I wear glasses. At this point in my life, glasses are part of my identity. I have worn glasses for longer than I’ve known how to spell my name. Yet, I can still recognize what the possibility of life without glasses can bring me. The convenience of waking up, opening my eyes, and seeing the world clearly without reaching for prescription lenses is not lost on me. However, I realize that of all the prayers I pray; I never ask for my sight to be enhanced so that I do not need glasses anymore. I believe in the power of faith and my God to heal. I have prayed for healing many times throughout my life. Healing for my soul when I am feeling lost. Healing for my heart when it is broken. Healing for my body when my health or abilities are compromised. Healing for friends, loved ones, and sometimes strangers when I recognize their suffering. I believe faith can provide healing in all these areas, but somehow my eyes and these glasses are beyond my expectations of what faith can change.

I wonder how many other things I have quarantined from faith’s power to change? I wonder how many things in our everyday lives we have grown to accept as ordinary or commonplace when change is still possible? I reflect on my work in combating the HIV epidemic and the more than four decades we have spent acclimating to HIV’s presence in our lives. Like my glasses, I have never known a life without HIV. Born in the 1980s and raised in one of the Blackest neighborhoods in Harlem, NYC -- my mind, body, and soul have always existed under HIV’s silent tyranny. But please don’t get me wrong, I am incredibly grateful for the healing faith has granted us thus far in the HIV epidemic. HIV clinical research, ART, PrEP, U=U, harm reduction methods, peer health education, and community mobilization and advocacy have completely transformed what it means to live with and be impacted by HIV. But we need to remember that our faith is powerful enough to do more than help us live with HIV. I believe faith is a gateway to ending the epidemic by reminding us to envision what a world without HIV will be like. I still have faith that my descendants will be able to enjoy a world where HIV is a thing of the past. 

As a member of the HIV Vaccine Trials Network (HVTN), my faith empowers me to envision a world where a free and effective HIV vaccine is fully realized and available to all, protecting billions of people across the globe. My hope is that the faith that connects us all in spirit continues to whisper in our hearts that we still have more work to do to eradicate HIV from this world, that people are still hurting, and we still have the power to end this epidemic.

On this National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, with the theme of: “Together...We Can Make HIV Black History!”, I will harness my prayers to manifest the type of HIV-free world my elders once enjoyed. I pray that with breakthroughs in HIV vaccine and cure research, I will be part of the first generation of elders proclaiming how we made HIV a distant part of Black history. Who knows, maybe as I am praying for the final nail to hit HIV’s coffin, I will find time to get a prayer up to get rid of these glasses. 

About the US HIV & AIDS Faith Coalition

The US HIV & AIDS Faith Coalition is composed of people of faith, faith leaders, people living with HIV and people working in the HIV and AIDS response working together to develop and implement strategies to strengthen the faith response to HIV the toward ending the epidemic.

Email contact: hivfaithcoalition@gmail.com