Practicing What I Preach.

I have been looking through my Bible for something to read that captivates me. I love to read "stories" that clearly show me how I should live, tell me how to build my relationship with Christ, and build me up when I am feeling down. So book by book, chapter by chapter, and verse by verse, I scanned and looked; then my Dad pointed me in the direction of Job. I have only read five chapters but I already find myself somehow relating to Job. Job was a very wise, faithful follower of Christ but God allowed Satan to tempt Job. After two failed attempts of Satan trying to destroy Job's walk with God, Job started questioning everything. He couldn't understand why bad things were starting to happen him and wondered why God had even allowed to be put on this earth. Job shared his thoughts with three of his friends and it was then Eliphaz the Temanite said to Job, "Think how you have instructed many, how you have strengthened feeble hands. Your words have supported those who stumbled; you have strengthened faltering knees. But now trouble comes to you, and you are discouraged; it strikes you, and you are dismayed." Job 4:3-5 That made me start thinking, how many times have we given advice to someone who was hurting but we weren't able to take own advice in our time of need? I, for one, am really great at whispering words of hope and encouragement to a friend who is hurting but when I am hurting I am beyond help. When I find life is getting too much for me to handle and I feel like I keep getting knocked down, I just think it would be easier to throw my hands in the air and give up. How many of us know how to fix everyone else's problems but we haven't the first clus as to how to mend our own loves? I think God led me to the book of Job to show me that I need to "practice what I preach." I need to start learning how to take my own advice in my times of despair and how to trust in the Lord to take control of the things I can't take care of on my own. God never promised us this life was going to be an easy one, but He did promise us repeatedly that He loves us and He will work everything together for the good in our lives according to His ultimate plan. “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” Romans 8:28 “Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.” Isaiah 41:10

Hey! Big mouth.

It is no secret that I am beginning a new chapter in my life, and anyone who has ended one chapter and begun another one knows that it is no easy task, especially when you are writing in ink with little room for error. I don't get to go back and erase and start over, not this time, because this chapter is different. This one is about me and God, it's about me getting things right, being an example to others, and finding my purpose in life, mainly, it's about me reaching my full Godly potential.


Well once again, God put me exactly where I needed to be, exactly when I needed to be there. I was lucky enough to be able to attend a Joyce Meyer conference last night and it wasn't irony that her message was all about our mouth. I have a really big mouth. I very rarely think before I speak and I say things that offend people without even realizing it. Although I hate to admit it, I have been known to say wonderful things about God and in the very next breath say things out of frustration that shouldn't be said. I have never really thought about how much our words mean until last night. Think about it: sometimes we say things out of anger and we can apologize but the words are never forgotten, we can say sweet things to people we care about and those words will be remembered forever, we can give advice to someone who desperately needs it and just those words could make the difference of a lifetime. I have said things that I know I shouldn't say and right after I say it I think, "you dummy, why did you just say that?!" After I say something incredibly stupid, I can feel God pull away from me just a little bit but it's enough for me to know He is disappointed in me.


Joyce Meyer asked the question, "How many messes have you made in your life just by your mouth?" That really got me thinking. How many times I have made a promise but broken it causing people to lose their trust in me? How many times have I told a lie to my parents causing them to not trust me? How many times have I messed things up in my life just by talking? The answer to that question is too many times and too many messes. It also got me thinking what if I hadn't made those messes, where would I be today? It was my mouth that got me kicked out of my parents house at 17.. What if I had kept my big mouth shut, would I still be living there? Of course, I can't live in the past and keep asking what if, but an important lesson can be taken from this. I can pray for God to help me think before I speak, I can pray that He can give me the words to say and help me refrain from saying the words I shouldn't, and just maybe I can stop making such huge messes out my life. Maybe then, I won't have to wonder what if I hadn't had said that, or wonder if I have messed up one of God's little plans leading up to His big plan for my life.

"No regrets, not this time.. I'm gonna let my heart defeat my mind."

Lately I have been feeling empty. Empty and broken. I am alive but I am not living. I have realized that I am four months away from being twenty years old and I have absolutely nothing to show for the past twenty years of my existence. I have come to find that life passes by way too quickly. The most important thing I have learned lately is that if I don't take control of my life right now and search for my purpose, I will always feel this sense of emptiness and brokenness, and I will always be lost searching for something. This isn't the first time I have felt this way and the cure is simple, I just never stick with it so I can fully heal. You see, I am a people pleaser. I am one of those people who care entirely too much about what others think about me and I want to be loved and accepted by absolutely everyone. I don't stop to think about the consequences that come along with "people pleasing." Trying to please everyone around me has caused me to lose myself completely. I have to stop and question who I really am, who I want to be, and what I am here for. Well, I think it is time I take my identity back and reclaim who it is I want to be.

This is who I am:
I am someone who has seen more than my fair share of dark days, but I have never let that define who I am as a person. I am someone who likes to set goals but has a very hard time following through with any of them. I do not forgive easily and struggle with letting go of the past. I am a girl who should definitely still not be alive today, but I am and I feel like God has something HUGE in store for my life. I am someone who loves God with everything in me, BUT I do not attend church or read my Bible the way I should.
                     


                             WILL
This is who I want be:
I will be someone who has more than her fair share of dark days, but I will continue to never let that define who I am. I will be someone who sets goals and follows through with them. I will pray for the ability to forgive and to let go of the past. I am a girl who will figure out what God's purpose is for my life and I will do everything I possibly can to serve that purpose. I will continue to love God with everything in me, AND I will attend church and read my Bible the way I should.


Empty and broken is not going to be my future. I know what the cure is and this time I am not letting it go.  Life is too short to continue going backwards or not moving at all. "NO REGRETS, NOT THIS TIME... I"M GONNA LET MY HEART DEFEAT MY MIND."

See You Later Great Grandma Seattle.

Ninety six years you have ran this earthly race,
Now God has taken you home with Him to a much a better place.
Your perfect, eternal life has only just begun,
Selfishly I find myself wishing time could be reversed, somehow redone.
You may not know it but your life has taught me lessons I will carry with me always,
Overcoming obstacles, exceeding expectations.. You never ceased to amaze.
If an ounce of your strength was passed down to me I know I will turn out okay,
I find comfort in knowing you are an Angel now, smiling down on all of us today.
The pearl gates you have entered and you are walking on streets of pure gold,
You get to stand with God and watch the rest of our lives unfold
You are already dearly missed.. That goes without saying,
But the Lord wanted to end your suffering and take you Home.. He answered the prayers we have all been praying.
I never got the chance to say goodbye but that is just fine because I would rather say see you later,
I am patiently awaiting the day we are reunited alongside out Creator.
We are not here mourning death but instead celebrating the life of the woman we know as mother, mammaw, and great grandmaw,
This is not goodbye.. This is see you later and I love you from us all.

Life's Hard Kid!

Life's hard kid you have to suck it up and be a 'man,'
never say you can't because you can.
Often curveballs are thrown our way,
but you have to deal with it the best you know how and continue with your day.
God doesn't give us more than we can handle and He knows what's going to happen before we do,
so put your faith in Him and spare some for you.
We can sit around all day asking why,
life can push us so far we just want to die.
Sometimes we have to pick ourselves up and be strong,
while knowing our decisions are right for us even if others say they're wrong.
A lot of times things don't go as we wish,
in a sea full of sharks, we are the goldfish.
Let's face it! Life is usually mean and cruel,
many times we get played for a fool.
Deep down EVERYONE has super hero strength they never knew they had,
we amaze ourselves by it when things get bad.
Unfortunetly life isnt butterflies and calalilies,
life plays harsh jokes and makes us look silly.
You have to choose to rise above and be better than your surroundings,
once you put your faith in God and realize how strong you really are.. You can achieve great things.
So I know life's hard kid.. But be HARDER,
have faith, Superman strength, and be smarter!

Seven Stages of Healing.

When I hear the word “grief” my mind starts thinking about losing a loved one. I think about someone losing all they have because of a natural disaster ripping their world apart or a single mom losing her job and not having the means to support her family. Luckily, I have never had to experience anything close to something so tragic, but I have come to know grief very well. I haven’t lost a parent in the dying sense but I did lose both my biological parents, as in they are not present in my life anymore. I was seven years old when I first went through the seven stages of grief. I was seventeen when I began the grieving process all over again. We all deal with things differently when something terrible happens; but I think often times the road to healing has the “same” beginning and the “same” end result. Instead of going through the seven stages of grieving according to someone else I am going to share what I believe are the seven stages of healing.

Step one- Shock and Denial: My mother chose to remove herself from my life when I was seven years old and even at seven I was in shock and major denial. She often shared with us the idea of signing over her parental rights but I never actually believed she would do it. Even when I found out she did exactly that, I still didn’t believe it. Little Pamela kept telling herself, “Momma will come back.” I told myself that for years. When my father pushed me to remove myself from his life I, again, was in shock and denying the whole thing happened. Obviously, I knew what was going on but I didn’t want to believe it. I wanted to think that even though things were different they would still be the same.

Step two- Pain and Guilt: Eventually the denial wears off and the shock goes away. All of sudden pretending things are still the same becomes impossible to do. Reality sets in. I often thought about the things I should have done, things I shouldn’t have done, things I should have said, and things I wished I had never said. With guilt comes hurt and pain. I hurt because maybe if I had not said “I hate you” there would be a completely different outcome. I hurt because I felt like everything that had went wrong was on my shoulders.

Step three- Anger and Bargaining: Anger became the only emotion I felt for a long time. I was not only mad at the people who hurt me I was mad at everyone. I was angry with people who hadn’t did a thing to me. I lashed out on the people who were here for me, loving me unconditionally, because I couldn’t take it out on the ones I was really angry with. My anger almost cost me a very valuable relationship with the only person who has been here holding my hand through all of this.

Step four- Depression, Reflection, Loneliness: Just when I thought I was getting my life back together, here comes the pity party. I felt like I was no good for anyone and I couldn’t do anything and I would never be anything. I got depressed because I started looking behind me instead of ahead of me. I was reflecting on what once was and I stopped looking at what I have now. I became lonely even though I was surrounded with love and people. I had gotten to the middle of the mountain and I didn’t have the will to climb the rest of the way up, I only wanted to walk the easy steps back down.

Step five- The Upward Turn: I began the upward turn when I finally stopped looking behind me and looked at what was right in front of me. I was such an idiot to not just open my eyes and look around. I am surrounded by love and I know it. Why couldn’t I have just seen that from the beginning?

Step six- Reconstruction and Working Through: When you finally get through all the sickening emotions you can finally start seeing things clearly. Once I realized I am loved and I have a great thing were I am at, I was able to think about what I needed to do to get rid of the baggage. I literally woke up one morning and said, “I can’t do this anymore. I can not let someone else live my life for me.” Although I had been told all along that I was the only one being hurt by all of this I never saw that until I figured it out for myself. I had finally had my Aha! Moment.

Step seven- Acceptance and Hope: This is the stage I am in now. I have to accept the fact that I can’t change people or the decisions they make. I have accepted the fact that if someone can’t love me for who I am than they don’t need to be a part of my life, birth parents or not. I have learned that even though I made mistakes I didn’t cause my parents to walk out of my life and I will not fight for them to be around if they don’t want to be. I have also came to the conclusion that if they ever do come around I will not be here. I will not allow myself to have to go through these seven stages because of them again. I had hope before I went through all this and I have hope again. I have dreams as big as the sky and I won’t ever stop believing in myself. I know exactly what I am capable of and nothing can stop me.

This is how I dealt with what I like to call, the “Seven Stages of Healing.” Anyone can be a father but it takes someone special to be a dad. Anyone can be a mother but it takes someone special to be a mom. I found that special someone before I went through all of this and she has stuck with me during the whole process. I call this person Mom because she is shown me what a mother’s love is, come to think of it she has taken my father’s place and gave me “his” love too. Grieving is no longer an option for me because I am loved. My life may not have went the way I would have thought but that is because there was an unknowingly better life waiting for me. My eyes are finally wide open and my heart is full.

Your Best Shot.

Faith is the belief in something we can not see,
Close to nothing is what I thought I would be.
I’ve proved to people who didn’t believe in me I can change,
My dreams, hopes, and goals have all been rearranged.
More often than not things don’t go the way we think they should,
Too many times things happen we never thought would.
We hear people say life is what you make it,
What happens when what we want doesn’t exactly fit?
Rarely things go the way we have planned,
We just have to work with what we have at hand.
Life isn’t always rainbows and butterflies,
We have to be able to see through the storytelling and lies.
Scars.. We all have them to bear,
Inward or outward.. It doesn’t matter where.
Everything happens for a reason that I choose to believe,
We take the good with the bad and move on if we want our goals to be achieved.
Sometimes we have to go against what our parents taught,
It’s refreshing to know all the wrongs in life aren’t our fault.
We should only live for today because it’s all we’ve got,
After all, we only have this one shot.
We shouldn’t focus on yesterday or what may happen tomorrow,
Because yesterday is gone, tomorrow isn’t promised, and today is time God let us borrow.
Don’t ever take anything for granted because it can be gone in the blink of an eye,
Leaving behind unanswered questions like how and why?
Every single day I will strive to be happy no matter how hard it may get,
I know if I am determined I can do it.
Don’t ever let someone tell you you can not,
Get mad, stay driven, and give this life your best shot.