The Product of a Broken Heart

by Crystal Ismael

  I had to understand that important lesson years ago. I was consumed about what was going on. Money drove my decisions. Drugs drove my days, attention drove my nights and so on. That I never looked forward to see the blessing that was standing right in front of my eyes. I learned that if I wake up to money, then money will drive my day and everything will revolve around money. I laugh at myself as I’m reminded of the young lady who asked the question when I told her this “what’s wrong with waking up to money she blurted out in frustration” The problem is when I let it drive my day, I made it the source of my day, so the moment I didn’t have money, I slipped into depression. I stopped going out and hid and isolated myself from the world because the very thing I made my lord let me down. It’s okay to have money, but I don’t let it consume me One thing about an eagle is he knows how to move on with or without it; if he loses money, he knows how to regain money. He has goals and a vision of what to do.

  I even know some who wake up to getting and keeping a house. The moment something happens, causing them to have to leave their homes, they become suicidal, ashamed to go outside because of what others might think or say about them. So many people wake up to things—things drive them, things move and guide them. I once told a young lady that a man has to come with more than just things. He must be able to lead me, not only lead others, but he has to be a model of what this human experience is all about, and a mind that will stand in a mist of a storm. I need more than just things I shouted to her again as we both held our stomachs and laughed. I want to know if he will be able to teach me. Can he protect me and not run and hide when problems occur?

  When I learned to wake up to the creator, I found out that I can lose a little but gain a whole lot more. I had to learn to Keep my eyes on the God in me. Wake up to God and go to sleep with God. I know that things are temporary, and everything passes on. Just like the sun goes down and promises to rise in the stillness of the morning … so shall I.

  God called me to rise and be like the eagle. The creator never calls and command that I stay the same. God called me to be greater than great. I’ve come to find out when I got a taste of greatness, it kept me wanting greatness and anything less became a complete waste of time.

  Chapter 11

  “Yeah, Dana, you made it!” Chasity said as I walked up to the white double wide doors of the building. I smiled at her as I became closer, Chasity was the type of person who made you smile when you saw her. She was so lovable and genuine I thought, as she stood there with her bright green dress and her yellow scarf wrapped neatly around her neck.

  “Yes, I made it, lady,” I said with a smile as she began to walk towards me, I was relieved that she was there to meet me.

  As we walked in, I saw the same smiling faces as I always did, the same two ladies who smiled at you when you walked through the door, smiled at you as you walked down the aisle and all the way until you sat on the bench. The people were singing, the drums were beating, and the horns were blowing as people were clapping and jumping up and down. I even saw some dancing in circles as they held hands going around and around.

  The atmosphere was exactly what I needed, I thought as Chasity nudged me and grinned, as if she knew exactly what I was thinking. I started to clap and move around as I sat on the bench. Before I knew it, I was on my feet. I could feel chasity staring at me. I didn’t care about anything now. I felt free, like nothing mattered but me and this song that resonated with my spirit.

  The song came to an end as I wiped the tears that made their way out the sides of my eyes. With my eyes still closed, I could feel those who were still sitting during the song, arise to stand. With everyone scrabbling to make enough room in the small area, I looked around and saw Mr. Ben walk to the center of the floor, as he always did at the end of a song..

  “Good evening,” he began with a serious demeanor, as he walked back and forth looking at the faces that was glaring at him back. He then started to pray. I could feel the tears start to fill my eyes again. As I wiped the tears, the quicker they fell. He said something over the mic that I had not heard him say before.

  “I feel that some of you are heavy and weighed down, and that someone needed to know that the power that you are looking for, resides on the inside for you, to change your situation.” Before I knew it, I was standing in my own pool of tears.

  “If this is you, come to the front!” he shouted.

  Pushing past the awkwardness of what I thought others might say or think, I walked to the front and made my way to face Mr. Ben. Before I knew it, Mr. Ben, placed his hand on my head, prayed over me and then gently blew on me, I then slowly dropped to my knees and passed out. I could hear people and the music softly playing in the background, but I couldn’t move or say a word.

  I began to feel others around me, waiting to help me arise from the floor. I was amazed as I rose up, trying to move beyond all the faces that were looking at me while staggering over my own two feet. I took the Kleenex one of the older ladies gave me and went back to my seat. Chasity was smiling at me, looking as shocked as I felt as I slid on the bench next to her. I could see tears starting to form in her eyes as she smiled, trying to catch a tear that made its way out.

  Heading out the door that night was different. The peace and joy I felt confirmed that I didn’t need to revert to what I had been doing. This was where I wanted to be. This was who I wanted to be. This was the peace I had been trying to find for so many years. It took getting to know the God in me. I smiled from ear to ear all the way from the meeting and all the way to pick up the kids from my sister’s place.

  The day after the spiritual awareness meeting, I heard little knocks on my door.

  Who could this be? My mother had already made her every-hour visits, I thought with a slight smile on my face. I got out of bed and walked towards the door, as I approached the livingroom I could hear Jasmine talking loudly to someone on her phone. Rolling my eyes, not sure if I wanted to open the door, I stood there to see if she would knock again, and of course, she knocked. Smacking my lips, I gave in and opened the door.

  Before I gave the appropriate welcome, she walked past me and sat on the couch. “Girrrrl, you won’t believe what happened last night,” she began as she clapped her hands together in between each word.

  A little part of me wanted to know while the other part was still contemplating on how she had just barged into my house. Ignoring the fact that I wanted to tell her off, I asked, “What happened, Jasmine?”

  “Child, now you know who I saw last night—”

  “Jasmine,” I interrupted, “I don’t care who you saw or quite frankly what you did. I’m over everything, and I certainly don’t want to hear anything about Christian!”

  She stared at me with that blank look she had when she was trying to take in what just happened.

  Since she didn’t answer, or rather, since it hadn’t been processed, I continued, “Jasmine, I want something new in life. I want to do something new.” I twirled the bottom of my shirt. I’m tired of living that kind of lifestyle “Everything that goes on outside of what I am trying to do will only conflict with who I am trying to be.”

  “Girl, what is wrong with you?” She asked, laughing to herself.

  Coming to grips with the fact that she would not understand what I was saying, I said, “Do you want to know what happened to me at the meeting?”

  “That spiritual stuff you been talking about, she yelled! You still running up to that place? Child, ain’t nobody got time for that, she said before popping her gum. I’m not through living to do that whole spiritual thang,” she said, laughing, while crossing her legs, she went on saying “all you’ll do is run up in that church and pay that pastor to give you all a feel good word” she added as she threw herself back on the couch, chuckling under her breath saying, “I don’t have time for that church stuff.” as she continued to pop her gum.

  Jasmine, first off it’
s not a church and second who said we paying Mr. Ben money, I slowly asked.

  “church, spiritual awareness groups, and all those other religions is the same” she said while she continued to laugh.

  Ignoring what she thought was a joke, I walked over to the TV, turned it on, and asked if she was hungry.

  “Yes, I am,” she said, still trying to hold in her laughter.

  She grabbed her phone and flipped through the pictures of what I thought had taken place last night. I was too overjoyed to even care about what she was looking at, for it had nothing to do with the new me. I was beyond the drinking and clubbing. I was beyond the hurt and pain I had allowed to take over day in and day out. I was beyond living out of my past hurts and failures; I was a new person and I loved it.

  “Mama! Mother! Mother!”

  I heard my children call me repeatedly, then shortly after I hear the sudden thumps that followed. Whenever they called me like that, it usually meant Jordan and Amanda were fighting.

  As I walked up to the disaster of sibling rivalry, I noticed Amanda crying and Jordan standing over her. I snapped at Jordan and firmly asked him what was going on. Amanda thought it was the right time to chime in and give her point of view. I stopped her before she began sobbing and throwing herself on the floor, hoping that would get her a way out of whatever hot water she thought she will be in.

  “But Mama,” is usually how she starts out, then the forced fall, the crying, and the shaky voice pleading her case. Before it went any further, I stopped her and turned my attention toward Jordan.

  “What happened?” I repeated.

  Jordan firmly replied as he glared at amanda in disbelief of how she was acting. “Mama, she has been picking with me all day, and then she bombards in my room without my permission,” he said sharply, as if that was the fuel to the fire.

  I walked over to Amanda to explain that what she did was wrong, but of course she was already crying, filling her space with a puddle of tears. She was allowing her crying to prevent her from being able to hear and digest the correction so she wouldn’t get into the same situation again.

  “Amanda, I need you to go in your room,” I said firmly.

  I saw that she didn’t want to listen to anything I was saying, as she cried loudly and squirmed around on the floor.

  As she got up and walked back to her room, Jordan had a smirk on his face.

  Ignoring the fact that he thought it was funny, I turned to go back to my room to finish the cleaning. As I placed the bags of clothed down that I had gathered from the kids rooms in the corner, I thought about the many women who do the same thing as Amanda. They do wrong, and many times they know what they are doing is wrong, but when it’s time for the correction (the lesson that needs to be learned), they ignore it, crying and pouting, screaming, “It is not my fault,” forsaking the correction, forsaking the lesson that is supposed to be learned to improve themselves in the days, weeks, and months to come.

  I had to remind myself plenty of times that I can’t let the process speak louder than the lesson that is supposed to be learned. Tough times don’t come to kill me, but they come to build character. I didn’t grasp that right off, that struggle is part of the process instead I disregarded that correction is established in the process. I chuckled to myself as I gathered the clothes from my room and placed them in a bag next to the bags I had gathered from the kids’ room. I used to absolutely hate for someone to tell me what I was doing was wrong, let alone tell me the right way to do it. Who are they to tell me what to do? I used to think. Do they think they are God to try to correct me?

  Everyone is a work in progress I soon learned.

  Everything I have gone through (and some things I am still going through) is a lesson learned in my process to get me to my overall destiny. The lessons I have learned have shaped my character to handle the next lesson necessary for my overall growth into the woman God created me to be; the foundation that is laid is to prepare me for the next level in my life. I cannot allow myself to miss the fundamental lesson in each stage of my life that need to be learned by whining and crying, complaining that it’s not my fault (like my little Amanda). Many times, it wasn’t my fault I thought as laugh to myself.

  In the process of my journey through life there where many times I lost the drive to speak to the storm, and withdrew from the lesson and became like amanda. I lost confidence in who I was, lost the strength I had in the beginning when I decided to change my life. I lost sight of the vision and the promises I saw for myself. I lost sight of who I was, the value I held, and the hope in what I was standing for because I didn’t capture the lesson that needed to be learned when the storms hit.

  The more I walked toward my promise, the more the storms came, sometimes more frequently and much harder. It had me question at times, “Did God really call me?” and, my favorite, “Is this really part of the process? It’s too hard; The creator couldn’t have sent this storm my way.” The storms had me questioning my very being, causing me to think I am not good enough for what is already promised to me if I continued the work in the process.

  I remember the elders saying, “If it’s not one thing, it’s another.” I tell people all the time, that in my journey in life, I will have more storms than I will have sunny days. It’s funny how they look at me in disbelief, smiling from ear to ear. I tell them, “But I have learned to prepare.”

  So how do you prepare for circumstances that have not happened yet? How do you prepare for a storm? They would ask, looking puzzled. It almost sounds oxymoronic to prepare for something you don’t want to happen.

  Someone once told me many years ago, “Dana, you have to learn to work and pray for the best but prepare for the worst.” As crazy as it sounded then, it becomes much clearer the more I live life. Why can’t I prepare for the best just as much as I hope for the best? I thought. If I didn’t prepare my mind for what has the potential to come, when it comes, it will take me out without a fight. Anything God wants to do with me and through me, without a shadow of a doubt, the creator will prepare me for it.

  I ask people all the time, “How do you prepare for a house that you haven’t taken one footstep in, have not cooked one meal, and have not slept one night in?” You work on your credit. You manage your finances. You pay close attention to the housing market. I had to prepare for whatever came my way. When the meteorologist tells you that a storm is brewing, you know what measures to take and you know how to prepare for the storm that has not taken place yet. The same is true for my process.

  How do you prepare for struggle? I would then be asked. By using my words as power and bringing each situation into submission to the power of my words. “Don’t fear.” “Be bold and courageous in everything, not some things but everything, so when I face opposition, I can look it in the eye, and speak to it.”

  I had to learn not only to live by faith, but by the power of my words. To manifest what I want to come to past by speaking it into existence. I learned that I can’t look at what I see with my natural eye but at the promises and the vision that is unseen. The creator lets me know that the almighty is my source, so when I get laid off, I know that job was not my source, contrary to what most believe, the spirit in me is my source. The God in me will allow me to manifest the willpower to go out and get another or even start my own business. The most high tells me that The spirit of God will never leave me, nor will the spirit forsake me. God’s love is never failing, so when I feel alone and unlovable, I have to be able to speak and to know that God’s love is with me through everything that I go through. The creator prepared me for everything that I need on my journey, and placed it on the inside of me until I return back to the oneness of the spirit. Then and only then, is when I stopped looking for people and things from the outside, to come and heal and fix what was damaged on the inside.

  I had to understand that I will grow as I go, and coming to grips with understanding
the storms that come my way and lessons that will need to be learned. When I learned how to prepare myself, I knew then that I couldn’t let my storm define me. I couldn’t let people on my journey take me off course, and allowing myself to repeat things that I should have mastered the first time. I couldn’t let people with no interest in my overall well-being take me from the very things that God has called me to. When I became like my amanda I soon stopped preparing myself and started to lose sight, which caused me to take on unassigned struggles, with unassigned people. I stopped my daily check-ins and checkups with myself. Not knowing that I could miss what God is doing when I am out of Gods’ will and Gods’ way. I couldn’t receive the promise without the process. The process is building me to handle the promises.

  I Understand that the promise requires me to have a certain mentality, a certain character, a certain mindset. Just like in school they have grade levels for a reason. I cannot go to the second grade without going to the first grade first. Everything is step upon step. I Remember telling myself, whether I am on level 1 or level 2, I must recognize it and enjoy the ride taking in each lesson that had to be learned. Laugh when I want to cry. Declare peace when there is a disaster. Pray when I don’t want to. Take those days off from my busy schedule when I don’t want to do anything but lay in bed, and binge-watch my favorite TV show. I must take the fullness out of each level I step into.

  When I took on the tools that God has given me, I found myself gliding through the storms in life. When I encounter something that was supposed to take me out, I find myself saying years later, “Oh, that storm was not that bad.” I had to learn to embrace the process, embrace the vision, and be meshed with the promise.

  Chapter 12