Surviving to Thriving

Every morning, I try to wake up and have a conversation first with GOD. Now today was no different, I did just that; I woke up and started having a conversation, but this time, the conversation was a bit different. I started out, in adoration, letting him know how much he meant to me, and who he was. But then, I paused, and started back up having one of the most honest, and sincere conversations to have had, in quite some time! I began to pray a prayer that you don't hear much or at all in church, or really if you think about it, AT ALL!!  That prayer consisted of these few heartfelt words: “Lord, I’m angry, I feel resentment. But most of all, I’m angry at you-HELP ME!!! 

I promise you, I don’t have time to try to keep up an image for “people”. I have to BE, who and whose I am & called to be, and with that comes feelings and emotions! And sometimes the emotion I’m feeling is anger! One of the most damaging things I could do as a believer, as a person, is to “act” like everything is OK, and find myself suffocating in unacknowledged or underlying & suppressed emotions! 

I've grown up in church pretty much all of my life, and I've heard this verse quoted majority of my walk, John 4:24 "God is spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." But what does that really look like, when we walk and parade around with these "heirs", pridefulness, haughtiness, and so much more I could add. Many times, what I have seen in church, is us as a people acting like we have no issues, or when there's an issue, we are jumping and shouting, either because GOD moved on our behalf, or because we're going through. But when it comes to prayer, we have made our prayers so "cute, and pretty". If we take time, to look at Jesus and his walk, there are times where he's in his emotions and feelings, while praying to the father. 

This season is VERY personal for me! 

When you’re able to sit with you, and stop doing & going just to dismiss your emotions, you’re helping you more than you’ll ever realize in the moment! This is where I’ve been for a moment, and I can honestly say, it really doesn’t feel good, but I know it’s working for my good. One thing that I am aware of, is in my time of pain, I've learned how to survive. Like real talk, once my children's father was murdered in 2007, I was still a baby, I was just 23 and half years old, and I had to grow up QUICK! During that time, I really was just trying to survive! 

If you look online, at dictionary.com, the definition of survive means- continue to live or exist, especially in spite of danger or hardship. For so many years, that is how I have lived, that's all I knew. After some time, I started to question Why, why does it seem like I can't move forward, I can't seem to get over this hump? I wondered why, I could start off great concerning ventures, but then I couldn't find the momentum, the energy to finish what I started? When I say for years, this was a constant for me. Not a place I desired to be in, but for whatever reason, I could never pinpoint nor figure out why I could not pull myself out of this constant cycle. It was in this moment of prayer that it finally hit me; it has everything to do with being in a place of survival. All I've ever known was surviving!!! 

As I look back from 2007, until maybe around 2018, I had been in survival mode.