This is for the Dark-Skinned Sistas

This is For the Dark-Skinned Sistas

Dec. 2003

 

By Monica Fountain

 

This is for the dark-skinned sistas

The chocolate wonders

The brown bombshells

 

This is for the one

Who was told don’t drink coffee

It’ll make you black

Make me black?

What is that?

As if I could be more black

As if just the color of my skin

Made me black

If coffee makes me black

Bring it on Joe

Give me a Starbucks grande double latte espresso

 

This is for the sister who was told

Don’t wear yellow

That’s too bright

Forget about red

You’re too dark

Black as night

Leave that for the light-skinned sista

With the long hair

As if my blackness was something to

Fear

 

This is for the sista

Made to feel less than by the

Brother

Who in amazement thought

He was giving you props

When he said,

“You’re sure cute to be so dark.”

 

Browner than a bag to a hue

As black as midnight blue

 

My dark sista

My ebony sista

My chocolate sista

Here’s to you

 

For your strength and the

Beauty of your dark tones

The orange in your skin

The browns, the golds

You are beautiful

With your big broad nose

And your nappy hair

In them big cornrows

Or precision pressed to straightness

Or permed to perfection to let the

Natural go

In dreadlocks or braids

Twists or curls

This is for you little black girl.

From the Editor--Spring 2013

With His Stripes

 

But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed.  Isaiah 53:5

 

What would your sign say? What is the thing that you need healing from? Is it physical? Is it emotional?  Is it a pain from the past that won’t go away?

Too many of us are the walking wounded, never exposing our pain. Hiding behind a mask. We anesthetize ourselves with alcohol or drugs. We search for love in all the wrong places and too many faces. Searching and trying to fill a void that only our Father can fill.

Whatever your issue, whatever the problem, God is willing and able to heal you. God wants to heal your body, soul and spirit. Your Heavenly Father wants you to be free.

This issue of The Well Magazine is dedicated to stories of healing. The women on the cover and those who share their stories within these pages have been healed. But the healing goes beyond the physical or a temporary, feel good fix. They have been healed by the blood of Jesus.

The blood of Jesus paid the price for all of our sins and that’s the true sickness that is at the heart of every issue.

We will all eventually die. Since Adam and Eve ate the fruit in the garden, we are destined to meet death. Because of sin there is death and disease. Because of sin there is dysfunction.  Because of sin, we have a distorted image of ourselves and God.

But because of the second Adam, Jesus Christ, we can have eternal life with God. When Jesus walked this earth, he healed the sick, showing his power over disease and demons. When he died on the cross and rose from the grave, he showed his power over death. When we trust in what Christ did on the cross and believe that God has raised him from the dead, we are healed from the power of sin and death, brought into a right relationship with our Heavenly Father and have eternal life with Him.

Before we go into eternity, however, God wants us to have life here and more abundantly. One of the ways that we can do that is by sharing our stories with transparency as the contributors of this issue have so that others can experience the love, freedom and forgiveness found in Christ.