📫 BE HONEST WITH THEM. FOR, ME. ❤️‍🩹Beloveds,Ow.That is probably the best way for me to begin this.Ow.For the past few years, the Holy Spirit has been convicting my heart.Not condemning me.Convicting me.There is a difference.Condemnation tells me to hide.The conviction of the Holy Spirit calls me into the light.And sometimes?That light hits something in me that makes me say:OW!😳🥺❤️‍🩹I love living in my Black skin.I love Black joy.I love Black laughter.I love Black music.I love Black creativity.I love Black excellence.I love the beauty of us.The resilience of us.The tenderness of us.The absolute foolishness of us sometimes.🤣I love everybody.But I especially love my bros and sis.Which is exactly why what the Holy Spirit showed me hurt so much.Just before my stroke, I discovered a ton of Black romance movies.Beloveds…I LOVED THEM.🥰😍Seeing Black people in love was breathtaking to me.People who looked like me were falling in love.Being pursued.Being cherished.Building families.Laughing.Arguing.Reconciling.Getting married.Living.And many of these movies showed something else I loved seeing:Black affluence.Black professionals.Black entrepreneurs.Beautiful Black families in beautiful homes.Black men and women succeeding.Black excellence.I loved seeing us.But then something happened.And this is where I cry.😭Permit me to digress.Growing up, Black folk pounded something into my head:You have to be ten times better than everybody else just to earn a hint of a whiff of a chance at a decent job. At a decent life.So I worked.Hard.HARD.I learned.I became good at what I did.I loved Customer Service.You could hear that love in my voice.I trained people.And I watched many of the white people I trained receive the raise.The promotion.The opportunity.Over me.I offered my skills.I knew I was capable.Still…I was seldom selected.Not chosen.Again.Sigh.❤️‍🩹Now come back to those movies with me.Because one day I caught something happening inside myself.I was watching Black people on the screen.And somewhere in my thoughts I heard:They’re too loud.Too boisterous.Too…Black.😳🥺🥹😦😩😢😭OW.I am a Black woman.I love Black people.And there it was.Inside me.A measuring stick.A judgment.A standard about what kind of Blackness was acceptable.And the Holy Spirit would not let me look away from it.That is important.Because I could have defended myself.I could have said:I’m Black!I love Black people!Look at everything I’ve written!Look at who I am!I could have produced evidence for my own defense.But God wasn’t putting me on trial.He was showing me something because He loves me enough to show me what still needs healing.❤️‍🩹I had learned that Black people are watched.Evaluated.Measured.Judged.How we speak.How we dress.How we wear our hair.How loudly we laugh.How angry we are allowed to become.How professional we appear.Whether we are “articulate.”Whether we make somebody uncomfortable.Whether we are respectable enough.Somewhere along the way, the watcher got inside.⛓️Society didn’t have to sit beside me watching the movie saying:That’s too Black.Some of those old lessons had learned how to speak from inside me.And the Holy Spirit said:Look.👀Not:Hate yourself.Not:You are terrible.Not:You don’t love your people.Look.See it.Tell the truth about it.Let Me deal with it.And Beloveds?I did something important.I forgave ME.❤️‍🩹Not because bias doesn’t matter.Not because judgment doesn’t hurt people.Not because I wanted an excuse.I forgave myself because shame was not going to heal what God was revealing.I forgave the Black girl who learned she was being watched.I forgave the Black woman who learned she needed to work ten times harder.I forgave the professional who watched people she trained receive opportunities she wasn’t given.I forgave the woman who learned that being excellent, controlled, polished and respectable might make the road a little safer.And then I let the Holy Spirit teach that woman something new.🔑Over these last few weeks, I started watching those movies again.🥰Then:😍Then:😅Then:🤣😂And something began changing.I stopped grading everybody’s Blackness.Loud?Okay.Quiet?Okay.Boisterous?Okay.Reserved?Okay.Professional?Okay.Country?Okay.Hood?Okay.Affluent?Okay.Working class?Okay.Harvard?Okay.Grandma’s kitchen table and the school of hard knocks?Okay.🤣❤️Black people do not owe me one acceptable performance of Blackness.And neither do I.👩🏿‍🦼💃🏿Because here’s another little piece of God’s sense of humor:After all those years learning how not to be “too loud”…Look at the name of my blog.WHY CAN’T I BE LOUD?!🤣🤣🤣Won’t He do it?!But this revelation went deeper.Because I realized something about Black excellence too.I LOVE Black excellence.I celebrate it.But Black excellence cannot become another chain.⛓️We cannot spend generations being told we must be ten times better and then accidentally turn around and require exceptional achievement from one another before we feel comfortable celebrating Black life.The CEO matters.The doctor matters.The professor matters.The entrepreneur matters.And so does the cashier.The janitor.The unemployed brother trying again.The sister working two jobs.The person without the degree.The person with the accent.The person whose grammar somebody wants to correct.The quiet Black man.The loud Black man.The quiet Black woman.And yes—the LOUD Black woman.👩🏿‍🦼💃🏿❤️‍🔥Our dignity cannot depend upon our excellence.And that revelation made me ask an even harder question:What other measuring sticks am I carrying?Not just about Black people.About people.Period.What have I absorbed about disability?Poverty?Weight?Age?Education?Accents?Religion?Gender?Mental illness?Addiction?Homelessness?People who vote differently?People who worship differently?People who don’t believe what I believe?People whose lives I don’t understand?👀What if some of the chains I want broken in the world are also hiding somewhere inside me?⛓️Then I need a key too.🔑That is why I’m telling you this.Because the Holy Spirit convicted me.And the instruction in my spirit was:BE HONEST WITH THEM. FOR, ME.For ME.Him.God.🙏🏿Tell them.Don’t polish yourself first.Don’t pretend you arrived.Don’t make yourself the teacher standing above everybody else.Tell them what I showed you.So I am.I judged.God showed me.It hurt.I listened.I forgave myself.I kept watching.I started seeing differently.And I’m still learning.That is conviction.That is grace.That is growth.That is another chain hitting the floor.⛓️💥And now, Beloveds, I turn the question toward you—not from above you.From my chair.🪑Be honest with you.For, HIM.What hidden bias are you struggling to deal with?What measuring stick did somebody put in your hand so early that you forgot somebody gave it to you?And what might happen if you finally put it down?Don’t answer for me.Don’t answer for Facebook.Don’t answer for church.Don’t answer because somebody is watching.Ask God.Be honest with you.For, Him.Because He already knows what is there.And if the Holy Spirit turns the light on?👀Look.Listen.Repent where repentance is needed.Forgive yourself.Learn.Unlearn.Heal.Choose differently.And keep walking.One step.One step.One step.🔑❤️‍🩹God did not show me the chain so I could decorate it with shame.He showed me the chain because chains can be broken.And THAT?That will preach.❤️‍🔥🙏🏿Asking for A Friend,Cassandra#YourLifeMattersToMeNote: One step. One step. One step. You are loved. You are NOT alone. Keep on being…YOU!Unapologetically His.Unapologetically yours.