In His Likeness w/ AntTBri

For most I’m AntTBri but to my peers I’m “Auntie Mabel”  when discussing life and love in real time.  It’s a joke to lighten and level the playing ground.  Grown people don’t like to be told they’re thinking, talking or doing wrong.  So it’s easiest to assume a this isn’t me persay disclaimer that disarms defenses and reminds people they have a choice to listen or leave the advice on the table. So I preface statements with “I hope you listen to your Auntie Mabel (big eyes), she ain’t gonna lead you wrong, according to the Word of God …”.  Whenever its apparent they’re not going to listen, my response almost always is “go  ahead big butt Bertha let’s see how it works out for you”.  We usually laugh and agree to disagree with the relationship still intact.   You mean something to me, if you encounter the pleas of Auntie Mabel. She only invest that type of intensity because she believes in God’s purpose for you and she doesn’t want to witness your derailment,  bout of depression and despair.  Warning really does come before destruction…trust me.  Folk of old use to say “a hard head makes a soft bottom” boy have big butt Bertha learned that.

How strange it is to be on the receiving end of wise counsel, to be presented with a truth I cannot deny.  Even stranger is the fact that I can hear it without erecting a defense…to hear your voice but be challenged by my own resolve.  I’ve been thinking here lately I don’t recall  role reversal or reciprocity being a natural occurence in my life or love. I’m me for so many people but honestly I never had a me or met a person that could penetrate all my defenses and make me feel so completely loved, supported and understood.  A person to whom God can reveal and I can share my weakness without feeling judged or afraid. It’s not a many people I confer to, whose counsel I trust with my life and love.  But somewhere along the way, when I least expected it and needed it most God brought what I never experienced to my life and love. How honored I am, how special I feel and open I am to what God is doing through his faithfulness.  He is showing me somethings wonderfully new about my life and my love. How awesome is that?

I don’t need a grain of salt, a buffer or an assumed personality to hear God’s heart toward me.  I wonder if this is how David felt when Nathan pointed out “you are the man”.  Smh, at my dog on self…owning the error of my way… yup I did that God. I made this choice. I changed our dynamic and disturbed our flow.  What a mess my choice has made, what a fix I’ve gotten myself in. How stifled, stunted and stuck I felt by my own choice…until I could hear God through you. Why didn’t I adhere the early warning when bells were alarming? God used the voice of your pen as a warning long before this moment the day before I made this decision but no big butt Bertha rationalized it away.  This busyness isn’t working out for me because I’m scrambling for time that use to be to be alone with God, write and work on what He placed in my heart to do.  Life and love for me works best when I’m allowed creative spontaneity. There is no creative spontaneity with an infant baby, four year old and roommate.   Maybe I’m finally admitting to getting older and these last 9 years have me set in my ways that’s why I’m having trouble adjusting. It’s been just me for so long that the inclusion of the happenings of another’s world has me out of sorts, off kilter.  Or it could be the simple fact that taking time to make sure everyone is alright restricts me from my original intent (help out but get me together). How in the world did Auntie Mabel become Big butt Bertha in a matter of these 4 months? 

Well God has a sense of humor although life and love doesn’t feel very funny right now…I so thank God for grace and mercy…for his heart towards me and that His purposes still prevail…otherwise I’d succumb to this hopelessness.  But God grants me these incredible moments of respite when the girls are smiling, sleeping, happy and looking to me for their care and my godsister begins to make choices to live her life for God.  While being an example and extension of God’s love to them I get to nurture their understanding of the world around them and God’s heart toward us. They get to witness life and love lived differently in God’s likeness.  They have reoriented me to schedules, steady routines and sacrificial living and loving.  While I miss the singleness of my life and love I understand that my stay although longer than anticipated is serving a greater purpose. This move started out being about me being AntTBri but has rapidly become a lesson in the life of big butt Bertha. 

You would think, the getting up with the baby would be the biggest inconvenience,  maybe even the transporting and taking the girls with me when I go that stresses me out but that’s not it all.  Big butt Bertha in an effort to help all parties involved done got herself attached to these little girls,  they and my godsister have come to depend on me and I cannot imagine what will happen when season’s change. What if the baby is returned to her birth mother and this temporary agreement leaves a permanent hole in an already fragile heart? My heart goes out to her, I couldn’t and still can’t imagine not being the person God trust to care for her during this traumatic time. What baby deserves to be snatched from their mother’s arms at birth? What kind of developmental delays would the already premature baby suffer had not someone agreed to help and stand in the gap. Why wouldn’t I agree to help foster her and help my godsister do this?  I don’t regret the decision to help… that is purposeful.  Now the decision to move in even with our 24 year history has me straining, struggling and even stressing over things that has not been a consideration in nine years.  Since when did AntTBri do that? That’s just it AntTBri doesn’t Big butt Bertha does. She’s not a good look for me at all. I feel like you’re seeing me with my appearance in disarray,..nappy head, no make up…I wasn’t expecting company pop up uncomfortable.

BUT God used the gift of someone like Auntie Mabel who spoke life and love into the affirmative.   They serve as the reminder that God is in control, he loves me and won’t abandoned me. He won’t allow me to unravel or come undone as a result of my own doing.  I wish I could say that the good I’m witnessing as a result of my being here balances lIfe and love out, that 6-7 people coming to church with me every Sunday, JJ loving Jesus, the baby as happy and healthy as she is enough to satisfy my plight in life and love.  But it is not, although I’m good at putting the needs of others first and don’t mind being the help…life and love is only fulfilling when I’m also taking the time to nurture the gift and call within. I’m called to more than anyone’s particular need (mines included) and it’s so good to have someone care enough to not let me loose hope when feeling defeated, despair and discouraged. I so love the way God uses you to speak life and love into me especially because I’m discovering reciprocity and role reversal and it is perfectly fine with me.  When did that happen? Really, Sabrina can admit her need of someone other than GOD and herself? What, Ms. independent can see the benefit of submitting to allowable or agreeable human dependence. This is huge…big butt Bertha taught me why I NEED  a covering, to continue to consult God and have someone whose counsel I can trust in terms of how I live and love. God is working…He is definitely up to something. Who would have thought I’d come to know and love you more this way? You’re somebody to like and love whole heart and that I do without defense, If this is what vulnerability is,,, it’s not so bad this time out. YES I trust God’s heart towards me. Smiling through my tears and I can care less that you have insight into my looking a hot mess. In lifes and loves garden naked and unashamed…let’s look, live and love to see how God  works  this out for us~AntTBri