Last month, I learned I had been accepted into a communicator’s coaching program. Our cohort met in-person for the first meeting in Dallas yesterday. The group was an amazing group of women, in all seasons of life, from different areas around the country. I need to tell a little backstory before I get to my point…

The summers before my junior and senior high school years were spent in Houston, TX on the campus of Texas Southern University (TSU). I was selected into the NASA Summer High School Apprenticeship Research Program (SHARP) PLUS Program. It was essentially a S.T.E.M. research program that afforded high school students the opportunity to perform research within the industry, and several universities hosted the apprentices on their campuses. The program director on TSU’s campus was Dr. Halcyon Watkins. We mostly engaged with our facilitators, but during some reflection time last month when I was seriously considering walking away from nursing leadership, Dr. Watkins’ name came to the forefront of my mind. I googled her to see if she was still teaching at TSU and found all of these articles about her life experiences. Having lived in both the north and south during the Civil Rights movement, she participated in national events, campus organizations to support minority students, and local sit-ins in the Houston area.

I think knowing her personally, somehow made it more real that someone during their lifetime did something so that I could live a better life. It made me rethink my decision about continuing the good fight. There is a lot of talk in our culture about having a seat at the table. Let’s be real, some seats are hella uncomfortable. Maybe your seat is a folding chair and doesn’t even allow you to be at the same level as everyone else at the table. MAYBE your seat makes you feel like you’re sitting Indian style on the floor. Maybe your seat is SO comfortable, it’s molded to your butt cheeks! Either way, the truth is sometimes it just ain’t about the seat. Maybe it’s the table that’s wobbly and uneven, has rotted out over time, is beyond restoration, or maybe was eaten up during a horrible termite season. I love this TED talk by Lilly Singh that popped up in my LinkedIn feed this morning. I came to two conclusions after listening to this video.

1. There IS still value in having a seat at the table, building on the work of those before us.
2. AND sometimes the need we are trying to meet requires building a new table.

We have to continue to do one or the other. Even if we don’t get to see our promised land, generations down the line will still benefit from our commitment of being present and being a wise builder.

“If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward” – 1 Corinthians 3:14 NIV

To come back full circle to yesterday, there were some women in the room that are being called to build new tables, navigating spaces in the life that are new and unknown. I am excited to see how the Lord will use this process to do His work!