My Blueprint: A Moment of Truth

By LaTasha A. Hannah

Running head: MY FATHER

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My Blueprint: A Moment of Truth is for single parents, lost souls, and anyone looking for a deeper relationship with God! I have lived my life thinking everything is a designed plan of God, and I am fortunate to play a small role in His divine plan! I pray that my words are able to guide people to look at their lives and trust God has a divine plan for them as well! My journey in life is to seek God (Matthew 6:33), and God has always showed up and out in my life, and I do not want to leave this earth without expressing my love for Him.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 21, 2022
• ISBN: 9781662465680

Book preview

Chapter 1

As for Me and My Household, We Will Serve the Lord!

The God in me is who I strive to be.

—Morgan Freeman (Actor)

My journey with our heavenly Father started before I was born into the world. I was truly fearfully and wonderfully made! Before I took my first breath, Satan tried his best to keep me from being born. After my mother gave birth to three sons, she gave up on her dream of having a little girl. She decided to get her tubes tied, but God had another plan for her. My mother did not know she was pregnant for several months after her surgery; she just thought she had a long-lasting flu or something. Thankfully, she went to the hospital. She was pregnant, but the doctors expected the worse and were petrified if my mother were to give birth to the baby because something went wrong when they tied her tubes the first time.

The news scared my dad and my grandma, so they tried coaching my mom into terminating the pregnancy, but my mother wanted the baby. Everybody thought she was crazy because the experts said she would die giving birth to me. The thought of killing her own child was too much for her to handle. Not knowing if I was a girl or another knuckleheaded boy, she prayed to God. He answered her prayers. I am my mom’s miracle baby girl. I am a child of God, and I am from God!

Growing up hearing the stories of my miracle birth made me feel as though I was created for a certain purpose. No one needed to convince me that God was real. My prayer life began simple. We would pray over our food and said our prayers at night. I would especially pray to Jesus whenever I would get into trouble to not get a whooping! I saw the way my mom would handle my brothers after they would disobey her. Run! She exhausted the criminal right out of us as children. I remember listening to my brother tell my mom that the devil made him steal some money. My mom laughed with a deep, haughty voice at first. Suddenly she whipped her head around like a transformer and told him that she was going to beat the devil out of him. I knew not to use that excuse in the future!

Depending on the nature of the crime, my prayers would be answered. I was told, for my good, I, too, had to experience the rod (belt). Oddly enough, when mom was done punishing us, she would go to her room and rehearse what she wanted to say to us. After a whooping, no kid wants to talk to his or her parents, especially after your lungs still hurt from all the screaming and negotiating. Plus, the shortness-of-breath noises you make irritates them as they are speaking to you. Thank God I was a girl because my parents would simply talk to me most of the time and tell me how disappointed they were in me and then ground me to my room. I would have extra chores, but the boys would be put to work. Jesus, help me and Thank You became my favorite words and simplest prayer to say!

I don’t preach. I teach (Eddie Griffin, actor and comedian).

My mom put the fear of God in me. She would make remarks to us kids like, There are only two people in this world you need to be afraid of—God and me. Or my mom would say, God don’t like ugly and doesn’t care about the cute! As a child, I was confused at her sayings, but I knew hearing those comments meant I would see my mom take her wrath out on someone. Yikes! I would think, What is God capable of doing if my mom was able to crush people with her little hands? I have seen it done. Then I read parts of the Old Testament. Whoa! God does not play around when He is angry! I felt like passing out just thinking about it. Pain gets your attention (Charles Stanley).

Another statement my mom would say is, We all have to answer to the man upstairs. Again, confusing because everybody who lived in the house was usually sitting on the living-room floor when she said it. The creepy part about the house was it had wood steps leading upstairs. When the house would settle, it would make noises like someone walking up and down the steps. Why was God always upstairs? Going upstairs was always eerie to me. I did a lot of my crime downstairs or outside.

Both my parents have a certain stare for certain situations. My mom has a way of staring through your eyes and reaching your soul. She would say, I brought you in this world, and I can take you out and make one that looks just like you. Now, what does that mean? This little lady is convincedly crazy, and needless to say, I tried to stay out the way of my mother’s wrath! I definitely did not want to see God’s wrath.

As a child, my mom and dad split up and went their own ways. Even though my dad was not around every day, he and my mom remained friends. My dad lived in the city and would get us for summer vacation. Both parents had their own way of letting us kids know that God is everywhere. You can run, but you can’t hide. An idle mind is the devil’s playground, my dad always says. What you do in the dark will eventually come to the light. The secret to a long life is trying not to shorten it! Are you reckless eyeballing and attempting to see? These where all comments my dad would ask us children. He would also say, I know what you have been up to. I have been a kid before, so I know what I am talking about.

My eyes were open to the fastness of the world around me, and my dad knew it. He kept me at his hip when he could and would tell me stories about people in the Bible. He made us read the Bible and attend church with our aunt Loretta. He did not want us to become heathens. When our cousins knew they were up to no good, they would never allow me to tag along. They would say, No! Uncle Tony ain’t killing me. And since I am one of the younger ones and a girl, I stayed at the house, or my stepmom would tell me, While your dad’s not looking, run to the car. We’re going on a joyride. You can’t stay in the house all the time.

My dad really put the fear of the world in me. I really do believe he has eyes in the back of his head. He knew what I was doing even when he was not around. He never whooped me but would have vivid conversations that scared me. He would make comments like, Be the woman a man takes home to see his momma, not a nasty girl who can be spotted a mile away, Yahweh (God) has a plan for you, so you’re going to stay in this house until you figure it out, The devil works his best magic at night, The pathway to hell is paid with good intentions, You mess with the bull, you get the horn! Pay attention. It doesn’t cost you anything, and If you don’t pay attention, the world will rob you of your hopes and dreams, and you will be a bum living on the street. My parents’ objective was to scare us enough to walk toward the light and not the darkness.

I grew in age, and I knew if I did not believe in Jesus, I would go to hell, but I also grew in worldly wisdom. I became lost to my everyday changing emotions. Life had some explaining to do. It seemed, as I grew, the world became scarier because I saw way too much way too early. I was a rebellious teenager. Like most teenagers, I was trying to find my own voice. I did not want a dishonest reputation, but I knew I was living a lie because I was wrapped in my mother’s and my brother’s shadows, their reputations. The people I knew thought they knew me. How could they? I did not even know who I was. I knew who I pretended to be, but that life was making me miserable, and I just wanted to stay out of the way.

While a teenager, I got involved in a serious relationship. He made my rebellious ways seem natural. He saw me for me or who I thought I wanted to be. I was madly in love, and when I graduated from high school, I left home to be with this man in the city. When things were up, I felt on top of the world. When things were bad, I felt like a disappointment. I wanted to be married so I did not feel like I was living a life of sin. I would pray, and God would show me something different, but I thought I could change it for what I thought was better.

I would pray/complain about him, and God would reveal something to me that I needed to do for myself. I prayed so much about my relationship; it was all I could focus on. Most of the time I could not see God because I only focused on the messes in front of me. After a while, I did not hear anything from God about my relationship or anything. I felt like God was saying Don’t you ask Me about another thing until you do what I told you to do in the first place. I was stubborn because I could not see the forest among the trees.

God was guiding me to love myself, but I just wanted to be loved by him, or what I thought was love. It was not until my early twenties, after I was pregnant with my first child, that I knew I needed a serious relationship with God. I needed Jesus. I had childhood Jesus, but now I needed grown-up Jesus. I needed to find a way out of the emotional ditches I created in my life. My child needed a better start for her life! I needed a better plan!

I asked my grandma what I needed to do to win this man over and get married. She laughed at me like I was telling her a punch line to a joke. After calming down from slapping her knee and stomping her foot, she went and got a glass of water. She simply said, Girl, you gave up the milk without seeing if he willing to buy the cow, and now you expect God to bless this mess. Girl, please. If you see a fool, you bump their head. What you need to do is focus on loving yourself.

She also said, Look at how you are living. You are running around town, worried about this man, and you’re living from pillow to post. You have champagne habits and only have beer money. Put the nickel back between your knees and hold it there until you find someone who wants the cow and not just the milk. Wow, my grandma hurt my feelings, but she was right. The first thing God told me to do was to stop having an intimate relationship with this man and start loving myself, but I did not listen. Stop making gods out of your companions (T. D. Jakes).

Still, as a strong believer in prayer, I prayed for God to show me He was still in my life, change my life for the abundant life I learned about as a child. I had nobody I really trusted because the pain of trusting people was real. I wanted to live life, not just exist in it. I was living the way of the world, and I did not want to play by its rules anymore. I was getting beat up by the mistakes I was making. I was just following everybody else, but it was not working for me. I felt like an alien among monsters. I did enough crap to keep up with the people around me, but I did not want to be like the people around me. Like a child, I prayed to God for help.

My oldest daughter was eleven days overdue. My mom came to stay with us the last few weeks of my pregnancy to help us out. It was the hottest summer of my life so far. After being induced for labor, we waited around the hospital room, expecting my water to break. To ease me from some of the pressure I was experiencing, my mom began to act silly. She tried to make me laugh, but it irritated me. She tried to read me the Word, and that did not work either.

Finally, she said, Look, you are not going to keep staring at me all evil. I didn’t do this to you. Now, I am going to take a cigarette break, and when I come back, you better act like you know I’m your momma. You’re talking to me crazy like I won’t tear this hospital up. There is going to be a misunderstanding up in here. She left the room, and I checked myself and my attitude quick! I was not in that much pain to see the Wrath of Khan (what she calls her anger monster) to come out!

Ten minutes after my mom and my child’s dad went for their break, I was alone in the hospital room. I felt sick to my stomach, and I became light-headed. Noise from the baby monitor machines were going off, and the nurses came rushing in. I became scared and thought, Where is that crazy little lady at? The last words I heard before passing out were, She needs an emergency C-section stat. The baby’s heart rate went from 150 to 50. Jesus, help me, and thank You!

When I came around the first time, I saw that my daughter was in her dad’s arms, and I was still on the operating table. The nurse standing over me said, We didn’t have enough time to give you anything before we prepared to cut the baby out. We cut you, and you instantly passed out during the whole operation, and I have never seen anything like that before. That was a miracle, and exciting. I passed out again.

Jesus

While passed out, I know in my hearts of hearts I saw Jesus. (I do not care what anybody has to say about it!) Well, not all of Jesus, just His legs and feet. He was sitting on huge steps, and He was swinging His feet back and forth as though He did not have a care in the world. (It puts me in the mind of a person sitting on a step that was bigger than him, swinging his legs back and forth.) I was standing at the bottom of the steps, and I felt excited but more anxious, I guess. I began to ask Him a lot of questions about what my purpose is. The sad part is, I do not remember what all He was telling me before I felt like I was waking up. All I wanted to know was what I would do now. I finally got Jesus on the main line. I was telling Him what I wanted, but I couldn’t remember what He was telling me I