Jewels Along the Way...Stand For Something...Fall For Everything.



Howard L. Bingham, Black Panther Rally (Kathleen Cleaver & Bobby Seale), Oakland, CA, 1967

 Being a young girl or woman full of passion can be challenging at times. Here is one of the jewels I've learned along the way. 

Throughout my life I've learned that each and every time I stand for something I believe in, I am rewarded. For example, I have always had a belief in GOD and the thing that GOD stood for. I began to apply HIS words to my life. In relationships it would get ruff. This meant no sex until I was married...Abstinance. This meant showing up and being fashionable and flyy but not showing everything GOD gave you. This meant having standards for myself and setting boundraies for the people I let in my world. In the past relationships I've dealt with, I've been able to stand by and represent what I believed in  and each time I did, I was rewarded. I was rewarded with a crown of respect even though the other person may not have agreed totally with everything I believed in. I was rewarded with a garment of honor. Each time a man or my friends would complain, they would come back and honor me for really being who I said I was. Not only was I being honored by man, or my friends, I was being honored by GOD. I've learned, when you are honored by GOD there is nothing anyone else can do about it. His light shines through you for the world to see and there is nothing that can stop you or stand in your way........except you. Now, it's not to say that we will never fall, or I never fell. I can garauntee you all that one day all of us will. In each stumble, or loosing balance there is a lesson to be learned. A lesson in humility, always being aware of your shortcomings to know that apart from  GOD and His power you can do nothing. A lesson to see that it's not always about pleasing man or someone else, or even yourself at times, but its about pleasing GOD. I know it may sound bizzare, but in pleasing GOD first you are infact pleasing yourself and that will trickle down to everyone else around you. In a recent situation I was in, I fell on my face, and I mean hard. I comprimised what I believed, not for him, but for myself because it was something that I wanted so badly and I felt I had waited long enough for. The point is I comprimised what made me, ME. I didn't stand by what I knew for a fact to be true, and because of this, I began to loose apart of who I was. I began to reason myself out of doing what I knew was right and what I knew I stood for. In the end or "so called end" ;)  I lost respect, I lost my honor in that situation, and my mind was unstable (always reasoning back and forth with myself) and I lost a friend. We can never comprimise who we are to get what we want. We can never comprimise who we are to please someone else. In the midst of our desires never loose focus on what makes you who you are, or what sets you apart. If a person can't accept you for who you are and what you stand for than there is no confusion, you know beyond a shadow of a doubt where that person stands in your life..but most importantly, if you you can't accept who you are than you know no one else will either. Through it all I've learned to accept who I am and where I am in life. To love the things that make me different, and to stand by what I believe in, always.  In a sense I had to loose myself inorder to find what was here all along.