I found a therapist who feels like a smart best friend. She understands my context and my subtext, and as a writer, there are few things more profound. 2022 has been the hardest year I can remember…the year that everyone died, or at least it seemed that way.
2022 soundly kicked my ass. Slayed me. Put to rest, inevitably, any notion that I was capable, powerful or strong.
I Am Fallen.
It began with my word for the 2022…WAIT
I should’ve known it was doomed to fail; I could never have lived up to it. So, when my therapist asked about my word for ‘22 and what the experience taught me…I couldn’t even remember it. The word didn’t take. The word was never mine.
For every year a word has claimed me, it comes in the same manner.
It is morning.
I am in transit.
I am talking to my best friend.
It was the last week of the year, and still no word had claimed me. Just as I began to worry, in a conversation with my BBFFF,
This song I’m ’bout to sang is called Miss Celie’s Blues. ‘Cause she scratched-ed out my head when I was ailin’. . . .”
~Shug Avery in The Color Purple
My bestie midwifed it out of me. It would not come out of me any other way. While I was driving in the morning, she was urging me. Casting words my way to see which might stick. I cannot call forth my Word. I do not find them; they find me.
Always in transit.
Always when talking to my sister.
The ability and privilege to write my stories is a gift. The ability to be held by women who coax them out of me and into the world…that is Grace.
Amazing grace shall always be my song of praise
For it was grace that brought my Liberty
I’ll never know just why He came to love me soHe looked beyond my faults and saw all my needs
Traditional hymn written by Dottie Rambo
2022 exposed me as brittle and fragile, always too proud to reach for many outstretched hands. It will take time to restore the temple I have carelessly assaulted.
What I desperately needed was always right in front of me. I only had to ask.
I Am Replacing False Pride with Humility
2022 is the year I understand the peril of being too full of myself and leaving too little for God. Failing to leave that space, we fail.
2022 is the year I admit that I was a fool, and that pride goes before the fall.
I can do all things through [a]Christ who strengthens me.
Philippians 4:13 NKJV
We’ve been taught that we can do ALL things through Christ, but just because we can…
Does That Mean We Should?
My daughter’s dog was adopted from a shelter. Her needs are well met, but holds memories of want and peril. She lives a life to which I aspire. The lesson was always right in front of me…and the reason my word chose me this year…
2023 is the year I learn to let myself be held.
Chelle A Wilson 