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I remember several sacred moments I shared with God when I was younger. I now endearingly call these sacred moments “miracle moments”, because these pure interactions with God always felt like a “secret rendezvous” between God and I. A rendezvous where G (God) would bestow upon me the treasures that are meant to guide me, as I traversed these gentle yet rocky waters of life.

In retrospect, I am now aware that that is exactly what those moments were, a “secret rendezvous” because I believe G always wanted me to hear how G talks so I would always recognize the voice, even in the middle of a storm. A seed was being planted; a trail was being created so I would never forget my way back home. It was a reminder that God and I shared a bond that no man, no woman, no – thing could mimic or destroy. I could always come back home because my soul recognized G’s voice.

The particular sacred moment I am sharing today occurred during my preteen years. I grew up catholic as I mentioned already, so what I was taught about God was rooted in Catholic theology until my teenage years. I have one specific memory of being in church and the priest was teaching something that had to do with jealousy. I must have been about 8 or 9 years old, and most of the time at this age or younger, kids were kept in a separate room in the church, kind of like a Sunday school-type format.

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But I was what they called a “dancer”, so I sat at the very front of the church seats, in the front row. Dancers were the little kids who ushered in the Priest as he walked into the church to start mass. The dancers would come out first, in our little white dresses and dancing our little hearts out in unison. Then the server boys followed us and then lastly the Priest. I was a proud dancer!

I loved the singing, the sound of the drums beating, and the joyful ululations that always stamped the presence of my ancestors during mass. But one of the moments I remember from the mass was the time of silence given before the Priest would read the word and then teach on it. The “silence” was an opportunity to bless the word and the Priest before the words were spoken as he taught. I loved that moment of silence, it almost sounded like we were preparing our hearts, settling within ourselves in order to receive what was to come. That space before the words were spoken tickled me because it reminded me of how I was with God, during our “secret rendezvous”.

I don’t recall the entirety of the message that the priest was teaching, but I do remember the priest talking about how God is a God who creates and gives his ALL to ALL his children.

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Jealousy therefore was a result of disbelief and unbelief in this fundamental truth, that God loves you enough to have a well-thought-out plan for your life. A plan that includes security and provision for all your needs and sometimes your wants. A plan that required trust, obedience, and self-regulation of our emotions when we didn’t get what we wanted and when what we needed didn’t match what we had imagined.My little ears and heart latched on to those words for dear life, more than what I thought I had actually. Those words have inspired much of how I have responded to certain situations in my life, especially my interactions with people. But this did not come without its own hang-ups. I made mistakes by misunderstanding the layered facets of this message.

I gave the benefit of the doubt to people when they hadn’t earned it and when it didn’t count. I accepted lackluster behavior when I deserved better, and I dismissed my intuition because I didn’t understand that just because I viewed jealousy the way I did, not everyone else held the same philosophy. So, I kept putting myself in harm’s way by not accepting this seemingly innocent sentiment, that what I believe is not what others believe.

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When God says stay vigilant in the bible, I now understand what that means and why I must do so. During my healing journey, much of what I have had to do is continually work on distinguishing between moments of paranoia and those of vigilance. To be honest, for a while there, the lines were blurred, I couldn’t tell the difference. All that existed before the words of projection from others were spoken, started to bubble up. The illusions of their words of jealousy, envy, discouragement, disappointment, etc., started to be exposed for what they truly were.

The more that happened, the more attuned I was to God’s voice once again, the voice I had learned to hear during our secret rendezvous. I knew that I could trust my knowing again, no paranoia was needed but vigilance was required. The truth that was cemented in me during our secret rendezvous came back, asking me to be alert, to be careful with my heart, and to be protective of all that was sacred within me. I repeat, not paranoid, but vigilant, two very different energies. The certainty of the silence before the words were spoken in that moment, a moment that resembled what I had been gifted during mass as a young girl, revealed a quiet confidence. I was already in possession of this gift; one based on G’s love for me.

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Before the words were spoken, God and I had established the foundational truths that were to remain my true North. No matter how rocked I was by all the hurts that came along this journey, both self-imposed and projected hurts. No matter how loud all the falsehoods spewed from others’ mouths and my own mouth were, no matter how ‘lost’ I got in the in-between of paranoia and vigilance, God’s soul whispers would recalibrate me, reorient me, and re-center me, ALL. THE. TIME.

I was aware that my past hurts were born out of some false words. The words threatened to drown me in the sea of my own shame and guilt, the words attempted to continually silence me and keep me trapped or caged in other’s manipulative ways, the words dared to bury the unbowed whispers of my soul and tried to keep me confused about WHO I AM.

BUT GOD, through my imagination, through the unbowed spirit, through the trust and obedience I had in the words God spoke before the silence became noise, through constant and active self-regulation, I pursued my path to true freedom with fervor. The Grace I continued to receive from G anchored me in those dark moments. In the breaking of the hexes and curses spoken upon my life (intentionally or not), I felt the glory of God.

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Through recovering from the recklessness with which I and others exhibited by how we mishandled the power that comes from words, I experienced God’s mercy and goodness. Any heartbreak I experienced became the salvation and words became the medicine and the antidote. The gift of the silence before the words were spoken, became the cauldron of wisdom I drew from time and time again.

The place from which, as Mama Maya said, I harkened so I could rise and rise again as the phenomenal woman and being that I AM. Before the words were spoken, there was only God and I, and that is still the place I go to so I can remember the truth of my unbowed spirit!

Call to action: Listen, Trust and Act: Use these strengths to make bold choices and live authentically.