Root Yourself Before Helping Others

It’s 3 a.m., and I’ve fallen asleep on the couch. I hear a clicking sound—my electricity shutting off. I wake up in a panic, anxiety-driven, and for a moment, I second-guess if I paid my electric bill. It was a power outage, but the electricity was still running through my mind, and there was no off switch. It was summer, the slowest season of the year, and my father had helped me out a few times. I was on my own, a single mom of two kids and self-employed. By 4 a.m., I was applying for jobs.

My hands were dirty. I had been planting seeds and plowing for many years, awaiting God to present me with a harvest I worked so hard to receive. Yet, year after year, I continued to water and speak into others, believing that one-day prosperity would touch my life. Like any season, I found myself in a cycle that made any efforts I had ever given to my success just a rerun of Groundhog Day. I simply had nothing to show but the dirt beneath my fingertips.

I was angry, salty, and confused. It was unfair. UntilI, I decided to be selfish. I was tired of having nothing. Feeling like a failure as a parent, I was tired of my children being told I didn’t have the means for whatever they wanted. I was embarrassed that at my age, I had nothing to show. I felt like a loser.

Then it began. I put on the blinders and went to work, isolating myself from the cycles and patterns that kept me bound to bottom results. I started to pour into myself, feeding my mind only things that would keep my vibration in a state of moving forward in a positive space. I began telling myself I was worthy and deserving. I would thank God for answering my prayers as if they had manifested and believe I was going to achieve all I had set out to acquire. Then suddenly, what felt like a bright light and being on top of the world fell dark and lonely.

At first, I was confused. I struggled to articulate my feelings. Amid isolation, I had begun to network and connect with purpose-driven women, become part of faith-based communities, and hold relationships with people who supported and fed me things I was lacking. I was far from lonely. I had so many people a phone call away, yet I sat and cried with the weight of so many things because I was tired. The same way I thought God didn’t speak to me was the same way I felt He didn’t reward me. It wasn’t until I learned to listen that He spoke; therefore, I had no fruit to bear until I began to sow into my garden.

I wasn’t alone. I had never stood in a place of so much responsibility and believed I was capable. I was qualified. I. Was. Equipped. I always was; I just never believed it. I had imposter syndrome, always calling for someone to validate what I could do. This time, I was walking through the desert, knowing one step at a time, and that everyone expecting me to produce wasn’t going to be let down. This time, I was standing in a position where, when God delivered, I was ready to receive. I’d been waiting for so long because I was simply at the wrong address. I believed I was part of the 99.

I’m tired. I’m moving mountains at one time. He’s working double time to catch me up because I was lost for so long. In the short time I began to pray and wait to move, my life was already looking so different. So different that I cannot project the trajectory to give you goals for the years to come.

God is faithful. It’s true: until we position ourselves, the blessings will never matter. We will mishandle them every time. If we don’t believe in ourselves, our lack of faith will only keep us within the boundaries of our minds.