Make Change by Shaun King

Author:Shaun King
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9780358048015
Publisher: HMH Books
Published: 2020-08-04T00:00:00+00:00

6

What Is Your Gift? Use It.

LONG BEFORE TWITTER, before hashtags and trending topics, when the word “viral” was used primarily to describe a disease, I was a pastor. For the first fifteen years of my life, nobody in my universe ever would’ve predicted such a thing. I hated church. My mother did, too. She worked like a dog at the lightbulb factory and cherished having a day where she did nothing but rest. Sunday was our day to sleep in, and we loved it. When people would occasionally ask me what church I attended, I’d flash them a sly grin and say, “Bedside Baptist.”

For most of my childhood, Black families in my hometown would invite me to attend church services or Vacation Bible School during the summer break. VBS was a weeklong program where kids would be given snacks, do a religious arts-and-crafts activity, then be taught a short Bible lesson. Unbeknownst to me, families were encouraged to invite their unsaved, nonreligious friends to VBS with the hope that the program would convert them. Consequently, I was there every year. I’d drink the Capri Sun and eat the animal cookies, but I would always leave the religion behind.

Though I was indifferent to organized religion, I had a general belief in God. But as I started experiencing the harassment and cruelty day in and day out as a student at Woodford County High School, that flimsy belief was being tested. What God, I wondered to myself, would see me, hear my cries, see the abuse, and then choose to do nothing? As the frequency and severity of the abuse got worse, and it seemed like no compassionate adult even cared enough to intervene, I found myself uttering simple prayers, desperate for any sort of sign from the universe. “Please make it stop. God, if you can hear me, please help,” I’d say. Nothing changed. Nothing at all. “God, please protect me. I don’t want to die,” I’d pray. But the abuse continued. Hell, my feeble prayers seemed to make it worse!

After I was assaulted, I missed nearly two years of school while I recovered from the injuries and subsequent surgeries. It was a painful, terrible time, and I didn’t want a single soul to see me in that condition. I encouraged my mother to tell my friends who would come visit that I was asleep or in too much pain to talk. After a while, most of them got the message and stopped dropping by. But my best friend, Willis, was the exception. We had known each other since kindergarten but had gotten particularly close over the previous year, and I felt comfortable letting my guard down around him. He would check on me whenever he could, and he always had a way of making me laugh despite the circumstances.

One day, his father, Reverend Willis Polk, decided to come visit me as I recovered in bed. Reverend Polk was one of the most respected people in town, an affable man who pastored at one of the largest Black churches in Lexington.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.