Tenacity Speaks

Reflections of a Praying Mother/Wife/Educator

(Inspired by Proverbs 4 & Conversations with Alicia Clark)

I was there when you almost quit—

hands trembling over what was lost,

heart whispering, “maybe not this time.”

But I, Tenacity, held your face

and said, “Look again.”

I am not loud.

I move in small breaths—

between contractions and broken dreams,

between the third miscarriage and the cry

that finally came.

When Asia was born,

I was the unseen midwife

catching both her and your hope.

I build schools out of lack,

feed vision with pennies and prayer,

stand in unfinished classrooms

and still write tomorrow’s lesson plans.

I am the grit beneath the gospel,

the muscle behind the “Yes, Lord”

when the numbers say no.

I braid myself into marriages—

thirty-two years and still learning

how to love after disappointment.

I am the calloused hand that pays

for dance lessons, voice lessons, college tuition—

dreams bought with faith’s currency,

with coins scraped from belief.

I whisper, “Keep going—

it’s not for you alone.”

For I am generational.

I crossed oceans in chained holds,

sang through cotton fields and prayer tents,

wrote sermons with blistered fingers,

and still rose, still believed

in mornings not yet seen.

You are my continuation—

your faith, my echo.

I am Tenacity.

Crown me, and I will teach your children

to run with fire in their lungs

and not faint.