Be still and listen

Some of you have been wondering where I've been lately but I don't move without the direction of the Lord.  It's important that we take time to hear what God is saying to us so if that means being still then let it be so.  I've been listening to God about some very important people in my life.  We have to allow God to use us even at times when we don't think it's necessary.  Who are we to tell God what we think?  God is going to use us anyway.  To make a long story short.  I have one child but God always uses me in the lives of many, many children.  Sometimes I get upset and wonder why I have to do it but I contribute anyway and keep it moving.  Then when I look back over it later I understand.  You know God has a way of using us to His benefit in ways that we never thought possible; in ways that we never thought we would be used; in ways that we didn't think we could be used; in ways that we wonder "Well why is God using me?".  Somebody out there knows what I'm talking about.  Sometimes life just doesn't make any sense but we go along with what God says to do anyway.  So God I surrender to you...I am listening to you...I am being obedient to you...Yes, I know that makes you so happy...like a parent with a child.  I am doing my best.  So when you haven't heard from me now you know why.  I'm being still.  I'm listening.

Listen and Obey

Psalm 46:10 "Be still and know that I am God".  When I hear that Scripture over and over again in my spirit I must be obedient to God's message.  Just be still because God is trying to tell me something.  The only way I will hear him is to stop what I am doing and listen.  You know when we are so busy doing other things (usually it is something that could wait) we miss what God is trying to say to us.  Sit on the couch, sit on the bed, sit on the floor, sit at the kitchen table....wherever it is just sit down.  Make yourself a prayer closet, a prayer space, a prayer room but take the time to give God time out of your day everyday.  It is the same as when we are talking then we are not listening.   Well if we are moving around then we are not listening either.  God has unsual methods of communicating with us...ways of getting our attention.  We must be open to what that is and what God is saying to us.  We may not always like what God is telling us but we must be obedient.  Be obedient to God's Word.  Be obedient to God's message.  You will be glad you did.

God has blessed you...

When you love someone no matter how much you try to fight it just follow your heart.  The head may try to do one thing but the heart always wins.  God may have placed that person in your life for a reason but you may not be aware of the reason yet.  God has a plan...but remember we make our own plans and God laughs. :)  You may think that it feels too good be true....no such thing because love is not supposed to hurt.  Just take what God has blessed you with and enjoy because if you let it go that blessing may never come around again.  If this love feels right then let is be so.  That is the way God intended it to be.

Good Girlfriends!

It's nice to have a few good girlfriends to call on when you need to talk.  You don't need a lot.  One or two is good.  Girlfriends that you can confide in and you know it is not going anywhere...now that is a true friend.  We all need girlfriends like that.  We can just hang out together have a glass of wine, laugh and tell each other stories, watch movies, and just have a good time.  Sometimes I fall asleep on them when they come to my house for movie night.  But they still love my anyhow (I think :)!  If you don't have anything else, make sure you have some good girlfriends in your life because they will be there until the end.  God Bless!

Dreams will come true...

God has blessed me with a beautiful daughter.  My pregnancy was very difficult.  I was on bedrest for the whole nine months with sciatica (which is a nerve that is in your back that runs down the back of your leg - very very painful) I started off with a limp, then a cane, then a walker, then a wheelchair towards the end of the pregnancy.  I am sharing all of this to say that all of the pain that I have had since I gave birth has been nothing but great joy ever since.  Perri has been a blessing to me.  She makes me laugh.  She's a great kid.  She does well in school.  She is currently an honors student consecutively each quarter beginning as a sophomore in September at University High School of Science and Engineering on UHART's campus studying for a future in medicine.  Who would've thunk?  I took her on a tour of Hampton University this year because she has her mind made up that she will be attending there after graduation and had never set foot on the campus.  As soon as we arrived she said "Mom, you can drop me off now".  So my prayer is that she will be attending Hampton Univ in the Fall of 2013 because her little heart is set on that school to matriculate in a dual program in medicine.  Hallelujah!!!  My baby will be college bound sooner than we think.  I better keep saving my pennies, nickels, and dimes Whew!  I thank God for her everyday and I will make sure that her dreams will come true.

AME WIM Quadrennial

I went to the A.M.E. Women in Ministry Quadrennial last week.  Whew!  It fed my soul.  I was blessed to be around some anointed sistahs....Dr. Teresa Fry Brown, Sandra Blair, Jacquelyn Grant-Collier, Lillian Frier-Webb, Renita Weems, Bishop Vashti McKenzie, Bishop Sarah Frances Davis, Bishop Carolyn Tyler Guidry, and the list goes on and on and on.  To God be the Glory for all the great things He has done!  What a blessed time we had in the workshops, in the worship services, at the Jarena Lee gravesite, at the luncheon, at the prayer breakfast.  When I say we had sistah talk...you couldn't get any better than this.  We walked away clothed in our right minds. LOL  For those of you who missed it, you missed a spirit-filled three days by some anointed preachers and teachers.  We learned a lot and we were able to go back home re-fueled until the next conference.  One of the books I highly recommend, please see below.

"This peace I have..."

When God gives you peace, no one can take it away.  It is an inner joy, an inner quietness that oozes from the soul.  Something that makes you feel good from the inside out so that no matter what is going on around you no matter how chaotic life may be you are still cool, calm, and collected.  Your smile is no longer on the surface but coming from within.  There's a light that shines from the inside out.  You no longer worry, the heart no longer races, the mind longer paces back and forth...but like the ocean there is peace in the waves as they move along the shore.  You can't buy this.  Only God can give it to you.  I thank God everyday for the joy I feel, for the love I feel, and, for most of all, the peace I feel everyday of my life.  This peace I have the world didn't give it and the world can't take it way.

Finding God

Have you ever been in a room full of people, yet, still felt all alone?  Like you were the only one in the midst of all of those people?  Too often I have felt like that but I have continued to smile and socialize anyway as if everything was alright.  I thank God for the bad times and I thank God for the good because it was in those bad times that now I appreciate the good that much more.  We have stood in that place and talked only to feel like no one was listening or no one could hear us..we were in a box - no one cared (or at least it felt that way).  Sometimes I felt that even God didn't love me.  Deep down inside there was something missing from my life and I had to search long and hard to find what that was.  The key here is that I did not want to stay in that place.  We have to want to move out of the valley.  Finding God was the best thing that ever happened to me.  God has been in my life since I was 18 years old but just for a while I had lost my way.  It happens sometimes.  Once I got back on track, the sun continued to rise never to set again.

Enough is Enough!

At seven months pregnant, I had a black eye and no place to go.  I was tired of arguing and being beaten by my husband.  At the time we were living in Hampton, Virginia.  One day I packed a bag and moved in with my girlfriend Sheila and her husband.  She was so horrified when she saw my face that she took pictures of it.  To this day she still has those pictures and I never ever want to see them.  She said if you ever turn up dead I will have proof of what has been done to you over the years.  I could not stand to look at myself in the mirror so I didn't look.  These are not the memories that a mother should have when she is pregnant with her first child (or any child for that matter!).  I remember one night feeling so so sad that I drove over to the empty mall parking lot and sat there in my car.  If I had a gun that would have been the end of me and my unborn child.  I felt that he did not deserve us.  I never thought that I could feel like I would want to commit suicide but I did...I will never forget that night how my heart felt deep inside if I had a heart at all.  I'm not sure if words can explain how I really felt.  But I say this here today because somebody has been there and somebody is here right now.  This is my testimony to help someone else.  Domestic violence makes us feel like we are alone in the world and no one cares about us.  We are afraid to tell someone because we are embarassed of what others might think so we hide behind the smiles everyday yet our hearts are bleeding hoping that someone notices.  We don't want to leave the relationship...we just hope that he will one day change.  On top of physical abuse, there's verbal and emotional abuse, other women involved and the list goes on and yet we still hope that it will all change.  Then one day we get sick and tired of being sick and tired and stand on our own two feet and say "This is it...Enough is Enough".  I can't take this anymore"  When it comes down to that point...there is no turning back.  When my daughter was born, I looked into my daughter's eyes and realized that I was sending her the wrong message.  This is not okay.  No you should allow anyone to treat you like this.   No this is not "normal".  Whatever "normal" was because I did not know.  God gave me the strength to move on.  Life was no longer the way I once knew it for the past 10 years of my married life but it was time to change...time to let go and let God.  Enough is enough.