Things Will Work In My Favor 💜💜💜

     This morning, as I watched a video of a young man singing these very words out of trying to pull himself out of a depressing place (a pit) because he woke up feeling like he wasn't doing his part to add value to this world, I sat and thought "How many of us are actually in this same place but suffering and crying out in silence?" How many of us have sat and cried because we felt, or feel, that we just didn't have what it takes to be a contributor to society? How many people have taken their own lives because they felt worthless, useless and that the world would be a better place without them? Well I just want to encourage you this morning that " THINGS WILL WORK IN YOUR FAVOR. YOU JUST GOTTA BELIEVE". Life is everything that we make it. It is up when we are up. It is down when we are down. But we have to continue to believe that GOD is moving on our behalf and that He is working it out just for us at all times. You are never useless. You are never worthless. You are never not necessary. You add plenty value to this world and this world would not be a better place if you weren't in it. Whatever situation you may be facing at this moment, don't turn your back to it and run. Face it and tell it with power in your voice and heart that "THINGS WILL WORK IN MY FAVOR! I BELIEVE IT!" GOD bless this young man and every one who may be having a moment where we have to pull ourselves out of the pit that we've placed ourselves in. But please remember, it is a moment and moment's pass. Do not make permanent decisions based off of temporary feelings. This too shall pass. It has to. Have a GREAT and favor working day today. Just believe. 💜
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Do you or another woman you know of have an #AMAZING accomplishment that the world should be celebrating? Maybe they #Graduated? Wrote a #book? Gave #birth? A #birthday? Started or run a #business? Received a #promotion? Got #engaged or #married? Etc. Let #AliveAndWorthy know! Inbox us a photo of the individual along with their accomplishment and let us celebrate them along with you because that's what we do! 💜💜💜
#CelebratingWomen #CelebratingLife  #Empowerment #Encouragement #Enlightenment #Motivation #Support #SupportingWomen #GirlPower

I'll Clap For Me

Too many times we are looking around to see who is clapping for us because we feel that need to be validated by others. Then when we notice the two or three that isn't clapping, we get down and out negating the 20 or 30 that are. Why? 2 reasons.
1.)  Because no matter how much positivity is in the room, negativity always seem to drown out the noise positivity makes.
2.) We are inherently trained to focus on the negativity.
My question is, what would happen if we began to clap like a crazy woman for ourselves? I'll tell you what would happen. If we become so enamored with clapping for ourselves, we wouldn't care or have to time to look around to see who else is or is not clapping. It wouldn't even matter because clapping would keep your head in a forward position and it's hard to look around while doing it. Try it. Began clapping like crazy for yourself and see how hard it is to look around at the same time without falling, stumbling or hurting your neck. Start today being your own cheerleader. Tooting your own horn. Patting yourself on the back. Clapping for your darn self because no one will support you like you will. But the crazy thing is, when people see you clapping and cheering for yourself, they will begin to jump on board with you. But start a clap epidemic for yourself and be unapologetic about it. You deserve to be celebrated but it starts and ends with you. And if you're the only one at your celebration, at least you won't have to worry about nobody coming in and bringing your mood down. 💜💜💜 L.

Better

Happy Friday y'all! Excuse my Southerness. Lol. I just wanted to talk to you this morning about how 99% of us continually talk about wanting better, doing better and being better. If you're perfect and part of the 1% then you know of someone who talks about wanting better, doing better and being better then. So take these tidbits to them. But what we fail to realize is that better begins solely with us. We have the power within us to create the life that we want but we, as humans, always fail to tap in because we can't tangibly see it and we constantly try to rationalize it. But everything in this world isn't tangible and can't be rationalized so stop it. Better requires walking in faith and stepping outside of your comfy box of mundane and repetitious normalcy. Believing in yourself that you can do it and you deserve it. Better, often times, require going in the opposite direction of what you've been doing for the last ump teen years of your life. Shoot, if it just fell from the sky, we'd all be better but that's not going to happen my friend so you have to be willing to do the work and you can. So let's talk about the work. It's not that hard actually. Start with writing down goals that you feel will help you to be the better you that you desire to be. Then add objectives to each goal. Then add realistic (because you know you lol) deadline dates to each objective. Then meet the deadlines one by one and you're well on your way to Better. You can do it. But the crazy thing is, once you start meeting one then another, it sort of becomes addictive. You become addicted to checking stuff off of your list and getting stuff done. Then before you know it BAM, better. But it starts by taking the first step. The hardest step is the first step I guarantee. It gets easier after that. Trust me, I know. If I can do this, you definitely can do it too and I'm rooting for you. You don't need a whole cheer squad behind you. All I needed was one person because waiting for a whole cheer squad was going to have me die waiting. But just take the first step. Better is waiting just for you. So start moving that that direction.  XOXO, L. 💜💜💜
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#AliveandWorthy #Better #Motivation #Encouragement #Empowerment

Loving Yourself Is Not An Option!

     "What kind of Pastor has all those piercings and tattoos?" ............ (insert blank stare)......... ME! And I LOVE it!!!
     So many people that I have run across, and my past self too, have moments (some that last way more than others) where they feel down or bad about themselves. Whether it stem from being put down so much by those around them or just never being built up in the area of them loving themself. Either way it go, we have to learn that loving ourself is not an option. I can admit that I was one who was not a lover of myself due to both of the reasons that I listed above. My mother did her best to try and build me up but she had her own struggles. And other kids at school were...... well they were kids and we know how kids can be. But as a 35 year old adult, I've gotten to a point where I have become so tired of allowing others people's opinions to dictate how I feel about me. And I hope that you have too.
     Listen up when I say this................. Are you listening? Loving you is not an option. Do you hear me. No one, except GOD, should love you more than you do. Now I'm not saying to be conceited. Conceit is not GOD like. But confidence is. The way that you love yourself is your teaching tool to others on how they should love you. And you should accept no less. If you don't love yourself, then people will give you the love that they think you deserve. And just a heads up, 95% of people will definetly undervalue and depreciate you. So do yourself a favor, love you. It's not an option.

Unapologetic is me, L.

A Prayer For Focus

“…but the people who know their God will display strength and take action” (Daniel 11:32).

 “Ask and you will receive, that your joy may be made full.” (John 16:24)

My Father GOD in Heaven,

I thank You for this day and for all that You have done for me thus far. I come to you in this moment as humbly as I possibly can seeking Your help. Lord, I openly confess that I find that I am sometimes easily distracted by the happenings and doings of life and by people. When things happen around me that concerns people I love, I find myself gravitating to the happenings to see if I can help or fix that instead of staying on task with the things that You have called me to. Your word says that I can ask anything of You and that if I believe it I shall receive it. So I am asking you oh Lord to help me discern between good and bad distractions and to remove the distractions in my life that were designed to take me off of my assignment. Whether it be situations, circumstances, things or people GOD, I ask that You remove them far from my life immediately in the mighty name of Jesus. 

Please forgive me for being so easily distracted and gird me with Your grace and strength so that I can concentrate fully on the things that You have set before me. Without Your help I cannot achieve any success Lord! So help me to overcome all my weaknesses and strengthen my mind. Take full control of my wandering thoughts and give me Your wisdom and knowledge and let me be a blessing to those that You have called me to and to my family. I thank You in advance for answering my prayer. In Jesus' matchless name I pray, Amen.

Unapologetic is me, L. 

The Simple Joy of Purging

For some time now, I have been having this feeling of carrying around a great deal of unwanted, unneeded and unnecessary weight. So starting yesterday, I decided to start releasing some of the weight. I have been on a purge binge ever since I made up my mind that I wanted to free my mind, my spirit, my soul and my heart. And I started with Facebook. Facebook? You say. Yes Facebook. Let me tell you what I mean. We all are a people who take our phone with us EVERYWHERE we go. To work, to church, to the bathroom, to bed, our kids soccer game.... everywhere. And we are constantly looking at it checking to see who posted what on Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, Instagram, etc. The list just goes on and on. For some of us, checking our phone while driving has almost, if not has, caused us to get into fender benders.......

Well, I only use my Facebook and every so often Instagram. But the things that I run across are sometimes so vile, violent and downright cruel. People video taping things they deem funny but are often times humiliating to others and mean. Meme's constantly mocking others of their deformities or mental instabilities. It's just down right horrible. But the people that post these things that we see are the friends that we choose to hit that friend button to accept a sent friend invitation or that we decided to send a friend request too, I just am growing tired of it. I do love the Spiritual postings that tend to help me in my moments of downness, but you have to filter through the filth and cruelty to get to them. So, I decided to do some purging. Purging those "friends" that constantly post these post that go against everything that I believe in and stand for. And you know what, it actually felt good!!! In my Facebook purge, I went from 1,291 friends to 822! And I still have some ways to go!!!

"Eliminate what doesn't help you evolve". When I saw this post as I was browsing the internet, a lightbulb turned on for me. It just made so much sense to me!!! I am a Pastor, who is married, 34 years old and have 3 children. That alone is a great deal. I don't need added craziness and foolishness on my plate. So, I am releasing the weight, dead weight. By purging all the things in my life that is not adding to my life. I wanted to delete my whole facebook page, but realized that the social media is a huge way of reaching the masses in our area. it is a huge marketing tool so I somewhat have to keep it, but I can definitely cut back on what and who I interact with. Did I mention that it felt good? But this is only the beginning. I plan to purge my Facebook some more, my Instagram, my phone, my cable, my closet, my home, my office, everything. If purging my Facebook alone felt that good, I can only imagine how purging the rest of my life would feel. I have never been so excited to let people and things go. But to be honest, a great deal of that stuff we can absolutely live without. It takes so much of our attention away that we can not even focus on the things that truly matter in our life like our family, our jobs even GOD in a lot of instances. So this stuff has definitely got to go for me. So my question to you is will you join me in purging? Will you join me in simplifying life and bringing our attention and focus back to those things that truly matter? I hope you will. Just start with Facebook. If you can delete it all together, go for it. But make a list of things that you can do without, or decrease drastically in numbers. Let's bring our focus and attention back where it needs to be. Okay? Okay. I guarantee you that you will not be disappointed. :) 

Unapologetic is me, L. 

My Absolute Biggest Fear!

     Growing up we create and dream up all of these plans of how our life is to be when we get older. What will be our career, what college we will attend, what age we are going to marry, how our wedding will look, our spouses occupation, what city/state we will live in, how many kids we will have, how much money we are going to make.... Some of us even dream up what kind of animals we will have and what there names will be. We map out our life to the tiniest detail. Some people, very few I imagine, stick to that plan if they are truly locked in and dedicated to the plan. But for the bulk of us, as we grow older, the twist and turns of life tend to drive us in a different direction. I was one of the people that turned out to be on the redirected plan once life began to truly happen to me.
     One thing that just wasn't in my life plan was children. Children just weren't in the plans for me that I can remember. I was supposed to go to the military, find me a husband that could and loved to cook (because I hate it lol) (only because I'm so impatient), travel the world and retire from the military. Then we would continue to travel until we eye called home to be with the Lord. But at the age of 20 life happened. I had my first son. Then at 26 my daughter, then at 28 my 2nd son. So as you can see, my life switched directions from the way that I had planned it as a young girl. But guess what, my kids are an absolute blessing to me. They are smart, loving and funny as all get out. They keep me smiling and have taught me a great deal about forgiveness and how to love without boundaries. They are little angels in human suits to me. Yes they are.
     So, I know your wondering, where does this biggest fear come in. Well, here it is. My biggest fear is the fear the day that my kids will grow up, won't need me anymore and they will move away to start their own lives apart from me. This actually hurts my heart and cuts me to the core everyone I think about it. So what am idoing about that now? I'm glad you asked. My prayer is that my relationship with my children now will always warrant them wantingþneeding mommy close. Not as a crutch, but as a support. Not the "Mommy I'm in trouble with the law help me out" or "I need a baby sitter to go to the club" type support. But the "I need to cry this out in a safe place where I'm not treated as less than because I'm crying buy now that I've cried and gotten some wisdom I can attack the problem head on" or the "I need some strong solid above on this and I need someone I can depend on because there motives are pure and they only want to see me be a better me".......... You feel me? Good.
     I know growing up is inevitable, but growing apart from me doesn't have to be. Everyday that I look at them I see more and more signs of them growing up and being more independent. They don't need me like they did when they were babies in my arms. My oldest is now 13. I'm trying to teach him the things that he will need to know to do in order to run his own house, but everything in me just wants to baby him for the rest of his life. But I know that this is not healthy. I dare not for him to be a liability as an adult, but he's still my baby. All three of them are. The day they move out of my house will probably be the hardest thing in life for me. Harder then recovery from every surgery that I've had. Harder then pushing them all out naturally during their births. I know one day I'm going to have to let go (my fear, uggggghhhhhh). But for now I'll just continue to be there mommy and hold on for as long as I can. So that when the day come (that they say mommy you can let go now) I can say that they are ready and they know mommy is here and always was here for them. It's going to hurt I know, but it has to be done. :( I promise I won't be a smother mother to my adult children. Lol. But I'll always have their back........... unless they break the law. Then they're on their own. Lol but I'm serious.
Unapologetic is me, L.