(ThySistas.com) There comes a season when a grown woman looks over her life and sees that nearly every fix she reached for fell short, while the one thing left on the shelf stayed quiet, waiting the entire time.
I’m talking to my Sistas now. The ones running on empty, carrying everybody’s mess and swallowing their own. You already know if I mean you.
We got smart. Real smart. Diplomas on the wall. Titles we bled for. A group chat loaded with opinions, a counselor on speed dial, some little app pinging us to inhale and exhale like we forgot how. And I bless every piece of that. I mean it. Yet somewhere down the road we started treating Heaven like a hotline you only ring once the roof is already on fire.
Be honest. When did you last pray before the bottom dropped out? Before the biopsy, the pink slip, the day he left or the checking account hit zero. Most of us hold out until we’re flat on our backs with nowhere to stare but the ceiling. Then we act surprised the calm never shows up.
My grandmother lived another way. That woman prayed over grits. She’d whisper a few words waiting on the bus downtown, then catch you by the stove and pull you into something holy before you even knew you were hurting. Her faith was not a spare tire in the trunk. It was the engine under the hood. And Lord knows she hauled more than her share, raising children who weren’t hers, burying folks too soon, scrubbing floors in homes she’d never own. Even so, she glowed with a peace no trouble could touch.
We let some of that slip. Not all of it. Some.
Look at how we move now. A rough week hits, and the first call goes to the girls. Second call, the wine. Third, a scroll through everybody else’s highlight reel until two in the morning. We’ll try affirmations. Maybe a spa day, a fresh man, a new set of nails, a bold lip. All of it fine. None of it wrong. But notice where the quiet time with Him lands on that list. Dead last, if it lands at all.
I say this as somebody who fell off. Hard.
For a stretch there my Bible collected dust on the nightstand while I stayed busy being competent. Being the strong one. That crown we wear, the Strong Black Woman, will run you straight into the ground if you let it. Because strength with no source dries up. You cannot pour and pour from a cup nobody ever fills. I learned that the exhausting way, snapping at people I love, crying in parking lots, faking fine in every meeting.
What pulled me back was small. No lightning, no choir. Just a Tuesday and a knot in my chest that would not loosen. I sat on the edge of the bed and said out loud, plain as anything, I can’t do this by myself anymore. That was the whole thing. Not eloquent, not King James. Just true. And something in the room shifted.
That’s the part we forget. He isn’t waiting on pretty words or grading the performance. So many of us grew up thinking you had to dress it up, get the tone just so, sound like the mothers of the church. No. You can come raw. Come mad, even. Tell Him you’re worn thin and you don’t understand and you’re scared. That counts. It’s the realest conversation you’ll have all day.
Now hear me. I’m not selling you a fairy tale where you kneel down and the bills vanish. That’s not how any of this works, and you’re too seasoned for me to lie to you. Rent still comes. The son still worries you. Your body still aches in new spots every year. What changes is the woman facing it. You quit carrying the whole planet on those shoulders because you finally hand a little of it over. There’s rest in that. A rest no vacation sells.
And can we talk, Sista to Sista, about what happens when a room of us decides to seek Him together again? Something wakes up. I’ve watched it. Ladies who could barely lift their heads start standing taller. The auntie grieving her husband finds a reason to bake again. A young one drowning in student debt catches her breath. It ripples. Our mothers and theirs built whole worlds on this, kitchens and porches and back pews full of women who took their burdens upstairs ahead of taking them anywhere else. That was the secret sauce. Not the hats or the fans. The seeking.
We inherited that. Then we got busy and set it down.
So here’s my plea, and I’ll keep it plain. Move it back up the list. Do not wait until every other answer has failed. Bring prayer back into your life early, and let it walk alongside the wise counsel and professional help you may need. In the morning, first thing, when the coffee is still brewing. Two minutes. A murmur in the shower. Even a word at the red light. It doesn’t require a sanctuary or a robe. Just you, honest, showing up.
Start small if you have to. One sentence a day. Thank You for waking me. Help me hold my tongue with my mama. Give me what I need for this shift. Watch a habit like that build over a month. Over a year. You’ll look up some afternoon and realize you’ve been leaning on something steady all along, and the leaning got easier because you did it before the storm instead of during.
I’m not asking you to be perfect at this. Heaven knows I’m not. I miss days. Get distracted mid sentence and end up planning supper. He meets me anyway. And He’ll meet you too, right where you stand, dishes in the sink and all.
We are tired, sisters. I see it in your faces. And this world keeps handing us more. But there is a quiet, mighty thing our grandmothers understood that we’ve been too proud or plain worn out to reach for. It costs nothing. Available at three in the afternoon and three in the morning. And it has been patient with us this whole time.
So let’s stop treating prayer like the alarm we yank only when everything’s already broken. Let’s go back. Not out of fear. Out of love, and out of memory, and out of a bone deep need for the kind of peace no app can hand you.
Come on now. Let’s start again.
Staff Writer; Raven Jones
Raven writes about music, relationships, and the everyday ups and downs of Black women… She keeps it honest, encourages other sistas, and can be reached at RavenJ@ThySistas.com.