Sandpiper Searching

Long time no type babes! 
Life has been eventful in both great and terrible ways.

This morning I woke up to altered weekend plans, I woke up confused and humbled by my own nativity. 
I woke up single. . . again.
So, where did the day take me?
Where the sand meets the sea and where salt water heals the broken. 
I maybe yelled at God a little bit, cried just a teensy bit, and let go of a lot. Ultimately, I asked God for a word or phrase or SOMETHING that I could climb out of this rut with. 

I didn't hear an audible voice but my eyes were drawn to the tiny birds that run back and forth between the breaking waves searching desperately for nourishment. I watched them and I thought about how i've been running myself ragged trying to fill my own voids. That was it, that was the revelation I asked for and it is as simple as this:

"When God has something or someone truly good for you, you are not going to have to keep running into the deep to seek and dig it out yourself. He will bring it/them to you."

Don't be the Sandpiper. 

Let it be. 

He will provide. 

I was also reminded of something my friend Mango wrote about a few months ago:

“You can so easily build a knight in shining armor out of a man made of straw.”

Do not over promise, do not compromise and do not date on someones POTENTIAL. People will show you who they are, don't ignore the little things that make your heart drop a bit or your stomach clench. Trust your instincts, but also realize that there is no perfect man. 

That is a lot to keep in mind but only because dating is such a convoluted game these days. I wish I could go back, clear the record and just wait on God's timing. I can do that going forward but I can't go back and gather up the pieces of me that I gave to all those men boys of straw. Those are precious pieces and you should protect them, your knight in shining armor will care about those pieces enough to protect them. 

In the meantime, (try to) enjoy being single, get to know yourself really well and go on some rad adventures. You have the rest of your life to be somebodies somebody, today just be  your own person. Have fun. You don't have to be lonely though you are alone for this season. 

Tootles for now!

Our Best or God's Best?

"And everyday, let me be like a sunflower; so that even on the darkest days I will stand tall and find the sunlight."

Hey babe risers, it's been a while since I last chatted with you all. To catch you up, life has been filled with new things it's almost been hard to keep up. I finished esthetics school, got my license and officially started taking clients at the salon. I'm so grateful to make an impact on people not only physically with their skin but also their hearts. My career path as an esthetician is so much more than making someone who is 60 look like they're 20 (we wish). It's about conditioning the heart and soul, loving on others and making them feel undeniably beautiful to themselves. Since high school, I felt a tug on my heart to go into full time ministry. In my mind, that meant working for "the big C" aka: church. Throughout this past year I have patiently learned that your full time ministry is your life wherever you are, and you can bring that into your work place. I am fully handing this business over to God and asking him to stretch me everyday. I ask Him to give me opportunities to speak life into people and to give them a purpose so much greater than the things of the world they are seeking. I cannot wait to step deeper into this ministry and see all that God has in store.

I really want to speak to you tonight about something personal. Something that I feel I wouldn't normally shout to the world but I'm in a mood to be transparent so here it goes. 

R E J E C T I O N

"Rejection doesn't mean you aren't good enough; it means the other person failed to notice what you have to offer."

We're all ladies here, so I am sure we've all felt those nights of rejection. Where you get dressed in that glorious outfit you've been waiting wear, hair is on point and your make-up is actually looking decent, only to arrive to find out you've been rejected. Rejection and abandonment has to stand high up there on the top 10 horrible feelings someone can feel.

Since leaving my job at Chick-fil-A the Lord put me on this crazy journey of finding and bettering myself every day. Part of that has been to overcome the rejection and abandonment issues that I felt from my biological dad not being a part of my life for the last 21 years. I believe that in the society that we live in today we deal with rejection on a daily basis, probably more than 100 times a day. You don't have to have abandonment in your life to say you suffer with rejection. We reject ourselves when we watch the Kardashians and see the ideal body society wants us to have, we reject ourselves when we post on Instagram and don't get as many likes as you did the day before, we feel rejected when our friend is having an off day and they don't send us their normal happy text. We feel rejection daily. 

So many emotions have been going on throughout my life recently and through my fellow boss babe risers lives. I hear stories and my heart just aches for what my sisters are going through. This very recent story (not to be shared for the secrecy of my girlfriend) made me reflect on myself on a-whole-nother level. I sat there and felt totally rejected because of thoughts the enemy placed into my mind. Things like, "you're really just not good enough for him", "you know, he's pursuing that other girl that he really likes spending time with" "maybe marriage just isn't in the books for you" or the best one yet "why would you even begin to think he would like someone like you?" So there I sat in my car, realizing it was a while back that I cried that hard, talking on the phone with a beautiful and sweet, sweet friend that told me it was okay to let it out and it hit me…I am NOT the one being rejected in this.

Let me explain myself a little better. I don't know about you but if I think for even one second that someone I like doesn't want to spend time with me or maybe isn't showing the same level of flirtation I count that as an immediate rejection. PAUSE. That's a lie. I had to stop and realize the reality, that I am making a conscious decision that at this moment he is not the right person for me. It's not rejection it's a decision. A decision to move on and be better. Focus on my path and my relationship with God and wait for the best He has to give me. Ladies that is what we will hold out for…God’s BEST. 

Let me send out a little reminder to you who may be hurting like I was tonight. Hurt, Pain, Anger, Temptation, Rejection and Abandonment all come from the enemy himself. He comes to steal, kill and destroy our lives while our God comes to bring us life and life to it's fullest. Whenever you think you're being rejected from something (we think is) good, remember that you could be redirected to something so much better. God makes beautiful things out of our mistakes. I am a living testimony to that.  Do not let the enemy feed you the thoughts and lies that you're not good enough. We are women warriors that will tell the enemy to put his nose in a corner because we are NOT having it today. We are holding out for God's best. If you find yourself constantly trying to prove your worth to someone, you have already forgotten your value. Stand firm in knowing your worth in Christ. Trust and be obedient and all other things will fall into place.

“We are wild and free, we are never too much and we are ALWAYS enough.”

Thanks for allowing me to be open, honest and transparent with you. I pray that this post will help you realize your worth and all that you deserve. 

Until next time lady loves,

Are you mad AT or mad FOR your Maker?

Do you want to hear something legitimately silly?

Sometimes, I get mad at God, like ball up your fists and 'pout or shout' about it mad. 

From His heavenly view, it must be hilarious to watch this freaking ant-sized girl full of sass and regret, stomping around trying to negotiate acts of faith for tangible wishes granted. 

Those of you who are enduring a season of waiting will recognize the exasperation of there not being a clear answer or end to the "whens" and "whys".  I heard one of those statistics the other day about how much of our lives we spend washing laundry, grocery shopping and on the toilet and I just started to wonder about other ways in which I, personally, am wasting my one trip around the sun. 

One obvious thing stuck out.

The shear amount of time I spend praying, wishing, dreaming, begging, picturing, writing, and thinking about how much I don't want to be alone anymore. About wishing that prince in shining armor would just ride up in his white mustang already. . . it's exhausting. I don't know if I've ever wanted anything as much as I want to be with that forever person. 

It hasn't been an easy journey to try and find him. 

Settle down RyGos. . .

So far I thought that I found "him" 5 times, my track record sucks but, I guess, Ryan Gosling was never really an option, haha.

Growing up I was pretty naive and pumped up on Nicholas Sparks novels, I thought life consisted of reaching a certain age, finding your person, getting married, having a family and then growing old while your brood doubled or tripled in size. I thought that was the whole point, I was sure that God had hand selected one person for each of us and the biggest challenge I would face would be figuring out which guy that I grew up with, would be at the end of the aisle. I never considered just how much could go wrong during that pursuit. I didn't entertain notions of divorce, waiting, infertility, long periods of singleness while everyone else you know seems to be drinking the engagement water or sending out birth announcements. I never knew how bitter I could be or that I would blame God for forgetting about me. But I did. 

Judge me if you must but, who else could possibly be to blame. . . ? 

Me? 

Don't be cray cray.

Many times I've repeated Jeremiah 29:11 to friends that needed encouragement along their own journeys, but the promise was lost on me because I couldn't see it in my present situation. 

Ladies, if you are waiting on that miracle man, baby or whatever else might be near/dear to your heart, it is not God's fault that we don't have what we think we need, desperately want, or feel we might deserve. We have to stop comparing our lives to those of the ones we envy on social media.

Let's not focus on what we don't have, lets take stock of the blessings we do have and look forward to what might someday be, with excitement - without robbing us of the here and now. 

Your life is not "paused" because you are waiting. There was/is a bend in your path to give you the opportunity to experience something that not all get the opportunity to. If you can not muster Queen-Bey-like contentment and confidence, if, instead you struggle with singleness like myself, use this time of un-distractedness to redirect your focus, be purposeful. Practice being happier than you feel and kinder than you're inclined to. Learn to love yourself. Thank God for this time to bind your heart to His before He places it in the hands of the man who is worthy of it. 

Trust me, settling is an awful, broken thing straight from hell.

Babes, I'm preaching to myself here too,  I want to be expectant of great things.

I want to be intentional with this time and not wish away my 20's, Lord knows they are flying by fast enough as is!

Daniel 3:18

Just know that when relatives or older people or sometimes even your peers, make comments that hurt and remind you of what you don't have. . .they haven't walked a mile in your bada** boots, they haven't lived through what you have. Things were different for them and God bless em, good for them! You are not "less" simply because you aren't in their position. You are enough and your life matters just as much. 

You aren't forgotten darling, 

He is holding you a little closer right now to prepare you for the blessings headed your way! 

Praise hand up, thats worth getting excited about!