What about me?

I’ll never know exactly why things turned out the way they did. Except for the fact that this time, I was exacting revenge out of bitterness. I’ve never been one to go looking for trouble. I didn’t realize the power this dude had to turn my mind and my life upside down. Now, I can’t get away from him. 

Momma’s always talking about God, reading her Bible, praying, and going to church.  Telling me to pray. I prayed. I swear I did. The whole God thing seems like a racket to me. I hate it. At church, the Reverend talks for over an hour about how wretched I am, and then they pass the plate again and again! Momma puts money in the plate every time. "It’s my tithe; I want my blessing." I’ve never seen that church give her a blessed dime. We just struggle.  Alone.

I’ve got so many voices in my head. The brothers and the shorties in my hood say, "There is no God." Believe me, they have stories too. Hell, I’d be willing to believe in no God, if it would keep momma from forcing me to go to church on Sunday’s.   I already knew that telling her, "I don’t believe in him anymore," wouldn’t help. She has all her stories about how God saved her. I haven’t seen it, and plus, where’s he for me when I pray? 

Man, I know plenty of people who have disrespected him. What’s the difference between me and them? He doesn’t seem upset with the folks that had Black Americans in slavery for 400 years! He even allowed them to make it legal. Over 14 years of civil rights, and things still aren’t civil. Our oppressors are still rolling, and many of them are doing well off the backs of my ancestors. It seems like they always catch a break. Not me.

I’m JD, short for Jordan Dammes. Hell, even my last name tells my end: damned. Damned if I do, and Dammes if I don’t!

I got caught up about three weeks ago when I went to play hoops at the lot. I’m good at basketball. Everybody knows that. Jr., a new dude, joined us. He is different; I can’t put my hand on it, but there is something about this dude that everybody wants to challenge. During the game, there were some fouls. Another dude, Ray, who fellas say could be my twin, fowled on Jr. Everyone agreed that a free throw wasn’t to be made, except Jr. The fellas treated Jr. like an exile. I made a huge target of myself by defending him: "Come on guys, give him the free throw." All of the guys walked up to me, and Ray gave me a shove in my chest. Normally, one of the voices in my head would say what to do. Today, there were no voices. I just reacted. I punched back. We fought.   I threw tough punches and backed Ray down, but he swore this wasn’t over. 

Momma warned me plenty of times to avoid basketball with this group of guys, but I was agitated and needed to burn off some energy. Now, I’m in exile with Jr.   I supposed that this was one of those times when I should be praying. Not doing it! Dude ain’t listening to me no way. I’ll fight this battle myself; he doesn’t seem to give a damn about me anyway. Oh, and where’s Jr.? He ran at the first punch. Why did I defend this guy if he wasn’t going to watch my back? Now, the passion I had to defend him has turned on me. Dammes is damned again.

Upon arriving home, momma realized I was disheveled and bleeding. "What happened, JD?" What happened?  I yelled.   What always happens? Your God pushed me into a fight! Without thinking, I defended a new dude in the neighborhood, and this is how your God left me. In fact, the guy I defended left me too! 

"JD, God never leaves you, son," "you turned away from him," "did you take a second to pray for his help?" "No!" 

"JD, when you began questioning God’s decrees, he allowed this to happen to draw you back to him. Trouble has a way of keeping us in touch with God." 

"I’ve shared with you before what His word says: "But in their distress they turned to the LORD, the God of Israel, and sought him, and he was found by them." 

"Momma, why does he have to work this way?" We struggle.  You pray.   We still struggle. You keep praying.   I’ve prayed that God would change our circumstances. I’m tired of being poor and black! I don’t see white people struggling like this. In fact, white folk don’t even want to be around us. They aren’t afraid anymore that our black will rub off on them. They don’t want our bad luck to rub off on them. Momma, you can say what you want, but God seems to like white people better than black people. I want God to leave me alone! 

"Son, until you seek him with your mind, body, and soul, you will never be able to get rid of him. "You belong to him." Let us examine and test our ways, and turn back to the LORD. Amen! The fight you feel inside is from wanting things to turn out exactly how you want them. God has a predestined plan for your life. Turn back for peace. He will never let you get away from him; you’ll only do that yourself.

Why won’t this dude leave me alone? I’m so conflicted. I want to believe how Momma believes. She is so confident that everything happens for a reason. Well, I still don’t understand why the things in my life have turned out the way they have. Honestly, exacting revenge by rejecting God hasn’t turned out well for me either. I’m so confused.

One thing I know for sure is that I’m going to have to come face-to-face with Ray again. Since momma said I can’t avoid God’s decrees, maybe, since momma has a peace about bad things; maybe there is no rule against confronting God’s decrees through momma’s faith until trouble makes me faithful. I believe Momma, but God, this dude I can’t see or confront face-to-face will either help me feel the confidence Momma feels or perhaps I'm just damned.