When Did You Forget?

One day, while lying under my red light panel—which turns out to be a surprisingly good place to talk to Jesus—I was doing exactly that.

Spewing my list of what felt like a thousand heavy things, I felt a rush of hot, rising anger—not at my Good Father—but an untamed, fire-breathing fury that was building pressure with no valve to release it.

So I started telling Him everything, as if He didn’t already know.

“I’m angry,” I said. “I don’t believe You give disease. I don’t believe You sit back, indifferent, while I struggle. I don’t believe anything that kills, steals, or destroys comes from Your hand. So why does this monster think it can take up space in my body—trying to ruin me and everything in its path?

I want to go through this with grace. I want to trust You. I want my eyes locked on You and my heart full of love. But if I’m being honest, anger has been tinting everything. I don’t know how to be peaceful about something that doesn’t feel acceptable.

How do I stop fighting when I know You made me to fight what most others don’t see?

How do I sit quiet and calm when there’s a war dance burning in my bones?

How do I lay down my sword when strongholds are still standing and captives are still waiting to be freed?

How do I wear the costume of passivity that so many people mistake for love, when I know deep down it has never fit me properly?”

I’m not the docile, non-threatening version of womanhood some would prefer. I’m not the one who smiles politely while lies go unchallenged. I’m not wired for silence in the face of disempowerment.

Finally, exhausted, I took a deep breath and let the tears flow until a calm settled over my soul. And in the quiet that followed my rant, I heard Him say—clear, calm, and fierce:

“When did you forget I made you a warrior?”

It rang like a bell inside my body and stopped my spinning mind.

I remembered that night when I was fifteen—half-asleep, heart cracked open—and the Father whispered a vision into my soul. I saw a thousand things in three seconds, and it set the course of my life. I remember how quickly the world tried to stamp it out with one phrase:

“Who do you think you are?”

I’ve felt that resistance ever since. Years of pressure to dim down, shrink back, and play nice.

To trade my birthright for something quieter and more acceptable.

But then I remembered the girl on the school bus—the one who launched herself at the bully going after her little sister, all fists and fire.

I remembered the slap I gave to the classmate who wouldn’t stop harassing me and another girl—how the teacher saw it and just nodded.

I remembered her.

The warrior.

The one I was always meant to be.

Then this verse popped up in a song on my playlist like a trumpet blast:

It was like heaven was reminding me:

I was never meant to hide.

I was never meant to conform.

I was never meant to be anything less than what God knit into my bones.

And maybe that's true for you too. Maybe you've spent years feeling "too much."

Too intense.

Too passionate.

Too loud.

Too emotional.

Too determined.

Too unwilling to look away when something is broken.

Maybe you've been asked to trade your birthright for something quieter and more acceptable. But this world doesn't need a watered-down version of you.

It needs your full flame.

It needs your voice.

Your authority.

Your sword.

Your love—not the passive kind, but the kind that fights for others like your own life depends on it. Because it just might.

There's a place for gentleness and peace. But there's also a place for holy fire. So maybe the question isn't: Who do you think you are?

Maybe the question is:

When did you forget who God made you to be?