My testimony grows the strongest during the winter months. My routine seasonal sabbatical is oftentimes frowned upon and perceived as backsliding to the pit or just plain old double-mindedness. Little do the jurors know that involuntary isolation has become my most favorable coping mechanism. My secluded nest keeps me out of harms way. Only a few hands are granted limited access for safety concerns.
When the leaves fall and the seasons change, my emotions are short circuited by the residue of gray matter in the brain. The shorter days impair my vision and my corrective lenses don’t offer much guidance. When I look out into plain view, my limited sight is constricted by fences of segregation--black and white. And it’s either raining or snowing but not much natural sunshine. My Vitamin D deficiency catapults any resemblance of light and the only reminder that I have that beauty still exists is by the strokes of my colored pencils magically transforming white spaces.
I’d been sitting in the windowsill screaming for months to no avail like panhandlers on street corners that don’t appear homeless. My clothes weren’t dirty or torn and didn’t give signs of any possible vagrancy. My crisis didn’t constitute an imminent threat or emergency so my voice was silenced by criticism. Many had obvious opinions about my perceived sadness but no viable support or offered prayers. Some were perplexed by my energy cause I didn’t fit the desolate category or qualify for immediate assistance. In the words of some...I wasn’t broke, busted and disgusted!
Despite the unraveling of my praise garments, I refused to succumb to defeat.
I held onto the mustard seeds that were faintly scattered in the closet of my heart.
I managed to quench my thirst in the desert.
I started walking by faith and not by sight.
I stumbled across some supernatural strength tonight when I opened an old notebook and found these words penned by bell hooks, "That which appeared dead but was merely dormant is beginning to grow again."
Sometimes it takes a season of darkness to genuinely appreciate the light and cultivate growth.
Thank God that what I thought was physically dying on the outside is actually manifesting on the inside.
Kicking down the fences of segregation with his promises, his love and his word.
Leaving colored petals everywhere my feet land.
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