My name means "She Who Walks at Dawn" in Lakota. I was born on the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota, where the Missouri River carves through sacred lands my ancestors called home for generations.
Torn Between Two Worlds
For most of my life, I lived in two worlds that seemed to conflict. The traditional ways of my grandparents - the sweat lodge ceremonies, the pipe rituals, the sacred stories of White Buffalo Calf Woman - and the Christianity taught at the mission school. I felt torn, belonging fully to neither.
Alcoholism Nearly Destroyed Me
Alcoholism took my father when I was twelve. Despair nearly took me in my twenties. I tried to fill the emptiness with alcohol, just like him. One night, after a terrible binge, I found myself at the riverbank, ready to give up.
A Lakota Elder's Wisdom
An elder found me there. She was a Christian, but she also knew the old ways. She said something I never forgot: "Creator has always been speaking to our people. Jesus is not the white man's God - He is the Great Spirit made flesh. He came for all nations, including ours."
That night, I asked Jesus into my heart. Not the Jesus of forced assimilation, but the Jesus who came to set captives free. The Jesus who wept over Jerusalem weeps over our reservation too.
Cultural Identity Fully Restored
Today, I lead a church that honors both my Lakota heritage and my faith in Christ. We drum and pray. We smudge and read Scripture. Some call it syncretism. I call it coming home. Jesus did not take away my identity as a Lakota woman. He restored it.
