My Promise Is Finally Here Because God Never Fails

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adversity, Apostolic, Christian, Education, faith, Family, Fear, hope, inner strength, Inspiration, miracle, Overcoming, Personal Growth, self renewal, Sisterhood, Women

Today, my Sister taught a lesson entitled, “Dancing In Purple Stilettos” (Psalm 137:1-4). (It is a copyrightable piece-classic. By the way, you should invite her to teach it.) It is an eye-opening lesson about “sister-assisted transformation” taken from the characters and nuances of the book-adapted to film, “The Color Purple”. This is my second time hearing it and I have come away with something different each time.

Her key points, followed by my nuggets.
#1 Change your attitude about your life experiences.
Don’t be bound by your life experiences. Do not give your voice away and do not let anyone take your voice.
#2 Open your mouth.
When you’re wounded, you won’t care or give a second thought about wounding your sister. (Celie told Harpo to beat Sophia … What the world?! Because that was her frame of reference from her own life experiences.)
When there is an infraction or conflict, the way to respond to it is to go to the source …. Sophia went to Celie, spoke of the significance of what she had done and exclaimed her response to it (All my life I had to fight …) That forthright communication changed (transformed) and established a sister-assisted transformation, relationship and understanding. There was no speculation, just a straight-forward meeting of the minds.
#3 Have integrity and do what is right in whatever situation.
(Live out your God identity every day of your life, never compromise who you are) don’t let any life (past or present) experience, man, family, failure, nothing make you lose or devalue your personal worth or your Christ identity.
#4 Forgive unconditionally!
(Learn to accept the apology you never received).
Your sister is not your enemy. Forgiveness is a movement toward the point when offenses no longer have an affect on you.
Don’t let your situation name you or define you.
#5 Laugh out loud! … (I missed the rest)
Some things in life, the tricks and traps of the enemy are so ludicrous, you should just go into a hysterical insane LOL. Release the toxins in your spirit by opening your mouth in praise or a soul cry to God, a wail or unceasing knock that will command His attention and favor … He will answer.
#6 To get delivered, you have to get fed up with being bound up!
When you get delivered, your sister will get delivered too. Someone (maybe a whole ministry or community of people, your family or your household) may be tied to your deliverance. Get delivered! Stay delivered!

Then, ultimately! like Celie on the porch in the final scene, with all the characters with her or in view of her PROMISE, take that Frankenstein walk toward your promise, because what you see, you cannot believe it is finally here, in your view, in your grasp. See your promise!!! Take hold of it. Live in it!
(You’re FREE, do not be bound again!)
Then take your dance with God in your purple stilettos.

Shaving Mister …
My ultimate takeaway was that Shug was running (sacrificing herself for her sister) to save Celie, her sister, (not Mister). When we get to the point where it is more important to protect and love each other than it is to wound, outshine and dismiss each other, WE will be so much more empowered as a collective body to do damage to the kingdoms of this world and to be effective change agents in every setting of our lives.

Presenter: Jo-Ann Lipford Sanders, Ph.D.
Professor, Heidelberg University

Brand New Mercies

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Apostolic, Christian, health, hope, Inspiration, Jesus Christ, love, Loving Life, self renewal, wellness, Women

(Linking up with http://lisajobaker.com/five-minute-friday/. The prompt is PAINT)

God gives us a brand new, clean slate, blank canvas on which to PAINT each day of our lives.

New Mercies, new opportunities to live the more abundant life He has already given to us. The paint palate has all the colors of the rainbow and the dark ones too. It is our choice which ones we will choose to highlight, which ones we will appropriately blend to make our lives fulfilling, well, joyful and promising. All the paint colors are necessary to create the most true canvas of our lives, the bright, the mellow, the brilliant, the subtle, the muted, the dark too. They are all elements of the beautiful masterpiece that we we are. Take your brushes and create the artistry of your life so that it is one that firstly pleases God and one that gives you fulfillment (which is not necessarily perfection) with the truth (your life reality) of what is on the canvas.

[We spend Fridays writing. One prompt, just 5 minutes, a community of nearly 300 writers.]

The Ultimate Food Fight

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Education, Goals, health, Healthy eating, Motivation, Personal Development, Prayer, self renewal, Teaching, Weight loss, Women

We’ve all seen the scenes on television or film of the campus or prison dining hall that erupts when someone yells, “food fight!” Then you see food flying and mayhem until the principal or warden comes in and wrestles someone to the floor or yells for order. No, I’m not talking about that kind of food fight.
I’m talking about the food fight that we don’t know we are fighting.
I can’t remember when I first heard or read, ‘I need to change my relationship with food’. That was an ah-ha moment for me. I had never thought of it like that before.
Many of us have this dependency, sugar-daddy like relationship with food. ‘It makes everything good, better, best. Everything good is somehow tied to eating, and unfortunately eating unhealthy, but oh so satiating, fat and sugar and salt and processed compositions, in a box, bag or from a window.
Particularly as African Americans many prevalent chronic illnesses in our ethnic community are linked to our diets. Cancer, heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, inflammation and obesity. These all present themselves in weight gain, fatigue, migraines, joint and muscle pain, toxicity and many ways that keep us asking ourselves, “What is wrong with me?” This is not a medical blog nor am I a medical expert or practitioner. So back to the fight.
Much of our life is tied to the lust of the cheeseburger, lust of the fried chicken, lust of the bacon, butter and deep fried, creamy, smothered, sweet, caffeinated whatever. Our senses tell us we have to have it, we can’t live without it. So even though our sugar-daddy is not good for us, we hold on to him, we stay in the fight and we keep losing. Why is that?
For so long (and still now) I was in the matrix of this food fight, this compulsive eating. It would pick me up, comfort me, then let me down, crash and cast me aside. Comfort my stress, anxiety, laden my happy times and occasions for celebration. I guess we all are dependent on something. Food seems to be the lesser of evils when you think about drugs, alcohol, nicotine, sex. However, the fight rages on.
How to stop the madness? When you have a poor relationship with food, always choosing the ‘bad boy’? You change your thinking. Ah, behavior modification, new input, thought change, education and information, but mostly desire and determination. Practice, discipline, PRAYER, more of that, and a whole new fight.
A fight for my life, my health, my well being. In the new fight, I (and you) WIN!

“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” ~Albert Einstein

[This is lengthy and inconclusive, but pushed out of my sleep at 5 AM this morning. I pray it blesses and inspires someone in their fight.]

There’s A Writer In Me

Today’s Five Minute Friday prompt is “WRITER”.
Although I’ve never considered myself a Writer, in the sense of an author, I’ve always been a Writer.
A notetaker, a recorder, a lover of words, thoughts and nuggets on paper. Often I look through drawers and tucked in places where I find notes I’ve written or received from eternities ago. One day, I squashed my fears and started a blog, then I quit. My godniece who blogs at http://www.myvicariouslyfe.com inspired me. When she noticed I had not written anything on the blog for nearly a year, she inquired, “Auntie, what are you doing about your blog?” That pulled me back. She is a real writer, a professional editor, but she encouraged me to write.
Now nearly 90 blog posts later, I’m still at it. It is not as regular or fluid from a place of confidence as I would like, but it holds true to my inspiration … to inspire, motivate and share sage wisdom. I continue to be inspired by lessons from Valorie Burton’s book that proposes one concept of how “Successful Women Think Differently” is to write. Inspired also by Karen L. Gilliam’s book, “Finding Your Voice In A World That Needs It”, that declares everyone has a story, so tell it or write it.
Writing gives me a voice, open expression, and a vehicle to share my heart with a community that I don’t even know. It pushes out what God is saying, share.
Linking to http://lisajobaker.com/five-minute-friday/