Weeks since I’ve been intentional about making time for you. I wish I could say I’ve been busy or tied up. The truth is that I haven’t made the effort. At all. You’ve crossed my mind, of course. But the urge hasn’t been great enough to pull me to the keyboard. Pull me to pen and paper.

Today is different. I felt it when I woke up. I knew that today would belong to me. In a special way. Starting homes tasks that should’ve been completed weeks ago, it’s like I was clearing out my mind space today. I couldn’t escape the pull.

So I’m here.

What I can say is this: I feel younger, wiser, more focused. I stepped into a space I used to avoid, and now that I’m here, I feel settled. Fully exhaling.

†

Recently, I had a realization about the still frames that make up my life. Not long ago, I was preoccupied with curating a “perfect” existence—making every moment feel whimsical, sparkly, romantic. I was committed to romanticizing my life.

†

romanticize

verb

to describe something in an idealized or unrealistic way; to make it seem more appealing than it is.

†

They say something shifts when you turn 40. Maybe that’s true. Or maybe it was just an ordinary morning last week when I woke up and thought:

Why do I feel the need to romanticize my life? Is something wrong with it? Is it not enough?

I’m still finding the language, but this is what I know: my life is fine. There are goals ahead and areas that need refinement, but nothing about my life requires embellishment. That realization landed heavily.

Not every moment needs to be elevated or reworked. It is enough because it exists. It matters because it’s happening now. I don’t need the garnish, the soft filters, or the aesthetic framing. I need presence. I need now.

This isn’t a critique of anyone who leans on romanticizing. I did it too. It carried me through difficult seasons—times when dissociating felt like protection.

But I’m somewhere different now.

I can say I love my life and mean it. I even like the quiet, uneventful parts. They don’t need to be dressed up or reimagined.

They’re enough as they are.

…..and then there was you

and you were not you

you were what I

imagined

your voice

wrapped in silk, dipped in gold

expensive

a steep cost to pay

your smile

plastered in my mind’s eye

your words

soft like cotton candy

melting on my lips like a soft kiss

and sweet to the taste

but you weren’t there

Read here:

To have proof?
no need.
there was time enough to show.

Grains of sand
slipping through glass
every second placed before you
& spent on yourself.

You,
unfamiliar with
the luxury
of a heart freely given.

Me,
slipping into amnesia,
setting down wisdom
earned in the refiner’s fire.

It is finished.
No other offering waits
No voice will intervene
No ram in the bush.

White gloves

Purse peppermints wrapped in tear stained tissue

Holy Ghost mission

Long robes dusting the tithe backed pew

Hymnals, KJVs

Double time hands clapped

Red mesh covered wide brimmed hat

White Diamonds wrapped hugs

In the vestibule

Sick & Shut In List

“Let Him use You”

Dinner served in the auxiliary

At 2

Author’s Note

“Sunday’s Best” is a memory poem shaped by the sensory language of my upbringing in a Southern Baptist church. I wanted to preserve the texture of those Sundays. From the starch of the usher’s white gloves to the scent of White Diamonds in the vestibule.

The poem resists explanation on purpose. In many Black Baptist traditions, faith was not simply preached; it was worn, sung, passed in peppermints, announced on the Sick & Shut In list. These details formed my earliest understanding of community, reverence, and ritual.

This piece is less about doctrine and more about inheritance. The quiet choreography of devotion that shaped how I move through the world, even now.

I realize that I cannot psychoanalyze every single thing that I do and place it under the category of “bad” or “good”.

Everything I do is right because it will lead me toward the path that I need to be on. Even in my mistakes, I am right. I believe when God said He would guide me. He is a real GPS. So, I’m right.

This morning, I laid in bed. I was awake, but I decided to just lay and rest in the knowing that I am right. I am moving at a pace that is acceptable to where I am today and I am right. 

Almost a year ago, I cried out to my Father about my unbelief. I didn’t realize it was something that stunted me until I was asked if I believed Him. Not IN Him, but just Him. I broke down. I realized that all of this time, I called myself a believer and I didn’t believe in the One that made the universe. I did not believe that He could or would do anything for me. 

I came home from the retreat that night and cried out to God. Screamed and begged God to help me with my unbelief.

I woke up randomly in the middle of the night. And like I always do, started scrolling. I know I should probably pray, but I scrolled.

I stumbled onto a sermon by Creflo Dollar. Yeah, I know because I thought about it too. He’s sketchy, but it was the title that drew me in. It was 3am and I was desperate. I needed something to help me make sense of what I was going through. I knew that God can and will use anyone. And in that moment, I felt a pull toward a man I would never listen to. I told myself that if he didn’t give me a scripture within ten minutes, I was moving on. I knew I needed the Bible. Then Creflo spoke on Mark 9:24. A verse I had not seen or even heard of.

The father instantly cried out, “I do believe, but help me overcome my unbelief!”

Mark 9:24

I cried out to God again, to help my unbelief.

This is just the beginning of an almost two year journey of unpacking my unbelief in what God can do.

Part 2 will be released next Thursday 🤍

Read here:

Like any other day,
the weather and I are one.

My tears persuade the clouds to open.
My smile coaxes the sun into a brighter burn.
The furrow of my brow sends a low thunder rolling.
The thump of my heart unsettles the ground beneath me.
Even the wind leans into motion
at the release of my weary, exasperated sigh.

Sometimes I wonder
if the world is only echoing me back.

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Usually, I do.
Dining out. Talking on the phone for hours with loved ones. Psychoanalyzing films. Binge-watching Hoarders. Comfort-watching Girlfriends.

But lately, God has been whispering that it is time to fill the space with what He called me to. I am called to steward this inheritance. Leaning into this level of stewardship leads me toward legacy; something I’ve been quietly resisting since 2021.

I can’t turn away from it anymore.

†

I’ve always flowed like water.
Since I was a toddler, my Uncle Lyn called me “Water”. Spoken with a southern East Richmond twang. Like “Waddah”. He used to say, “I call you Waddah ‘cause you used to be everywhere.” He called me that until he passed away, and to this day my cousins still use the name with affection.

Sometimes I think my uncle unknowingly gave me a birthright. Permission to be a free-flowing woman. My life took shape around that identity. I was always labeled a “free spirit,” always just going with the flow. And this was cool, until it wasn’t.

Instead of flowing without direction, I’m choosing to forge a path.

Nothing stops water.
It may not move quickly, but it is always consistent, and the erosion it leaves behind is inevitable. In that way, water is intentional.

Under pressure, water cleanses.
Water fills empty spaces.
Water cuts through even mountains.

It is ever-flowing, nonstop, and everywhere.

I’m learning that legacy isn’t built by standing still.
It’s built by moving with intention. Like water that knows where it’s going.

Maybe God never meant for me to stop being water.
Maybe He’s just been teaching me where to flow.

I am water, still.
Just no longer directionless.

Reflection

If this reflection met you in your own season of change, I’d love to hear what it stirred in you. You can reply, leave a comment, or share this with someone learning how to move with intention too. Feel free to message me, too.

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My old self
clawed for breath in the dark,
fingers hooked in the fabric of living
but she was already drifting
toward a quieter sleep.
I remember the night
I whispered her name like a eulogy
and let the silence keep it.

My Father loosed a whirlwind
sky folding into itself,
dust rising like prayer,
everything I knew lifted
from its nails.

Will you still be here
when the wind forgets my name
and the air goes still?
Or will you lie buried
under the splintered beams
of my untamed love?

Will you know me
when the ash has washed from my skin?
Will you call me by the woman I am,
or only by the one I was?

What becomes of our love
when I step from the storm
strange with light,
new-boned,
bright with a life I did not choose
but could not refuse?

And what becomes of you
if I am no longer
the place you left me?

Reflection

Have you ever walked through a season where God changed you so deeply you wondered what , or who, would remain? Tell me about it in the comments…..

On this walk, I’ve learned that being hidden is protection. Safety. A moment to keep what is sacred, sacred.

I’ve always had a tendency to retreat. Maybe it began there, twelve years as an only child. Solitude felt natural to me. But I’ve had to learn the difference between intentional hiding and unhealthy isolation. For a woman who thinks deeply, feels fully, and carries a vivid imagination, too much solitude can distort things.

Maturity has taught me to recognize when hiding becomes avoidance.

But this season is different.

Lately, I’ve been hidden. Not from fear, not from exhaustion, not from overwhelm. I haven’t disappeared because I’m overstimulated or doom scrolling. I’ve stepped back because I’ve inclined my ear to what God has asked of me.

And recently, He’s asked me to lean in.

To understand what it truly means to be His daughter. To allow Him to be my Father, not defined by human limitation, but by perfect character. A Father who does no wrong. A Father who protects without withholding.

I love that my Father loves me enough to hide me. To shelter me from people, places, and situations that are not His best for me.

This hidden season has clarified something for me: being unseen is not the same as being overlooked.

It is preservation.

I’m entering a season where I care more about my life reflecting God’s hand than being visible online. This is why I’ve been chronically offline; and I’ll share more about that soon.

What matters to me now is who people encounter in person. The fruit. The peace. The steadiness.

For now, hidden feels holy.

If you’re in a hidden season too, I’d love to hear what it’s teaching you. Reply in the comments or send me a note. Looking forward to chatting with you.

Listen here:

Read here:

Hidden
unable to see the making
of what God put together
in me

Invisible
tucked into
a secret place

Unveiled
by my prayers
my tears
whispered into His ear

Hidden
protected
out of the adversary’s sight

concealed
under the shadow of the Almighty
held in the center of His palm

revealed in time
not forgotten
kept

Listen to it “podcast style” here:

Read along here:

Surrender

I’ve come to understand the importance of vision and the practice of aligning each year with it. Often, this looks like choosing a single word to serve as an anchor. For 2025, my word was surrender.

By December 31, 2025, I had surrendered much of my life in the biblical sense; completely yielding my own will, plans, and control to God’s authority and purposes. People and places I believed were meant to last a lifetime were only able to sustain a season. Handing them over to God was difficult, but necessary to step into the season I am currently in.

When I surrendered it all, supernatural things began to happen. The weight I had worked for years to lose simply vanished—sixteen pounds, gone. My skin began to glow from the inside out. I started to look like the light I had always carried but had been dimmed by another’s darkness. I began to remember me. I began to remember who loved me, valued me, and honored me first—before I was even knit together in my mother’s womb.

For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
—Psalm 139:13-14

I realized that the best thing that had happened to me was fully surrendering my plans to God.

At that point, I thought I was done. I thought I had it all figured out and that life would begin unfolding exactly as God intended. Before the distractions, before the detours, before I strayed from my calling and my path.

I was ready. Excited.

And then my heart activated.

Release

It was time to confront my emotions (my feelings) and get to the root of what paved the way for me to remain connected to someone who did not value me, honor me, or respect my God-given worth.

The process of releasing began disguised as a need for closure. A need that sent me searching for meaning in places that didn’t require my presence. How many times have you returned to the source of your pain for understanding? Searching for answers only to be left with a reopened wound? A wound God had already begun to heal through His love, grace, and mercy.

He heals the brokenhearted
and binds up their wounds.
—Psalm 147:3

I was gripping for answers, desperate to make sense of my pain. I believed that if I gained clarity, the pain would feel justified. Maybe my tears would be worth something. Maybe everything would finally have a place to settle and dissolve.

That moment never came. And it took time for me to accept that it never would.

I came to terms with the truth that surrender was only the first step. What followed was release—total and complete. Letting go not just of the person, but of everything attached: the need to be understood, the stories being told about me, the misperceptions, the false versions of who I am that now live in someone else’s mind.

If you’re in this place right now, caught between wanting to defend yourself and knowing you need to let go, I want you to know this: You can grieve the misunderstanding and still choose your peace. These two things can coexist. The ache of being misrepresented doesn’t mean you’re doing release wrong. It means you’re human, and you cared deeply about something that mattered.

I had to release an entire chapter of a woman shaped by an identity that was not hers. I had to accept that I am no longer her, and that I could no longer see life through her eyes or identify with her wounds.

This has been extraordinarily difficult. I had never experienced betrayal at this level—betrayal that made me want to correct every misinterpreted word, heal wounds that were not mine to tend, and edit narratives that misrepresented my dignity and integrity.

This betrayal shook the very foundation of who I thought I was.

It was raw. Gut-wrenching. Heartbreaking.

And there was nothing I could do to soothe it—or so I thought.

I will turn their mourning into gladness;
I will give them comfort and joy instead of sorrow.
—Jeremiah 31:13

That pain catapulted me into the soul-crushing work of release. Every day brought a new wave of emotion. My closest friends grew accustomed to me calling it “spiraling.” And every single day, I had to release it to God. Sometimes every hour, sometimes every second.

I had experienced betrayal before, but this one disrupted me to my core.

And that’s when I realized—God wasn’t breaking me. He was making me new.

The Transition

I wasn’t prepared for what came next. Once I fully released the version of myself that could not come with me, I was ushered into an entirely new timeline.

God restored something I hadn’t had in a long time: vision.

He began revealing what my life is transforming into. I took one step of obedience, released everything (and I’m still releasing), and He immediately blessed me beyond what I could ever ask or imagine.

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine,
according to his power that is at work within us.
—Ephesians 3:20

Opportunities I once felt were being withheld began to flood my life—as if a dam had finally broken and could no longer hold back the overflow of blessings that had always been destined for me.

I also have to make room for the truth that pain moved me in ways I didn’t recognize. I behaved out of hurt, out of shock, out of a desperate need to soothe an aching heart that didn’t know where to rest yet. There were moments I wasn’t proud of—moments driven by grief, fear, and confusion rather than clarity. But I refuse to shame myself for surviving an emotional wound that cut deeper than I understood at the time. That behavior was not who I am; it was what I reached for when I was hurting and didn’t yet know how to release it. And even in that, God met me with patience, not punishment.

If you’ve acted out of pain in ways you’re not proud of, hear this: your healing doesn’t require perfection. It requires honesty. God sees the wound beneath the behavior, and He is not keeping score of how gracefully you survived your breaking. Extend yourself the same mercy He’s already given you.

And still—here I am. Standing. Whole. Grounded.

I am not lacking, unfinished, or behind. I am a woman who truly knows herself, honors her boundaries, and chooses peace even when it costs her explanation. I am a woman of integrity, regardless of who misunderstands me. My truth exists whether it is received or not. I do not need to be defended to be dignified. I do not need to be believed to be worthy. I am held, seen, and known by God—and that is enough.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come:
The old has gone, the new is here!
—2 Corinthians 5:17

But I want to be honest with you about something I’m still practicing. Today, I am confronting another layer of release, one I didn’t anticipate; releasing the reality that someone now holds a version of me that was never mine. A version shaped by someone else’s words, someone else’s wounds, someone else’s narrative. And there is nothing I can do to correct it. No explanation I can offer. No clarification that would be received.

I am still struggling to release the fact that a stranger may believe something about me that is untrue, and that my silence may be interpreted in ways I cannot control. This has been one of the hardest truths to accept because I want to be understood. I want my character to be seen clearly. I want the truth to land where it belongs.

But this season is requiring me to release even that—to let go of the need to explain myself, to defend my heart, to fix a story I did not create. To accept that some misunderstandings are not meant to be resolved, only surrendered.

This is the work I’m still doing. Some days I do it well. Other days I have to release the same thing twenty times before noon. And that’s okay. Because release isn’t a destination—it’s a practice. And every time I choose it, even imperfectly, I’m choosing freedom over the need to be right. I’m choosing peace over the need to be understood.

This is not weakness. This is strength in its quietest form. And I honor the woman I am becoming, right here, in the middle of still learning how to let go.

.

Read here:

This is a story
about grace
about forgiveness.
about breaking free
from the bondage we place on ourselves.

This is a story
about love.
The freedom to explore it,
to have it,
to be in it,
to see life through its eyes.

This is a story about you.
About the chains you soldered and molded
as if they were arts and crafts.
Sized to your wrist like a tennis bracelet,
to your ankles like delicate anklets.

This is a story about a journey,
long, winding tar path
leading past every weed
reaching for the sun,
dipped in white-dusted frost,
waiting to be plucked at the root,
dislodged
and discarded.

This is a story.

Two major shifts happened in 2021: I rededicated my life to Christ, and my grandmother passed away. She was more than “Granny”, she was my mother. She raised me into the woman I am today, so her passing shook the foundation of my being. After she died, I inherited her home, my childhood home, something I wasn’t prepared for. I had six months to move in, and at the same time, my best friend would be moving in as well. Needless to say, I wasn’t ready.

Living in her home exactly as she left it brought me comfort. My grief wouldn’t let me touch anything. I left everything just as it was for four years. Unknowingly, I had put myself on a shelf—preserved, untouched, and unexamined. I didn’t realize it then, but I had become the embodiment of grief, neglecting myself and my space in ways I never would have before. I was floating through life. There were moments when I felt empowered and hopeful, but deep down I was still searching for who I was as a born-again believer and as a woman without the matriarch of her life.

Years later, in 2024, I met someone who was floating through life because of grief, too. When I met him, I thought we could support each other. I wasn’t looking for a relationship, but I saw that he needed support, and I believed he could offer me the same. What began as a connection on the Bible App slowly moved into real life, and we began dating. That wasn’t my intention, though in hindsight, maybe it had been his all along.

I enjoyed his company. Everything with him felt calm; no performance, no pomp or circumstance. We genuinely enjoyed doing the most ordinary things together: watching movies and home improvement shows, drinking coffee, going to the movies, walking in parks. These small, simple moments slowed my nervous system and helped me forget, if only briefly, how much I missed my Granny. He never had to change who he was. He never had to perform his bad/ugly side away through gifts or words. I accepted him unconditionally. Human to human. And maybe that was my mistake.

For a time, he felt like peace to me in a season where I desperately needed stillness. Until he didn’t. And strangely, when he pulled away, I leaned in with prayer and encouragement for us both. Sometimes he returned it. By September 2025, I realized I couldn’t keep holding on to someone who was always pulling away. There is so much more to this story that I’m intentionally leaving out for the sake of my healing heart, so this is where it ends for now. He disappeared. Not physically, but emotionally and mentally, and I was left to gather the pieces of what had been; along with my own heart.

I’ve been thrown back into the clutches of grief, but this time it looks different. This isn’t the grief I carried for my Granny. I’m mourning the loss of a man I imagined. Not who he actually is, but who I created in my heart. I grieve the slow, intentional life I thought we were building. One rooted in presence, seeing each other’s flaws, and choosing each other anyway. I grieve a fantasy I will never get to experience with him. I wish I had been better prepared for this. I wasn’t. It hit me like emotional whiplash.

As much as his abrupt absence hurt me, it also awakened something unexpected within me. A need to reclaim my grandmother’s home as my own. Over the past few months, I’ve been moving out the old to make space for the new—uncovering every closet and crevice that once belonged to my Granny. I’ve been cleaning feverishly, discarding what was to make room for what is. This, I wasn’t expecting.

And so maybe this is what his disappearance was for: to awaken in me the call to reclaim legacy; to truly lean in and make it my own. Somehow, the fear of moving anything out of place just lifted. It dissolved along with his presence.

Will I miss both? Most definitely. Each held something that material, money or performance could never replace. But instinctively, I knew it was time. Time to let go and flourish into the woman I know I am. Time to move on from a connection that did not have the capacity to fully carry my love—my flaws, my highs, my lows — the way I was willing to carry his.

For 2025, my word was surrender, and God made sure I ended the year on a high note. For 2026, my word is release. God has something so beautiful in store for me that even the thought of it brings me to tears. And because God only moves in order (He is not a genie) I know my assignment right now is me. He has called me to release more than I ever have before.

The best thing about all of this, though?

I can fit into my birthday dress.

Listen here:

Read here:

You were a stranger to me

⠀

But You knew my name

You pursued me

Never far from your grasp

I ran

Into an abyss that knows no depth

Hollow, dark

Empty

As that old soul

Into snares

Into death

Into tricks

I ran

Never far from your grasp

I slipped

Into my own worship

⠀

And You pursued me, still.

⠀

Quenching the thirst of these dry bones

With just your words

You pursued me

⠀

And you never stop

⠀

This is love

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It felt like home
wrapped in an equatorial, sun-kissed bow.

A sweet, thick breeze threading through my hair,
salted mist flirting with my skin,
steeped in the bright bite of caipirinhas
loosened, warmed, awake.

Home was loud, yet subtle.
Spicy, yet sweet.

A bossa nova hum brushing the air,
a flute lingering like a secret
that didn’t need translation.

Not home away from home.
Just home.

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I like me.

The stumbles,

The fumbles,

The way my love spills out of my hands

because I’m alive.

I like that I’m imperfect

& perfect

the only one of me

I like that I have a love

open to joy the way I am.

I like that I listen

that I want you to be heard

I like that I am a soft space for truth

for you

being exactly who you are

no cutting room floor

all of you.

I like that you see the light in me

I like that goodness finds me quick,

that love runs over,

that my desires don’t hide from me.

I like my struggle

that I am stretching,

my evolution.

I like how you perceive me

and that I can’t change it.

I like that my heart is open,

that I’ve finally reached the end of this story

that I am finally free enough to see.

Listen here:

Read here:

I imagined us

while life unfolded for me

invisible to the eye (faith)

full and undeniable within.

a cool May night,

peach terry cloth brushing my skin,

hair piled high,

and you

your crisp white linen shirt

unbuttoned, just two

loose jeans,

the birkenstocks you swore you’d never wear.

you feel safe with me

I grin

and you are the twinkle in my eye.

the breeze,

the cascade of waves,

kids laughing in the distance

your warm skin against mine.

I’ve fallen into your arms over a thousand times

before

a natural fit

we prayed for this.

we thank God for it.

and I know

I am blessed.

this is holy matrimony

no countdown,

no deadline,

just presence.

just us.

here.

there was a moment

a blip in time

when I thought I didn’t want this

I was only shedding

what couldn’t hold all of me.

every second,

every hour,

every day

draws me closer

to this beach,

to this vision,

to you

and we are grateful

for everything that didn’t happen

and everything that did.

in this moment,

I am radiant

God-made

a perfect blend

of becoming.

you are enamored

with my beauty,

my poise

and who would’ve thought

God wrote this for us both?

God is love

and I am the love that I seek

God is within me

I will not fail.

Almost arriving to an exhale.

Unloading the burdens that have curved our spines downward.

We’re almost there.

The weekend will be here soon. This feels like nothing more than a repeat for me — Saturday, Sunday, Monday, over and over again. But there is a shift in the atmosphere today. I was freaking out when it happened.

I woke up at 1:41 AM.
Unable to go back to sleep.
Up until 4:54 AM.
Highly sensitive and irritated by every single sound — even the words I was reading.

Then I realized: this is what I prayed for.

A detachment from the people, places, and things that do not value, honor, or love me.

I’m not looking back.

Sometimes I do.
Well… most times I do.
I believe in second chances — third, fourth, fifth.
If the God I serve didn’t give them to me, I wouldn’t allow them so easily.

But even He reaches a point of no return —
when He says, “Depart from Me, I never knew you,”
or when He gives someone over to a reprobate mind.

I think I’ve reached my point.
In both of these areas.

This time, it’s less about them and more about me.

This isn’t a heartbreak post, though — so don’t be alarmed.

This is a heart-has-come-back-together post.
For once.

And I’m protecting what God put back together.

Reflection:
Do you feel a shift happening in your spirit this season? How are you responding to it?

We spoke for the first time since my birthday.

“TAN!”

His voice, boisterous and steeped in an island richness that never startles me. It places me right back in that warmth that only Flatbush could give - thick, slow and sweet like molasses.

“Ya lookin gud, gyal. Your hair gettin long, yea? It always remind me of suga…ya natural color.”

Sugar? The word sits strangely on my tongue. My Western mind pictures the white stuff—bleached, sifted, perfect. The kind they sell in paper bags, not the kind that grows in fields.

He must have read my thoughts.
“Like suga cane, Tan. Raw sugar.”

That made me smile. I never thought of my hair that way—just a dusty, boring, sandy brown. Nothing spectacular.

Today, it’s raw sugar—untouched, golden, still kissed by the sun. He said it like a truth I hadn’t believed yet.

For the first time, I saw myself the way he did.
Not polished.
Not refined.
Just raw.

My hair is sugar cane—
light and sweet.

Author’s Note

“Sugar Cane” was born from a conversation that lingered — the kind that makes you see yourself differently once it ends. I wanted to explore how beauty can shift when it’s seen through unfiltered eyes, through memory, through language that still tastes like home. Sometimes it takes someone else to remind us that what we call ordinary has been kissed by the sun all along.