She Believed In Me.

She believed in me. In everything about me. In everything I did. In every avenue I pursued. She believed in me.

I came home crying tonight. Because I want to buy this house. It's the perfect house - with space for bedrooms, the piano, a backyard with trees, a garden tub, a great kitchen, everything. It's perfect. I love the neighborhood. I love the location. I love the walk to the farmers market, the library, the coffee shop. I love everything about it.

But when I told people about it tonight, it was shut down. It was a constant berating of the neighborhood. A stereotype of people. A collage of remarks on skin color, economics, and the lines that are drawn from there.

And no matter what I said, no matter my attempts to convince them or even stuck up for myself, no one believed in me. And I just left, crying, and wanting my mom more than anything in the whole world, because she would believe in me. She would say if I bought the house that she would come. She would walk in with welcome home gifts, and picture flowers like a garden in the backyard. She would know I could do it, and want it and dream it for me. She would never even hesitate about it. Because if it is where I was, then it was what she saw in me.

Never in my life, can I think of a time where she questioned me, where she didn't support me, where she didn't believe in me. Whether it was third grade soccer, or elementary swim lessons. If it was piano or band or eighth grade basketball. If it was books or writing or boys. If it was prom committees or friendships or leadership. If it was flying to the other ends of the earth and living within walls of Filipino confines, barred by iron and glass-shattered-topped bricks. Or wandering alone in London and traipsing around Kenya with plenty of dangers lurking. Or teaching inner-city with guns, or moving to the inner-city of GR. She never once questioned me. She never once held back or stayed restrained of her support of me. She loved me. She believed in me. It wasn't a belief in trying to protect me, it was a belief in the strength of me, and everything that I was and who I was made to be. The world couldn't have big enough limits for what she knew of me.

I want her back. I want her back so bad it hurts. Straining hurts. Angering hurts.

Angering hurts for me and against her and against everyone at the table tonight. Because they don't believe in the strength of me. They don't know the things of my story. Of walking over dying children on the subway stairs in the Philippines. Or living in an old crack/whore house in Downtown GR and seeing a guy get beat up right outside my bedroom window. Or sitting there in a court room pew with a family who practically disowns you and a guy who is charged and taken to prison for killing your mother.

They don't know me. They don't love me in a way enough that wills me to work bigger than I am. That dreams dreams bigger for me than what I do.

My mom always said, "The safest place for you to be is in Gods will." It wouldn't have been her choice for me to go to Africa. To live on the Kenyan plane. To be like countless missionaries to risked (and do still) their lives for what God has called them to. But she believed in me enough to let me do it, and in God enough to trust him to carry me through it.

She believed in me. If she were present currently, she would do the same. She wouldn't set limits - she knew I could be the next CEO of World Vision, or mother of four, or Teacher of the Year, or Bestselling Author. None of these was too grand for what she could envision and release me to fly and soar to. But for some reason, everyone else sees me as this little white girl who stays in protected white bubble and should forever be. But this isn't me. It's never been me.

And she believed in me. Mom, I want you back to believe in me. But I also want your strength and my courage to be able to live, and fight against the grain, and climb like you believe in me.