Misread From the Start: David, Saul, and Me. Notes From My Reading Today | Part 1
I sat down today to read the story of David and Goliath because our Bible study is about faith. I thought I was going to read something familiar and keep it moving.
I kept reading about David and Saul, and it started feeling like a mirror. David’s story isn’t just about a giant. The deeper thread is what happens when someone is misunderstood, underestimated, and treated like the problem when their heart isn’t the problem. The story also shows what it feels like when a room decides who you are before you ever get the chance to speak for yourself.
I want to say this up front because I don’t want anyone reading this thinking I believe I’m perfect. I’m not perfect. I’ve made mistakes. I’ve made decisions out of survival, out of fight-or-flight, out of anger, and out of exhaustion. Those decisions didn’t come from wanting to intentionally hurt people or be mean or ugly. Those decisions came from trying to make it through seasons where I didn’t have the tools, the language, or the support.
Two things can be true at the same time. Gratitude doesn’t cancel truth. Truth doesn’t cancel gratitude.
I’m sharing this because when I read David’s story, I realized the pain didn’t start when Saul picked up a spear. The pain started when people decided who David was without seeing his heart. That part felt too familiar.
The family video that still messes with me
There is a family video of us at my aunt’s house on Christmas Eve, and I had beads in my hair. I was hopping around, flopping my beads, and being a very whimsical, outgoing kid.
I watched the video later in life and saw my mom’s mom with a belt in her hand. She kept striking me on the video because she wanted me to sit down. The video shows my sister sitting quietly. Other kids and other people were around, so it stands out that she kept getting on to me.
That moment makes me emotional to the point of tears. That little girl needed so much from the adults in that room. She needed so much from her family. She needed to be affirmed. She needed to be free. She needed somebody to nurture her creativity and make her feel good. She needed somebody to look beyond what annoyed them or what made them tired and ask what was really going on with her.
My family responded to the behaviors they could see. The adults didn’t look beyond that to understand what I was dealing with, including trauma at home that I suppressed until I was 27 years old. My heart was always sad, and I never showed it. My creativity, my personality, and my love for people made it look like I was okay. The truth is that I was a very angry child who carried a lot of hurt.
ADHD and how I got mislabeled.
This part matters, too. I was diagnosed with ADHD at a young age, and a lot of my bouncing around makes sense when I look back.
A lot of Black kids were getting diagnosed with ADHD during that time and given medication, and my mom was against that. She didn’t believe medication was what I needed. She felt like discipline was what I needed, and she got me to adhere to it by tearing my butt up so that I could fall in line and behave. She also didn’t have time to keep coming up to the school reinforcing why I needed to push through my homework, stop getting distracted, and complete the tasks she told me to complete. She didn’t have the energy to tell me a thousand times to sit down and be still.
That approach shaped how my energy was interpreted. Movement became “disobedience.” Struggling to focus became “acting out.” A child who needed structure and understanding got treated like a child choosing to be bad.
“Too grown” and being judged by appearance.
Misunderstanding didn’t only show up in behavior. It also showed up in how adults talked about my body and my appearance. Comments came that weren’t appropriate for a child. The label “too grown” got attached to me, even though that wasn’t who I was.
That kind of judgment does something to a kid. It makes you feel misunderstood in your own skin. It makes you feel like you’re being talked about instead of cared for. It makes the outside louder than the inside.
The “bad” label and what it did to me.
The troublemaker label followed me around. Assumptions got made about me because of my parents, and those assumptions shaped how I got treated.
That label made me feel overlooked a lot. It made me feel like the extra one, like David in the field while everybody else was inside. Creativity and a big personality got treated like I was being “extra.” My ideas got suppressed because the people around me weren’t that type of thinker or doer.
One of the things someone said about me as a child that stuck with me in a bad way was that I was bad and “too grown.” One of the good things I remember someone telling me is that I was talented, a hard worker, creative, and that I had a good heart.
The teachers who poured into me, and the ones who did not.
Middle school was bad when it came to my peers. Middle school wasn’t as bad when it came to a couple teachers who poured into me. Those moments mattered because not many people were taking the time to see me.
I also had an after-school program leader who wanted me to do Phenomenal Woman for a Black History Month program. I remember thinking, me. I didn’t even know what a phenomenal woman was at that age. I knew who Maya Angelou was, but I didn’t understand the meaning behind it.
She explained it to me. She told me what it meant. She made it clear that I was a phenomenal woman and that I was going to be one. Her presence was intimidating. She was the kind of woman everybody noticed. People were surprised she even noticed me.
That invitation did something to me. I got excited. I talked about it at school once I understood what it meant.
A Black female teacher questioned why someone would ask me to do that, like I was definitely not that. I won’t name her, but I’ll never forget that moment.
High school had a similar moment. I had a math teacher who helped me. Math isn’t my favorite subject, and she did help me get better. That part is true.
I also remember being so interested in AKA Teens during that time. I wanted to be in AKA Teens because I heard her talking about it to some of my other classmates and friends who were a little bit more eloquent at school than I was. I wanted to be around something bigger than what I was used to, learn some new things, and see what I could become outside of my environment.
She overlooked me. She didn’t have to say it out loud for me to feel it. “Too ghetto” was the message, even if it was never said directly. My grandma (dad’s mom) didn’t play about how I carried myself at home. She really didn’t want me acting like that in public. School and home were two different worlds, and I was figuring myself out in real time.
I succumbed to the ghetto life, and I liked it there during that time, if I’m being honest. Now, my perspective is different, and some of those moments feel cringe, and that is why I say I can’t stand it. Growth will do that to you. You grow beyond your environment, and you look back like, whew, I can’t believe I used to move like that.
A rough upbringing gave me some things I’m still glad I have. I’m more relatable because I can connect with people from different walks of life. I can survive in any setting. I can walk into a room with polished people and still belong. I can walk into a room with people from the trenches and still belong. That kind of range comes from experience.
Those moments sting because educators are supposed to help people see more in themselves, not write them off with labels, especially when someone is already carrying a lot.
Life is funny, though. She overlooked me back then, and I’m an AKA today, so I guess it worked out exactly how it was supposed to. The girls she would have chosen back then aren’t even the girls who represent what our sorority is supposed to represent today. That isn’t shade. That is just life in hindsight.
Honoring what my family gave me.
I don’t want my grandma to read this and feel like she didn’t have significance in my life, because she did. I’m talking about my dad’s mom. She gave me a lot. She taught me financial smarts that I’m getting back to now. She taught me how to read when I was three.
My dad’s mom also gave me a journal when she was deployed or PCSing and she had to leave, and I had to grieve her being gone. It was a pink journal or diary with a little gold lock on it. She told me to pass the time by writing creatively, writing about all the things I could potentially write about, so my mind wouldn’t sit in negative stuff. That sparked my creativity, and it stayed with me.
My mom gave me strength too. I learned how to push through, how to not be scared of a challenge, how to not be scared of people, and how to get up after you fall and keep going.
My dad taught me that life can happen to you. He also taught me mental toughness through what he endured.
Why I see myself in David.
This is one of the reasons I see myself in David. I didn’t come from a silver spoon family. I came from a hardworking, dysfunctional family, and my grandmother raised me most of my life.
Underestimation is familiar to me, and it was familiar to David too. David was young. David was small. David wasn’t who people expected. David ended up making a liar out of everybody’s assumptions.
David being left in the field is the part that sits with me. That isn’t only a location. That is a feeling. That is being present but not considered. That is being treated like you don’t belong in the room where decisions are being made about your life.
God still chose him.
Saul teaches me that hate isn’t always coming from someone who lacks. Sometimes it comes from someone who already has the seat, the title, and the resources. Insecurity doesn’t care what you have.
When I say haters, I mean I’ve always had haters.
When I say haters, baby, I’ve always had haters. I was telling my husband about Saul and David, and the story really frustrated me. David didn’t ask to have the gift he had. David didn’t ask to have strong faith. David wasn’t hell-bent on proving people wrong. David believed God and trusted God to see him through.
Saul was a king. David wasn’t a king. David started as a shepherd, then he became a musician in Saul’s court, then he became a soldier and a leader in battle. Saul still had more than David. Saul had the position. Saul had the title. Saul had the resources. Saul had everything David didn’t have yet, and Saul still couldn’t stand him.
That is what makes it so crazy. People can have everything and still be a hater. People can already be chosen, already be elevated, already be sitting in the seat, and still be threatened by someone who is simply walking in what God gave them. The receiving end of that kind of hate will have you confused, because the logic doesn’t logic. You already have what it takes. You already have everything. You still decided to hate on me.
Saul had strength. Saul had the ability to lead. Saul also had jealousy, frustration, and anger he refused to deal with. David started shining, and David started surpassing even what Saul had accomplished. David started getting recognition, and Saul couldn’t handle it. Saul went to great lengths to harm David, and it was really crazy to watch.
The story made me think, haters have existed since the beginning of time. The story also made me think about middle school. David was just trying to be himself. David was doing what God equipped him to do. Saul was an older man whose son was David’s best friend, and even Jonathan was basically telling him, “This is my twin. We locked in. Please don’t hurt him.” Saul still wanted David dead.
That part hit me because it reminds me of how it felt when I was younger. I didn’t even feel like I was all that back then. Guys liked me, and I guess my light was visible in a way I didn’t understand. Some girls didn’t like that. Some guys didn’t like that either, especially the ones I wouldn’t give play to because we were young. Those people tried to kill me internally with rumors, shade, and public embarrassment. Those people tried to make me feel small for simply being me.
That is what Saul does when he can’t control his insecurity. Saul tries to destroy what he should have nurtured.
The question I used to carry.
My mind connects things in a way that might seem random to other people. Music does that for me sometimes. Megan Thee Stallion has a song called Flip Flop that I love because it is relatable. She has a line that says, “They be asking why me and not them, and I be asking the same.”
That line used to feel like my whole life.
People would look at me and wonder, why her. People would look at my background, where I grew up, where I came from, and they would look at my parents. People would make assumptions, and I know they did because it always got back to me.
I asked the same question when I was younger. I used to be like, why do I have to keep going through things. I used to want to live my life and do my thing without all the extra stuff that comes along with being misunderstood, being underestimated, and always having to prove you are not what people decided you are.
God kept blessing me and kept putting me in positions I didn’t even feel ready for. I would tell Him I was tired.
The difference now is that I don’t ask that question the way I used to. I asked it when I was tired and younger and trying to survive. I understand now that God’s choices don’t have to make sense to people who don’t know what He put in you.
The point I’m closing with.
Labels can ruin a person if they start believing them. Labels can also expose the heart of the person using them.
That is why I’m careful now, especially as an educator and as a therapist. Patience gets tested in classrooms, in offices, in families, and even in therapy rooms. A person can show up in a way that makes you want to write them off, and that is usually the moment where you should lean in with discernment instead of deciding who they are forever.
Therapy is personal. People sit across from you in a vulnerable position, trusting you with their deepest, darkest, or even the things they don’t understand about themselves yet. Labels carry weight. Words carry weight. The goal isn’t to put someone in a box. The goal is to help them understand themselves and move forward with truth and care.
Part 2 is about the Goliaths people didn’t see, including teen motherhood, loneliness, school, depression, rebuilding confidence, and losing a close sibling.
Read these if you want to go deeper:
David’s anointing and being misread: 1 Samuel 16:1–13
David being questioned and underestimated: 1 Samuel 17:28–29
Saul’s jealousy and the shift: 1 Samuel 18:6–9
Saul escalating to violence: 1 Samuel 19:9–10
God holding you when people fail you: Psalm 27:10 (optional)
