This piece is a part of the Wildest Dreams project.

From the moment my alarm sounds on Sunday mornings, I am on a spiritual mission.

After putting on an outfit befitting of the sacred hour and maybe a big fancy hat, I rush a few miles to North Baptist Church in Woodbury, a small edifice with welcoming bright red double doors. There, I find inspiration, comfort, and unspeakable joy in the hymns, sermons and fellowship.

This weekly ritual brings me closer to my ancestors.

My faith is the fabric of my being, and encompasses every aspect of my life. It’s a journey that began as a youngster growing up in Akron, Ohio, the legacy of my elders who were only a generation removed from slavery.

My paternal grandmother showed me how to get on my knees to pray at bedtime. She taught me her favorite scripture: Psalm 23. For years, it was the only scripture that I could recite.

My maternal grandfather was a hardworking, quiet man of incredible faith. A trustee at St. John CME Church, he donned a black suit, a crisply pressed white shirt and black tie every Sunday and loaded the grandkids into his four-door sedan and transported us to Sunday school.

That strong faith, passed down from ancestors and my connection to the Black church would shape my beliefs and identity. It made me a better human being, and a journalist who tells stories about the Black community, and our fight for justice.

Faith from our ancestors

For generations of African Americans, spiritual conviction — a belief in a higher being — has been the strength behind our progress. From slavery to the ongoing modern-day civil rights struggles, faith has empowered our achievements.

In fact, it was in church where our ancestors’ wildest dreams were formed. Not only did they praise God, they organized to escape bondage. In 1831, Nat Turner, an enslaved preacher, led one of the bloodiest revolts against slavery. More than a century later, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., used the pulpit in the fight for civil rights.

The retelling of history for Black people, says the Rev. Mark Kelly Tyler, pastor of the historic Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia, the oldest congregation in the denomination founded in 1794, is “very much the story of the hand of God moving through history.”

“Everywhere they have gone they have carried their faith with them,” said Tyler. “There’s no way that Black people would have made it from the horrors of slavery … without a firm belief in a God that cannot fail. For us, it is about recognizing that had it not been the Lord on our side where would we be?”

“There has never been a day in America where Black people did not engage the Spirit,” said the Rev. Charles L. Howard, the chaplain at the University of Pennsylvania. “Every single movement for freedom has been undergirded by a deep spirituality that the divine was fighting on our behalf.”

Such is the story of my grandmother, Lillian Stephens Lee, who came from humble beginnings in Evergreen, Ala. She dropped out of school in the eighth grade to help support her family. Dressed in her Sunday best, she walked up a long country road to her church.

After marrying my grandfather, Climon, in 1936, they moved up North to Akron where they raised eight children. Times were hard. To help ends meet, she worked as a domestic, on her hands and knees scrubbing the homes of white folks.

My grandmother faced racism and poverty. But she never lost hope that God would provide for her family. “Trouble don’t last always,” she would tell me, a reminder of Psalm 30:5 “weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning,” which echoes in my head today during difficult times.

She joined Shiloh Baptist Church and was a member for more than 60 years. She was always meticulously dressed in a suit or dress and wore a stylish hat tipped to the side, some she made. She sat in the third pew from the front of the church.

My grandmother loved old hymns that she learned in the South, like “Father, I stretch my hands to thee.” When she died in 2014, my cousin sang that hymn at her funeral. She read the Bible regularly, but she didn’t talk a lot about her faith. She lived it in the way she treated others and through her devotion. She loved the Lord and her pastor and tithed from her meager monthly social security check to support the church.

Despite working two jobs in Akron’s once-booming rubber tire industry, my maternal grandfather, Hamp Burney, was the spiritual compass for my extended family and always attended church. He, too, lead by example, praying over every meal and serving as a leader in the church as an officer. He gave us a sense of Black pride in our culture and heritage.

Like many Black families, their social justice conscience was rooted in the church. As a child of the ‘60s, I learned about the civil rights movement through the eyes of my family. I remember the shock and sobs as the adults gathered around a black-and-white television in the living room when the announcer reported the assassination of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1968.

Akron erupted in riots and the National Guard was deployed to quell the unrest. Armored tanks rolled through the neighborhood. The frightened children were sent to shelter in the basement to wait for it to blow over.

Several years later after my family relocated to South Jersey, I recalled those scary moments when my Mom signed a permission slip for me to miss school to celebrate King’s birthday, years before it became a federal holiday. She sent me to church to commemorate the day. I would later understand the significance of those times and how they compelled me to fight for others.

‘Find time for God’

Throughout my childhood, my mom, Eva, who had been a church secretary in Ohio, would occasionally send my siblings and me to neighborhood worship service. She worked weekends, so the family never joined a church. My aunt Alberta Johnson, Mom’s oldest sister, made sure we didn’t stay away from church too long.

For years as a young adult, going to church regularly wasn’t my speed. I was busy pursuing my dream to become a journalist. I had an active social life and traveled around the country for work and pleasure. My demanding schedule left little time for church.

I joined numerous organizations, journalism industry boards and committees, I was president of my Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority chapter, and I had a thriving career with a loving family. It would take years for me to realize that something important was missing in my life.

Aunt Bert would tell me to “find time for God” and not to get too busy with life that there was no time for worship. She traveled with me to visit several churches and encouraged me to join one. It took me years to finally find a church.

On a Friday night, the last night of a three-day revival at North Baptist in 1997, Rev. Albert “Mailman” Morgan issued an invitation for salvation. It seemed like a voice whispered to me come forward. At age 36, I was baptized and joined the church. My family packed on the front pew to watch the milestone moment.

Finally, my life made sense. I belonged in church.

Getting baptized felt like a homecoming. A chill ran through my body when the pastor immersed me in the cool water, and I felt complete.

That feeling when I emerged from the baptism pool would be a defining moment that fueled my wildest dreams of a life of joy and purpose.

Finding a church family and nourishing the faith that served my elders was the final piece of my identity.

My faith had come full circle. I never forgot the foundation from my childhood, and it molded me into the woman I am. It helped me define my style, and how I connect with others, especially Black women and the countless young girls I mentor. My faith helps me to acknowledge my shortcomings and strive to do better. I find peace in my relationship with God. It sustains me.

When I joined the ushers board several years later, it made me beam with pride. For the first time, I felt like an adult in the Black church, a member of an elite group. I embraced all of the traditions. Dressed in a black suit with a white blouse and white gloves, I was paired with Mother Cora Thomas, a senior usher. She taught me how to usher, and how to tend to the congregation. For every problem she gave the same advice: “Just give it to the Lord.”

A place in church

Like my grandmother, I love wearing a big flamboyant hat to church, a cherished convergence of faith and style. On special occasions, I don one of her treasured hats, cultured pearls and a special silver watch she only wore to church service, which were all passed down to me.

Her devotion helped me find my place in the church which became a priority. I joined other ministries, including the food pantry, hospitality and publicity, trying to fulfill the Bible’s commandment in Luke 12:48 that “to whom much is given, much will be required.”

That edict motivates me outside the church, too, to give back to the community.

For years at work, I checked my faith at the door. I later realized that faith is part of my heritage and my Blackness, a part of my identity that cannot be denied.

That shift became apparent when I texted my late pastor, Rev. Wendell F. McGinnis on a difficult day, seeking a word of encouragement. He sent a scripture: Isaiah: 26:3.“You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you.”

I printed it in bold letters and posted it in my cubicle at the Inquirer above my computer. It remained there for years until I transferred from Philadelphia to South Jersey. I passed it on to a colleague who solicited prayers for her terminally ill husband. She pinned it up in her cubicle.

A story about Josephine Mozee, a teaching assistant who was struck and killed by a car while walking in Camden in 2018, gave my faith a new meaning. Every day on her bus commute, Mozee would pray for strangers and was known for her favorite saying “Nobody but God.” When I learned of her story, I interviewed her pastor, Bishop E.M. Barron, and wrote about her. Barron invited me to worship with his congregation at Higher Ground Temple Church of God in Christ in North Camden.

He told me that writing was my calling from God, an assignment I willingly accepted.

My faith walk has not been without challenges. It was seriously tested in 2014 when my mother was diagnosed with Stage IV lung cancer, just two months after my beloved grandmother died at age 94. I prayed until tears rolled down my face. I could hear Grandma saying, “you can’t question God.”

Her doctor recommended removing her from life support. I refused.

“You do know that she’s going to die,” the doctor asked.

My response: “We are a family of faith. We will wait on the Lord.”

Two months later, as my Mom took her last breath, I clutched her hand and said a prayer. As a woman of faith, my darkest moment was also my brightest. Through the tears, I had the unshakable belief that God doesn’t give us more than we can bear, and that with faith, I will continue to live out my wildest dreams.