The Black Woman's Prayers

Shalom:

"Blessed are You, L-rd our G-d, King of the universe,
Who has made me according to His will."
(Part of the morning prayers)

On this day, I would like to honour the jewel in our crown, the heartbreak of every black family, the silence strength of our nation.

The Black Woman. Our Mothers, Sisters, Aunts. Our Soul.

One of the reasons I believe that we as a people have survived is because of the Black Woman.

She has stood tall and strong as a queen next to her king.

When dragging from her homeland in chains, she held in her heart, in her soul of the stories of home, the lessons learned at the knee of her mother.

She has worked the cotton fields beside her man, cared for the Big House and willed not to roll up into a ball a die when her man was stole to pay the Master's debt or see her Mistress hand her newborn baby to a relative as a birthday present.

And yet in the midnight hour she prayed. She prayed for freedom; for herself, for her man and children, for her people.

She taught her children to pray, to seek the face of their Creator, knowing it was not He that commanded their enslavement, but another. She gave them hope for a better day.

She passed that hope to her daughter, the daughter would past that hope on to her daughter and so it would go.

Until we were free.

But the Black Woman didn't stop praying.

On her knees while scrubbing other woman's floor, she prayed. While nursing another woman's child, she prayed. Working in another woman's kitchen, she prayed. She prayed for her husband to get that and keep that job. She prayed her children would be good in school and learn their lessons well. So that when her daughter grows up, the only floor she would scrub would be her own. That the only her son would open, would be the woman leading to his house.

Black Women prayed during times of war and peace. During good times and bad.

Black Women went from being maids and cooks to teachers, doctors and lawyer. Preachers, dancers and singers. Many would go to into business for themselves.

And many would chose to stay home and raise their children, create a peaceful, nurturing home.

The Black Woman's Prayers.

Prayers whisper next to a bedside, while sweeping a floor or nursing a baby.

The prayers of all women have been the force, the power, the strength of the family.

We who are alive today are the answers to those prayers utter in slavery.

May we each live our lives in a matter that makes our mothers pround.