Dear God, Girl….. Where Have You Been?!

Hello readers it’s been a minute, huh?! First I just wanna say sorry for dipping out on y’all like that. I am praying that definitely doesn’t happen again. But y’all, life has been “lifing” for your girl. A lot has transpired and I had to take care of me. So I’ll give y’all some insight into my time away. Let’s pick up when I published my last blog in April of 2021 titled, “The Church Can Be A Hurtful Place.” By the way thank you all for all the support and positive feedback from that blog. That truly was one of the hardest blogs I have written and I’m grateful for all the positive feedback it has received.

Shortly after this time, my mother-in-love started dealing with some real HEAVY spiritual battles. I won’t go into the details, but needless to say “a lot” is not even the word that would suffice for what she was experiencing. In a previous blog, I told you all that my husband is from NC, so all of his family for the most part still lives there. We had to end up meeting my mother-in-love to bring her to spend a weekend with us so  we could offer her support away from all that she was going through. We had family prayer when we picked her up and we started going to war for her. Now, I know some of you might be wondering, “what is this girl talking about when she says “war”?, like is she fighting?” The bible tells us in Ephesians 6:12, “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” So basically as believers our fight is not with people or objects, it’s not a physical fight, but it is indeed a spiritual one. The devil will try to use anything as a part of an attack against you, but our true opponent is sin. Therefore, when I mention war, I’m talking about a spiritual battle. So we were ready! My husband and I had that type of mindset all weekend long. I was not playing with the devil ok! Before my mother-in-love got here I was telling my husband, “I see the devil for who he is and he never has any new tricks.” I was ready to deal with him ok!  I anointed everything with oil, from the car to the bags, everything got touched that night! After that weekend we spent warring, she left feeling a lot better than she came. There was still a journey she had to go through, but she was definitely more equipped to handle it.

After that weekend in late June 2021, my husband and I were getting ready to move and we had just closed on our new home! 🙌🏾🙌🏾🙌🏾 “OH God, We Thank YOU! *Tabitha Brown Voice*.” So we still had a lot to finish to prepare to move. My grandmother was helping us pack some of our things some days and I was telling her what I had been experiencing since my mother-in-love had left. In the past I have struggled with suicidal thoughts. I even tried a suicide attempt when I was 11 years old, if you haven’t watched my Dear God interview titled, “Dear God, Please Save Me”, I talk about this journey in that interview. However, the Lord has delivered me from that. But these thoughts started coming back after dealing with my mother-in-love’s situation. As I was explaining everything to my grandmother she said, “I’m not surprised that the devil is trying to attack you because you put him on notice. You assembled a body of believers together to war on behalf of your mother-in-love. You recognized what she was dealing with was spiritual and you assembled a Jesus Army of people to help her, so the devil isn’t pleased with you. You are public enemy #1.” Wooh! Did she nail that or what?! That made me realize there was a target on my back.

“I’m putting you on NOTICE .. see you are trying to attack me in private, but I’m letting you know in public, I’m not to be played with.”

– Diamond Melvin

Honestly y’all, even after that shocking realization from my grandmother, things got even heavier. It just seemed like a downward spiral from there. During one of the most exciting times in my life having just purchased our first home and moving in, I was supposed to be so excited! But I was experiencing everything but that. I can’t even put into words how I felt, but I didn’t feel like Diamond at all. It felt like I had to force myself to be happy. I remember telling my husband one night, “I don’t know what’s going on with me.” With such reassurance in his voice he responded, “It’s nothing we can’t get through, it aint nothing but that stupid devil.” So I was determined to figure out what was going on with me.

I found myself extremely unhappy with my job at the time. I had been there almost 6 years and I was ready to go after the 1st year, but it wasn’t my time to move just yet. Like a lot of people, my previous job transitioned to working-from-home when the pandemic hit and I loved everything about working-from-home at first. After doing it over a year, it got really dark for me. I am an outgoing person so going week after week just getting up to sit at my dining room table and not really having any expectations for my day started to be a lot for me. Like no reason to wear non lounge clothes Monday-Friday and only doing my hair or looking like something on the weekends was an adjustment. My husband and I don’t have any children yet so it’s just us, so when he would be at work it would be so quiet even though I was playing music, etc. Also with our move, we purchased our home in a different city in the same state. This was away from my family and I’m used to being close to my family. I felt very much by myself in this new city. Now, I’m not knocking working-from-home, I’m just saying it wasn’t for Diamond. Even though I would take drives after my work day, get out of the house on my lunch break, talk on the phone with friends, listen to music, and consume my time with other things; it still felt like everything was closing in on me. I had the opportunity to work a hybrid schedule which I thought would have helped me, but the new city I moved to made my commute a lot longer and harder. Considering the amount of time I’m actually at work, my commute, and fighting the traffic to get home; I would barely be seeing my husband every day so we both realized this was not going to work.

At this point I felt like I was barely making it day by day with all this time I had by myself. All I had was my thoughts and the devil was taking full advantage of every moment. During all of this I was still staying in my Word, praying, etc. But I was still going through a heavy battle. I had been telling one of my close girlfriends at my church what was going on and she asked me, “had I considered finding a new job?” She knew how unhappy I was in my current situation. She also suggested filling up those idle moments by watching a sermon. Shortly after having this talk with her, my husband and I had our house warming and of course some of my best friends attended and I was able to catch up with them. I began to tell them what I was experiencing and they were so annoyed that I hadn’t let them know what was going on with me sooner. After we got through that, my best friend really hit some strong points for me. 1. Moving away and feeling by myself, 2. Working-from-home and still by myself, and on top of that 3. I had just stopped taking birth control which I had been on for the past 5 years, so hormones could’ve been a factor as well. When she pointed out all those things I was thinking to myself, “have some grace for yourself sis that’s a lot of change.”

One night in my prayer closet I found myself watching a sermon from Sarah Jakes Roberts titled: “Breaking Point”. She was teaching about Hannah. Anyone that has read Hannah’s story knows how badly she wanted to have a son. Hannah continued to pray year after year, after year, even when she was provoked by her adversary and even though she witnessed Peninnah (her husband’s other wife) continuously give birth to children. However, she was persistent in her prayers, never giving up. One prayer that she prayed, you could tell she had reached her breaking point. She prayed so hard people thought she was drunk, but what really happened is Hannah gave the Lord the issues of her heart. She gave God access to what she desired without even mumbling a word. She had experienced a personal encounter with the Lord. Year after year she had been praying, but it wasn’t until she changed the way she prayed that she received her promise. So this was me! I had reached my breaking point of being in this depressed state. This whole journey I had been praying and talking with the Lord but it was all in my head or journal. I never put my mouth piece on it. My pastor said one time, “it’s all fine to talk to the Lord to yourself, but sometimes you gotta put your mouth on that thing to give it some sound!” So that’s what I started doing .. approaching this whole experience differently! I testified in church one Sunday letting everyone know that I was not in the best place at the time mentally, but in my testimony I told the devil, “I’m putting you on NOTICE .. see you are trying to attack me in private, but I’m letting you know in public, I’m not to be played with.” Every prayer from that point was just my voice getting louder and louder. After doing this for a while, that suicidal spirit had lifted off me. Then I started making some bigger changes. I changed jobs and started getting back to being more intentional about me. And just like that, your girl is back like she never left.

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Now y’all, honestly I didn’t know if I could start back up with my blog. I felt ashamed, embarrassed, and all the things because I had slacked off on my assignment. But one night the Lord had me log in and just look at my blog and see some of the comments and messages from y’all, the readers, and to know that this was making a difference stirred me back up and all those feelings left. I know what I’m called to do and ain’t nobody mad but the devil! He really thought he had stopped your girl, but he won’t get that win. So thank y’all for rocking with me and be on the lookout for new blogs and interviews!

Love Your Sis,

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