CHOOSE LOVE!

So every Wednesday since the end of 2017 into early 2018 I have been dropping little Snapple Facts on Wednesday’s (via my FB status’) regarding the “waiting” period/process. Most of the “under the cap facts” have been from my own personal experiences and journey, as well as what I’ve observed from close friends, etc. I started doing this just as an open forum to help other women (and sometimes men) who were dealing with some of the same issues, had some of the same questions, or just needed a peace of mind knowing that they weren’t crazy…like hello! we all go through this waiting process…and its perfectly okay to be content in the waiting season. So although I usually write about love + relationships sometimes it supersedes these topics. Why? Because Everyone is waiting for/on something. (whether it’s love, a child, career, home, ministry, car, peace of mind, whatever your it is.) Waiting is a part of this thing we call life. (And in order to sanely wait, you’ve got to OVERCOME you and all the other distractions in the process)….

So I guess that’s why the founder of this blog who happens to be one of my best friends (WHOOP!) asked me to share what I wrote on Facebook.

I really do hope this helps or even encourages someone, as it has and IS helping me. It can be hard sometimes not to harbor resentment and malice when it comes to letting go, not crying over spilled milk, and allowing ourselves to love the way God loves us; unconditionally, bitter-free and with no strings or chains attached.

While you WAIT WEDNESDAY’S:

Today’s tip/Snapple Facts: Live a bitter free life! 

Bitterness and Love can’t live together in the same heart. Each day, we must decide which one gets to stay. Bitterness breeds resentment and subtlety harbors unforgiveness. We can choose to let go or we can choose to hold on to what’s happened to us, who broke our heart, whose heart we broke. Because let’s admit it—we’ve done the breaking too. The list is endless. 

Often times I think about who I could’ve married. Who I should’ve married and how my life could’ve been so different. However, if I’m not careful and if I don’t check pride I’ll walk around hating the very people that for whatever reason—just weren’t meant to be.

There were things that I found out that caused me to be callous towards people I once claimed I loved. But at the end of the day what does that solve? Absolutely Nothing. Zilch. See the thing is this: Bitterness is a result of clinging to negative experiences. It serves you nor the person any good, and closes the door to the future. Why would we want to close the door to a promised future that’s hopeful? 

Let go of those ill feelings while you’re waiting for the next phase in your life. God cannot heal what you don’t know, or even acknowledge is bleeding. Love is free so why be a slave to all those emotions that cripple you from fully receiving one of God’s most perfect gifts. The free gift of love.  

Happy While You Wait Wednesday....<3

STUCK!

Stuck: Unable to progress. Unable to find the solution or answer. To be at a loss. To remain in a specific place or situation typically perceived as being unpleasant. To be fixed in a particular situation and unable to move.

I truly believe there is nothing worse in life than feeling STUCK!!!

Oftentimes we hear phrases like "I'm torn between two opinions." "I'm between a rock and a hard place." "My back is against the wall." All of these phrases represent someone who is at a loss and does not know how to gain.

I'm sure many of us have experienced this feeling of not knowing and the fear of not so much the unknown but the fear of feeling suffocated, feeling bound, being free but not feeling free. The weight of this posture and position in life can cause critical health issues that are not always visible to the eye because being stuck is an internal anguish. It's an internal torment. This feeling leads to stress, weight loss, weight gain, causes anxiety, and even heart failures. Feeling stuck...feeling trapped can actually be deadly. 

I am reminded of the scripture with the man who had demons.  This man lived in the tombs (also what we know as the graveyard). This man was not dead yet he lived in a desolate situation. A place with no life.  A place with no hope.  A place of nothingness. Yet  this man was not able to be physically subdued by anyone. He was so strong no one could hold him. Chained hand and foot he would break loose every time. Yet all day and night he would cry out and cut himself with stones. The anguish that he was experiencing superseded his physical ability. This man was free to leave the place of death but his mental and spiritual anguish caused him to feel stuck and unable to move!! 

Have you ever been in a place in life where you didn't have the answer?  All you knew was that you wanted to be free.  You ever been in a place in life where other people saw and recognized your strength but internally you felt weak and defeated? Ever been in a place in life where you were doing all you could but you could never seem to make any progress? You were just "surviving"dare I say "existing"? Do you remember what that felt like? Do you remember how the disappointments in life led to your discouragement and discouragement brought you to depression; and before you knew it you felt helpless, lifeless, defeated, and totally STUCK!

Do you know that there are people on our jobs, in our homes, in our churches that are in a place called Stuck! They don't know how to move forward from "here"...
Many people don't understand that just because you have things, doesn't mean that you are not susceptible to being STUCK! Some have that big moment in life, you know the moment when everything is great.  Almost surreal!  But then there's no progression from that moment.  And not only are they not able to surpass it they're not even able to replicate it. Why? Because they feel STUCK! 
Many men and women and even children commit suicide because of this. They have no one to turn to because of social status' and society's expectations of who "wealth and fame" have said they are. You know the expectations....We are to show no signs of weakness or vulnerability we are to hide our scars. Hide our truth because no one can know that we haven't "arrived"...

Well I'm here to let you know I've been in that place called STUCK. For a long time I lived there. I had no answers. I was lost. And all I knew was I was told to be discreet. Manage my pain. Keep it on the low. While it covered my title, it also killed my character. I became the strong man in the tomb. Numbing my pain caused me to live like a zombie. I was self medicating just as the man at the tomb was inflicting self harm on himself.  I was inflicting self harm to my body. May not have been in the same manner but my response to that moment caused me to make poor decisions.  Just as the mans strength would keep people from keeping him bound; my knowledge, pride and rebellion kept people from keeping me bound. But when no one was around I cried day and night, because I was stuck!! I wanted to be free but didn't know how to get free! I wanted to move forward but something was holding me. It felt like I was carrying weights in my shoes, and on my shoulders and in my mind. Where was my deliverance?! Where was my refuge? Some of us do all we can. We go to college, we go to bible school, we go to church, we go to prayer meetings and in the moment we think we're okay but as soon as we leave we wrestle with the spirit of "Stuck" all day and all night.  Even the people closest to us are unable to understand because we can't even explain it!! How did we get here? After serving, after preaching, after healing and praying for others, after delivering a life changing word.  Our lives don't change?! Still living at home with our parents, still in a mentally, spiritually, physically and financially abusive relationship and hopeless!! 

Well I'm here to tell you that it's in these moments that God is seeking our attention. It's in these moments that He is looking to pour into us. Just as He did Jacob when He wrestled with the angel until daybreak; just as He did when He put Jonah in the belly of the fish; just as He did when Hezekiah had to turn His face to the wall; just as He did when Job cursed the day he was born; just as He did when Jesus cried out My God My God why have you forsaken me?!!

God knows the trying and testing of our faith produces endurance. 
Our light afflictions is for a moment, it works for us a far more exceeding weight of glory. But hold on.....it works for us!! What is causing you to feel bound is actually working for you!

God prepared a fish to swallow Jonah! The fish was appointed! Because had any other sea animal got hold to Jonah he would have never lived to carry out God's will.

God allowed and gave permission to the enemy to afflict Job. Because although his body was touched it was established in heaven that Job's life would be spared.
Hezekiah was promised death no doubt he was stuck!! But Hezekiah began to pray and reminded God of his faithfulness and life was added to him. A place of stuck became a place of deliverance..
And Jesus after asking His Father to let the cup pass from Him; the cup He knew He was assigned to... had to die to His will in order to realize that He died to set people free. 
Have you not considered that being bound for a moment can actually cause you to set people free...for life?

What is God sparing you from in this time of STUCK?! What is God ministering to you while you are alone in your hospital bed or home alone with no spouse or childless with feelings of no hope? What is God trying to get your attention about? 

My life has been full of "Stuck" moments but I know that I'm never "stuck" without purpose.  I know that I will never be bound as long as I am in Christ. For who the Son sets free is free indeed!

So yes...while you are living with your parents, while you are going in and out of the hospital, while you are going from job to job the trying of your faith is working for you! My friend and brother would say "it will all make sense after while." Just remember while you're struggling to keep the faith..Jacob wrestled for not only his faith but the blessing attached to it!

The Cry Of An Atheist

One of the hardest things to try to understand for a Christian, is someone who does not believe in Christ. We cannot wrap our minds around an unbeliever because we have been believers for so long. Even our experiences have taught us to trust in the Lord. To depend on the Lord, to lean on the Lord. What we are not honest about however is, although we proclaim Christ, we have "atheist moments " in our lives; where we do not believe the way we ought to! We do not believe and trust God the way we say we do.

My goal in this particular topic is to not focus on what you think I'm going to focus on. As I was actually contemplating this an atheist, a self-proclaimed atheist walked by as I was standing outside for lunch. In that moment, I began to think about some of the life experiences that I have known this person to have. Surely, I don't know everything. But I do know some things that cause me to take a step back and understand how someone can stop believing.

Growing up with or around this individual, I remember both parents being addicted to drugs. I remember a grandmother who raised and took care of them passing away. I remember an uncle molesting them. When we were older, and no doubt distance in life kept us from being so close, I remember the abuse from the fathers of both of her children. I remember when her first child’s father was murdered on the street she currently lives on. There is a lot to the story that would cause anyone to not believe! How could a God allow all of these bad things to happen in her life? How could a God allow this pain to continue in her life? All she knew was abuse and death! All she knew was pain. Peace was…is... unrecognizable! Joy is unrecognizable! How could she have faith? All of these good things that she heard people say or talk about as it relates to Jesus… she struggled with. To believe in a God like that?! How? Struggling to believe the message that a pastor preaches about “It will get better.” When nothing has gotten better for her! At least not believing in better because of “God” will keep her from being so discouraged when she does not see things going the way God said it would go. To her He can't be real? If He were real than the pain would become even more real! How could all of these bad things keep happening to morally good people...? There cannot be a God that would allow all of this pain.

Numbing the truth of His existence allows one to just say “it’s just life”. Life happens.

I had to sit back and think because again I am in a place where my truth is developing who I'm supposed to be in God and if I could be honest there have been atheist moments in my life where I did not believe in a God who would allow me to go through so much pain. There have been times in my life that I turned my back on something I did not understand. Surely a God would not allow these things to happen to me and so I searched and I searched for an answer and even when I knew I couldn't find the answer in Christ I began to look in the answer through other gods. I didn't want to fully give up on God, on Christ. For a moment, I walked away from Him because of the pain of believing in someone who had seemingly allowed me to endure so much pain. Pain that had become overwhelming.

Can we all just take a moment and reflect? I believe we've all had some non-believing moments. Even if we didn't fully turn away. In our heart and our mind.. we walked away. Every time we try to put things in our own hands we are subconsciously “walking away”.

So again the question is asked? Can we all just take a moment and reflect? We've had some non-believing moments too! Fortunately, it is the grace of God that still abounds in us that has allowed us and afforded us the opportunity to pursue faith again. To pursue believing. To pursue a God that none of us fully understand. But trying deeply to trust with our very lives. Can we agree to have mercy on those that do not believe...yet? The Bible says: "The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some (non-believers) count slackness, but is longsuffering toward [a]us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance." Even in what we don't understand. Even to the pain of our lives. He is looking for us to trust HIS plan despite our pain. It is a hard thing. Yet it is a daily journey that we all must travel.

I challenge every one of us to have empathy toward someone that is going through their moment. No matter how many years. They are going through these moments of unbelief because of life's pain.

Jesus prayed for the disciples…His followers. Intently, He called on the Father to cover the believers. [John 17:1-19]

But let us not forget that He didn’t pray for disciples only…..

The red letters say: My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who WILL believe in me through THEIR message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. We are not just praying for those that believe already we are praying for those that shall believe through our message of Christ. [John 17:20-24]

Remember someone today that is struggling to believe and struggling to hold on to their faith because of the “Why's” and "How comes" of life.

So in reflecting on this question: Why would a God who loves me allow bad things to happen to me?” I can only resolve through the book of Job. When God trusted Job with his pain and God told His enemy “You can touch his life and everything attached to him, but I believe in him. I God, believe that he will not stop believing in Me. And when he comes out through his faith in Me I will give him double for going through what he did not deserve.”

The answer is: God is depending on you to keep the faith!!

SOMETIMES I FEEL LIKE A FATHERLESS CHILD

Well guys/gals, 

This blog is a little different today. I was invaded by a Facebook memory (on this day) post:

“The only man to ever break my heart was my father. I lived to make sure no man ever did that to me again. But then the man that broke my heart somehow mended it. Not by doing anything in particular but by allowing me to see his imperfections, but yet his love for me. I am a reflection of him as I too have made mistakes. Still I loved everyone that I hurt. My heart is open today to love because my perception has changed. Christ has shown me through relationship that He can use, love, embrace, and care for an imperfect person….Me. So who am I not to? #hurtpeoplehurtpeople#changedpeoplechangepeople #mended #healed #loved #movingforward#igetitnow #relieved #released #renewed #iamfree”

I wrote this 5 years ago to date. Struggling to deal with and resolve the issues that I have with my father. I could not understand how someone that created me naturally and then gave me his name didn’t want to love me. This perception that I had of my father as a child followed me into adulthood. It was actually destroying a part of me that longed to be loved by my father.  As I sat and waited for him to show up for me and felt the disappointment when he didn’t something in me created a barrier. A wall...A false determination to never let a man cause me to feel that type of pain ever again. 

Was I wrong? I had every right to feel what I was feeling because my pain was real.  However, what I did not consider in this emotional distress was my selfishness and unwillingness to examine who I had become. As a child I was innocent; but as an adult I became predatory.  A spirit of resentment grew in me that kept me from realizing God’s love and His desire to be what I desperately lacked: a father. 

When I allowed myself to grow in God and allowed Him to love me, I noticed attributes about Him that I desired in my father. I could see Him at work as my protector, as my provider, as my comforter as my guide. But what I could also see as a daughter was my disobedience, my rebelliousness, my imperfections, my error...but yet He still loved me. I expected Him to!!

What I did not realize is that I had become what I resented. Someone that did what they wanted with no regard to the one who longed to be loved by me, communication and a relationship with. In my relationship with God I had become my father! And at this revelation I began to plead for forgiveness and another chance to love the right way. The way 1 Corinthians 13 teaches us. I began to see my imperfections and began to embrace my father through my Father.  

5 years later, my relationship with my father is not where I desire it to be but it’s not where it was. Why? All because I made a decision to love my father through the eyes of my Father. His flaws, his imperfections, his inconsistencies…I am a reflection of him. So when I feel these things and these emotions began to fester naturally I began to ask God to forgive me of my flaws, my imperfections and to mend my heart through it. Because I am never alone! God is always with me. He has always been my Father.  [Psalm 27:10] And my Dad….my natural father has been chosen by God to be just that. I have to trust God’s purpose over my plans!

Testimony:

I had a vacation planned this year. My money was weird. I didn’t feel like I could expect anything from my father but he came through for me. Not once but twice. I have spoken to him more this year than I have in a long time. We don’t speak every day. However, I trust God’s purpose. The freedom that I feel is in my heart. I am free to love and to be loved...because I am committed to the process and I trust that the relationship is in the process of restoration and it’s all because of His Name Sake...Stay tuned!

My Plan vs. His Purpose

Many are the plans in a person's heart, but it is the LORD's purpose that prevails

Proverbs 19:21

Rephrased:

Plenteous are the devices of a person’s appetite and own will

And….

Another version says Many are the plans in a man’s mind

This lets us know that the mind and the heart are synonymous.  It is the will. The emotion. The soulish realm.  It is "mans" agenda before God intervenes.

This alone is a statement that requires caution to say the least. 

It is our human nature to have desires, wants, needs, agendas, goals, and plans for our future.  Some of the plans we have are strategic, organized, well thought out and for some of us they are spontaneous in nature.  But the idea is we all have agenda’s and plans concerning our lives.  The question then becomes, “what is wrong with this?” Why can’t I have goals?  Why can’t I have dreams?  Why can’t I pursue after what I want?  I’d find it very difficult to contend, dispute or argue with you because I too have plans and goals for my own life.  And I want to achieve them! 

But while I was in Bible Study last night a scripture was read that concerned me. 

James: 4:3 “You ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.”

The motive behind what I want is in question here.  But why?  What’s wrong with what I want?

The intent.   God looks at the intent of our plans and the motive behind what our agenda is and He dissects its truth.  We don’t fully know why we desire what we desire but He does.  And He weighs our ambitions and determines that His purpose is far greater than our plans.  Because of some of our motives. 

The Bible says that our hearts deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.  Who can know it? Jeremiah 17:9

This speaks to the cunning and divisive measures we will take to fulfill our desires. The lengths we will go to do what we planned.  The measures we will take that's not always integral because we want what we want so badly.  Was it not in the garden? Was it not found in Cain? Was it not seen at the tower of babel?
 

Our desires can be intrusive and detrimental to our purpose which is ultimately God’s purpose in us. 
 

Only the One that created it can know it. And He judges the matter.  And rescues us from ourselves by placing His purpose in us before we were even born.

Jeremiah 1:5  “Before you were born I knew you, set you apart, and appointed you.  God placed purpose in us before we became “us”.  

The hard thing is trusting that His purpose is greater than our plan.  Because our “plans” we know.  But His purpose He knows. 

We want to KNOW.  And it is a struggle to believe that anyone other than ourselves could have something greater for us than what we plan. 

But if you believe His Word.  You must learn to rest in it….

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future 29:11

Can you trust His plan.. Can you trust His purpose (telos meaning ultimate goal the final cause of it all)? Can you trust that God knows your ending and Him interceding and intercepting your plans is for your good?  Can you trust that the idea that you have.  The business plan that you drew.   The manuscript that you created….It’s delayed for a reason.  It may even be denied because God has better?

Testimony:

I had a fiction novel that was going to be based on some truths of my life but the plan was to label it fiction anyway because the details were not becoming to who I knew I was becoming.  But I wanted to write it anyway.  I wanted to be the next Terry McMillan.  I knew I had the ability.  I knew my writing was good enough.  One day, my USB stopped working.  And I thought ok well I have it on my pc so I’ll just check it out when I get to work.  My PC caught a virus and the I.T. person said don’t worry I will have everything transferred over.  You shouldn’t lose anything.  But when he finished…it was gone.  I was devastated!  This was my meal ticket!  I was angry.  For years I couldn’t write anything else.  I thought I had writers block.  No.. I didn’t.  God blocked my writing!  And He allowed me to mature to see that what I wanted to write had no purpose in my future.  When I accepted that “Get Ya Life” was birthed.  It took a little over a week to complete a whole book! Because it was God’s purpose and I accepted it! And it will prosper all over the world because it was His plan for my life. 

I choose God’s purpose over my plans.

I challenge you to do the same.