By Shewanda Riley
A number of years ago, I attended the University of North Texas Equity and
Diversity Conference in Denton, Texas where television journalist Soledad O’Brien was a
keynote speaker. As part of her presentation, O’Brien used vivid details to share about
issues of race in her professional and personal life. One story she shared described
when looking through the personal papers of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. She was able
to closely examine the words of Dr. King and study how he edited some of his most
important speeches.
She then added how the progression of Dr. King’s thoughts and ideologies was
evident not just in what was left in the speech but mostly by what his handwritten
comments had taken out. The transformation from anger to a more reflective hope
was one of the things she noticed. She added that she learned more about him not by
what was left in the speeches but by the words that he deleted.
In that instance, it dawned on me that some recent shifts in relationships and
friendships was God’s way of doing the same thing in my own life. I’d placed so much
value on friendships and had spent much time saddened by the loss of a once valued
friendship. As I worked through the loss, God placed some very encouraging people
around me who gave me words of support when I needed them most. But there were
still times when I felt that the loss was greater than the comfort of their words.
In the past, I’d said that when people leave your life, it’s because God no longer
has a purpose for them in your life. But sometimes I wondered if there was another
reason why God allowed those shifts to happen, especially in relationships. Was it as
simple as God respecting our free will and allowing us to work through our choices,
consequences, and circumstances?
Hearing O’Brien’s words gave me a new way of looking at others who were no
longer a part of my life. Her words made me think about what I learned about myself
when other relationships and friendships ended. I’d been so focused on what I’d lost
when the relationship or friendship ended that I couldn’t see that in the process of the
loss, God had allowed me to become both stronger and more compassionate. The
transformation described in the words of Jesus in John 15:1-3 was what God also
wanted in me: “I am the true grapevine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off
every branch of mine that doesn’t produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do
bear fruit so they will produce even more.”
Years later, I’ve built even stronger and more fulfilling friendships. Just like
O’Brien could see transformation in Dr. King’s deletions, I could now look at my own life
and see that deletion of even valuable was a part of God’s process of transformation.
Shewanda Riley is the author of the Essence best-seller “Love Hangover: Moving From
Pain to Purpose after a Relationship Ends” and “Writing to the Beat of God’s Heart: A
book of Prayers for Writers.” Follow her on Twitter at @shewanda.