It Is 4 Me

Courage to forgive…..

Heavenly father, please give me the courage to forgive. Gift me the key to freedom and joy. First for myself, forgive and free me from any resentment, guilt, hurt, blame, self-pity and judgement that I might be holding on to about myself. Release me from any mental addictions that lead to my suffering and pain. Turn my lack of self-love leading to abuse, to nurturing; victim-hood to divinity; rejection to gratitude; disease to wellness; opposition to union; expectations to understanding; criticism to accepting; and selfishness to generosity.

For my loved ones who have hurt, disappointed or betrayed me, help me to forgive them….even if I believe the offense is too great to be forgiven. Give me the strength to have compassion and love them unconditionally, as they may be hurting, suffering and in pain as well.  Help me to remember that other people’s actions and behaviors have nothing to do with me, though they may involve me.  Please forgive me for ever making their issues and situations about me.

Father, help me to accept the forgiveness of everyone I have hurt in my life. Please give me the courage to correct my wrongs and to replace my ignorance with wisdom by re-framing my thoughts and experiences. Help me to no longer hide my love behind fear, but the courage to open my heart to love again. Help me move toward the pleasure of walking through life having clarity and understanding, relinquishing my old belief systems and assumptions. Most importantly, help me to re-write my story to reflect a person, whose life has been greatly impacted and tremendously changed through true forgiveness. Thank you heavenly father for granting me this capacity and the peace of it all……Amen!   

How many of you know that our emotions are just thoughts?

Next question, how many know that thoughts can be changed?

Last question, how many of you know that we control both?

I recently had a conversation with someone. In that conversation, she revealed to me some news about a choice that someone very close to me had made. My mood instantly changed from good to bad. So much to the point of me having no desire to finish the conversation with that person. As much as I tried to hide it, she could tell. I went on for a couple more minutes, then the phone disconnected and I was not able to get her back on the line.

I was relieved. Now I had a chance to fully digest what she had just told me and be in my feelings, completely. My emotions were at full affect. “How could this person make this choice?” “Does this person realize danger in doing this?” My thoughts went rampant…..all the way to this person’s grave. I had already had thoughts in my head of this person injuring themselves so much to the point that it cost them their life.  My thoughts were grim. My emotions were raw. I cried and cried. I went to a deep dark place and stayed there until the next morning.

I woke up with these same thoughts and emotions still ringing hard. Then something clicked. I began to think about my peace and how it had been stolen because of thoughts of something that hadn’t even happened. Thoughts that were not true. These were just thoughts of things that I assumes were going to happen. I repeat….I had been robbed of my peace by my very OWN thoughts. I knew that didn’t make sense and needed to make a change.

Because I was the one causing this issue, I could certainly change it. I began to capture those negative thoughts about the situation. I then decided to change my thoughts and perspective regarding the situation. I soon viewed the situation differently. I had positive thoughts and concluded positive outcomes. I thought about what could possibly be, from a positive standpoint. Even more so, I changed my thoughts completely to something else. Ultimately, my emotions began to change.

See we are in full control of our thoughts, which lead to our emotions. We allow in our mind and heart what we want. And for those things that we don’t want, we have the power to block or change them. We can take hold of our negative thoughts and immediately change them into something positive or something else. Thus, leading to a better mood and happier emotions. A change in our perspective can set the tone for brighter and a more positive outlook on things.

Don’t allow your peace to be compromised by things that haven’t happened yet, which are your thoughts. Block the negative thoughts. Throw them back into the sea. Change your perspective! Stop your mind from going to that dark place, by staying in the current moment with what’s happening now.  Control your emotions by controlling your thoughts. Then know that our thought can change by changing our perspective…..Continue to live the very best version of yourselves!

I woke up this morning to chaos. Being deployed to Kuwait, I am currently 7 hours ahead of the US. Thus, I’m unaware of what happens at night in the US, until I wake the next morning. I began to see messages of things that scared me. Videos and pictures of parts of my city back home, being damaged and destroyed.

My heart breaks that our black sons/daughters/brothers/sisters are losing their lives to senseless violence. Violence from authority figures that we are supposed to be able to trust and count on to do the right things. I can’t understand why.

I am no longer naïve to the fact that racism is still alive. But the sad part about this is, that it’s being exposed at the cost of someone’s life. How do we get to the root cause of racism? Is it another form of hate? Is it another form of hurt? Are hate and hurt the root cause of it all? If so, how do we begin to fix it?

My devotion consisted of me asking God to HELP. We need His help like never before. We have members of a specific race, who hate the lives of those of another race. Then we have those members of that race who are angry, hurting, tired and fed up, but are expressing themselves in the wrong manner. Two wrongs will never make a right! Looting, violent protests, destroying people’s property, stealing, burning landmarks is not the way to express ourselves and definitely not the solution.    

My prayer is for my black sons and my black brothers and my black nephews and family members and friends to able to live their lives and not be afraid that their lives will be taken by hate. That they will not be afraid to go jogging. That they will not be afraid, when pulled over by the cops. That they will not be afraid that they will end up under the knee of a police officer and be the next case of senseless violence. But instead, they will be seen as EQUAL and not stereotyped by the color of their skin or how they look. That they will be treated as humans and SHOWN that their black lives DO matter.

The other part of my prayer is for healing. For God to heal the hate and the hurt in the lives of those who think it’s okay to take another person’s life because of the color of their skin. I pray for calmness and peace in America and the de-escalation of these violent protests. I declare peaceful protesting. I pray for us to know that God is in control and that He will protect us and keep us safe ALWAYS and give us clarity, understanding, wisdom, love and JUSTICE FOR ALL. Read Psalm 91…….

I went on a journey two years ago, in which I vowed to never give myself away to another man without his commitment to me and his vow in marriage. Most importantly, I would honor God with my body.

See, I endured years and years of not honoring God. Giving myself away to men, who didn’t deserve me. In return, I was left used, abused, confused and mistreated. Not to mention, the deep emotional void I felt when these relationships or situation-ships ended. I grew tired of that feeling. I no longer wanted to deal with the strongholds attached to giving myself away to someone.  

Throughout my abstinence journey, I found me in a sense. I felt more in control of me, my body and my life. I developed courage and self-value that I am very proud of. I now embrace the challenge of loving someone and them loving me for simply who I am and who they are without our judgement being clouded. I appreciate the simplicity of getting to know someone, purely. I love knowing that there will be a prize at the end of courtship. I want to gift my husband with the newly untouched version of me.

I was recently placed in a situation where I had to witness testimonies of alleged sexual harassment. While sitting and listening to the grueling details of comments, conversations and experiences, I thought about how the lustful desires of sex was the driving factor to this situation. The problem is that sex is often misused and abused and most individuals don’t know how to tame it for its appropriateness.

Abstinence has taught me to tame my desires. Yes, I enjoy sex and miss it and look forward to the day where I can have at it with my husband, endlessly (lol). However, if me rejecting my sexual desires keeps me out of trouble, then I’m okay with that. I don’t have to worry about any sexual harassment accusations; pregnancy scares; having to be tested and possibly treated for STDs; and most importantly, the strings of emotions that sex leaves behind. Not to mention, I have now developed a form of self-control and delayed self-gratification that can benefit in every other area of my life.  

Devon Franklin and Meagan Good talk about in their book The Wait, that if a person can’t control sexual desires before the marriage, they won’t be able to control them within the marriage either. And there stems a whole other set of problems. We have to learn to tame those desires.  For so long, sex controlled my life. I mean, that was the one thing that I knew how to get right in a relationship. It was good and I was good at it, but every other aspect in the relationship wasn’t. Of course, I will deal with rejection from men and being ridiculed by others because of my choice, but that’s okay. I even remember someone telling me that no man would ever go for that and that I would be single forever. And that’s okay too. Whatever God’s will is for my life!

The beauty in this is that God gifts us another chance, another opportunity to get things right every day that we wake. It’s up to us to take advantage of that. I encourage you all, to save yourselves for marriage. Yes, it’s the uncommon thing to do but that’s why you were uniquely and wonderfully created. Honor God in your relationships and give your future spouse the gift of the pure you………BeGREAT and do great things!

Commandments of Emotional Health cont……

This was the first half of a very good message to protect and help our emotional health during COVID-19 as well as in other difficult times.

Commandments for Emotional Health

• 1. Show grace to ourselves and others
  • Give what is needed rather than deserved
  • James 4:6, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
• 2. Start and end each day refueling the soul
  • Just as our body needs to be fed in order to be healthy, so does our soul
  • Read the bible; if it can save our soul, it surely can refuel our soul
  • James 1:21, “Therefore get rid of moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.”
  • God’s Word should be the first and the last word of our day
• 3. Set and stick with a simple routine
  • Predictability is an important stress remover
  • Ephesians 5:15-16, “Be very careful, then, how you live -not unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.”
  • Routine develops resilience
  • Predictability creates stability
  • Structure creates steadiness
• 4. Stop watching so much news
  • If we fill our minds with constant negativity, its going to deplete our reserves and raise our stress level
  • Matthew 6:22-23, “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!”
  • What we see, is what we will become
• 5. Schedule a daily connection with the people we love
  • Refill our cups by re-connecting with who we love
  • Connect with a single or elderly person who is alone by calling, writing an email or mailing a card.

If we implement these principles, we will come out of this pandemic stronger, emotionally healthier, and spiritually more mature.

We don’t have to do it by ourselves, Jesus will be our savior if we let him

This is a great message of hope for those whose hearts are breaking during this pandemic……Be encouraged!

Healing Heartache/ Heart Attack series- Dr. Dharius Daniel, Change Church

There is an attack that goes beyond the physical

-What can we take when our hearts are hurting? What do we take for a heartache?

-We can have an ache in one area that adversely affects another area

• When our heart is aching, it will show up in our relationships, choices
•  Proverbs 4:23 says for us to guard our heart

Some people ignore it, anesthetize it, but we what we should do is address it. However, we must understand it first.

• The word for heart ache is grief
• Grief is deep sorrow that is felt as a response to loss
• Wherever there is loss, there is grief. Where there is grief there is a heart ache.
• Whenever you lose anything of value, your heart hurts
• Many don’t know when their heart is hurting

How is your heart?

• Things like grief go undetected
• John 11:35….say that “Jesus wept”

Grief is the price you pay for caring

• When you stop grieving, you stop caring

Weeping may endure for ta night, but joy comes in the morning

Are we ignoring what we should be addressing?

• When grief is not managed, it mutates into despair……we can’t lose hope

How do we stop grief from turning into despair?

3 things that David did in the middle of his loss, that we can do

1. He wept

• His weeping was him honestly expressing his emotions
• Your willingness to weep is a revelation of your view of God
• You don’t have to hide emotions from God
• God says bring the problem to Him and have no shame…..Psalm 103:13-14
• Until God deals with your heartache, He can’t help you
• He can’t deliver us if we are in denial
• If we feel it, He can heal it
  • Be honest with God, expose our emotions to a loving father who already knows

2. He washed

• A symbol of cleansing oneself before going into the presence of God
• When you are grieving, you will say, do, think things that you wouldn’t normally
  • Fear, anger, desire for revenge, etc….you have to wash off
  • After you weep, you must wash because you weren’t called or created for it
  • This is the day for it to “Get Off”
  • Your heart becomes hard- wash
  • Your attitude becomes cold- wash
  • We become cynical, and don’t trust people- wash
  • The devil wants to use things to hurt us so bad, so that we won’t help the thief
  • What is on us, that we need to get off?

3. He worshiped

• He went to the house of God and worshiped
  • He couldn’t be mad at the only one who couldn’t fix what’s broke
• We can’t get made that something died and wasn’t spared, when we didn’t deserve it in the first place
• Celebrate that God let you have it to begin with
  • Remember that He has been better to us, than we have been to ourselves 
  • The same God, who gave it to me, will give me another   
• Worship until tears of sadness, turn into joy, weakness turns into strength, until we get our spiritual swag back       

The area that the devil attacks the worse, God will use you the most

David consoled Bathsheba

• There is a Bathsheba that we should be helping/consoling during this difficult time

When was the last time that you cried?

My last good cry was last night. I had just finished listening to a message by Holly Furtick, titled “I Know The Way.” The message simply reminded us all that when we feel lost, we are truly not. When we feel as if we don’t know the way, we in fact do know that way. 

We know that according to John 14:6, Jesus answered, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” The Holy Spirit is with us waiting and ready for us to tap into Him for guidance and for everything that we need.

Part of my cry was my heart breaking knowing of millions of people feeling lost and afraid due to the uncertainty of everything going on in the world today.  I pray that things get better for them and that we are able to reach out to them with hope and love, while their hearts are open.

I circled back and began to think of all the times that He has been my provider, healer, redeemer, restorer, protector, deliverer and all that I needed. That became the other cause of my cry. Tears of joy and admiration! I know that the SAME God, who did it before, will do it again.

We don’t have to be afraid or feel lost. What we have to do is believe and know that God is with us, as His word says that He will never leave us or forsake us. Jesus is the way. Knowing this makes me content and my heart smile.

Some men just don’t know….

That every woman is not the same.

That there are women who truly do care and will love them unconditionally.

That exposing their truth, flaws and all, and showing vulnerability is REALLY attractive.

That they don’t have to play the game of “hurting the woman before she hurts them” because not all women are there to hurt them.

That they don’t have to hide their feelings and play it safe.

That its okay to be afraid of being hurt, but the way to get around that is to take the risk again.

That most women want the freedom to be who they are all while they are loving them.

That not every woman will break their heart.

That being ready does not mean being perfect and having everything in order.

That when women have boundaries set, it is not rejection.

That they don’t have to be afraid to share their true emotions.

That a forehead kiss, is the most romantic kiss ever.