Can I Be Your Legacy?

Life Is Full Of Moments.

Moments that can change the trajectory of your day, your week, your month, your year.
And then there are moments that can change the trajectory of your life–your legacy.

To be honest, I never really thought much about what my legacy would be. I just knew that I always wanted to make people feel safe around me, feel protected and free to be the most authentic version of themselves whenever they were in my presence. I wanted them to feel healing power in my embrace, feel movement from bondage to freedom in a prayer from my lips, and care in my love.

I want people to feel seen and heard.

But that’s not what many think about when they hear the word, “legacy.” That’s because legacy is oftentimes associated with something tangible that you leave behind once this journey of life is over.

A legacy is something you build–something you orchestrate; it takes time. It is an heirloom of some sorts; it is a means of provision for the generations that come after you and through you. I’d never really thought about what my legacy would be.

Since I was a little girl, I have dreamed time and time again of how I wanted to be proposed to. For years, the focus was the aesthetic and the romanticized aspect of it; never once was the legacy being birthed in that moment and through that moment ever a thought for me…until Friday, November 20th, 2020 at 7:53 p.m.

A little over a year ago, I was convinced that love and relationships just weren’t for me–most women experience this “conviction” at some point in their life after one failed relationship after the next. I was assured that what GOD had for me in regards to a romantic relationship was something different than marriage. Truth of the matter is I was TIRED. Tired of being disappointed by men. Tired of being disappointed by myself. Tired of choosing but not being chosen by my choice.

I remember having a conversation with the man I was dating before I met my now fiancé–we were talking about marriage and just casually having a conversation in my kitchen about what choosing someone for the rest of your life meant. I remember just sinking into myself because as much as I loved this man and wanted to be with him, there was a fear that he would not choose me forever.

Prior to this moment, I spent almost six years of my life in and out of relationship with that man–choosing him time and time again. I chose him over my career. I chose him over my faith. I chose him over myself. And despite his own insecurities and fears, I just wanted him to see how he was more than enough for me. But to be honest, the whole time I was too much for him; I just couldn’t see that because I wanted my love to transcend his doubt.

Six years of investing into one person is a long time. You dream dreams with this person–of a future with kids, a house, and a life. And you’d think after doing all of that– after that many years–that your partner would be sure and confident of you, at least enough to choose you without a shadow of a doubt. But he wasn’t.

Instead of assuring me in his love, he walked from the other side of the kitchen, embraced me and said, “You’re right; I may not choose you.”

I should’ve left him then.

After wiping the tears from my eyes, he tilted my face up in his direction and persuaded the idea that he would do everything in his power to make “us” work, I stayed. And I stayed for 8 months after that.

What broke us up?

He wasn’t “sure” of me…oh, and I didn’t play video games.

And there I was–left grieving those dreams I had dreamed. Left grieving the love that I thought we shared. Left grieving the man I thought loved me back. Left grieving the man I thought would choose me. Left grieving that idea that I was worthy of choosing.

“He didn’t choose me! How could he not choose me? Why?”
I asked myself over and over again. And soon enough I began to doubt if I was worthy of choosing at all.

A few months pass and I’m still holding on the littlest of hope that at some point this man will come to his good senses and choose me; I couldn’t have gone through all of this for nothing; that would be a waste!

Well, he still didn’t choose me…but I started choosing myself. And once I started finding myself worthy of choosing, something shifted. And what I felt like I lost, the tears I cried and the heartbreak I endured, GOD showed me that He hadn’t wasted those things (Romans 8:28). Instead, He was setting me up to meet someone not only worthy of me choosing but building something with–build a legacy with.

A year later, a man I met on INSTAGRAM not only found me worthy of choosing, but found us worthy of choosing and worthy of building a legacy with. And after 11 months of us dating, that man was so confident in his choice that he asked me to spend the rest of his life with him.

Before asking me to marry him, he said,

“I sat and I thought about what it meant to ask you to marry me, and I realized what I’m asking you to do is to build a legacy with me. That’s what I want. I want generations to come from us. I want just greatness to come from us…”

A legacy for generations.
I said, “Absolutely.”

Because that’s what I want my life to be about–leaving a legacy for the generations that follow. And there is no better man to build my legacy with than Neil Malcolm McKnight.

Neil, you are the most amazing man, and I am beyond blessed to know you, beyond blessed to be loved by you, beyond blessed to be cared for by you, covered by you, protected by you. There is no one else on this earth that I would want to travel through time with but you. You are the best thing to ever happen to me second to Jesus Christ. And I am so honored to be your future wife. You talked about wanting to build a legacy with me, and I said yes to that. But I want to ask you something…

Can the imprint you’ve made upon me–embarking and inspiring a journey of self love, self realization, self empowerment–be the gift we endow upon our children?

Can the prayers you’ve prayed over me–speaking life into dry bones–be the power bestowed on the ones after us?

Can the dreams you’ve dared to dream with me–proving that we are limitless–be the heritage that we foster and pass down?

Can the woman that you have loved me into being be the heirloom I leave behind for every black girl birthed through our oneness?

I believe that what GOD has already started in us will be the catalyst to a new generation of greatness that our families have yet to see. And I am confident that what He is doing in us, He is faithful to finish (Philippians 1:6).

You asked me to marry you, and I said, “Absolutely.”
But I want to take it a step further.
Neil…can I be your legacy?

BELIEVE that you deserve it all.
BELIEVE that you are worthy of it all…

because you are.