Appearances

You can die from appearances.

While keeping up appearances.

Pretending to hide pain.

Going along to save face.

I wonder how many people die from embarrassment every day.

Appearances can kill —

making pretense seem real,

drawing us inward and inward still,

until we're alone with our demons, shadows, and fears.

Maybe Jesus called Himself The Truth

because truth frees and it heals.

Let the Light in.

Let it all be revealed.

There's no condemnation here.

Let's meet at His feet down in the sand.

Let's be each other's stone catchers

when shame wants to win.

Let's stand in the gap with love and wisdom,

beckoning each other into an authentic kingdom.

There's so much life 

beyond what's perceived.

I know we can touch the light;

Faith is more than what we see.

With love,

LeKechia Lyshell

April 3, 2023

I met my baby boy for the first time at a CPS office. There were several people behind the glass, watching. I played Look Up Child to calm my anxieties. To calm you. And I whispered, "I don't know what I'm doing."

Most mothers don't meet their baby for the first time in a one-hour visit filled with more questions than answers. I'm not most mothers. Most babies don't start their journey without their safe base. You're not most babies.

These days, when the tantrums are big—when the TV is broken, when there's fecal smearing, screaming, and daily battles over everything from naps to snacks—I think: What the hell? How does anyone do this? How am I supposed to parent day after day knowing everything is on me? It's too hard.

But how is that any different from April 3, 2023? I lived in Amarillo. I wasn't financially, mentally, or otherwise prepared for parenthood. Nevertheless, I showed up.

Before you and I were approved to become a we, I prayed:

Dear God,

Please only allow what is in Messiah's highest good to happen.

Give everyone in this process wisdom.

Keep him safe.

In this season of motherhood, I feel hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; hunted down, but never abandoned by God; knocked down, but not destroyed. But it's just a season.

Sometimes I forget, as I mother my son, that I am loved by the Father and the Son. That He prays for me. That He absolutely cares about my highest good too.

Maybe, just maybe, in the same way I'm stretched to look at the toddler and remember the baby—to remember my promise—I'm being stretched to look at the woman and remember the little girl. To remember the promises.

She Got Kids

I'm not here to put you at ease about dating a single mother.

Baby, if that's your boundary, to thy own self be true. Honor you.

I'm not here to hold my head down as I audition—

to convince you that I'm different.

I will not assuage your discomfort with my reality

or pretend it's easy to be part of this family.

Like you, I was singing Lyfe Jennings in my bedroom at fourteen, thinking,

"He right. That will never be me."

I understand. I truly do.

But you're wrestling with you—

and I don’t break up fights amongst men.

So I’ll let this end where it began:

I’m not here to put you at ease about choosing a single mother.

King, if that’s your boundary, to thy own self be true.

Go in peace. Honor you.

Showing Up Unabridged

I am single, but I am dating.

I am practicing radical honesty with myself and others.

I am unmasking.

I am naming what I want with an unsexy level of clarity and detail.

I am showing up unabbreviated and unabridged.

Because one of my values is being a safe person.

Because I am genuinely curious about people and their stories.

Because I know it actually wasn't rejection that was trying to kill me.

It was fear.

The fear of rejection.

The fear of loneliness.

The fear of danger.

I survived my shadows and continue to make peace with myself.

I made decisions that required bravery, grief, and moxie.

And I know now: I can trust myself.

The hardest part about connecting on a meaningful level is recognizing when fear is in the driver seat.

Perfect love casts out fear.

What if the key to connection, to stopping the fight and flight and cycling through humans, is to show up as loving as possible?

Casting our fears to the background. Moment by moment by moment.

They say, "LeKechia, you make yourself vulnerable."

True.

And I will probably encounter fresh disappointment.

And I will learn.

I will expand.

I will thrive anyway.

See? This isn't just about showing up for them.

It's about showing up as me.

Authenticity leads to alignment.

And alignment is divine.

So I can double or triple text.

I can say, "That hurt my feelings."

I can say, "I like you a lot."

"I desire more of your time and energy."

And the kind of person who believes affection, communication, desire, and vulnerability are tools for power over is exactly the kind of person my self-respect will rule out.

I remember what Hafiz wrote:

"Admit something: Everyone you see, you say to them, 'Love me.'

...Still though, think about this, this great pull in us to connect.

Why not become the one who lives with a full moon in each eye,

that is always saying, with that sweet moon language,

what every other eye in this world is dying to hear."

The beauty in loving freely, with a full moon in each eye, is knowing love has never broken any of us.

Fear has.

Motherhood Is Not My Purpose

purpose

noun

1a: something set up as an object or end to be attained : intention

b: resolution, determination

2: a subject under discussion or an action in course of execution

on purpose: by intent : intentionally

object

noun

3a: the goal or end of an effort or activity : purpose, objective

Motherhood is not my purpose. It was not the goal of my life. It will not be the end result of my life’s efforts or activities.

I can remember being eleven and twelve years old, filling notebook pages with plans that had nothing to do with cribs or bottles or bedtime routines. At that age, I was already naming books I wanted to write, the kind of woman I wanted to become, and the ways I wanted to leave the world better than I found it. That was purpose taking root, before anyone had the chance to tell me motherhood was supposed to be the end point.

Motherhood is continuity.

Continuity not just of bloodline, but of story. Of legacy. Of struggle and resilience. It is a thread that connects me backward to those who mothered me—flawed, fumbling, or fierce—and forward to a child whose life will stretch far beyond my own.

It is work. Meaningful work. Yes. Good work. Yes. Hard work. Yes. Rewarding work. Yes—all of that.

But work, nonetheless. The kind of work that demands both devotion and depletion. The kind that requires clocking in when your body wants to quit, and clocking out only when sleep claims you by force. The kind of work that reshapes a person while never quite paying them what they’re worth.

While motherhood shifted my identity in ways that are beautiful, brutal, expansive, and territorial, it did not shift my purpose. It did not change that intrinsic thing woven in me when I was knitted together in my mother's womb. Wow. My purpose holds all my roles without collapsing into any of them.

That is miraculous.

Because society loves collapse. Woman into wife. Mother into martyr. Blackness into burden. We are asked to become one thing when we were born as many. Refusing collapse is itself an act of resistance.

Motherhood is equal parts refinement and detriment to my purpose. Because motherhood is an unquenchable fire. From MJ’s first breath and beyond my last, I work in service of him and the purpose that is a seed within him.

The fire refines: it burns away self-deception; it forces clarity;  it teaches endurance. But the fire also scorches: it leaves ashes where dreams once lived; it exhaust; it threatens to consume the very person who feeds it. Both are true at once.

If I can pass through the fire and still water the seed and his seeds, I know without a doubt that I am capable of accessing my own unique purpose.

No, I wasn’t born to be a mother. I choose it. Every day. Multiple times a day.

And I water myself in the process. Motherhood is connected to a renewable well, and I water the seeds within all of us. But make no mistake, being a nurturer isn’t my purpose any more than being a woman, Black, American, etcetera. 

It is one facet of my identity and womanhood. Not a requirement. Not a destination. 

The Giver's Rule

Treating others how I wanted to be treated has broken my heart more times than I can count.

I remembered birthdays, comforted, affirmed, listened. I literally loved people back to life. I let my home be a place the men I chose could come for peace of mind and a piece of pleasure.

My dad was right: “You take men to the moon. For nothing.”

Only, what I wanted was never transactional. I was never after a pocket. I wanted a heart.

So I treated you how I wanted you to treat me. I gave to you how I wanted you to give to me. I made your pleasure my pleasure in hopes that some of that would come back my way. And you never had to think twice. I was clear. I told you what you needed to know to understand me.

In the quiet—when it was just you and me—was I not free of guards and bravado? You accessed my walls. You got your favorite high. I know I am a divine dopamine hit. And yet, you did not reciprocate.

And here’s the thing: it wasn’t your fault that I didn’t require you to show up for me equal to or greater than. That was on me.

But I can see it now. Your presence on my block lets me know your cup is empty. And here you are again, wanting my love, attention, and empathy. Because I don’t just make you hard, I give you softness. I massage you out of your head and into your body. I affirm the truths God speaks about you.

My guard is up not because I’m a bitch, but because I am a giver by nature. And I am tired of fucking and giving to takers.

So this time, I have nothing but well-wishes and boundaries. A few quips and side-eyes. Self-respect and so much damn pride.

If you want to come, come differently. But I am not your comfort. Not your safe space. Not the woman alchemizing your energy for your benefit.

I want to come, so I am coming differently. I am treating me how I want to be treated.