Dear Selah,My beautiful, amazing, and unique niece. I'm exposing myself for you. Your Grandma pulled me to the side one day and mentioned to me that you were taking on my fears and I vowed that day that I wouldn't let my fears rule my life anymore because you were watching me, hence one of the reasons for this blog. I cried out to God to help me to walk in victory and to overcome the things that held me back which at the foundation was fear. He told me to write this blog to help free myself and others. You look up to me and I love you so much that I can't let you follow in my path of fears. I see it paralyzing you like it has done to me, NOOOOOO!
We all want better for the next generation. We raise them, we teach them the right way to go so that they can live the best life. I can tell you "never give up","Selah, you can do it" but if I'm not modeling that to you they are just words. I wasn't living the life that I wanted to live because I let fear take over. When you were born I was 16. I named you and I promised myself that I would be a great role model for you, a great representation of a woman to look up to. I wanted you to walk like me, talk like me, listen to the same music I listened to. I wanted to have a little mini me but in that I instilled my fears as well without even knowing it. You are my mini me, with my eyes, hair, and...my fears. That hurt me to see my fears come out in you at only 12 years old.
Our fears don't just affect us, it affects everything and everyone around us, even generations after you are gone . I said to myself that I was going to leave a legacy of conquerors, the spirit of victory over fear in my bloodline. Generations and generations after won't even know where the fight inside them is coming from. Selah, I leave you a model representation of you seeing me actively pursuing the best me and facing the things that I fear. I leave you this blog. They say technology is always advancing but I hope your children's children will be able to read this. Maybe it will be a holograph then, but I pray this message of living a life that is full of freedom, love and openness that is never ceasing, lives in you and them as well. Don't let fear dim your light, art, voice, and the love that it is inside you .
I wrote this to let you know that people will hurt you, which will create walls. There will be things in life that look like giants to you, but you have a giant inside of you which is faith...faith in God and He is bigger than anything. Romans 8:37 says, "In all these things we are triumphantly victorious due to the One who loved us." I love you and wish you victory over fear. Selah*
Love,
Auntie
*Selah is a Hebrew word meaning pause, reflection, within the context of a prayer or psalms and is similar in purpose to Amen
in that it stresses the importance of the preceding passage. In this
way Selah is thought to infer that one should pause and reflect on what
has been said.
