Gospel Legend CeCe Winans Offers A Balm For Managing The Effects Of Race-Based Hate Crimes and All Of Life’s Trials — And A Roadmap For Passing On Faith To The Next Generation
By freelance writer Michael P Coleman
When the Sac Cultural Hub’s CEO, Pleshette Robertson, asked me about whether gospel legend CeCe Winans would make a good spokesperson for the state of California’s “Stop The Hate! Heal The World!” campaign, focused on race-based hate crimes, a few words came to mind. And those words were not from one of Winans’ songs.
Although they easily could have, as Winans’ decades-long catalog of chart-toppers and heart-lifters includes songs like “Waging War.” One could hardly argue that a war is being fought against those who seem to be more comfortable in spewing hatred against African Americans, Asians, Native Americans, Latinos, and members of the LGBT community than they have been in decades.
But my mind went directly to scripture when I pondered how we could heal the world, in preparation for reaching out to Winans.
“If my people, who are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” – 2 Chronicles 7:14
Healing may just come from turning inward while looking upward.
What’s most remarkable about that revelation may be the fact that I didn’t grow up in church, as Winans did. But I practically grew up listening to her family’s music, starting with her older brothers’ “The Question Is” in 1981, followed by her own inaugural hit with another of her brothers, “I.O.U. Me,” in 1987.
It’s been CeCe’s musical output, with a solo career that spans over 25 years, that has literally brought millions of gospel music fans through many valleys of the shadow of death. Many of us have experienced such shadows, along with ebbs in our mood and mental health, since we have battled a global pandemic while our country has been embroiled in a wave of hate crimes., some of which we spurred and encouraged by the then President of the United States.
So I couldn’t think of anyone better to turn to than Winans, who, to my mind, put the “gospel” in BeBe & CeCe before embarking on her aforementioned solo career, co-founding and co-pastoring Nashville Life Church in Tennessee, and returning to recording, including her current album, her stunning, multiple Grammy-winning “Believe For It.” It’s no surprise that Winans is the best-selling and most awarded female gospel artist of all time!
Nor is it surprising that, according to Winans, that same Bible that gave me the inspiration for this piece offers a roadmap for weathering tough times.
“My faith has taken me through every storm that I’ve faced, and every storm that I will ever face,” Winans recently told “The Today Show”’s Hoda Kotb. “Whatever you feed the most and meditate on the most, that’s going to be the loudest.”
“But pain is pain,” Winans said, echoing what we’re all feeling, “and it’s rough. You go though it one day at a time. I remember when I lost my second eldest brother, and watching my parents. No parent should bury their child. I watched how they walked through it. It was pretty astounding to me.”
“I remember when my brother took his last breath,” Winans said. “My father’s first response was his hands went up. We were all crying, and right away, he began to thank the Lord for the years that we had with Ronald. He shifted the whole atmosphere to gratitude, before depression could come in.”
“I remember my sister asking me how we were going to make it without Ronald,” Winans continued. “I said ‘I do not know. This took us by surprise, but I know the God we serve, and this did not take Him by surprise. We’re gonna trust Him to carry us through.”
“Every day, you don’t know how you’re going to make it to the next day, but you wake up and realize you’re still here. And then it’s amazing how He starts to heal your heart.”
Winans dug a little deeper, offering concrete examples for people still managing the direct effects of trauma, like those suffered by victims of hate crimes, and those of us experiencing the secondary trauma that often comes when we witness such events, either in person or via the media. I, for one, wonder whether I can watch one more second of dash cam footage of a black man being stalked and murdered.
“First of all, I’d encourage people to breathe,” Winans said. “Because you’re still here. As long as you are breathing, there’s still hope. I love to encourage people to remember that God loves them. You’re loved, you’re on God’s mind, and because of that, there’s hope.”
“So don’t give in, and don’t give up,” Winans urged. “Just keep moving. You have to keep going, because it will get better tomorrow. Even though things are altered, and don’t look the same way you thought they would look, the purpose and the plan for your life remains the same.”
The seemingly unshakable faith that has kept the 59-year-old Winans for all of these years is being passed on, not just during conversations with people like me and live performances all over the world, but in every loving word of her latest book, “Believe For It: Passing On Faith To The Next Generation.”
“The book is so powerful to me,” Winans told me last fall, as she was embarking on her standing-room-only “Believe For It” tour and preparing for what would be a standing-room-only stop in Sacramento.
“It’s a message and a movement that I pray people will embrace,” Winans said. “Those of us who are here today [are here] because of those who went before us [who] took out time to pour into us, to teach us what was right and what was wrong, and to be there to encourage us. I was a kid, and now I’m the mother of the church! It’s time for us to make sure that we’re passing the baton, and we are pouring into these young people after us, so that the faith of God, [and] the message of Jesus Christ, will continue after we’re long gone.”
As we wrapped up our chat, Winans offered a final, practical strategy for weathering life’s storms that we can all employ.
“Laughter’s important,” said the woman with the most infectious laugh that this writer has ever heard. “I laugh a lot! The Bible says laughter’s like a medicine. Laughter will take you through some hard times.”
I typically don’t fact-check a legend, but we live in a world where you have to fact-check the President of the United States (hi there, Donald), so I knew Winans wouldn’t mind.
And she was right:
“A cheerful heart is a good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.” – Proverbs 17:22
Thanks, CeCe!
You can find Winans’ latest book, “Believe For It: Passing On Faith To The Next Generation” wherever you buy your books.
You can find Winans’ latest album, “Believe For It,” featuring the chart-toppers “Never Lost,” “Goodness Of God,” and the title track, wherever you buy or stream music.
For details on Winans’ current tour, and her 2023 Generations Live virtual conference, go to CeCeWinans.com.
You can connect with freelance writer and Winans Family “Super Fan” Michael P Coleman at MichaelPColeman.com, or follow him on Twitter or IG: @ColemanMichaelP
If you are of African descent (Black / African American) living in California, and you have survived a hate crime or incident, or you are a family member of someone who lost their life to a hate crime, and would like to share your story or testimony with THE HUB, e-mail contact@sacculturalhub.com or call 916-234-3589. With your help, THE HUB can attempt to be apart of solutions that heal the community while forging ahead to stop the hate. Thank you!
The Stop The Hate campaign is made possible with funding from the California State Library (CSL) in partnership with the California Commission on Asian and Pacific Islander American Affairs (CAPIAA). The views expressed on this website and other materials produced by Sac Cultural Hub Media Foundation do not necessarily reflect the official policies of the CSL, CAPIAA or the California government. Learn more about the Stop The Hate campaign at: https://capiaa.ca.gov/stop-the-hate/
