Sharing Our Stories: Strong Enough to Know When to Stop and Protect Your Health

Strength, Self-Care, and A Life Lesson for Black Women
A guest post by Kai A. Pineda

A few weeks ago Simone Biles, an American artistic gymnast who has won 32 Olympic and World Championship medals, did something most of us have never had the courage to do. What many called selfish, stupid and wrong I saw as bravery.

While the entire world was watching, Simone unapologetically made a decision to choose something more important than a gold medal—she decided to choose herself. According to CNN, Biles withdrew from the women’s team gymnastics final at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, citing mental health concerns as she attempts to protect “her body and mind.”

The choice Biles made to put her health first resonates me in a deeply profound way because in the African American community, Black women historically have been raised to put everyone and everything before themselves. From the time they are born the idea surrounding their value is steeped in what they can do or have, and not around who they are.

They are trained to give to the point of exhaustion and hold everyone else as more important. This misinterpretation of selflessness has been detrimental to the Black woman for centuries.

With mental health discussions on the rise, many who’ve battled with mental illness or mental and emotional stresses in the Church, have been told they can pray it away or told, “You need more faith!” These words have caused some to reject therapy and or medication. Within the African community, counseling or therapy was seen as taboo. Even the Black church in time passed turned their noses up to the idea of help beyond praying and traveling.

I know this personally as a close friend of mine for years avoided a diagnosis because the ministry she attended told her to trust God. After years of back and forth stays at hospitals and a final episode where she went missing for days, she let wisdom through the Holy Spirit lead her to find a Christian psychologist who prescribed her what she needed.

We as the Bride of Christ must understand there are spiritual and natural sides to everything. To ignore one is dangerous. Jesus Christ lived on this Earth and dealt with evil spirits and the worries of men. He was moved with compassion knowing the complexities of humanity and our deep need for saving. God has always been our protector and provider. In all things we must get understanding and use wisdom. Seeing a doctor, having surgery, or taking medicine doesn’t make you faithless.

As an African-American woman, I have felt unseen and devalued constantly. I know the pressures to be perfect and to stand out amongst a crowd who doesn’t always think you matter. This can be a heavy weight too carry alone. And though we have the Holy Spirit to help us, God has also prepared people to walk with us through releasing trauma and facing our own fears and fragility. God cares about our physical and spiritual health.

In closing, I’d like for you to read this message from God found in 3 John 1:2 (TPT), which says, “Beloved friend, I pray that you are prospering in every way and that you continually enjoy good health, just as your soul is prospering.”

Let’s Pray: Dear God, thank you for caring about all aspects of our health (mental, emotional, physical and spiritual). Thank you for always understanding our fragility and being there for us no matter what we face in this life here on Earth. Please continue to equip us to walk the path You’ve set for us. When we feel weary and like we cannot move forward, strengthen us and carry us until we’re strong enough to walk on our own two feet with You by our side. Thank You that you will never leave us. Please help us to trust You. In Jesus’s Name I pray. Amen.

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Author Bio:

I am a fire-starter and a passionate student of the Bible who helps others discover their identity and the beauty within the Body of Christ by leading them into an encounter with the Word of God.

I am married to a man I am madly in like with and love more than I can explain. Together we plant home fellowships within the U.S. and abroad.

I am an author who released her first book, Dear Church: Vol 1: The Beauty of The Body, in 2019. The second volume will be released in 2021.

I have recorded two praise and worship albums and love to travel.

I am an introvert who loves her family, people, rainy days, a chai latte from Starbucks, and my Maltipoo McLovin.

I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, nor challenging people to live lives based on a biblical standard and not personal preferences.

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Connect with Kai:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kai.a.pineda
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamkaiapineda/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Kai_A_Pineda
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/92920689-kai-pineda

Sharing Our Stories: My lens and their world

Changing Our Lens
A personal essay by Roseanna M. White

As a novelist, something I’ve been thinking about a lot in recent years, as people ask me how I create my characters, is the lens through which we view the world. 

It’s easy to talk about in terms of these fictional people—after all, I’m the one creating them. I get to decide what their lens is and whether or not it shifts throughout the course of the story. I define it as “how they view their world and all their experiences.” A mathematician is going to see things differently than a musician, a biologist differently than a fairy tale enthusiast.

This is an understanding that I have about my made-up world because of my awareness of how I view the world always through the lens of “writer.” I’m always trying to put words to everything, trying to capture each experience through a turn of phrase.

We all have a thicker lens than our profession or even our calling, though. And I’m just beginning to understand what all truly makes up that glass through which we each see our world.

A lot of it is informed by our culture, our personal history. My lens is that of a white, middle-class woman. A West Virginian. A girl who prefers rural settings to urban ones. My lens comes from being raised in a Protestant church. In a school without much diversity. Going to a college that had people from a lot of countries, but most of whom still looked “like me.” 

But learning, there, to talk about everything with everyone, to view conversation as a way to bridge any gap. My lens comes from realizing, thanks to my fiction writing and reading, that we can always remove our own lens and put on someone else’s long enough to glimpse their world and come to new understandings.

As racial tensions continue to mount and a light is shone on systemic biases and injustices, sometimes our first reaction is to hide behind our own tinted glasses. “That’s not our world. That’s not how we experience it.” It’s easy to call it exaggeration or political or even flat-out mistaken.

But let’s take off our own lens. It’s a challenge—we’re so used to it that everything might look a little myopic when we make an effort to check our usual outlook at the door. But the best things in the life are the most difficult, and it’s an exercise worth the effort. Take off your lens. Put aside how you experience things. And really ask yourself how others do.

I’ve encountered prejudice here and there because of being from West Virginia. But it’s one I can counter by the way I present myself. When I take off that lens, I see that others don’t have the same ability—no matter what they do, people will make assumptions based on outward appearances that they cannot—and should not have to—change.

I’ve made plenty of friends with people of color, never seeing them as different. But when I take off my lens of “equality,” I see that there are differences, and that by ignoring the continued inequalities, I don’t make them disappear—I just don’t help solve them. In order to truly love and respect those friends, I need to take active steps, not just make assumptions.

I have opinions on right ways and wrong ways to handle problems. But we tend to define “right” and “wrong” by what works and what doesn’t. When I take off my lens, I see that what works for me does not work for others—and so, when is taking different action the only possible recourse?

This is something I have to keep practicing every day. But I should, every day. Because Jesus called us to look outside ourselves. To be radical with our love. To seek out those who are different. He calls us to see everyone through the lens of the only true equality to be found—His love.

What defines your lens? And how can you shift it to see the world in new ways?

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Author Bio:

Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award nominated author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes.

When not writing fiction, she’s homeschooling her two kids, editing for WhiteFire Publishing, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself.

Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary.

You can learn more about her and her stories at www.RoseannaMWhite.com.

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Connect with Roseanna:
Blog: https://roseannamwhite.com/blog/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RoseannaMWhite/
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/roseannamwhite/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/roseannamwhite/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/RoseannaMWhite
Website: https://www.roseannamwhite.com