I have no idea who my biological father is. When the truth finally came out, my mother chose to go into hiding behind her father and her faith than to face the wrath of her adult son. No doubt she had no idea of the impact of her actions. Yet I cannot ever deny that the depth of my compassion toward others is an inheritance fully given to me by her, seeing her selflessness, seeing her dedication to others in need, being a true servant of God in a way that I strain to find many other examples in my life.
Perhaps it is the height from which my adoration of her landed so heavily like a great weight of broken trust which shattered the already fraudulent picture of life I had to piece together in the midst of untruths, which unsettled me so. I don’t know what happened back then. I don’t know what made her leave a man with 5 kids and come back pregnant with me. What I do know is that I grew up knowing a mother who was fully immersed in the church and tried her best to teach every moral lesson she could. But in the midst of those lessons was a child whom God had gifted to see truths all around him.
When my mother made the decision to guide me only in the truths she wanted me to know, she was actually teaching me to distrust my gifts by telling me I was wrong in so many instances where my spirit knew I was right about my mistreatment. In essence, she taught me to trust her more than God himself. And so I painted my view of life based on her lies. I accepted a twisted view of love and family in the midst of obvious emotional abuse and rejection.
You see the problem with a lot of Christian teachings is the concept of hiding behind the cross and the notion that all you have to do is confess your sins to Jesus and all will be forgotten and forgiven. That is true of God. But that is not the reality of life. Because of this misguided mentality of hiding, the Holy become the walking hypocrite by denying history. In the end, despite all of her noble efforts to raise me in a Godly manner, she ultimately raised me to be a liar. A liar to myself. A liar to God. A liar to others to protect myself once my world was shattered by the truths that she withheld.
But the man whom I thought was my father was just the opposite. A womanizer and sometimes even a thief- a non churchgoing heathen but also the most honest person to me I ever knew even while being raised in the midst of hundreds of Holy pretenders each Sunday. I grew up hearing his sins talked about. I grew up seeing his sins walk about. But I also saw the humanity of his walk with God in greater measure than every Bible carrier I ever knew. If he needed to cuss you out, he did. But he would also give you the shirt off his back and his last dollar if you needed it.
The culmination of who I am today took me years of my adult life going back to every memory where my mother told me my spirit was wrong, and replace it with the truth God told me at the time. It has been a humbling experience- especially when I see that history repeat itself. But since I also know and have felt even in my own life, such pains that would make a person want to hide behind the cross, I have learned a greater compassion for those who do not know how to emerge from behind it because the courage to stand up to the truth is not really taught in Christian circles. Weakness is what fills the pews and the offering plates. But I have since learned that love alone, makes for an unpierceable heart, which is why I no longer fear to lay mine bare. -NEO BLAQNESS