Look. Listen. Receive.

Opportunities come.  And opportunities go.  Sometimes we look at them, sometimes we pass on them, sometimes we ignore them.  Often times, opportunities are windows and/or doors that God has opened for you.  You just have to be in the right place, in the right mindset to receive that which is being revealed. 

R-E-V-E-L-A-T-I-O-N is defined as the act of revealing something, disclosure, as of something not before realized.  O-P-P-O-R-T-U-N-I-T-Y is defined as a favorable time or occasion.  Hmmmmm...Revelation of an opportunity=disclosure at a favorable time.  For many, that disclosure or revelation, may come at a time in their life where everything is wonderful, you are on top of the world and there is nothing that can bring you down.  So this opportunity is viewed as, not so much as needed, but as just another way to leverage yourself and who you are.  Other times, it comes when you are down and out, all the world seems to be against you, so why would you even give any thought to embarking on something you have absolutely no knowledge on?  Both scenarios indicate a perfect time to take a chance.  To stretch your growth potential.  The only person holding you back is Y-O-U.

You see, we are our own worst enemy.  It's not the family member who says you can't do it, it is that inner voice that we are so inclined to believe and listen to that dwells deep within that has not a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of.  Call it your voice of reason, your intuition, your conscious or whatever.  Don't get me wrong, we all should take heed and be discerning.  But don't use it as a scapegoat. 

Advice, opportunities and/or wisdom comes in all shapes, sizes and even wears pantyhose from time to time.  He can look like billy goat gruff, but I'll just bet, if you get past the exterior of him, he will spit some knowledge you probably aren't even ready to receive.  She may look like she just slid off the stripper pole, but I guarantee you, she can quote a scripture that will have you thanking Jesus and running to the altar on Sunday morning.  Judge not, lest ye be judged. Matthew 7:1 Angels are God's messengers and often times, deliverers of gifts directly from above.

Just because you knew Suzie when she had nothing, she was nothing, and did nothing, does not mean Suzie was not delivered.  It does not mean Suzie was not promoted by a higher authority.  Never look down upon someone because you think you know them.  They may be the very ones that you need someday.

It takes a confident, honest person to realize they don't know everything.  And to stop learning is to stop living. Some opportunities are a form of self-development with a compensation plan attached!  Now how cool is that as a gift from above!

So walk in the power you posses and enrich your life and the lives of others you encounter.  We all have something to say and we all have a testimony.

Look. Listen. Receive.

AJoy ~ GN

The Power of Prayer

Yesterday at service, we were blessed enough to hear the brother of our pastor (Kingsley Fletcher), Emmanuel deliver a sermon that is still resonating in my mind today.  The title of the sermon was The Power of Prayer.  Minister Emmanuel gave 10 points that are produced through prayer.

1. Prayer produces humility
2. Prayer opens the heavens
3. Prayer cleanses you
4. Prayer promotes righteousness
5. Prayer changes things
6. Prayer births the invisible into the visible
7. Prayer brings empowerment
8. Prayer brings a refreshing
9. Prayer makes you sensitive
10. Prayer activates the gift in your life

Prayer is still powerful.  No matter how big your situation, no matter how small.  God still answers prayers.  But what activates the prayer and gets God moving is your belief. God limits or even refuses to work in a person’s life when that person’s faith is weakened by doubt or unbelief (Mark 6:5) (James 1:6).

Jesus taught, "…I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you" (Matthew 17:20). Prayers are from the heart.  There is no magic formula.  There is no road map for prayer.  It is a conversation with your Heavenly Father.  But the way it works is having the belief that it will be answered. 

Pray for someone else.  It's not always about you!  Recently, a very dear friend was put on a ventilator and family and friends were told that it may be switched off this week.  Prayer requests were sent out immediately.  Saturday morning, this same friend, opened her eyes and is responding by blinking!  She recognizes faces and voices!  Now if that is not a true testament to the power of prayer, I don't know what is. 

Don't give up on God, because He will NEVER give up on YOU!   

Click to Listen ~ God is Able! 


Peace & Blessing ~AJOY~

Somebody ALMOST walked off wid all of my STUFF!

As I think back to the movie that premiered recently, "For Colored Girls", I realize that each of those women had some characteristic that I could relate to.  As many of us did.  If, however, you have been blessed beyond reasoning to have never experienced pain, hurt or betrayal, then kudos to you. That is not my testimony.

For me, the realization that I had, in fact, overcome these trials came to surface when I read, and reread Ntozake Shange's poem, "Somebody Almost Walked Off Wid All My Stuff".  (Excerpt -Alfre Woodard) The operative word being ALMOST.  I was that black woman with the attitude not caring what anybody thought about me...or did I?  I was that black woman who was so hard core that I vowed to never give my heart away for fear of being hurt...again...or did I? I was that black woman who was betrayed and bamboozled to the point of no return...or was I?  I could easily still be searching for my "stuff".   My self esteem, my self confidence, my "pretty girl swag".  I realize that I do have all of my stuff.  And it is all safely displayed on my arm like badges of honor.  I have all of my scars, all of my confidence, all of my pride, all of my morals, my chipped nails and flea bitten legs.  It's all mine and no one can ever take that away from me!

But why is it that we have to go through so much to realize our worth?  Or should I say be reminded of our worth.  As little girls, some of us were blessed to have fathers, grandfathers, uncles, mothers, grandmothers or aunts who consistently told us how worthy we were.  How did we lose sight of that?  Why would we let someone, another human being, have that much power over us?  Our journey's in life are all different, but the lessons are basically the same.  God makes no mistakes.  Every little hiccup in your life, every little blip, mishap, misfortune or tragedy has been divinely ordered.  It is how you come through it that justifies the means.  We all know the scripture, God will never give you more than you can bare.  And that holds true for every situation in your life.  But if you lay down and just let life happen and continue to allow stuff to be taken from you, then somebody is going to walk off with it and never return it.

Take your life back, take your joy back, your self confidence, self esteem and peace of mind.  Go out and make life happen instead of waiting for it to happen for you.  It's a new season, and it's a new day and I'm going to another level, won't you join me??
 
Get your PRETTY GIRL ROCK on...

If your WHY does not make you CRY….

As I embark on this new venture in life, one of the very first things asked is “what is my why”?  Why do I want to do this?  What is the driving force behind looking for something more?  My family.  Hushand, son, father, mother, brother and sister.  Being able to provide without limitations.  That includes time limitations as well as financial.  Prior to marrying my husband in 2009 at the ripe age of 38, I had been a single mother for 12 years.  During that time, we had our ups and our downs.  In the beginning, when my son was younger, I was working a late shift, not able to pick him up some nights until 9:30.  Over the years, there were a variety of circumstances that would not allow me to do things I wanted to do for him.  Whether it involved being able to be there physically or being able to provide for him financially.

So here we are in 2010, a year and some change after marrying my wonderful husband and not much has changed as far as time or money.  That has nothing to do with my husband not being able to provide.  He does a very good job at that.  But I am a healthy, capable woman who should be able to bring more to the table.  Right? Right.  Just because a woman gets married, does not mean she should look to her husband to supply all her needs and make her life some fairytale we see in the movies.  Not.  As a woman, I feel it is my duty to ensure that my household is running at its peak and beyond.  A Proverbs 31 woman does not wait for her husband to bring home the bacon, she goes out and gets it herself and her husband AND God praises her.  If God praises the woman who gets up early and stays up late to make sure her family is being provided for, then who am I to sit back and not do the same? 

During my training, the one thing I can say is repeated over and over again is, if your why does not make you cry, it’s time to find a bigger why.  I have cried so many nights over not being able to do the things I want and need to do.  Some people may look at my life and say, I wish I DID have what she has.  Even if I don’t have much, there is always someone worse off than me.  This I know.  But I serve a God who says, “I come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly” (John 10:10).  Not “just enough”.  But MORE ABUNDANTLY.  It was never God’s intention for us to just get by. 

As you contemplate your why, does it make you want to walk over coals, does it make you want to get up early and stay up late, does it make you want to look at EVERY opportunity that crosses your path that could improve their life or yours?  Does it make you want to CRY?  Don’t cheat yourself or them out of discovering an answer to your questions.  God opens many doors, and none of them are wrong.  But you have to walk through one to get to the promise.

Haters, Skeptics, Cynics, Doubters - Let's Call a Spade a Spade...

We all have them.  In one way, form or fashion, you encounter a cynic on a daily basis.  By definition a cynic is: a person who believes that only selfishness motivates human actions and who disbelieves in or minimizes selfless acts or disinterested points of view.  Just because your views are not the same as others, does not mean there is a need to discredit their beliefs.  This is America.  Land of the Free, Home of the Brave...RIGHT?  Or is it?  Are we really free to believe and practice those beliefs?  Are we really brave enough to step out of formation and pursue those dreams?? For some, yes.  For the majority, a resounding no.  

 

Some are afraid to promote their beliefs or follow their dreams out of fear of being ostracized, black-listed, cast out, excluded or snubbed.  So is that really being free?  Or captive to the conformity of what is believed to be politically correct?  What does being politically correct really mean?  Ummmm, being socially acceptable.  But why do we fight so hard to have freedom, only to revert back to what everyone else is doing anyway?  And who was given authority to socially accept me? Huh, another blog another time...An African Proverb says: "There are two things which you have complete dominion, authority and control of your mind and your mouth".  Start speaking for yourself and stop thinking for others.

 

I go to work at a job that brings me not an ounce of joy because that is what I was taught to do.  Out of necessity of doing what is right and not what I want, I have embarked on several ventures, only to lay to the wayside because of cynics, haters, doubters and skeptics.  My fault.  Not theirs.  Fear will get you no where.  Fast.  Listening to skeptics will get you no where even faster.  What I call "safe players" believe is that conventional jobs give a sense of security.  They guarantee you a good living.  You got the benefits to prove it.  Right.  But what happens when they no longer need YOU?  Do you have a plan B?

As I take a new journey in my life, I am reminded that this is not about me.  It is about becoming the woman that I was put on this earth to be, to utilize my God-given talents and to maximize my abilities and provision for my husband and my son.  Walking the path that was so divinely paved for me far outweighs what anyone thinks or believes about me, or what I choose to do.  

So think about all the "spades" in your life.  Are they worth giving up on your dreams?  Are they signing your paycheck every month?  What are they doing with their lives?  Winners follow winners.  Ducks follow ducks. And game follows game.  

~Deuces~AJoy

EveryTHING is Meaningless

"Meaningless! Meaningless! says the Teacher.  Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless." Ecclesiastes 1:2.  My pastor preached on Sunday about receiving God's abundance and overflow.  Explaining that money is means. Money is an instrument. Money is a tool.  "A feast is made for laughter, and wine makes life merry, but money is the answer for everything." Ecclesiastes 10:19 We must position ourselves and change our way of thinking in order to walk into our appointed, predestined blessings.  I prayed for my abundance and overflow as well as praying for others I consider important in my life for their prosperity.  But it was the depth of the content and understanding of getting to a place of being able to receive that abundance and use it according to His will that got my attention.

Well.  As I turned to study chapter 10 of Ecclesiastes tonight I became engrossed in the story line of the entire book.  As if I had never read it before.  The author in the book, searches for a purpose to his life.  After various pursuits, frustrated by not finding satisfactory answers, he discovers that happiness is in the Lord and in obeying His word.  What kind of life would we have without God?  It would be meaningless.  He realized that the ability to really, truly enjoy life is a gift from God.  He saw that God gives wisdom, knowledge and joy to a man who is good in His sight.  To the sinner, God might give the ability to gather and collect great wealth, but it will eventually end up in the hands of someone who is good before God.  So, in summary, labor without God's blessing is truly vanity and grasping for the wind.

In these times of economic uncertainty and struggle, we must not lose sight of what lessons can be learned from our own individual circumstances.  Struggling?  This might be your time to learn frugality and be a good steward of small things so that when your time comes, God will make you ruler of great things.  Have an abundance or overflow?  This might be your time to thank God by reaching back and giving your fellow believer a helping hand.  Being obedient sometimes will cause you to question your devotion and God's intentions for what you are going through.  When you have lack and God instructs you to give what you have and you know, that you know, that you know, this is all you have. Give anyway.  When you have an abundance, and God instructs you to give an amount that puts a serious dent in the entertainment fund, give anyway.  After all, everything is meaningless. It is best to enjoy the good from your work, but the ability to enjoy is a gift from God.  God will keep one who is so blessed busy with the joy of his heart.

During my own time of financial uncertainty, believing in reciprocity has gotten me through on occasion.  And is the hope that I cling to on this very day. "What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again, there is nothing new under the sun." Ecclesiastes 1:9



Leaning on His everlasting arms...GN-AJoy

Fitting In

I wanted to share this journey from creamy crack addiction to embracing natural freedom among other important happenings in my life.  So many people don't understand my choice and I hear comments daily about my decision.  I am not sure if it is because I decided to chop all of mine off and begin a new or if it is the fact that I no longer relax my hair, so it is not "super straight", as many of us as black woman prefer.  Being natural was a difficult choice for me because I have always loved everything about hair. Whether I was wearing a weave or braids or my short crop. And growing up, I remember being called "BB" because my hair was never straight.  I have always had a difficult head to relax.  Some parts would straighten and others wouldn't. But recently, I have been reading blogs, watching youtube videos and everything I can possibly find about having natural hair.  The one thing that I kept reading was I am not my hair.  But then I read one sentence that changed my perspective on those thoughts and challenged my notion that I am not my hair.  It simply read, "I am my hair and my hair is me." And that simple revelation gave way to the ability to explain my choice in a way that not only depicts me, but also speaks volumes about the choices we have as women, not just women of color, but as a woman born into freedom.  We live in a country that affords us the choice to be who we want to be and express our own individuality and uniqueness.  Not one of us are identical. So who are we to try and fit in?

I don't think I have ever really "fit in".  I have always been different.  I have always felt different.  I loved wearing unique clothes that I would beg my mother make from a pattern I would find or designed myself.  I loved being the first in high school to wear a weave and braids thanks to a cousin who had traveled the world. I moved to Baltimore when I was 19 and I finally felt like I could finally fit in, because I didn't have to TRY so hard.  Everyone embraced their uniqueness and it was like living in a world with the motto, "It is what it is, do you." When I moved back to North Carolina four years later, I came home with a shaved head.  Because, after all, I was doing me. I did what made me happy.

You can always grow more hair.  You can always buy more hair, but what you can't buy is freedom with peace of mind.  The object of this post?  Stop trying to fit in and find your uniqueness and embrace it.  There is only one image we should ever try to mimic and that is the image of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. You better get in where you can fit in!

GN-AJoy

So, maybe...

Yes maybe, I am embracing me for who I am and Whose I am.  Do you know Whose you are?  Sometimes we confuse who we are, what we are and why we are with Whose we are. We are here not by chance, not by luck, and not by circumstance.  We are here for a purpose, with a purpose.  Now, how many of us really know what that purpose is?  No, not for the amount of money you can make, not for the status, not for the big house on the hill or the Benz or the BMW but for one simple fact.  And in doing that, sometimes you have to let go to be WHO you are to know WHY you are to understand WHOSE you are.  God wants nothing more than for us to let go of our earthly being, mimic His likeness and walk in pure, unadulterated happiness.   Understanding Whose you are can be the life altering experience that can never be duplicated.  Learn to see yourself as God sees you. Accept what God says about you and become the spiritual person you are. God's opinion is the one that counts. And once you realize the why, then you know you are forever His.

I started this blog as a follow up to my bucket list, 40 Before 40.  I have successfully marked 6 things off of that list and now on to the next....

It is now 12:47 am Thursday Sept 9 and I cannot sleep because of all of the words floating through my head. The pretty girl theme started tonight when I was looking at pictures on a Facebook page of natural hairstyles.  As most of you know, I am transitioning to my natural state and it has not been a difficult transition, but feeling pretty all the time with "curls" (not naps!! LOL) has proven to be extremely trying. So my husband, being as unedited as he usually is, says, you don't even have any hair, so what styles could you possibly be trying to get?  Needless to say, my feelings were EXTREMELY hurt.  So I ask, would you rather I have long straight hair?  What is it with men and HAIR?????? I don't get it.  So my first thought is, I will just perm my hair back.  Then, my next thought was no, this is not for him or anyone else, this is for me.  Hence, the I know who I am, why I am and WHOSE I am.  So nothing, nothing nothing nothing, can be said to deter me from embracing that and achieving this goal. Not even my husband, whom I love with every little hair follicle on my head!  So I proceeded to clean the kitchen as I do every night after I cook dinner, I made his lunch, as I do every night, I packed my sons snacks, as I do every night, washed two loads of clothes, showered, read my Essence, (which is my secret indulgence) and now I cannot sleep.  He didn't apologize and probably doesn't even know he hurt my feelings in the first place.  So all this to say, hair is just hair, it does not define me as a woman nor a human being.  It enhances the beauty I have had since the day my wonderful mother birthed me. So who am I to want to change that? Everyone has a choice, and that's the beauty of being our own individual selves. So maybe, just maybe, this journey will peel the layers back and reveal a deeper understanding of Whose I am.

GN-AJOY