On August 10, 2022, I awoke at 6:35 AM with the last sentence of the chorus of Lift Every Voice and Sing ringing in my ear: let us march on till victory is won.
In the last scene of my dream, I was singing and playing this song on the violin at the same time. I was in a room with other people who were standing. I was in the front of the room with my violin, picked it up, and played. Then I started singing. As I began singing, I noticed my voice was shaky and unsure. Look, I’m not a vocalist. LOL! But the more I sang, the stronger my voice got. It surprised me and the others who were present.
But the other thing I noticed was the crowd. We were together learning how to prepare how to fight. The song we were singing gave us hope and power. And, as I mentioned, when I awoke, I hung onto, let us march on till victory is won.
Let me go back to the beginning scenes to put this in context: Christian and I were trying to get back inside the office space where we worked. Somehow, the front door was no more! There was only a barred window with room to fit in and jump a few feet. I thought, are we supposed to climb in and then jump down? We called out to the people in the room, who I noticed were older, White folks, to ask how to get back in. A White man with an evil demeanor addressed us. I could tell he didn’t like us because of our skin tone. He didn’t believe our story that we were supposed to be inside. I began to get upset and asked for his manager. He lied, saying there was no manager present. Then a White woman with glasses appeared. She listened to our story, and suddenly we were inside.
Once inside, I saw lots of Black youth. I was so impressed at their skills and the way they carried themselves in the areas of finance and leadership. One young lady looked to be about 16 years old. She sat next to me, on my right, and explained her role and what she did – a financier leader!
My takeaways from this dream are the following:
- Be careful who you talk to. Not everyone has your back. Some are not for you. With their words over you, they will try to take your strength and cause you to remain where you are.
- Some are for you. When you ask the right questions and put yourself out there, the right people in your corner will surface. When you begin doing what you are supposed to be doing, the right people will find you.
- Sing the right song. Whose voice or lyrics are you listening to?
- Sing the song with the right people. As I said, some are not for you. Release them. Search for those whose voices are like yours. Search for those who understand your heart song.
- Once you start singing, your voice does get more assertive. Sometimes you have to do it afraid. Stop saying, “When I have more money… when I get that degree… then I can do this and that.”
- From what position do you fight? How you march is essential. What you listen to affects your movement. What you think about affects your walk. Who you are around cause you to either walk weak or walk in strength.
Finally, let me speak on something from that verse. If you are in Christ, victory is already won. The problem is some of us don’t know that because we walk funny. And we walk funny because we forget whose we are. (Read Gen. 1:26-28 and 2 Cor. 3:18.) We walk in worry. We walk in doubt. We walk with excuses stumbling out of our mouths. We fail to see; we fail to hear. Because complacency and complaining are always near. We think thoughts that move contrary to what we read in the Bible, even if the Bible is our standard! (It begs the question: Is it your standard anymore?) And so our marching for the victory already ours is done in vain.
If you know the chorus, you will understand what Rosamond Johnson meant when he wrote …let us march on till victory is won. He talks about singing a song full of the faith that has been taught and full of the hope of the present. But here is the thing: If you are listening to the wrong voices, you miss all that, and you march on in a way conducive to the demise we are currently seeing in this land. It makes me think of a song I used to sing with the students in children’s ministry: Whose Side Are You Fighting on?
So, read Philippians 4:6-8 and think about (meditate on) these things! If you worry or complain, replace that with the phrases there. Remember that there are voices – even lyrics of songs – that will bring you down to a place where you can’t get in the door or even get up to march on.