PLANTATION II

Freeing Others

The Plantation is the place we are relegated to if we allow our feelings to keep us from God’s best.  Our wounds and fear of injury imprison us and make us believe there is no hope.  I have been asked by women how to help their friends and daughters off the plantation.

 

The best way to help someone off the plantation is to lead her off.  Think of any other dangerous situation: would it be better for you to stay behind to comfort her or lead her out? We would never have heard of Sojourner Truth if her sympathy for others had led her to stay behind to help. Once you truly know the way out you will be able to help others find their way.  If your friend is in distress your real job is not protecting her from life, but preparing her for it.   

 

I sent my daughter to a small private school.  One day she told me she thought her teacher was prejudiced.  I froze, guilty and terrified, but I managed to say nothing.  LaterI prayed and cried out to God.  I knew I could not help her if I were disabled.  I could not allow her to think the feelings this generated set limits on her life.  The next time she mentioned it I was ready.  I said, “Oh, Holly.  No one gets through school without meeting prejudice.  People will prejudge if you are too smart, too dumb; too fat, too thin; too tall, too short, too pretty, not pretty; whatever.  It is part of your education. You just have to figure out what to do about it.”  She said “I am the best in that class.  I am going to keep on being the best in that class.”  We spent lots of time together discovering ways to deal with the feelings brought on by injustice.  She learned how to respond and when to let God do it for her. She had to know she could survive.

 

To help a loved one, get yourself off the plantation.  Teach her to let her feelings inform her, not direct her.  It is only a feeling – we won’t die if we refuse to express it or act on it.