Reflections with Neycha:
Get In The Birth Position

I can hear the words just like it was yesterday, Roaring with passion from the
lungs of a visiting minister who was one of the speakers at our revival in
Washington, DC at Greater Mount Calvary Holy church. “Get in the birth
position,” the title of his sermon.

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Those of us in the church that Wednesday evening swayed back and forth on
our feet “giving God praise” as we’d been instructed to do by the bishop from a
storefront church in West Virginia. He had traveled a long distance with his
wife, by way of a “beaten-up Station-wagon” he told us, to share an anointed
message.

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Not only had his passionate delivery managed to inspire my non-church-going-
uncle who I’d dragged to church that evening to get up on his feet and walk to
altar call, it also imprinted upon me in a way that has lasted over two decades
feeding me still with vision, hope and an irrefutable belief that we all are born
with a set of gifts and a divine purpose to fulfill.

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That visiting “small-town” minister is now the world-renowned Bishop T. D.
Jakes. And together with Bishop Alfred Owens, Jr. and the late Reverend Dr.
Eugene Weathers of Galilee Baptist Church that became my beloved church
home, their words changed the entire trajectory of my life. For the first time,
they helped me know in my gut that God loved me, saw me and had a mighty
purpose for my life. To this day, I still have cassette tapes in my possession of
their moving sermons that I purchased from the always powerful revivals
curated by Bishop Alfred and Susie Owens. But it was Bishop Jakes’ riveting
re-telling of God’s promise to Abraham and Sarah that evening that has made
all the difference.

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The words loosely from Bishop Jake’s sermon over 25 years ago that have
become my favorite mantra to re-share with clients, friends and strangers is
“have faith, for everything the tree goes on to become was already present in
the acorn.” Not before or sense has any set of words had the same igniting
impact on what I dare to dream, call as my own and move toward with
Page of 74 115conviction. For this reason alone, have an acorn on my altar that I look to
every morning to remind me nothing is too hard for the supernatural power of
the divine; that if God planted it, it will bear fruit, no matter how barren it may
appear.

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For every struggle I have confronted, and dream I have awakened to, I have
remembered. For the times in my life when I stood at major crossroads - where
my no’s were proudly out loud but my yes’s were not quite clear enough, I have
remembered. For every tragedy that came, broke me wide open and tested my
faith in a benevolent universe, I have remembered. Even though I have often
fallen face down before being lifted when leaping on faith, I have done my best
to remember to ‘’get in the birth position’’ and not just trust, but know God is
midwifing something powerful and transformative in my life. And that has
been true every, single, time.

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The “not enoughness” that can erode away at our spirits is transmuted when
we remember we were divinely made for the dreams that call us by name. We
are not to feel burdened by or afraid of what our lives ask of us over and over.
Instead, we must find our own meaningful ways to be in ceremony with God,
radical faith and the tree ever seeking to sprout from the acorn that is us.

Perhaps not everyone would’ve been able to foretell that fated Wednesday
evening that the small town preacher would become a globally recognized
name. But scripture and the unmistakable anointing that filled the sanctuary
that night told me I was experiencing something divinely ordained. Although I
have never met Bishop Jakes and we both now live hundreds of miles away
from that church we frequented in the 90s - he in Texas and I in New York, we
are forever connected by the seed’s greatness God chose him to birth that
evening and the magic it has continued to create in the lives of all of us
present.

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May you now be blessed with some of that magic and go forward in the new
year remembering that your were born for a divine reason. Get in the birth
position and allow it to come forth.