

So here’s what God told me today. “Your season of fear is officially over.” I can’t know this for certain, but I believe God sounded like Rafiki in The Lion King when God said, “It is time.”

No more fear. No more avoidance. “Dare I risk? What if I ask and receive?” is no longer hypothetical. So I wrote down my prayers, and I fully expect God to answer. What would happen if you dared risk? What would happen if you were to ask and receive? You’d ultimately be in a season where you are living in what you prayed for.

Oh wait. You, I, we, already are.

When I was around eight or nine, we stopped attending the only church I knew. I remember feeling like I had just lost something really important. Wasn’t sure what that was, but even eight-year-old me understood that the trajectory of my life had just shifted. It would take me nearly 20 years to find my spiritual footing again. But during those years, I learned that the world wasn’t a safe place for me.

I was a Black girl living in a predominantly white neighborhood, going to predominantly white schools with my very Black parents who never allowed me to visit or spend the night at anyone’s house (if you know you know). I am an only child, and at the time, I was painfully shy, which developed into introversion almost immediately. I learned to enjoy solitude and absolutely preferred to be left alone. Very rarely was that allowed outside of my home. I had to interact with people who, for the most part, had no desire to engage with me. And that made that very clear. Adults and kids alike made that very clear.

My social skills were zero, and all I really wanted was to fit in, but the white kids hated me because I wasn’t white, and the Black kids hated me because I wasn’t Black enough.

I thought about ending my life often. I was a miserable child, although nobody knew it. You never knew how I was feeling or what I was thinking because I kept it hidden. I became the princess of subterfuge. I self-isolated because there was no place for me to go. There was no sense in talking because I couldn’t articulate what I was feeling (I still have issues with this sometimes), and I was convinced no one would’ve listened anyway. So not being here seemed like the best alternative.

Then I learned about nuns.

I knew I had a connection to God. In the quiet of the night, we would talk, and I would try to listen to what I thought God was saying. We had a “special language” that only God and I understood, and when I spoke using it, I felt like God got what I was trying to say, even if I wasn’t completely sure what I was saying. Those late nights were my safest, where I felt the most loved and protected. And it seemed to me that nuns got to have this feeling all the time. That’s what I wanted.

Nuns didn’t have to worry about wearing the wrong clothes or not having the latest shoes. Nuns didn’t have to try to figure out how to wear makeup or endure being laughed at when the blue eyeshadow you “borrowed” from your mother’s makeup case made you look like a clown, and the girls on the bus laughed at you when you turned around to speak. Nuns didn’t mistake roll-on perfume for lip gloss because they came in the same container. Nuns didn’t have to navigate the world of boys, trying to get noticed, and then getting noticed, and having to fight because another girl wanted to be noticed by the boy who noticed you. Nuns didn’t have to go to school scared because that same girl got all her friends to bully you and threaten you while you were just trying to keep your grades up and not disappoint your parents. And most importantly, nuns didn’t have to try to fit in. The world moved on, and they stayed cloistered, tucked away.

Paradise.

Well, spoiler alert, I never became a nun. But I learned how to live in a world that I still didn’t fit into. How successful I was is debatable, especially now that I really don’t fit in (thanks disability). There are still days when I ache for solitude and alone time with God. There are still days when I want to run and hide from a world that isn’t necessarily happy I exist. Days, when I look at myself in the mirror and say, “Get thee to a nunnery!” (Shout out to Shakespeare). Not a traditional one, though. One where I can be myself, cry out loud, talk to God in our special language, eat black-eyed peas, cornbread, and chantilly cake, and drink sweet tea until I fall asleep.

I’m tired, physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and any other adverb that fits. I’m angry, frustrated, overwhelmed, underwhelmed, and overstimulated.
I need a good cry and a good scream, but I’ve never been good at screaming. Unless there’s something horrifying happening, I’m not sure I even know how. And no, I neither want nor need anything horrifying to happen, thanks.

My thoughts are everywhere and nowhere at the same time. I feel like a rolling contradiction.

My body hurts. Actually, there hasn’t been a day in the last 8 years when my body didn’t hurt. Living in this disabled body sucks. And no, I don’t want to hear that I need to be thankful because it could’ve been worse. This is my rant, not yours.
I’m fighting being vengeful and pressing even further into forgiveness when there are people whose entire lives I wish would implode immediately.
I’m annoyed that there are so many places I can’t go and things I can no longer do because of my disability while simultaneously breathing gratitude for where I can go and the things I can still do.

The pollen is literally trying to take my breath away, and my lungs are looking at me like, “So you actually want to breathe without coughing, huh?”
I’m making great strides in so many areas of my life, and yet I’m nowhere close to where I want to be.
I’m trying to remember that God’s timing is perfect, and Gods ways are not my ways and God’s thoughts are not my thoughts, and I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, and Jeremiah 29:11 and Proverbs 3:5-6, and Esther 4:14. But all I can manage is today is a crappy day.

And I’ll try again tomorrow

.

There’s so much I want to say, but I don’t even know where to start.

Lord, help me say this correctly…

Mind you, I’m not worried about being offensive. The think pieces I’ve had the misfortune of reading over the past week or so make it very clear that nobody is concerned about that either. What I want is to get what’s been sitting on my chest off so I can breathe because the way some of us (and by US I mean people who say they follow Jesus and profess Him as their Lord and Savior) have completely obliterated, decimated, and otherwise annihilated whatever witness they had is giving me anxiety.

Or maybe I’m just pissed off.

And not just regular pissed off; the pissed off that makes me want to throw MY witness out the window so I can also call people out their name with the same vitriolic surety that folks will question whether I actually ever believed or practiced what my social media bio says I believe or so-called practice. I really want to be like some of y’all…

Lord, help me say this meaningfully…

I’m not going to address the last item in the subtitle because I’m not well-versed enough to enter into the arena of political dogma, and I honestly have no desire to be. I’ll leave that to the analysts with experience and degrees to banter with the keyboard gangsters with minimal critical thinking skills. And I’m not going to address the second item either because that needs and deserves its own post, especially when someone says to me,” Based on what I’ve seen from Christians, I’d rather be Buddhist.”

What I am going to tackle is item one, and let me be clear. This isn’t about “The Dress.”

Y’ALL have me ready to swing, and I don’t even know the woman. And you know what woman I’m referring to.

But God said, “Write what I say, not what you want to write.” So here’s what came to me in my quiet time.

John 8:7

Luke 6:37

Matthew 7:12

Matthew 12:36

Especially Matthew 12:36.

Some of Y’ALL have gotten flip at the mouth and think you won’t have to answer for the words that you say. Somehow, you believe you can call anyone what you want, how you want, when you want, and God is just gonna be okay with it.

And I’m not even talking about clergy. I’m talking about little ol you.

Shut up.

Shut up talking. Shut up, judging. Shut up, holding court and parading your opinions around as facts.

When you go on to glory (if that is indeed where you’re heading) and Jesus pulls out the transcript of your life, what are you gonna say? How are you going to explain the words you let so flippantly fly out of your mouth?

And not in this situation. Every situation where you felt emboldened enough to say what was on your mind because “you were keeping it real.” What exactly did you say in your prayer time? What did you ask God for? With the same mouth you labeled people with…

Oh, add James 3:10

But thank y’all. Thank y’all for being fine examples of what I shouldn’t do and who I shouldn’t be. Thank you for forcing me to repent for the moments I acted like you. Thank you for the reminder that WWJD was and is more than a bumper sticker or cute saying.

WWJD?

Surely not what I’ve seen done.

I mean, I AM going to write about it in 2026, but not on this here last day in the year of our Lord 2025. Nope. Just be advised that I have A LOT to say about A LOT of things, especially why church folks continue to police women’s bodies both in and outside of the church house. If it doesn’t have anything to do with you howsbout you work on your own soul salvation, mmkay?

So, I’m reflecting, not on the year but on where I am now compared to where I once was. I’ve heard it more than a few times over the past week or so that I'm living in answered prayers, and I had to stop and give thanks.

Around this time in 2001, I was sleeping on the floor of an empty apartment. I was a mess, a functioning alcoholic battling depression who ran from an emotionally abusive relationship with nothing but my books and clothes. A few months prior, I had to send my daughter to live with my parents because I could no longer function. I spent most of my days crying, my four-year-old wiping my tears and holding my face, saying, “It’s gonna be okay, mommy.” I survived a failed suicide attempt even after listening to the voices in my head tell me all the reasons why ending my life was the best and only option. And on December 31, I was lying prostrate on my living room floor, bawling.

The prayers I choked out that day, that night, those weeks seemed destined never to come to pass. But somewhere, deep down, I believed that one day, my daughter would come back to live with me. I believed I would have an apartment with furniture, and I would be in a relationship that didn’t make me want to end my life. I believed that, somehow, in this mess I had made of my life, maybe I was redeemable. I couldn’t see how, but God knew I was. How else can I explain the prayers I am currently living in?

And honestly, have been living in since 2005, when my now 28-year-old daughter came back to live with me.

And I became a teacher, and bought a house a year later.

Full of brand new furniture.

And meet my now husband three years after that.

He makes me want to cuss sometimes, but my life is secure in his hands.

Has it all been perfect? Absolutely not. But has God been faithful? Absolutely.

I’m still not quite sure why I found myself reflecting on all this today. Maybe I just needed a reminder that a lot of things suck, but God still answers prayers.

And I’m proof.

Anyway, here’s to a better, brighter, and blessed 2026.

2025 can get the hell on.

I’m not excited that Christmas is in three days. In fact, I actually forgot. My daughter had to remind me. And what makes that so bad is that three days from now is my birthday.

Yup. Christmas baby, checking in.

I’ll be 53.

I don’t so much care that I’ll be 53 since a) I don’t look like I’m 53, 2) I almost didn’t see 46, and third, refer back to a). I’m not excited about Christmas this year because it doesn’t feel like I should be.

To put this into context, I am the daughter of a mother who traditionally makes a big deal about Christmas. She usually starts calling around October, reminding us (my husband, daughter, and me) to send our Christmas lists. I’ve lived in Georgia for almost 30 years, and until recently, I’d get a phone call right after Thanksgiving asking if we’d gotten our tree yet. One year, I was nearly disowned because it was a week before Christmas, and we still didn’t have one. Growing up, our house would be overrun with boxes, bags, wrapping paper, bows, ribbon, name tags, and tape. And I knew if she was in their bedroom with the door shut, NOT to open it or even knock. Santa’s most diligent elf was hard at work.

Thanks to my mother, my daughter’s first Christmas looked like Santa delivered every gift in America to our apartment (she was more fascinated with the boxes and bows than the actual toys, however). And because I was born on Christmas, she always made a point of making it extra special since people (strangers and family alike) would try to get away with giving me the dreaded “combo present.” To this day, all my birthday gifts are signed “love Mom and Dad,” and my Christmas gifts are signed “from Santa.”

The point I’m trying to make is that Christmas has always been one of my favorite times of year. Until now.

There’s too much going on.

Maybe it’s the state of the country (which is an absolute sh*t show) or the state of the world (also a sh*t show).

Maybe it’s me reflecting on all the things I said last year that I was going to accomplish this year that I didn’t.

Maybe it’s the grief that hangs heavy in the air and streams across my social media feed almost hourly.

Maybe it’s the video I just watched that compared the cost of Kevin’s grocery store trip in Home Alone (1990) to what it would cost in 2025 ($19.83 and $60.24, respectively).

Maybe it’s all these damn hormones. Because menopause is a hellscape I don’t think we talk nearly enough about and no one told me there would be things far worse than hot flashes to deal with.

Or maybe, which is highly likely, it’s all of the above. And the fact that I am an empath, and there’s so much going on? I’d just rather not. I mean, who has the time?

And if the world around me were in a better state, maybe I’d be feeling much better about this season, but it’s not. So I end up fighting whatever's going on out THERE while trying to wrestle whatever’s going on in HERE.

Which means, as I have previously mentioned, this season sucks.

And I’m not the only one who feels this way. If I had a dollar for every post I’ve seen about this being the least Christmasy Christmas season, I could buy the same groceries Kevin bought in 1990.

And yet…

God is still good.

So what DO empaths do at Christmas? Well, this one is going to eat carbs. Lots and lots of yummy carbs.

I didn’t know what I was saying when I spoke whatever it was I was speaking. It wasn’t like speaking French, or Russian, or Japanese (all of which I eventually studied). This was different. Speaking it produced emotions I couldn’t articulate otherwise. Heaviness? Came out as tears. Excitement? Produced laughter. Anger or Frustration? I’m not sure what cussing sounded like in Jesus’s time, but I’m convinced I cussed. The point I’m trying to make is that this language, these utterances, were often times the only things that kept me on this side of sanity. Yes, even as a child.

So, fast-forward to a few days ago. I was carrying a weight I couldn’t shake (why did my mind just go to ShakeWeights? If you don’t know what those are, I’m old, and you’re not). Also, this is the way my brain works sometimes, so if detours in stories bother you, feel free to exit on the nearest off-ramp.

Anywho, A few days ago, I was carrying a weight I couldn’t shake. I knew what it was. Grief. Not just mine, but everyone else’s.

I’m an empath.

Now I don’t know what that means in a spiritual sense, but I can feel other people’s emotions. I can usually maintain it fairly well, but when I have to do too much “peopling,” it can wear me out. Last weekend, I had to do a LOT of that while still processing the death of someone both my husband and I loved and respected. Hundreds of people in one place, coupled with the grief shared on social media, sat on me like a cement vest I couldn’t take off. By Wednesday, I needed a good ol ugly cry. But the tears wouldn’t come.

Then, almost as if on cue, the following scripture popped into my head: 

Come to Me, all of you who are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.

In my office, I have a little corner where I go to pray or just be still and know that God is God. I left my desk, got out of my wheelchair, and sat.

When I was a child, I could open my mouth and the language would come. On this day, I had to prime the pump (again, if you missed this reference, you’re not old like me). The words (if you can call them that) were stuck in my mouth. I could feel my tongue pressing against my teeth, trying to force them out, and finally, a sound emerged.

I took a deep breath and exhaled, and more sound came out.

Breath. Sound.

Breath Sound.

BreathSound

Words

Sentences

And then release.

The more I spoke this language I still didn’t understand, the more I felt the tears rise to the surface.

With every utterance, with every breath, the weight lifted and the tears arrived like rain after a drought, breaking up the dry parched fallow ground.

The emotions I couldn’t access, the heaviness I couldn’t shake, the floodgates I needed opened were released.

And my language, my tongues, was the key.

They worked for me as a child and they still work now. This language. MY language.

That I don’t understand. Still. But God does.

And that’s really all that matters.