Featured

Follow the Leader

I haven’t felt convicted about anything like the way I’ve been convicted about not writing. I asked God how come I can’t just write in my journal, how I’m not sure about this whole blogging thing. It takes time, I’m not really sure what the value is, and I am not comfortable being as vulnerable as He asks me to be sometimes.

If I’m completely honest, this blog is a mirror I was not and still am not ready to face. The stories and lessons I share I have not fully learned yet, and it’s embarrassing and shameful to admit how often and how violently I fall. I hope I am not perceived as a hypocrite. I’m very clear about my own truths. I believe in who God is intellectually, and I know His voice and His presence. But I doubt His character, and I have proven to be untrustworthy by my disobedience. No sugar coating, that’s the truth. I know God loves me wholly, and that He will never stop loving me. But His plans for me require me to trust Him, so my disobedience is postponing my own destiny. This includes my inconsistency in doing things I know He has told me to do, like write this blog. It’s an abnormal dynamic to profess belief in God, but in your heart not let Him lead you.

God absolutely told me about myself the past few days, around the theme of being led/trusting. The first revelation happened on last Saturday. I’m trying to do a low-buy 2025, focusing on changing my relationship with money and consumption. I love to shop, and I had bought some purses I did not need, and I was feeling guilty and shameful for having broken my low-buy rule. I was laying down on my bed and decided up be quiet, which is rare for me. I usually have some type of background noise, whether that be TikTok videos, tv, music, something. I was reflecting on why I broke my own rule and bought things I didn’t need. And I heard God say to me these words: “you’re buying yourself a future you don’t trust me to give you”. And hearing that immediately broke my heart, because I knew it was true and I couldn’t deny it.

Doubt is my biggest opportunity in my relationship with God, besides obedience, and I know they go hand-in-hand. I’m not a person who has received a specific promise from God or specific prophecies where I was told that God would do a specific thing. So overtime, I began to doubt that God had a specific plan for me, that God wasn’t gonna do anything special with me. So I decided to make myself feel special, through different behaviors and choices. I saw myself and my patterns crystal clear.

The second encounter happened today in my women’s Bible study, and the topic was about Psalms 23 and the sheep and the Shepherd. The leader asked a question about our thoughts about God being your Shepherd. As people were sharing, I heard God say this to me: “I am not your Shepherd, and it’s not because you don’t believe in who I am, but it’s because I am not the one who leads you. Your desires lead you.” And immediately I teared up again and I could not look away. I could not deny it because it is true. My profession of who God is to me does not align with my practice of God is to me. I like to say that He is Lord over my life, and I even put Him in charge of certain aspects of my life, but not in all areas, and not all of the time.

My final encounter with God happened as I was watching my pastor’s weekly Bible study. I had my glasses off because I was laying in bed relaxing. My pastor was speaking about John, and as I was listening I heard God say these words: “take your glasses off and let me lead you”. Now this might sound odd to you, but I immediately knew what He was asking of me. I’ve been wearing glasses since I was 11 years old, and I will soon be 37. I have a very strong prescription and I never go anywhere without wearing my glasses, in fact, it would be highly dangerous to do so. I can’t drive without them, I can’t work, I can’t cook, I can’t even see TV clearly without them. The only time I don’t wear my glasses is when I’m at home relaxing, and that’s because I am familiar with my home so I never feel lost. What God asked me to do is to let Him leave me, knowing that I won’t be able to see everything. I won’t have the control that I’m used to having. And that is a scary thing for me to consider. Because even though I know that there are things that are unhealthy for me in my life that I perpetually choose, the familiarity of those things gives me peace. I’d be giving up the piece of what I know for the sense of loss in what I don’t.

I know God loves me because He is so thoughtful in how He speaks to me, where he aligns my own experiences to show me a specific theme.

He simply wants me to follow the leader~

Featured

The F Word

I may be alone in saying this, but I hate it when I hear people use christian clichés as a way of dismissing someone’s pain. For example, someone shares how they are disappointed with you about something that they really wanted that didn’t happen, and the response they get is “It’s okay, this just means that God has something better for you.” Now, while I understand the heart behind this type of response and I acknowledge that we do not always know God’s plan, these types of sayings do not erase the pain that person is in. Newsflash- we can know and believe that God’s plans for us are good and perfect, and we can still be disappointed and confused at Him for not giving us what we wanted. In our lives, our efforts may not always match the outcomes we get.

Another cliché that I remember hearing especially as a student was “Do your best and trust God with the rest.”Again, while this sounds good, and while the intention behind this statement is kind, I believe that it creates a false narrative for people. Just because you try your best and you trust God with the rest does not mean you will receive the best outcome; in fact, let’s be real- there are some things we put effort into that we didn’t even talk to God about.

The point of today’s blog is to be honest about the outcomes we have had in life and to examine our relationship with failure. Now I want to be clear that there is no failure in God, but let’s not be confused-there is certainly failure in humanity. As long as we are living on this earth we will fail as human beings; we have failed before and we will fail again. But this is why it’s important to know what failure actually means versus how we use it in our everyday language.

Failure has multiple definitions in the dictionary, but today I want to focus on the first three definitions found in the Merriam-Webster dictionary. The first definition of failure is an omission of occurrence or performance, and an example of this would be failing to get to work on time. The second definition of failure is a lack of success, like failing in business. The third and final definition of the word failure is falling short; having a deficiency, like saving up your money for a down payment, but not having enough.

The reason why I wanted to focus on all three of these definitions is because I believe that they all speak to the different emotions we have when we experience failure. Depending on the person, you may not feel any type of way if you fail to be at work on time, especially if you have a job with autonomy/flexibility. But if you work in a time-sensitive role, where you have to clock in and out every day, you might have stronger emotions about being late. Or let’s think about all of the times we failed to succeed at something. When you’re in college and you study for weeks for that test and you still only get a C grade. When you invest hours into a work project and the company decides to change courses and pursue another idea. When you launch your business after years of planning and don’t make any profit. In these examples, the outcome that you get can feel like a waste of the effort you put in.

It takes a lot of mental and emotional energy to put effort into something, not knowing what the outcome will be. This year I told myself that I would be braver and try and go for new things and put myself out there more, both in my career and in my personal life. There are two major things that I applied a lot of effort to, things that I stepped outside of my comfort zone for, and things that I genuinely asked and believed God for. Guess what? Both things failed. After the news of each outcome, I initially told myself those same tired christian clichés. “God has a plan that I don’t see yet”, “Every rejection is God’s protection“, and my personal favorite, “God I thank you for every closed door.” Don’t I sound super saved? YES!

I let myself have a few days of believing that I was fine, that I was healed from the disappointment I felt. But I’m so grateful that I am mature enough in my walk with Christ to know that God can handle the real emotions I have and that my churchy words and phrases do not distract Him from what’s in my heart. I had to be honest with Him and tell the truth. “God this hurts me, I really wanted this thing”. “I thought this was your will for me and now I am not sure I hear you clearly”. “I’m mad because I feel like you don’t care about the things that I care about”. I had that conversation with God.

But God is so thoughtful and patient with me, and more importantly, He knows me better than anyone. He allowed me to have my tantrum, and then He asked me a couple of questions in return. “So, you only want to give effort when you are guaranteed to get what you want in return?…..” “Why don’t you believe that I know better than you about what’s best for you?” Yep, He slapped me upside my head with His sandal. Again.

So, even though having that talk with God gave me perspective, accepting that I failed still hurts me, and I know that your failures may still sting for you. And while the outcomes in our lives may not be what we wanted, our effort is the win. If you gave your best, hold your head up! The failures we have in this life are not a label or a determinant of our worth, they are just steps on the journey. Know that there are future outcomes in your life that will be good; that the plans of God are for your good. Get up and try again, and don’t be afraid to fail again.

See y’all next week~

Featured

Unpacking Loyalty

“Tell me who you loyal to
Do it start with your woman or your man?
Do it end with your family and friends?
Or you’re loyal to yourself in advance?” -Kendrick Lamar

I consider myself to be an extremely loyal person, and if I’m honest, I’m beginning to examine whether that is truly a good thing or not. I’ve been this way for as long as I can remember, aligning myself with things and people that I find value in. I’ll give you an example: I’m loyal to physical books. I can’t stand e-readers, like Kindle, and I also don’t like the audio versions of books. I’ve always felt like it was a form of cheating, although I know that that’s actually nonsensical. But there’s something about a physical book that I love, and it’s to the point where I refuse to even try reading differently. Out of all the things to be loyal to, physical books is one of my top ones. But I also know that deep down my loyalty to physical books is rooted in fear. What if I try a Kindle and I love it and all the physical books I own go unread? What if I enjoy an Audible subscription and feel like I wasted money buying physical books? So I tell myself to just remain loyal to what I’ve always done, and that it’s not hurting me to not try anything new. Right?

I started with books because that’s a low-stakes game for me. But the truth is that I have been deeply loyal to some long-standing relationships in my life. I am super loyal to my friends; in fact, I have known all of my close friends for at least eight years, if not longer. I’ve been very loyal to the company where I work for the past 13 years, which feels wild to say because of how fast time has gone by. I was very loyal to my previous church for eight years, and I was all-in in multiple areas. Can you see a pattern? When I like something and I find it of value to me, my heart makes a contract with my mind, and I decide that I am fully devoted to that thing and/or person. I essentially make a non-spiritual covenant, which is dangerous in and of itself. Maybe that needs to be its own separate blog.

Now, please understand that in no way am I demeaning being a loyal person. I think that loyalty is a beautiful thing, especially in today’s time, where it seems like we change our minds about our commitments and people almost daily. My parents raised me with the understanding that if you said you would commit to something, you need to honor your word and commit to that thing. And I’ve done just that and developed some beautiful relationships and experienced personal growth and maturity as a result of my loyalty. And if I weren’t self-aware, I would end the blog right here and tell you to be loyal to all the things that are important to you and to have a good weekend. But the purpose of this blog is to be obedient and share the life lessons I’ve learned and those I’m still learning. So I need to talk about how loyalty can be misused.

Loyalty is one of those things that gets you praise from people, it inflates your ego and makes you feel good about yourself. And I wanted to make sure that I called this out because we have to recognize what gives us validation, and how that impacts our decisions. It took me a very long time to understand that my loyalty was often used as a way to avoid embracing change in my life. Instead of doing the internal work to uncover why I was fearful about change, I just celebrated being a loyal person. Then when other people around me began to change, I was filled with insecurity and I resented them because deep down, I was jealous of their bravery, the bravery I did not have.

I want to be explicitly clear about something- it takes bravery to change your mind about your loyalty to something and/or someone. When I hear about a woman leaving an unhealthy marriage after 20 years, I recognize her bravery. When I hear about people changing careers after decades in a specific industry, I recognize their bravery. When I see people pick up and leave everything and everyone they know in their hometown and move to a completely different state across the country, I recognize their bravery.

I’m going to say something that might rattle some people, but I don’t care. I have a theory that most people who consider themselves to be very loyal people are also very fearful people. I think loyal people are the siblings to people pleasers; it becomes one more way for people to solidify their value/worth to others. That’s why I said earlier that loyalty can earn you praise from people. On the surface, it appears like a beautiful trait, and it truly can be. But we have to be aware of what’s underneath the surface of our behavior. When I looked under the surface of my own behavior, I saw that my loyalty was a form of emotional insurance, that it guaranteed that what I valued wouldn’t be taken away from me. If I show you that I am a very loyal friend, you won’t have a reason to stop being friends with me. If I show you that I am a hard-working employee, you will see me as worthy and promote me. If I am loyal to you in a romantic relationship no matter how you treat me, you will pick me because I’ve proved myself. (But they still don’t).

This is where I bring us back to something I said earlier in this blog, and that is about the emotional contracts I created between my heart and my mind when I decided to be loyal to something and/or someone. I had an unspoken expectation with that contract and assumed that my loyalty would be rewarded with their loyalty in return. Isn’t it awesome? Yes! Do you think that’s what actually happened? No! I did not consider the realities of life, that sometimes friendships end, and it’s not because of a falling out or something negative, but just because we find ourselves at different places in life. I didn’t consider that some people accepted my loyalty because it benefited them, but they never had any intention of being loyal to me in return. I didn’t consider that it is perfectly OK for people to change their minds about things in their lives and that it’s perfectly OK for me to change my mind too!

Loyalty and love are completely different things and we need to be careful to not put them in the same category. Over the past five years, I have been actively allowing myself to accept and embrace change in my life, while still choosing to love deeply. I’ve changed churches now a couple of times, but I still fiercely love everyone at my old church. I’ve had friendship changes and friendship dynamic changes (which is another blog itself), but I still love and ride for my friends. I’ve opened my eyes to the possibility of potential career changes, but I still love everything that I’ve learned and gained thus far. Just because you change who and what you are loyal to does not mean that you stop loving people. You changing your mind does not make you a villain, it makes you a human.

If there is anything I could say to my 20-year-old self, it would be that it’s OK to change your mind. Life is so much shorter than you think and it’s gonna fly by, so make the decisions that you want to make versus the ones you feel you should make.

Be loyal to what will bring you your highest level of joy. We only have this one life💜

See y’all next week~

Featured

Doubting the Promise

Photo by Jennifer Enujiugha on Pexels.com

Over the last few days, I’ve been thinking a lot about the promises of God. As a church girl, I grew up reading stories about different people in the bible who were given specific promises from God. A promise from God is when He says that something will (or will not) be done, given, and/or come to pass. My favorite bible story is the one about Abraham and Sarah, and the promise they were given regarding having a child. Their story is found in Genesis, where God makes a promise to Abraham that He would make a great nation out of him. At the time, both Abraham and Sarah were in their nineties, way past Sarah’s childbearing years. It seemed like an impossible situation, but God ultimately did fulfill His promise and bless them with a baby, named Isaac.

The story of Abraham and Sarah is one of many in the Bible where God gives and fulfills a specific promise to people. One of God’s characteristics is that He is faithful to keep His promises. The bible also tells us that God does not change, meaning that He is the same God today that He was then, and that He is still giving and fulfilling promises to His children. *Cue If He did it before by Tye Tribbett*.

But even though I know these characteristics of God, it doesn’t mean that I don’t have questions about how His promises work. I’ll be honest and admit that I am sometimes doubtful about whether God has specific promises for me. I’ve has moments throughout my life where I was sure that God promised me something and ended up disappointed. In hindsight, I can admit that some of the things I called promises were really just my desires that I added God to (maybe one week we’ll talk about God’s permissive will). But sometimes, I really believed I heard God promise me specific things, and when the promise(s) was not fulfilled, I was heartbroken.

Now, I want to be very clear in explaining that there is a difference between the general promises of God given to all of us as believers, and specific, tangible promises given to people. In His Word God says that if we seek Him, we will find Him. That’s an example of a promise that we all have, and I don’t have doubts about these kinds of promises. What I doubt is whether God has promised specific, tangible things to me.

I know that promises from God can be a hot topic in the Christian community, and I’ve heard polarizing opinions on it. If you’re a single woman, I know you’ve seen those YouTube videos of women explaining how God promised them a specific man as their husband, and how it came true. But for every one of those videos, there is another video from a woman explaining how God does not promise you a specific person for a spouse, and/or that God does not promise you a spouse period. When we hear and see these conflicting realities, it can cause not only confusion, but comparison, jealousy, and envy. When you watch someone else get the very thing(s) you have been praying for, it can be hard to accept and disappointment and bitterness can creep in. This is especially true when you have been believing that God has promised those same things to you, and they don’t come to pass.

So my prayer for today and for next week is to remember the promises from God that you already have. He will never change His mind about you. He will never leave you nor forsake you. He has plans for you. And He has plans for me too.

See you next week~

Featured

Keep Going

I’m late writing today’s blog, because for the first time in a long time, I was busy with work from the moment I started to the end of my day. But I said I would be consistent, and I will keep that promise to myself.

If I’m honest, I should’ve started planning this week’s blog earlier in the week, but I avoided it because I was trying to get through this week as quickly as possible. My anxiety has been working overtime these days, and usually when I feel anxious, I do only what I have to do and then I spend a lot of time being quiet. I knew that writing this blog would require me to exert more mental and emotional energy than I wanted to give, which is why it’s 6 PM and I’m just now writing this. So since my anxiety is at the top of my mind and heart, that’s what I’m gonna write about today; having the motivation to keep going in the midst of anxiety.

Now, one thing I will not do on this blog is justify, define, and argue about the nuances of mental health. I recognize that they are different types of mental health issues and different ways they show up in each person. If the way I speak about my mental health does not align with how your mental health shows up, that’s perfectly OK. I’m not here to defend anything, I’m only here to own my truth.

When you have anxiety, it can influence your decisions in ways that you may not see at first. For me, one of the areas anxiety has conquered me in the past is through my lack of dreaming. I believe that life should be an adventure, but I worry about the risks associated, and if those risks are worth it. For people with anxiety, risk can be conflated with harm. So you tell yourself that any dream or desire that you have that is not within your total control has the potential to harm you, and as a result, you stop dreaming. Being realistic may not bring you joy, but it does bring you comfort.

I’ve been thinking about faith heavily for the past 6 months, and last year I asked God to show me the dreams that I had thrown away out of fear and my lack of faith. He showed me a few of them, and then He asked me to do something that I didn’t understand at the time. He asked me to write down every time I had been rejected in my life up to this point. And y’all, this was so painful to write, because I had to remember things that I have pushed way down in my heart. Jobs I had applied for, failed friendships and relationships, and even times where I felt rejected by God. When I finished writing, I looked at my total list, and I was troubled at how long it was. I was also troubled at how nothing was on the list more than once, meaning that I had only tried one time, felt rejected, and then quit.

It was at that moment that I realized that I have a quitting problem. When I feel the pain of rejection, my anxiety tells me that I can avoid this pain by never trying again. But with that decision, another type of pain is introduced, regret. There was so much regret on that page, and I honestly felt heartbroken.

So, in September of last year, I decided to get some flip-chart paper and write down my dreams. These included dreams for my family, dreams for my future marriage, dreams about my career, dreams about my finances, etc. I did not hold back, and I wrote down everything that was on my heart. Just writing them down gave me crazy anxiety, but just like this blog, I did it anyway.

And, slowly but surely, I’ve been working towards making my dreams a reality. I’ve also been praying that I surrender my dreams to God, and that I believe that His plans for me are infinitely more powerful than my anxiety ever could be. Some of my dreams may not come true, and some of them may not come true at this time. But I’m going to keep going and keep dreaming and keep giving my best so that I’m prepared for whatever my future holds.

Thank you God, for being my peace♥️

Please watch this video to remind yourself of who God is🙌🏾 See y’all next week!

Jaron M. Legrair Studios (TikTok)

Featured

Living an “At Least” Life

It is my belief that the most unhappy people are the those who settle in life, whether that be in their job, their relationship, even where they live. This is not to say that settling is something we should never do, because sometimes we have to pivot in life to reroute ourselves in the right direction. But I’m not talking about that kind of settling-that kind is only temporary. I’m talking about the kind of setting that is not necessary, and that is chosen out of fear and a lack of faith.

Sometimes we settle into making “safe” decisions. Now this is not always true (I’ve definitely made some reckless decisions in the past), but as I get older I have found myself settling more and more. I can provide several intelligent reasons why settling was a good decision in the moment, but the truth is, I can lack faith. Pure and simple.

In my adulthood I’ve learned that there is a key difference between a reason and an excuse. A reason is an explanation for something. An excuse is a justification for something. So, using myself as an example, I have many reasons why I have settled in different areas of my life. What I do not have, however, is an excuse. Deep down, I know that I should overcome my reasons and choose to go for what I really want and believe God for my dreams. And a few weeks ago, God showed me just how costly my settling has been over the course of my life.

I was reading a story I’ve read many times, the story of Moses helping to free the Israellites in Exodus. In Chapter 15, after they crossed the Jordan, they started complaining to Moses, about them having bitter water. So God performed a miracle, and gave them clean drinking water. But by the next chapter, they were complaining again, this time about being hungry, and they compared their current state to when they were under Pharoh’s rule and had ample food. They were so extra, they even accused Moses of trying to starve them to death!

Now, as you read on you will see that God performs another miracle and gives them food, but I stopped at their complaining. I was irritated with them, and I said out loud to God, “How could they entertain returning to forced labor and abuse under Pharoh over some food?“, and God responded “it’s because they had an ‘at least’ mindset”. And then He proceeded to tell me about myself.

To give you a heads up about my relationship with God, it’s very unique. I can hear God as clearly as I can hear anyone, and I jokingly say that He slaps me upside the head with His sandal. And that’s what He did that night. I’m going to summarize our conversation below.

Me: “I just don’t get how they would trade their freedom for some food. They watched you part a sea in half and put it back together.”

Jesus: “It’s funny that you are so irritated with what they did when you have done the same thing multiple times. It’s not about the food, it’s about them not believing that I had better for them, so they were willing to settle for what was safe. “

Me: Silence.

I couldn’t look away, I couldn’t say a word. I had no excuses. Have you ever heard something so piercing that you had to write it down? That was me in that moment, and not only did I write it down, I immediately wrote down examples of how God was right.

Here I was thinking I was better than the Israelites when I was just like them! Okay, no, I’m not in physical bondage or forced to do hard labor. BUT, there have been times when I know that God was asking me to trust Him for better, but I allowed my “at least” thinking cause me to settle, and I didn’t consider what it would cost me.

At least I have a man, even when I knew he was not the right one.

At least it’s a job, even when I was deeply unhappy.

These are excuses I told myself to justify making certain decisions, and can I tell y’all a secret? Neither of these decisions had a happy ending. In fact, they led to the same end result. Regret.

While I wish I would have realized and corrected this mindset years ago, I probably wouldn’t have listened to God or been still enough to hear His voice. But now that I do know, I have some work to do. It’s not easy unlearning a pattern of thinking, but I’m committed to doing it. I don’t want to forfeit anymore of the promises and plans that God for me because of the limitations of my own thinking, and it’s my hope that you don’t want to either. When God speaks, we must listen.

And then we need to DO something. I’m speaking to myself first and always.

See y’all next week!

Season 2: Doing It Afraid

This is my second time at attempting to write a blog. I created one in 2020 and I was fairly consistent, but I was more fearful than anything else and I stopped blogging because of my fear. What’s odd is that I wasn’t fearful that no one would read it (that’s not my goal here, hence the blog title). I’m just being obedient, and if God and the WordPress editors are the only ones to ever knows that this blog exists, I did what He said to do.

What I was fearful of was the potential for my vulnerability to be rejected, or worse, be weaponized. See, when God first started talking to me about writing a blog years ago, He told me to write about things that made me very uncomfortable. Things that I’ve experienced, choices that I’ve made, lessons I’ve learned, and things I still have questions about. This troubled me, because I very much enjoy being private for the most part. I have my close friends, who know me very well, but I have been very intentional about hiding certain parts of my story, especially those that involved matters of the heart and mind. I don’t look like what I’ve been through. Glory!

But if we are to be overcome by the blood of the lamb and the word of our testimony, that means we must testify. Now let me be clear. This is not going to be some tell-all blog; not even close to that. I’m still very private, and I will only be sharing what God tells me to share (and even that will be it’s own struggle).

The purpose of this blog is to hopefully help someone else feel seen and know that they have not been alone in their life’s experiences, and that despite what they’ve been through, they are still worthy.

Am I scared? Absolutely. Do I know how long I’ll be writing this blog for? Nope. But what I do know is that throughout my life, two things have always help me to process my reality, and those things are reading and writing. I read and write something every single day. So, it is my prayer that as I am obedient to God, He will give me the courage to stand tall, in all of my truth, with no apologies made. In spite of all of the anxiety, fear, and the MANY questions that I have of God, I’m going to do it anyway.

Oh and I love GIFs and other forms of media and you will see them often. Judge yourself💯

See you next week!