Hey, hi, it's Jamie Grace and welcome to the Jamie Grace podcast. Also, welcome to the final episode of the 14,000 year series on the book of Proverbs. This is the episode of Proverbs 31, which I'm going to read in a few moments and then simply share my thoughts. Or maybe I won't. To be honest, guys, this is a really weird time to be alive.

It's July 7th, 2020. I'm pretty sure today is my cousin Kariana's birthday. So, happy

birthday, Kari. I love you, kid. Even though you're definitely a grown-up, I just will always see you, like, my adorable little baby cousin.

Anyways, it's a strange time to be alive, you guys.

It's almost like every time I go to record a video or a podcast episode

or talk about anything on the web, I feel like I have to address the heaviness in the

world. I have to tell everybody like, hey, this is what's going on in the lives of black people

because I'm black. But at the same time, like, I've always been black. It's just that, like,

I know that if I talk about my blackness, it makes people uncomfortable. So, I don't know, I kind of feel like I was kind of forced to not talk about those things, to like not stress people out. But now it's like everybody, I guess, knows I'm black now, which like was never a secret. But like everybody like knows it, knows it for real, for real now. And now I like have to address it. It's really awkward because like

people keep asking like, hey, how are you doing with like all the challenging things that are

facing black people? And I'm just like the same way I've been doing since 1991. Like not much

has changed for me personally. We live in a beautiful world created by the most amazing God,

and there are so much beauty and just elegance and exceptional things in this beautiful world,

but it's also very broken and hatred and racism and these things like they're for real,

and they're not new to me. So it's kind of hard

because I'm getting a lot of friends being like, hey, how are you? And like some days I'm like,

I'm great, man, I'm eating a salad. But then like five minutes later, I'm just like, oh, the world's

falling apart. Everything's over. But that's no different than how I felt five years ago, ten years ago, 15 years ago.

It's like this constant resilience that is just natural to who I am as a black woman

that I now feel the need to address daily.

And sometimes I just don't feel like it. But if I don't,

then people think something's really wrong. I saw one of my black friends, he tweeted,

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