Think of it like this: Within you is a committee of women [or men] who represent your collective wisdom, each of whom represents an insight or side of you that is the result of the experiences you’ve had over the years. You can ignore them, but you can’t altogether silence them either.
-- Rev. Dr. Renita J. Weems from “What Matters Most: Ten Lessons in Living Passionately from the Song of Solomon”

“Should I do this thing? It feels really good to my spirit, to my heart.” “Oh, but what if it gives me grief and I end up failing and hurting incessantly?” “Well, what if it’s the greatest thing you’ve ever done and you receive one of the greatest blessings you’ve ever known?” “Yeah, but what about my family, my job, my house, and my goals? They’re important and I’ve worked hard to maintain them.” “Perhaps, just maybe your purpose will be fulfilled and your territory increased if you submit yourself to this situation.” “But what if the situation isn’t really as it should be?” “Why not go for it anyway; what can you lose?”… With all these musings about a thing, it’s no wonder it’s so hard to decide which path to choose.

So you sit with yourself, listen to all the differing voices of reason and discrimination in your head, and mull your choices over and over. You came up with an answer, but it’s entirely different than the one you chose to live on yesterday. Some would call this hemm’n and haw’n flaky. Or maybe they’d consider you an unstable and erratic thinker. Some may even say you have a split or undivided personality, which of course makes people look at you funny.

In “What Matters Most,” Dr. Weems offers that the divided voices you hear in your head serve as a chorus of inner advocates who speak up to provide recollection of your experiences, encouragement, protection, and whatever else you need to navigate through any given day or season of your life. These voices, similar to the everyday voices of your truest friends, are an internal and private caucus of sorts that speak from your very core and have great value to you. You, as the chair of the caucus, consult these voices, weigh their recommendations, then choose your best course of action. Provided these inner voices (or collection of experiences, wisdom, and hope) aren’t the product of a personality disorder or nihilistic thinking, they can serve as a sounding board that provide you with the resources and solace you need to make appropriate decisions for your life.

So, then, I wonder, does giving recognition, respect, and personification to the myriad of voices in your head free you from the guilt associated with having varied and conflicting thoughts about a thing? And, do the voices that live and speak in your head work in conjunction with the voice of God that also resides in your head, and how do you discern which is God’s voice or all your others? Or, do the voices in your head hinder or even cancel God’s voice speaking to you and make it difficult for speedy and fruitful decisions to be made?

Or do you simply consider the voices like the enemy and an angel seated on opposite shoulders whispering their separate sides in your ear? Possibly your mind does register a good side and a devil’s advocate and they work against one another in hopes of winning you over.

What are your thoughts? All of them.

Sadiqqa © 2007

Guess what I forgot to do this morning?
-- Author Known (but for the sake of embarrassment, the name is withheld)

You walked out of the house this Tuesday morning in your toughest threads - you know, the ones you wear when you need to make a first-class impression and you’re eager to set the day off on its most professional note. You haircut or style is still relatively fresh from Sunday morning. You smell good – you picked just the perfect subtle, yet captivating scent this morning! Your day’s agenda is tight and right, and you’ve got a meeting that will set you above the rest. There is no doubt you are in charge! Do the dang thing!

But you forgot to brush your teeth, and when you open your mouth to give your stellar presentation, a gush of green air flows from the tongue and roof of your mouth and knocks out the boss, potential clients, and the flowers carefully selected by your agency’s florist for this spectacular occasion.

You’ve been so busy caring for your outsides and your journey to the top that you forgot even the most germane of self-care habits. Geez, what else have you missed?

Did you remember, at taking your first conscious breath this morning, to thank Jesus for it? The truth is you didn’t have to have a first conscious breath; your last could have been somewhere between REM and nonREM sleep. Did you remember to tell your loved one how much you love them or how good they made you feel before you walked out the door? Wouldn’t it be hurtful if somebody took your place in doing that?

Did you remember to lock the door? Wear your seatbelt? Thank the people at the Starbucks for making such a good cup of coffee for you? Kiss your kids good-bye before you bid them off to school?

What did you forget this morning in your rush to get on with the day?

Yesterday, did you remember to call the doctor about that ache you’re having in your left breast? To meet your appointment with your endocrinologist, cardiologist, or psychologist? Pray for that friend who’s staying on your mind?

What have you forgotten in your rush to get on with life?

Stop now. Take an inventory of yourself. Did you forget something?

P.S. Always keep a toothbrush, toothpaste, and mouthwash near.

Sadiqqa © 2007

The truth will set you free, but first it will hurt your feelings.
-- Rev. Dr. Renita J. Weems from “What Matters Most: Ten Lessons in Living Passionately from the Song of Solomon”

Everybody wants the truth. Aunt Esther testified that the truth would set you free, “oh Glory!” Harry Truman said he never gave them hell, he just told them the truth and they thought it was hell. Thoreau asked for truth over money, fame and love; and Gandhi believed that knowledge of the truth made you a soldier. But, be honest, when we get the truth – the cold, hard, unpleasant truth – we call it unfair, a lambaste, disconcerting, and a bold-faced lie. Then we sulk our way back into our shells because now our feelings are hurt. Maybe we shouldn’t have asked for the truth.

See, most of the time, the truth will put you on blast. It shows itself like a beacon atop a mountain and seeks to unwrap the layers surrounding you, making you shiver, holler, and sometimes recoil after each peeling.

Truth requires you to examine the taut wrappings that have kept you from really experiencing life and its abundances. It demands that you tackle the fears that have caused sullenness and frustration to rule your life. Like truth opening up reveals how the fear of being alone causes you to keep the radio and television on all night and repeatedly entertaining any Tomisha, Dick, and Harriet in your personal space just to feel cared for and valued while they bleed you emotionally dry, truth coming out exposes your fear of commitment, making you have to carry out your own trash, change your own oil, and wrap the covers tightly around yourself each night while you hold on to a 30 year-old teddy bear. Likewise, the truth coming down lets slip your fear of success and how mediocrity have kept you under the foot and command of a boss, a 9-5, and a paycheck that never even covers the minimum and leaves you worried about answering the phone without checking the caller ID first. Truth is freedom, but it may have to hurt your feelings and put you on Front Street in order to become the standard.

But what if you never gave in to truth? What if you just went through life wearing blinders and never acknowledging that you live under lies or what you believe protects you from reality? Would life really be worth the effort?

If you really want to be free to live, love, create, advance, and improve, isn’t the pain of having your toes stepped on, hand slapped, and covers removed worth it? Truth may not feel good coming down, but when it’s on you, around you, and is you, truth brings to light a pretty hardy and beautiful you.

So, lick your wounds; put a little balm on the bruise. Get to the truth and get free.

Sadiqqa © 2007

Sometimes the suffering is not for you but for someone else’s life.
-- Joyce Meyer

Wow, does it hurt. It feels like somebody punched you, slapped you, kicked your butt and left you lying on the cold concrete to breathe through cracked and swollen ribs. All your energy has been snuffed out, your emotions have been drained, your feelings are hurt, and your heart is breaking. And there seems to be no end, no relief, and no apologies.

At the pointed end of your pain’s arrow stands someone you’re connected with in a very real and significant way. Maybe they’re moving in an upward direction, intentionally seeking their goals and dragging you, by the hair strands no less, with them. Maybe the goals they’re seeking are such that cause them to lose parts of themselves AND forsake the other people in their lives. Nonetheless, they must seek and achieve those aspirations in order to receive personal reconciliation and the blessings that are theirs. Because of your inherent connection to them, and because you love them, you must go with them, scalp-ache and all. Sometimes you’re their safety net; at times their hitching post; and, as of late, their dumping ground - all of which have made you feel like you’ve been badly beaten.

But you’re not going through their stuff; you’re going through your own, and it hurts like hell.

If you’re willing and loving, you can see them through their stuff, but only if you’re loving yourself first. You’ve got to take time to preserve your sanity. You’ve got to honor your feelings, protect them from bitterness, give them room to exist, and not shut them off and put them away. In your insufferable moments, you’ve got to surround yourself with friends and prayer warriors who can stand with you, not those who cry, “I told you so.” You’ve got to do the things you love and discover new things about yourself that you can carry with you wherever you go. And, remind yourself often – you’re not doing this until the suffering is over. You’re doing it because suffering exists.

When it’s all said and done - when the goals have been met and exceeded and the clouds break to reveal streams of sunlight – the suffering will not have been is vain. Your rewards will be remarkable.

Sadiqqa © 2007

A watched phone never rings.
-- Coach C. Wiggins

Sometimes the thing we’re expecting to happen never happens. Sometimes the realization of things hoped for take a little longer than we’re comfortable with. Sometimes the wait time for a thing to become true can be so frustrating, you wish you’d never even hoped for the thing.

Possibly the thing you’ve carefully tended and pored over for so long just isn’t ready to bloom. Perhaps the fertile ground you’ve gingerly plowed, toiled over, and planted with premium seed is in its dormant season and nothing that even looks like what you’re longing to see and smell will crown its head. So, do you keep hovering over it, demanding that it provide blooms and bear new growth each season? Maybe you give in to the earth’s latency. Are you then denying yourself the pleasures of something beautiful to see and smell? Maybe you step back from or even give up on the ground where you’ve sown your best seeds in the hopes that if you leave it be, it’ll come into itself and produce a harvest thirsting for God’s sunshine and rain and the tenderness you gave it in its birthing stage. Geez, what are you supposed to do?

Plants, people, situations (and telephones) “ring” in their own time and season. They’ll bloom, evolve, and change if they wish and when they want. The greater tasks for you are to not lose your desire for beautiful and flowering things to see and smell and know that no matter what comes of the ground you’ve worked, you are still capable of nurturing and harvesting fruitful ground.

In the meantime, stop watching the phone. And if it never rings, you’ve still got desire for the sound of its ringing.

Sadiqqa © 2007

Don’t resist the circumstance. Resist acting like the devil during the circumstance.
-- Dr. Joyce Meyer

Go through, sit in, and be in your stuff. But while you’re there, don’t curse the kids. Don’t not feed the dogs, slam the phone down on your mama, or tell your boss where to go. Don’t be mad at the world just because your stuff is too hard and right now it’s too much. Just because your stuff is making you short-tempered and irritable, and it’s keeping you up at night, when it’s time to deal with the public, don’t lose the God in you.

Anger and resentment only make the situation worse. The Bible says that anger boomerangs and you can spot an angry person by the lumps on their head. Anger exaggerates the anxiety you’re already feeling, making the stuff you’re going through appear even more overwhelming and off-putting, which then cause you to sink deeper into your hole, only to beget more anger and resentment that cause you to snap on the first, last, and every other person in between who even forms their lips to get on your last good nerve. It’s a continuous cycle that may take days, years, lots of apologies, and a multitude of healing to recover from.

Just breathe and study the purpose in your problem. Remember, you’re one of God’s precious babies to whom salve and salvation are given to ease all pains. You don’t have to act a fool while you’re going through.

Now, go kiss the kids and get your job back.

Sadiqqa © 2007

You can’t be brave if you only had wonderful things happen to you.
-- Mary Tyler Moore

What if there was always sunshine on your winter parade? What if everything you ever dreamed of and wished for came true at the drop of a hat or at the tinkle of a bell? What if you had no suffering, no loss, no pain? Sounds great at first thought, huh? But, would you, could you, really appreciate living? Would all the sun-drenched days you’ve lived make you strong, search your soul, trust yourself, create the best you available, and rise through the flood and fire to every occasion? Would it matter that there was one day then another; sun up then sun down? Would it all be as the Quester surmises in the Ecclesiastes – nothing new under the sun, just smoke and spit in the wind?

Given that wonderful things don’t always happen, suppose that after every hardship, you latched on to the gift of peacefulness, and during every loss and bout with pain, you held tightly to the assurance that God is right there in it to guide you through, bless you dearly, and love you absolutely? And just imagine that on the other side of grief and misfortune, there is a pool of refreshing water in which to bathe your skin and Soul so that you can birth peace, plenty, love, new life, self-care, expectation, resiliency, fearlessness, wisdom, and contentment. The opportunity for a new you, a fiercer and fresher breath, and a better sip for your Spirit are right there - sitting just over the mountain of your struggles.

No parade is without rain and no dream ever comes true at its first whisper. You gotta go through to get to the good stuff, to be the best Self. Be blessed as you wade through.

Sadiqqa © 2007

Now folks will tell you if you think of someone, the first thing you gotta do is get in touch with them. But the first thing gotta be prayer. Get in touch with God for them. Tell God how they made you feel and what you wanna see for their life.
--‘Aunt Babe’ (from the Bertice Berry novel entitled, “When Love Calls, You Better Answer”)

God places people on your mind for you to think on them and their life. Most of the time, we make a quick phone call to check-in on them; but, most of the time, we don’t have the time to make that phone call. And, while we all like to be thought of and checked on, I’m convinced each of us would better benefit from receiving a prayer. Because I am thinking of you at this moment, I’m sending you a quick prayer - “Jesus, touch my friend in the places s/he needs your touch and breath your abundance on his/her life. Guide my friend’s steps, and keep him/her safe and covered by your love and mercy.”

Imagine what the world would be like if every time someone came to mind, you sent a prayer to God on their behalf. My, what a wonderful feeling to sail through the day because you crossed someone’s mind and they prayed for you.

Sadiqqa © 2007

Please join me in welcoming back to the stage the “Thought for the Day!” After a 4½ year hiatus, the “Thought…” returns full zeal and ready to rock! If you are no longer interested in receiving the “Thought…” or you have comments to lend to the “Thought…”, let me know and I will act accordingly.

Peace, blessings and here we go!
Lee (Sadiqqa)