Hola Mi Amor!

Hola Mi Amor!

¿Cómo estás? No really… How are you my love? So tonight (10/08) while sitting in my hotel room I was all ears to the Facebook LIVE chat my Pastor had in preparation for this Saturday’s Slingshot Men’s Conference at The Advancing Church. Let me tell you- better yet, do yourself a favor and go watch it for yourself and share it!

So listening and watching the live really allowed for some new introspection to rise up inside of me as a daughter, a mother, a former “partner/wifey” twice removed lol. 🤷🏽‍♀️ So I’m just going to share what flows from my heart.

I Hear You…

When some people say women are from Venus and men are from Mars they aren’t correct. Well the context of the statement does indeed have paralleled insight.

We’re all from Heaven, but it’s the differences in our various languages that often may cause a bit of disconnect. This also rings true amongst others of your same sex.

I’ve been a daughter for my whole life, obviously, but even after knowing my Daddy for 42 years and counting- I’m still learning him. I’m still deciphering his verbal, nonverbal and languages of more-is code.

I’ve always “heard” him but I haven’t always been tuned into his frequency like I have so patiently worked to adjust over time. Now, I listen to him on a deeper level. I study him. I pay attention to his patterns, watch over his cadence and attentively tap into the rhythms that he moves in.

Those actions of his that as a child caused me frustration, heart break and “Daddy Issues” UNBEKNOWNST to him were literally his way of an indirect form of speech that was flooded with LOVE, but I didn’t have an interpreter until right about now. What if I could have understood him so many years ago? How different might our lives had been?!

I never stopped to take a look at those moments from my Daddy’s perspective. When we did get to visit with my Daddy out of town in his world, he always (as I interpreted it in my child mind) paraded us around to everyone. All I chose to do was see from my skewed and foggy lens of this jealous Daddy’s girl that wanted him all to myself. I failed to sincerely care about how it must feel to love your child(ren) so much, but to be so physically separated from them on a regular basis.

I was a child. My thoughts were selfish, stubborn and spoiled in nature. Although he did not live where I was raised his heart and his hand were never distant. My Daddy is a hunter / provider- literally and figuratively speaking. He always provided us with food that he had actually hunted as well as things like ATVs, computers and even a credit card for me when I was in middle school. Being raised by my single Mami who always worked multiple jobs, we were by no means “well off” yet two things we were always rich in were love and experiences thanks to my parents co-parenting in their own way.

Now let me tell you, I used to handle the mess outta those 4-wheelers! I’d be driving them as fast as I possibly could in the land beyond our house. Jumping hills, racing through trails, weaving in and out of trees and too many times crashing into a thorn bush or two from driving so crazy is how I rolled.

And still one of the most frequent thoughts connected to my Daddy- that I CREATED was I realized that no one could EVER buy my love, I just want you!!!

A wiser me understands now that each of us speaks differently and prefer to receive based on our love language(s). So where not being able to be bought is a great character trait, that has nothing to do with how my Daddy chose to show me LOVE! He’s a Giver just like me. Or rather, God truly double blessed me by BOTH of my parents having the heart of a Giver.

Mr. Gamble was never just trying to “show us off” he was really trying to share how proud he was to be our Daddy!!! And if he had anything to do with it and if you were important to him, it was important that you see or meet his beloved children. He did the best he could and knew how in each season of his life.

Daddy you’ve definitely continued to grow into an even better father and Papa year after year. I am so grateful and proud of you for all of the lessons we’ve been blessed to teach one another. I’m so very sorry for any negative thought I conjured up in my pretty little head toward you. Thank you for forgiving me! Thank you for loving me despite my immaturity and flaws along the way as we’ve been doing this thing called life.

So for just a moment I want to touch on a few more individuals and specific scenarios. Over the years I would always be confident in how well I connect with men- not solely in the romantic sense, but being able to understand them. Growing up I always had a bunch of guy friends and felt like I could relate to them better than girls over a good deal of my life. Guys always open up to me and know that they can confide in me and feel both heard and seen.

Seeing the best in people and knowing that God has something special He wants to do with / through them has not only shown to be gift, it’s also been a thorn I have hammered into my own side along with the person in question. I’ve always loved and been drawn to the “bad boys”- from the toddlers to the grown men. I see their cries for help and unconscious actions that show up as exterior emotions covering up their internal need to express what maybe they’re too fearful to admit, realize or share.

Hey love, I hear you. Pero guess what?! I’ve been so hardheaded in my desire to love them and see them become their best self that I’ve personally struggled with two things: believing in them or what they’ve been called to more than they do and…enabling them! I know I have dealt with these “opportunities” while trying to raise my son and very unfortunately while trying to raise men aka “boyfriends.”

Sticking to or with something / someone isn’t a character flaw I have if I’ve had to share one.

It’s the staying too long, being the “Ride or Die” by his side and the being loyal to a fault where recidivism for me triumphed.

I know that I have stayed in situationships and relationships (both personal & professional) beyond the expiration date that God set while blindly asking Him to let me know- give me a sign when I should leave it. Lord help me.

With my son I hear(d) his cries: the silent ones, the loud ones and those that are so silent they’re screaming at me. I’ve really fought over the years with guilt enabling with him. By that I mean personal guilt from the decisions I made as a young Mami that brought such dramatic & traumatic SHIFTS in our lives that his fragile soul was unequipped to handle. So when things erupted I’ll humbly admit it, yes I should not have coddled and enabled my first born in the ways I that I did. Even though I tried to empower him in my own ways, through mentoring programs and organizations- my guilt and trauma responses spoke far louder in his daily life.

The impact of my first long term tumultuous relationship definitely set a broken and dangerous foundation for raising my children- especially on my son who was only just around 1 year old when it all began. I believed that this man-child had potential. I mean I did see him openly praying over his food in the cafeteria at our job, he had to be a good one right?! 🙄🤦🏽‍♀️ Looking back there was a laundry list of red flags I blatantly ignored from the beginning smh.

My apologies. I digress. Anyhow, although I saw something in him that he couldn’t yet see, believed he would/could change because he said he would time after time, saw all of his addictive personality traits, heard his cries… he stayed in and out of jail and prison. He stayed beating me in and outside of “our home” and lived his life like there weren’t any consequences. And still, he read his bible, wrote in it and prayed even as he preyed on me and other women.

I stayed and was loyal far beyond the time I should have. It wasn’t until the evil of his hands forced me to go to an emergency room with a blood stained face and still hesitantly, I finally requested a restraining order and said enough is enough. 6 years later (and now 6 years since) he lost his life from an overdose which left unexpected emotional wounds for our daughter and me that we’ve purposely worked to heal and give to God.

So no matter how much you hear him, love him and pray for him, ultimately it is still up to that man to come under the submission of our heavenly Father and become forever changed. It’s up to him to choose daily to fully heal not just for his sake, but for those that love him, care about him and all those divinely assigned to be impacted by his purpose- On Purpose!

Be encouraged today.

Don’t just hear to respond, but hear to cover. Hear to protect. Hear to intercede. Hear to heal. Hear in love. Listen in, with and through love.

Love & Blessings,

Janabee