By QuaWanna Bannarbie

These three words. It sounds like a grievance or complaint that someone would say because a bully or something has been troubling them. It could be an expression of great anguish following a long-endured struggle or battle with personal vices that are unrelenting. Perhaps it is the plea of an uneducated victim whose desire for freedom is no less significant because he or she does not properly speak the English language. “Let me be” is as much a cry as it is a command.

It is National Bullying Prevention Month. For every person that has experienced a time when someone else held power over or caused a fear that victimized them, these three words are written on their chest. These small words suggest that the victim is making a request to be left alone or request for the torment to cease. If you understand the meaning of these three words, you would understand that the one who wields the power of these words needs no one’s permission to be free.

LET. Three letters form this leading word. We use this word often to refer to allowances.

Our Heavenly Father introduced us to its imperative significance because he spoke “let” when He created life. “Let” is an articulator and cultivator. It brings to the scene what is unseen and makes known to public view what was figurative or only imagined. “Let” is the authority that ushers in the words that follow it as the law.

ME. This two-letter word refers to the person that stands in the mirror to view the image that looks back. “Me” is at the center stage of the colloquial and familiar events in day-to-day personal dealings with the one and only.

BE. Simply put, it means to exist. Arguably the strongest and most directional word in the three-word phrase. In the creation story, each time God spoke “let,” the word “be” pointed toward where His command was directed, and so it was. “Be” is the bloom and the bringer of maturing, earthly existence. Our becoming is the development of an outcome we are unaware of its details but must trust that it is fully devised.

When you ponder the strength of these singular meanings, you must look at the phrase again.  What does that mean for a command about me?

LET ME BE. Change the perspective that these three words are the cry of a victim asking permission to be released from something he or she would rather not live through. I saw these words as power in my mouth. The more I confess it, the more alive my inner man becomes to me than what people may try to harm on the outside. The more I build the inner man, the stronger I wield the power of LET ME BE. The woman on the inside begins to answer the call to come forth. In that power, we can no longer be victims. The one you envision to be already exists. Be Him. Be Her. Command their feet to move. Let no bully stop you.

QuaWanna Bannarbie is an adjunct professor of nonprofit leadership and management with Indiana Wesleyan University, National and Global. Her children attend Suffolk Public Schools. Connect with her iamquawanna@thebiggerme.net.