No Time to Quit

From the time I was a little girl, my mom, aunt, and grandparents had me involved in a number of different activities.  In particular, I was a competitive gymnast and played the clarinet in band throughout middle school and high school.  God gifted me with the ability to be equally athletic and musically inclined, but much of that talent had to be taught and brought out with great coaching and leadership. No doubt, all of it had to be practiced and polished by my own inner push and drive.  There were times I got tired of working so hard and so long learning a gymnastics skill or a musical piece.  I wanted to quit a few times.  Twice, my mom let me.  She talked to me about it, and tried to get me to reconsider.  But there are some things you have to learn on your own.  Hence, each time I thought it better to quit and rid myself of embarrassment, pressure, or whatever else, I realized I was giving up on myself, and was not only giving in to fear or disappointment of something, but surely to failure…and that is my biggest fear.  Failure. I. HATE. TO. FAIL.  

Only three years ago did I incorrectly coincide wrong timing, space, place, and people with failure, rejection, and my inability to succeed.  I thought just because I was called to do something, it had to be RIGHT THEN.  There were a myriad of things I kept trying to do.  Each time I did not get what I was striving so hard to achieve, I found myself despondent, dismayed, and depressed about my future, and the way I thought it was supposed to be going.  What I did NOT realize was that I was changing who I was.  I was changing how I went about things.  And I was living in a way that was inauthentic to how Dianna Nicole Watkins simply just did stuff.  (I’m not throwing away my married, hyphenated name but proving a point lol).  The way DNW did stuff was bold and audacious; distinctive and atypical; suave and charming; unique and exceptional; meticulous and methodical…but always authentic, genuine, abrupt, unpretentious, and REAL.  I stopped doing that because [I believed] everyone else was succeeding under a different philosophical brand…I did not want to mess up my chances.  But…it almost ruined me.

  

Thank God almost doesn’t count! <insert praise hands here>

After living by someone else’s rule book for a few years, I finally came to realize that I had given up on who I said I was; who my family knew me to be; and how God had created me to live.  I was living into the failure I was trying so hard not to become.  Soon, I understood that the only time we actually fail is when we give up on our authentic selves, or what the Evangelist Right Reverend Apostle Bishop Dr. Prophet Parker Palmer calls “the sound of the genuine”.  I had to go back to my lessons of the Spelman College W.I.S.D.O.M. Center, and truly listen to my own voice…not one that was being shoved down my throat.  And that is when EVERYTHING started to change.

As we are moving from the hot months of summer (which really are NOT that hot…it is possible for the world to be hotter) and into the cool breezes of Autumn/fall/or whatever you call it in your neck of the woods, we have to be reminded of the new days ahead, and the new opportunities those days bring.  While we see the seasons are changing (and have our Allegra on deck!), we have to remember this is the time of year where we get to celebrate the reaping of the harvest!  That beautiful crop of blessing we have tilled for many seasons of praying, fasting, praising, worshipping, reading, meditating, professing, believing, and shedding many tears (some over years) is almost ready to be picked and enjoyed. 

But do note…this is also when disaster seemingly strikes.  This is the time when the fire gets hotter.  This is the moment when the devil gets busy.  This is the period where friends become few.  This is the home stretch where we feel as though we are getting winded and have nothing left to give.  This is the phase that can often prove to be heaviest and hardest on our body, our mind, our dreams, our spirit, and our faith.  This is the hour, instant, and occasion where we have no time to quit.  It is easy to get unfocused.  It is easy to misunderstand a “not now”, “not yet”, “not here”, “not these people”, or a “not this direction” to be rejection, denial, or the absolute end.  Not everyone is meant to help you succeed.  Not every place is created with you in mind.  Not every space will allow your spirit to produce its gifts.  We must invite our authentic self into being, and bring it into every aspect of our journey.  We must work toward finding the person we have lost.  We must allow God call our righteous and full selves to stand in place.  Likewise, I encourage you to do the same.  Live into what your genuine is and what it is meant to be.  You have no time to doubt [and listen to others].  You have no free spaces in your schedule to get distracted [and follow another’s road map].  You have no opportunity for doubt [and the need to live into another individual's testimony, story, and/or experience of despair and defeat].  That ain't your story, and there is no need for you to stick to it.  

For it is not how fast you run toward the finish line, but the form, fortitude, faith, fight, and refusal to fail yourself as you partake in the marathon toward your eventual destiny.  For you only fail when you live by someone else’s rule book; walk outside of your genuine sound; and find the time to quit.

“Whatever your hand finds to do, do with your might; for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going. Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to the skillful; but time and chance happen to them all."  -Ecclesiastes 9:10-11