“I Knew I Wanted to be Known and Seen.”
Your childhood experiences do not define you.
I grew up in a place where everyone goes for vacation.
I am from Plantation, Florida. Some mornings I would wake up and smell the ocean on the breeze passing through my window. I grew up in heat and humidity, with palm trees blowing in the wind and the sun beating down on my body. In the summer, storms would come on as quickly as they would leave, and sun showers would make the hibiscus and orange trees glisten.
My mother once said that my dad was great with us and affectionate until we started talking, and then he became distant.
I am the middle child of three girls and all of our names start with “E.” We spent a lot of time outdoors, playing, swimming in the pool and climbing trees. We loved to catch anole lizards and read books and try to make recipes. When my dad would come home from work, things became tense, uncomfortable and scary. You never knew what would set him off or why.
The police were called once or twice.
I knew our neighbors could hear the screaming and the crying. I always wondered why no one helped. I spent a lot of time reading books because we would be left alone if we were quiet. I escaped into a lot of worlds where I didn’t have to be Eve and didn’t have to deal with the difficult family dynamics.
Since a young age I wanted to be a writer.
I loved reading books and discovering different worlds between the pages I held in my hands. A part of me (as I think is the case for most of us) wanted to be seen as important and special. I didn’t desire a certain gifting, or a specific skill; I just wanted to be famous. I wanted to be known. Looking back now, I think in a lot of ways I felt unseen and rejected.
I was born lighter than my sisters and parents.
I was a black girl with yellow-brown skin, light brown eyes and golden hair. I stuck out, particularly next to my darker skinned family. I heard all the jokes growing up. “Did your mom sleep with the mailman?” I knew we had the same parents, I knew I was black. But I wanted to be darker; I wanted black hair and dark brown skin so I could belong. But also, in contrast, deep down I had a desire to stand out. Maybe it was because it’s how God designed us all-to want more out of this passing life. Either way, I knew I wanted to be known and seen. I wanted to be cared for in ways I had never experienced.
A lot of my depression centered around the physical and the emotional abuse that occurred in my home.
My father would often make us stand in a dark closet if we answered math problems wrong; that was the better punishment because you could at least sit down and stand up quickly when you heard him coming. I often found myself sobbing in front of a mirror as he held my head and said “look at yourself, now say I’m stupid. Keep saying it.” I never learned to love or like myself in that environment, I thought I was stupid and worthless because my father told me so. I never spoke about my father or home life unless I was talking about my sisters or mother. Many times people would be shocked to find out that my parents were in fact married and my father lived with us because I spoke so infrequently about him.
Looking back now, I was depressed as a young child, teenager and young adult.
I considered suicide since as early as I can remember. So the idea of escaping by ending my own life became a comfort to me. I would sometimes fantasize about escaping the world around me. It wasn’t until I was in my mid-twenties and going through therapy that I was confronted with the reality that people didn’t think about killing themselves regularly and it wasn’t a healthy approach to my problems.
Around 2010, I was at the University of Florida.
I was struggling through my classes, my relationships and friendships. I was feeling pretty hopeless and had little hope for my future. I started attending church with my roommates. I was so “unchurched” that I was excited about the church because it was non-denominational. In my ignorance about Christianity, I believed that people from all religions were getting together to learn about morals and being good people.
I struggled with feeling like I had purpose and self-worth,
so I researched Hinduism, Judaism and Buddhism for enlightenment. I tried yoga and worshipping nature. I learned about my birth sign and kept rose crystals. I tried not caring at all and partying and having fun. None of it ever stuck. I kept feeling like I was missing something in my life.
I began reading the Bible for the first time.
One Sunday the pastor stood on stage and said, “I am not doing my job if I stand up here and don’t say the name of Jesus and if I don’t give you the opportunity to respond to the Gospel.” I laughing because he had never said Jesus in any of the sermons I had attended. But everyone around me was clapping and saying “amen.” I went home, confused and started listening to his old sermons. He was absolutely right; he had said Jesus and talked about the Gospel in every sermon I had been in. I hadn’t heard it. Whether my heart was hardened, or God was slowly revealing Himself, it was in that moment that I realized I could hear, receive and call on the name of Jesus.
Over time, through therapy and recognizing my new identity in Christ, I began to work through my anxiety.
I made it through several courses and began to reject the lies my dad had spoken over me and the lies I believed about myself. The morning of my final undergrad exam, I was walking to the test and it was the first time I had ever felt peace going into a math-based exam. I think I studied and put in the work, but I also think God taught me how to find peace in Him. Afterward, I opened the grading site and saw the best score I had ever gotten on a college exam. I dropped to my knees and worshipped God, not for the grade but for the change that had occurred in my heart.
In college, as I was learning about Jesus, I was also learning how my childhood trauma was influencing my ability to perform well.
I had to drop several of my classes and even failed one or two. I went to a therapist and was diagnosed with math anxiety and general anxiety. Every time I felt the pressure to perform on an exam, I heard the terrible words my father had forced me to speak over myself. I truly felt that I was worthless and incapable of performing well. Every night before an exam I found myself panicking, calling myself stupid and worthless over and over again.
During my qualifying exams to become a doctoral candidate, I was emotionally transported back into my childhood home.
I did pretty well on the written portion. Every day for 8 hours and five days a week, I answered biological questions centered around my research. A few weeks later I entered the second round of the exam, which was standing in a room of my professors and answering their questions. I spent the entire time trying to guess what they wanted me to answer with, even when I knew the answer. The whole painful ordeal eventually finished with my committee being completely confused. I had handled the written portion very well, but verbally it was like I didn’t know anything. I had to do additional work to be considered a candidate.
Then I went into my doctoral program.
I moved to a new city where I knew very few people and began one of the hardest and darkest seasons in my life. All the feelings of inadequacy surfaced during my time taking graduate biology courses. Those feelings were compounded by the reality that I was the only black woman in my program, and few women of color were in my field in general. I was trying to trust Jesus and pretend like faith without the working of addressing my insecurities was enough.
For several months I did the bare minimum to get by.
I spent a lot of time in bed, crying and feeling useless. I didn’t feel or believe that God was with me. Every day I would wake up around 1am and my anxiety would keep me up until 6am. Eventually, I started going to therapy. After several months of wrestling and thinking, I agreed to go on anti-depressants and slowly started working through more of my past trauma.
I met Billy at the end of my first year in graduate school.
We were both at the same church. We would talk after church and he asked me to coffee. I was really drawn to his smile and direct eye contact. He asked good questions and was enthusiastic. I was very hesitant about dating or pursuing a relationship. I had never been in a relationship with a white man. After our third date I went home and nervously wrote in my journal and cried. At the top of the page I said, “Read this later so you know how stupid and wrong you are.” Underneath I wrote, “I think I’m going to wind up marrying Billy Humphrey.”
I was scared to think about what it meant to be with a white guy in the South.
He would tell me he loved me, even though I didn’t know how I felt. He proposed to me in London and afterwards I sat down, looked at him and said, “Are you sure? I feel like you could do better.” I felt like he was making a mistake betting on me. We talked through that and moved forward with wedding planning. We got married and were driving to the reception. I stared ahead in shock and said, “Billy, what did we do?” He laughed and said, “We got married, this is crazy, I love you.”
The big moments in our lives over the last few years have been marked by two patterns of behavior: my fear and Billy’s love.
I have never known such an intentional, no strings attached, I see you for who you are, and I am here for you-love. I knew God loved me, but I felt that some of that was an obligation. But God taught me love “in spite of,” through Billy. In spite of not knowing my worth, my daddy issues, my doubts, my sin. In spite of everything, Billy keeps loving me. In spite of two of the hardest years of our lives we made it to year four of marriage.
Love drives out fear.
Even if you don’t believe Scripture, my life and marriage is evidence of this statement. Obviously, in the huge moments of my life with Billy I’ve been hesitant, scared and unsure. And now, I still get nervous about new adventures and changes, but I am not fearful. I don’t want to play it safe, I don’t doubt Billy’s judgement. I am stronger and more courageous because of God and Billy’s love.
I think the best and scariest thing about following God,
is that we can be called to multiple things in our lifetime. I often wonder if I'm going to be a professor and a biologist for my whole life or just for a season. I think there is an unhealthiness and an awkwardness between Christians and the scientific world. I think I have the opportunity to learn about patterns in the natural world, and that, in turn, teaches me about God. I also want to serve the Church in whatever capacity I can. I think women and the knowledge women can offer to the church has been avoided or pushed aside. I think my husband and I are called to be reconcilers in the relationships that we build and in the churches we serve.
Reflection by: Eve Humphrey
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