#7 – I get to do life with a group of women that are hundreds of miles away!
Distance does not win if Love is in the middle and the ladies in my life group are proof. The group I am referring to is the Zion Queens iCampus Life Group based out of Zion Church in Landover, MD. Twice a month for 1.5 hours, we see each other’s beautiful faces and whenever we get ready, we check in to laugh and encourage one another. Gotta love technology. When I visited the church in 2013, I didn’t know I would connect with people that love me like a sister and pray for me like they’ve known me their whole lives. That’s definitely the good stuff!
The Lesson
Real relationships take exposing of the soul, and it takes courage to do it no matter what age you are.
These women have been vital to my spiritual growth. They’re authentic and exceptional. I am so blessed to have them in my life and you probably have the same opportunity at your place of worship, in your community organization, or in your neighborhood. The hundreds of miles that separate us do not diminish the intensity of intimacy we have among each other. The special ingredient? Trust. That’s the magic sauce.
Who are you willing to expose your soul to? Guess what. Someone else wants to do that with you too. And even though you’re scared, you’ll find your safe space and your tribe will be there with open arms.
Peace & Thanks for listening! “See” you tomorrow, Sweethearts!
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Why is this a big deal? Because like any other relationship, sometimes the demands of life cause us to pass by each other like ships in an ocean of responsibilities. The good thing is that we’re transparent enough with each other to say Hey, I need some sister time and do something about it.
Ashlee and I met in college and now we creatively cross paths as members of two performing arts companies. She is the assistant director of one and I am the founder of the other and we easily weave in and out of each other’s leadership like Olympic skating partners. Mutual respect. Mutual trust. But at the end of the day, when I need my sister, I’m not afraid to tell her and she’s not afraid to tell me. We don’t mix buckets – work is work, us is us. The result? Laughing over pasta, sharing updates over tea sips, and dancing at random moments. This year, I got to spend some old-fashioned QT with one of my favorite humans and it was definitely fuel for the soul.
The Lesson
Notice the people in your life that you don’t have to entertain and be perfect for and be that person for them as well.
Ashlee and I enjoy being around each other because we accept each other for who we are no matter where we are in life. I love that we can just… be. With almost 20 years of friendship under our belts, we have learned to be emotionally honest and give each other room to grow. It reminds me that God wired us for unconditional Love and when we share that Love with other people, it leads to a pretty dope life.
Peace & Thanks for listening!
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#4 – I get to do life with Workmanship Incorporated!
No matter how tired I am after a long day at work, rehearsing with my Troupe always energizes me. It fills me up. Workmanship Incorporated is an exceptional hodgepodge of spiritual, intelligent, quirky artists that love God, love people, and go hard in the paint every day. In January, we kicked off a rebranding campaign and geared up for a new performance season. While rehearsing with them, I often ask God how I could be so blessed to know them, let alone work with them. Being around them blesses me inside and out. We laugh, cry, and serve together. We can be transparent with each other without judgment, accepting the messy version of each other at the drop of a dime and uplifting each other. I may be the founder/leader, but this fantastic group of humans has stuck with me through the most difficult seasons in my life and I am humbled to be a page in their life story. They are definitely some Good!
The Lesson
At one point, everyone in these photos was a stranger. What made us family is that we took a chance on becoming friends. Can you imagine how many family members you’re missing out on because you won’t get out of your comfort zone? Let’s take it a step further – are you around people that bless you internally? Do you refill them as well?
What makes my Crew amazing is that they’re tangible, not perfect. You may not have a group of people to be perfectly imperfect with, but there’s at least one person that fits the description in this world. She or he just may be a stranger right now. Don’t be afraid to fill and be filled.
Peace & Thanks for listening! “See” you tomorrow!
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#2 – I danced and mimed at Dance Across Birmingham!
Why is this significant? Because I didn’t die doing it!
Dance Across Birmingham is hosted by the Alabama Dance Council (ADC) and is a creative ritual for me. My adventurous self gets to frolic between any dance genre that tickles my fancy. For one Saturday out of the year, members of ADC provide free dance classes for the Birmingham community and beyond. You can learn everything from ballroom dancing to salsa to belly dancing to Bollywood. I love it!It gives me a chance to stretch my dance limits and be uninhibited with a group of strangers. No one judges your stumbling feet and flailing arms as you also learn with those who are classically trained. The instructors make sure that you have fun in all of your awkward glory and you meet some incredibly cool people in each class.
During lunchtime, the instructors become the performers and you watch them explode with excellence in their respective genres. Asian-inspired awesomeness, hip-hop glory… it’s a beautiful parade of talent, skill, and passion.. and I’ve always wanted to know what it would feel like to be on that stage.
Dancing with Nathifa Dance Company & Outreach, LLC
Well, that dream became a reality this year thanks to Sistah LaVondia Smith, Founder and Artistic Director of Nathifa Dance Company & Outreach, LLC and Rosemary Johnson, Executive Director of the Alabama Dance Council. I was elated to dance with Sistah LaVondia and NDC because of their powerful and colorful African dancing and drumming. They are a sight to behold and a force to be felt! I had admired them since they began 25 years ago. If that wasn’t enough excitement, I performed a mime piece with my Troupe and was infused with strength! What an awesome 1-2 punch of goodness!
The Lesson
Fear is the only thing standing between you and Glory.
For decades I was scared of African dancing because of my respiratory issues. I was haunted by a fear of having an asthma attack mid-performance, so I cowardly never tried to learn it with full capacity of heart. Wow… to think of how much I was missing out! After that performance with NDC and a few others, I was offered the opportunity to join the Company. I was grateful and honored, to say the least.
What can I say? We get down and dirty for the sake of the Message.
The other fear I had was that my Troupe wouldn’t appear good enough to perform on that stage. We are a comprehensive powerhouse, but I honestly wasn’t sure if we would be accepted as equals. We are a group of faith-based performing artists that come from various backgrounds and our puzzle pieces fit perfectly to create movement that touches the soul. We unapologetically seek to reach an audience of ONE, but I couldn’t help but think that our colleagues wouldn’t understand us. I was emphatically wrong. Not only did they get it, but they enjoyed it!
All it took was a resolve to stand in the face of fear, push it down and walk over it. Sounds easy, but it wasn’t. I just did it anyway. If I had not done so, I would have missed out on two beautiful milestones and someone could have have missed a moment they may have needed to experience.
What is one thing that scares you, but you want to do it more than you’re afraid of it? I stand with you and pray for our boldness to run right over it. Will you get the tingle of timidity every now and then? Maybe. That doesn’t mean that you can’t conquer it, again and again.
Peace & Thanks for listening and “see” you tomorrow for Day 3 of #bloglikecrazy!
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For this year’s See Jane Write #bloglikecrazy challenge, I am sharing 30 Days of Good that happened this year despite the not-so-good. There’s no use in throwing a whole year away when 1) there were definitely happy moments in it and, 2) the year isn’t over yet! So, each day will have a brief synopsis of the experience (what I like to call the good) and the lesson that tagged along with it. Ready? Let’s go!
The Good
#1 – I was able to attend therapeutic massage school at my place of employment! Why is this a big deal? I’m glad you asked.
Unfortunately, soon after I was hired at my institution, the policy that allowed employees to attend classes on their campus was overturned and I would have to either pay higher tuition somewhere else or drive 1.5 hours to another campus every week day for 9 months. My father was sick at the time and being over an hour away Monday-Friday from 8:00 AM until 3:00 PM was not complementary to being a caregiver. I needed to be closer to my parents. After 5 years, I was convinced that the protocol had a permanent place in the books and I gave up on that dream. Then, the Holy Spirit nudged me to ask again to see if the rule had changed. It was a Monday afternoon and I was completely disobedient. I walked by my friend/ financial aid representative’s office (only 3 doors down from mine) without stopping. I didn’t want to be disappointed… again. See, my former supervisors and the therapeutic massage program director had pleaded on behalf many times for an exception and each time, we were denied. I didn’t see the point in asking, but truthfully, my attitude was “Fine. Whatever. I’ll ask her.”
the little (taped up) notebook that changed the game. Photo courtesy of moi
So, Tuesday came. I picked up my little yellow notebook, walked toward her office, then turned the corner like I was an undercover spy. This time, the Nudge was more like a shove and I took a few backward steps and walked inside. I sat across from her desk and watched her face light up like the 4th of July. “Actually, they changed that yesterday!” she said, smiling at me. My face? Fallen and flabbergasted. I couldn’t believe what I heard, so I asked to her to repeat it. She said confirmed that I wasn’t being punk’d and I sat there speechless. I asked her when was the next class and she said January 3rd. The whole trajectory of my 2018 was about to change and I had no idea it was coming, but as we sat there and crunched some numbers, my dream-deferredwas becoming a plump and juicy reality and I got excited like it was harvest time.
The Lesson
Open doors are everywhere, but they have their own timing. So, don’t get discouraged by closed doors. Just be ready when it’s open season. I was reminded of the Shunammite woman in 2 Kings 4:8-37. If you’ve never read that chapter, do it. It’s dope. She had let her dream of having a son die over time and when it was time to believe again, she reminds prophet Elisha that she didn’t want to get her hopes up again (verse 17). All it took was one more ounce of belief + action to change the story.
What in your life needs a breath of fresh air? What is your dream-deferred? What action is needed to move it from conception to delivery? Pray about it and listen for the answer everywhere you go.
Peace & Thanks for listening to mine!
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It’s October 31st… November’s Eve. Why am I excited? Because #bloglikecrazy begins tomorrow!
This is the 3rd year that I have participated in the See Jane Write challenge to post daily in November. Each time I do this, something wonderful comes out of me and I am shocked at the responses I receive. I was in the department store one day and I ran into a friend who said she was keeping up with my #bloglikecrazy posts and they were encouraging her to tackle her obstacles. She didn’t want to post a comment because she was shy and I had no idea she was reading, but her personal thank you was just as enriching.
So, in light of every difficult experience that transpired this year, I challenged myself to think of 30 good things that happened this year and share lessons I learned from them. It’s easy to see the lemonade after you’ve been squeezed like a lemon because hindsight is 20/20. On the other hand, there are jewels of wisdom in the good stuff too. Yes, we experience negative situations, tiring situations, degrading situations throughout the year, but that doesn’t make the whole year a bad one. As I flipped through my calendar, I smiled and remembered happy times, funny moments, and joyous occasions deserving of recognition (like the photo below).
On a personal note, I do a version of this every year on a sheet of paper. I draw a circle in the middle and write the year inside of it, then I create a mind map (also called a circle thinking map) of all of the goodness that happened that year at whatever speed it pops into my mind. It’s fulfilling, encouraging, and a great reminder to stew on my blessings.
That’s what you’re going to get for the next 30 days. The good stuff. Little doses of happy and a lesson in the bottom of each half-full glass.
My prayer is that you dig a little deeper to find your 30 days too. You can jot them on a sticky note, in a big or mini-notebook (I frequent Dollar Tree, WalMart, and Michael’s for mine), or keep them in an online note-taking app such as Evernote (one of my favorites). Wherever you decide to store your happy, keep it for the rainy days in your life and prepare for more sunshine.
Peace & Thanks for listening! Wind down safely this Halloween night!
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Can you see the problem here? One of the fallacies of Christianity is that once you accept Jesus into your heart that everything you want will come to you. I (and millions of others) will beg to differ. The Truth is, God the Father has His hands open to you and while the most convenient option would be to simply give you everything, the most effective action is to balance between Him extending to you and you reaching out to Him.
Think of a father who has everything his daughter desires, yet she sits her room waiting for him to bring it to her. He’s in the kitchen, creating a meal from the heart and she can smell the aroma creeping underneath the door and through the air vents. He brings the plate to the entrance of her room, but she refuses to let him in. This goes on for days, then it continues for months.
Now think of the same individuals, only this time, the father makes sure that the kitchen cupboards and refrigerator are full of food.
At some point, the daughter has to express the will to reach out and be humble enough to accept the provision and the security that is readily available. Moreover, if he ensured that she had money to purchase the groceries, it is still reiteration that his promise to take care of her is true.
That’s what we need to do in our relationship with the Father. The Blessing, the Provision, the Security, the Peace… it’s all readily available for the taking, but we sit back and get bitter that those gifts and necessities did not “find” us. How lazy is that?
This week, ask God about your responsibility in His equation. Ask yourself – what is the Father telling me to “come and receive?”
I intend to come to Him like a daughter and receive what He has prepared for me. What about you?
Wind down safely and I am grateful for you! Peace & Thanks for listening!
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Those are the three words that have been sitting in my spirit since September. I even got three lotus leaves shaved in the nape of my new ‘do to represent each word for the special occasion. Who is “we?”
“We” includes my late father, who chose to love and encourage an angry, confused 12-year-old until she melted in his arms and trusted him with all of her heart.
My former husband, who carried the bills while I finished graduate school and mentored me in the education profession which created a segue for me to teach at my newly-added alma mater.
My family and my very much alive and awesome mother, who was my cheerleader and the perfect example of love, loyalty, strength, courage, wisdom, and fight.
My performing arts troupe, also known as my tribe, that kept my creative lifeblood flowing, balance out the academic grind, and navigated the ship when I was weak.
My pastor and church family that, with open arms, understood every worship rehearsal night I missed due to working and studying and always had a prayer in their pocket.
My beautiful small group of strong and Godly women, which created a spiritual safety net for all of my hills and valleys.
My incomparable instructors who collectively created a safe space to learn, grow, and heal with insurmountable passion and sincerity.
My friends that texted jokes, encouraging words, and random “I’m checking on you” messages to ensure that I knew that my goal of being a licensed massage therapist was well within my reach.
My complimentary massage clients that trusted me with their physical and spiritual well-being.
Twas the Wednesday before graduation weekend and I am one blessed creature. Why? Because I had a “we,” and truth be told, you have/had a “we” somewhere in your life too. Think about one person that was supportive and inhale that gratefulness, then exhale that truth into a message to let them know. If they are no longer on Earth, smile and support someone else in their honor.
Peace, blessings, thanks for listening, and wind down safely, my loves!
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How are you? I hope this post finds you doing well and cozy as you get ready to close or begin the day. Below is a fresh Word I received on a recent flight that I must share with you. Enjoy and let me know your thoughts!
Flight Write: BHM -> TPA
Everyone has a gate, and that gate has nothing to do with your preferences. You may choose the flight time and destination, but you can not control the gate of the plane. It is pre-destined to dock into a designated area and there’s nothing you can do about it if it changes. There is a crew working on the inside and a crew waiting on the outside to prepare it for its next destination. The coordinates of the vessel are already set, but the gate is a necessary stop between points A and B.
Want to know something else? Neither the gate nor the destination will change because of your desires or discomforts. They are not governed by your temper tantrums. You are not responsible for the gate assignment, just your presence and preparation. You’re only responsible for showing up, checking in, submitting to a search or security screening, and being at the right gate at the right time. After a certain point in the process, you are no longer the coordinator; you’re the passenger.
What does all of this mean to you? I’m glad you asked.
In order for the Lord to deliver you to your destination, you must release control of the gate. You can tell God all of the desires of your heart and share your plans, and He’ll listen… but ultimately, you don’t control the gate. You are not in charge of the in-between. Say it aloud – “I am not in charge of the in-between.” Tell God that you’re showing up, checking in, submitting to a search of your heart, and will be where He wants you to be. Those are the parts that you can control.
There is a necessary stop just for you and no one can take your place without the Father’s permission. Simply put, you have a destination and flight plan to get you there – release the gate. Let it happen. You’re still on your way.
No matter how tired I am after a long day at work, rehearsing with my Troupe always energizes me. It fills me up. 
Listening at the Speed of Life 