Dead in sin. Alive in Christ! (pt 2)

For about ten years, I was in a state of depression without even realizing it. The pain began with something as common as cyberbullying. Several fake pages were created, and I was flooded with hurtful messages. Eventually, the cyberbullying stopped, but to avoid the deep hurt I was feeling, I threw myself into busying my life such as raising my daughter and focusing on my studies. I was completely oblivious to the emotional damage I was inflicting on myself by not facing that pain. It wasn't until years later, when I finally sought therapy, that I was able to cry for the first time about what had transpired. I learned that while solitude has its benefits, avoidance is never healthy.

So why am I sharing this with you?

One night, while browsing the web, I stumbled upon a heartbreaking article about a ten-year-old girl, Isabella “Izzy” Tichenor, who tragically took her own life due to racial bullying at school. Countless questions raced through my mind: "Did she know this moment would pass?" "Did she know brighter days were ahead?" "Did she understand her absence would be permanent?" My heart ached, and I wished our paths had crossed so I could have talked to her.

Her story, along with those of other young girls and women I've encountered in articles, on social media, and in real life weighs on my heart. I reflected on my own past struggles, those years I spent in avoidance as my depression deepened. I thought about my daughter, my niece, and their middle-school woes (at the time), and my little sister navigating her mid-twenties. I thought about all of the women I know who are juggling so much and yet when they are asked, “How are you?”—they respond by saying, “I’m fine.”

It was this deep compassion that led me to independently publish my book, The Village of Daughters: A Collection of Short Stories, in 2022. It was a journey of healing for me, but more than that, I wrote it to speak to every girl and woman I had encountered, and those I wish I could have. I wanted to remind them that liberation is possible. The book consisted of 12 short stories that were structured around four phases—innocence, discovery, awakening, and liberation. In these short stories that told specific moments of a young girl or woman’s life to bring the reader a fresh perspective and encourage them to release themselves from negative patterns and false identities, and instead embrace the truth revealed through their experiences. It was to share the message that in these four phases regardless of the life stage or age, we all go from not knowing (innocence) to something new (discovery) to connecting the dots (awakening) to a renewed perspective (liberation).

After the book's release, though, I felt strangely unsettled and found myself constantly revising it. Sometime later, the word “Bible” started to pop into my mind at random times that I would think about the book. I couldn’t understand why. It confused me. Aside from going to church as a child and very irregularly as a teenager, I’ve gone several times in college, but I always left the church building after service feeling an emotional high that would fade the closer I got to home—back to reality. I wanted that feeling to stay, but when it didn't, I stopped attending church services and tried to fill that void with the information I would get from the world about God. I had even attempted to read the Bible twice before, but I always stopped at Genesis 2. The verse about God creating woman from man’s rib just didn’t sit right with me. I thought, "Why, God? This just gives men ammunition to treat women as if we are beneath them." I also couldn’t see myself in Scripture. I guess I was looking for Scripture to explicitly say, “As for you, black woman…”

So, when the word "Bible" would randomly appear and disappear, I thought, okay, I need to reach out to someone on this, so I texted a former pastor I had met through a mutual associate. The text read: "Hey, I would like to pick your brain about something. Can you give me a call in about an hour or so?" When he called, I started by describing what I was experiencing and then asked, "What is your interpretation of the Bible?"

He responded, "The Bible interprets itself. I only need to read and understand what the writer is expressing."

After a moment of absorbing that, I asked, "So, what is your understanding of it?"

He answered, "It depends on where I'm at. If I'm reading the book of Luke or Matthew, then it's, 'What is Matthew saying? What message is he conveying?'"

I then said, "I'm not trying to compare the Bible to my book, but I guess I'm trying to find a connection. So would you say the Bible has short stories?"

"You could say that," he replied. " Are you familiar with parables?”

“I heard the word before,” I responded.

“Well, Jesus spoke many parables,” he said. “How about you research the number of parables Jesus spoke in Scripture, and we can meet in person to discuss it?"

So we did. When we met at Barnes and Noble, he asked me about my research and more about what I had been experiencing, which led to me sharing other experiences I had been having. I began to explain the constant feeling of being unsettled. I felt bothered, like something was trying to get my attention with a force so strong it was disturbing my peace. I had tried everything to shake this feeling: taking different routes to work, rearranging my furniture, and even cutting my locs. The same locs I thought I would grow old with, that I said I'd never cut (they were touching my lower back before I cut them), and that I’ve been growing for maybe 11 years at that time—I was so disturbed by what was happening externally that I thought maybe I missed my curly afro and cut them. It’s ironic of the changes we make externally when the disturbance is happening internally.

Needless to say, he listened intently, asking follow-up questions to understand. We then talked about why I wrote my book. He had read it and knew I wanted to help girls and women find truth in their suffering. Right then, he handed me a copied document with two definitions of "salvation": one from Webster's Dictionary and one from the Bible, and we went through the definitions and its application to life.

"Based on what you've said, you want to save people," he stated.

"Exactly," I replied. "I want to help them get out of a dark space and see the light."

It was at that very moment that he ministered the Gospel of Jesus. He said that Jesus has been calling me. And so innocently, I asked, “Jesus has been calling me? Why?”

He said, “To save you from God’s wrath. Humanity is separated from God due to sin. God, in His love, sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to take on the punishment that we deserve because of our sinful nature. Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross and the blood that was shed satisfied God’s righteous anger. The wages of sin is death, but belief in Jesus is eternal life. He’s calling you because you are on a path to destruction.”

I had never heard those words before. I became emotional and tried to hold back the tears, but I couldn’t. The more I tried to hold back, more came out. And that’s when my walk with Christ began. We started from the beginning, the book of Genesis. And I read it all the way through.

Morgan