for a loss, even when you know it’s around the corner, the beginning of the end of the loss of life inside of me was one that shook me and continues to shake me even now. I had a trip planned to D.C. to celebrate a historic moment with my beautiful sisters around the world and because the doctors were so confident that all would be well, they released me to leave the state. I often reflect on the spirit of the city, from the airplane to the airport, from the streets to the monuments — every woman's joy was a blanket of warmth for the cold confusion happening within my heart. It was this same weekend that the verdict for Trayvon Martin was released and I felt like I lost a part of MY optimism for the life within me, with the reality of a life that should've mattered but didn't. But despite the optimism around me and my desire to believe in my body’s ability to hold on to and give life to the baby in my womb—I look back at pictures of me when I knew I was actively miscarrying (like the one in this chapter) yet putting hope into everyone’s stories about women who had extensive bleeding like they were losing a baby but they weren’t—and I see the hopelessness in my eyes. Even if I was smiling, I see the brokenness. Even if I was “smizing”, I see the shame. Even in the pictures where I’m sharing my black girl magic with other women, I see the fear. I came across a quote that says, “[Our] eyes are never quiet.” It had been 3 years since the miscarriage and one update of a contact photo in my phone revealed so much about a period in time I [thought] I carried silent eyes in the most elegant way. There's this thing on social media called throwback Thursday. It's when you post an old photo of yourself on, you guessed it, Thursday. Sometimes the captions to the pictures are celebratory for the growth made since the picture was taken. Some captions, primarily from the makeup gurus, are disbelief that someone allowed them to walk around with a unibrow and they thank the heavens that brands finally extended their foundation shades to include brown women because that color match struggle was real. Occasionally I come across a caption that goes deeper than celebrations and disbelief and speaks to the person they knew, then. The person who was broken, lost, uncertain, vain, arrogant, promiscuous, addicted, violent, jealous, self-conscious, bound. Captions where the person looks back into time, at those very loud eyes glaring back at them 5, 10 or 20 years later and realize that they wish someone would've helped them dig deeper. We connect with people every day and never look them in their eyes.
We speak to people in passing with our heads turned downward or looking past them to our next step. How many eyes gazing through brokenness and hopelessness do we miss the opportunity to pray for because we have stopped being present in every moment but instead we are trying to keep our eyes from sharing our own battles? I love to share the story about the time my husband saw a guy walking in an outdoor mall and in this case his eyes were exposing tears. He said the weight on the guy's face was so heavy and he looked so worried that he, hesitantly, stopped him and asked him if he could pray for him. He said the guy began to cry even harder and my husband, by this point, was rethinking this entire decision. It’s no secret that we are in a world where crazy eyes can expose scary truths so it’s no wonder people don’t take these type of comfort zone stretching more often. At any rate, it turned out that the guy had accepted his call to preach the gospel but lacked the support of his family. He said he was walking, crying, asking God to send him someone to pray for him and encourage him in that particular moment. He shared that he grew up with (and still had) family members who are very racist so for God to send a black man to pray over him, He knew that not only is God bigger than the things we give little (g)OD access to but also receiving the revelation of seeing the goodness of all people, no matter what they look like.
WOW! God often drops women who need prayer in a dream or randomly on my spirit. I've learned to be obedient and reach out for their prayer request (which is usually a protected version of what He revealed to me because everyone doesn’t like to be transparent). I always pray over their request as well as the deeper roots of what God revealed to me about them. But if a person appears in my dreams more than once or their name drops in my spirit more often than usual, I have this phrase I use where I say, "I need to lay eyes on them." Whether we meet up or I get them connected through FaceTime or Google hangout, I've learned that eyes will expose more depth of a need than a text or direct message ever could. We underestimate the power of eye to eye conversation. We disregard the need to see each other because we think tomorrow is promised. We bottle more than our spirit can handle and weary eyes begin to unmask our disguise. I discovered that dead things, captured in picture frames, will stare back at you to remind you what you've walked through and how God has redeemed the journey since. We take in many images, experience many heart breaks and discover a stronger part of ourselves we never expected to become. When we look into the exposed eyes of one another my hope is that we will connect our stories more than we avoid the truth. There's an anchor of hope on the other side of our floating disparities and the weight of our restless souls but we must be willing to be open enough to discover ourselves, our freedom, our redemption, through Him.