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So my birthday was today and I couldn’t have had a stranger birthday. So different from what I imagined. But that’s what happens with expectations, they usually let us down and leave us disappointed. Last night I got into a car accident that although wasn’t bad nor left anyone injured, it depleted me of any energy for today, and so I decided to stay home and relax. It’s 30 after, not that eventful of a day.

Lately I’ve been looking at my baby pictures and pictures of my childhood. Before I really had a hard time connecting with those pictures, I didn’t feel they were me. I didn’t remember the occasion or how I felt in those pics. The last time I did though, I couldn’t help but notice how happy of a child I was. I really was happy and bubbly and though many could say it’s very similar to how I am today, there’s no sign of an analytical, obsessive, meticulous person in those pics.

I’ve also, in my time of prayer, spent time praying for that little girl. To make it easier, this is a time where God is really taking me to connect to that little girl and reconcile the two as one, healing all that made me want to keep her locked up and consider he someone else’s memory, not mine. In all honesty I feel, or felt, like her life and mine were so different, and in order to connect with her I would have to connect to what separates us in the first place, and I didn’t know if I was ready. I wasn’t sure I wanted to think, let alone relive, the events that caused me to want to forget how I was or lived before. It was better if she never existed.

But in her and she is me, and if I want to heal and live the life God prepared for me, I needed to see myself in her and vice versa, because God deposited purpose, calling, gifts, talents, abilities and more at the time He formed and created me, not once I was born. So connecting to my God-given life meant looking at her and realizing she’s not at fault, she was a victim just like me. And she needed me as much as I need her.

So I wanted to write to her on this, her day, and help her heal as I heal, from all that has tried to kill her memory and keep her caged. My childhood was great and remembering that will soon be a good thing and lose its sorrow. I can see fire in her eyes and my hope is that the fire will come to us both. I was never responsible for my pain, my only responsibility is to release it and this is part of my work towards accomplishing that.

Here’s my message to her:

I want to say thank you to and for this little girl in these pictures. For so long I disconnected with her and saw her as a far away memory, a different person from who I am today. I struggled to relate and to see her in me or myself in her. I have to say though that I admire her. She’s been through some tough stuff, the world has tried to keep her trapped and to steal her dreams, to erase her smile. And yet, I’ve seen her fight harder every time to get her smile back, to not lose her groove, to dream bigger. She’s feisty and sassy and got some style… She wasn’t created for cages, she’s wild and her best when set free. She keeps fighting because she knows God fights for her, she believes because she knows God believes in her, even when the world wants to make her feel small, her heart beats faster and harder knowing God created her with a spirit bigger and greater than any physical manifestation of who she’s to become. She turns your world upside down and breaks the barriers in your mind. She believes anything is possible and if she were to have a middle name it’d be faith, because when her world crumbled it was the one thing that kept her alive. She may have had little faith in herself, but she’s never lost faith in who created her unique self. Today baby girl, that changes. Today I also have faith in you, as you learn to have faith in yourself. Today I tell you how special, loved, cherished, and desired you are. Your every quirk, your naive soul, your hopeful heart, are all cherished. The world couldn’t break you and it cannot contain you, because what you carry is so overwhelming, God decided to have some humor storing it in a small container, in a little girl, and that girl is you. You keep me going, and one day you’ll see all the seeds you watered with your tears, and you rejoice in the fruit of your sorrow, a fruit of joy and fulfillment knowing it was who created you who made it all possible. The best is NOT yet to come, but coming and running towards you. It’s been running behind you for a while. But now, you get to enjoy it, now you get to receive it and enjoy every bit of it. Happy birthday my little one, you deserve all this love and so much more.

So the other day I started a game of Trivia Crack and doubted myself to know the answer, only to choose the wrong one and the right one was my original option.

Then it happened a second time.

By the third time, I decided to not question myself and ended up getting 4 of the 6 crowns in one turn. I landed everywhere and only lost when I decided to answer too quickly and didn’t really analyze the question.

I thought to myself “how silly… Doubting yourself only caused you to fail… Stop second-guessing yourself!. It actually took me longer to say that to myself, than it did to win the game.

Now trivia crack is nothing but a game, so nothing happens except for a little ego bruising and the death of my battery. But how many of us treat life the same? How often do we second-guess ourselves in every aspect of our lives? For YEARS, and I mean YEARS I didn’t trust myself to make good decisions. It was so bad that I became completely dependent on what others said about me. My mistakes had created in me an inability to trust anything and everything in me.

It affected my relationship with God, family, and everyone around me. And it helped no one, not even me. I wanted to break free so bad but I knew it would cause rupture and I would have lost a lot of people I cared about, and possibly all.

Who do you think is benefiting from doubting yourself?

No one! Not even you! If anything you’re only hurting yourself. Depending on others is telling yourself “you are not to be trusted, you can’t make good decisions, is best to leave your future in the hands of others because you’ve resulted to be unreliable”. How dare you think and speak to yourself like that! And that’s exactly what you’re doing. You’re silencing the voice of God inside of you be trusting the humanity of those around you.

I get it. Your past mistakes, heartaches, disappointments have gotten you there. Been there, done that, planted the flag, got the T-shirt and bought souvenirs on the way back. But you don’t have to.

Depending on others is not trusting you, nor trusting God, and it’s not fair to either of you.

But you can change that.

It has taken me so long to get here, but I’m finally in a different head space. I’m walking this season alone, not because I don’t have friends I love and care about, not because I’ve decided to part ways with God or my home church. I’m walking alone because it’s time I tell myself “you’re smart, you have God’s wisdom in you, you are loved and saved and creates for greatness. You’re going to mess up and make mistakes and your heart might be broken again. But you have a Dad who loves you beyond all of that, and you can learn to love yourself like that. You can learn to love your mistakes and your flaws and all that makes you YOUnique. This time you won’t fight for others, this time you’re fighting for yourself.”

Fight to love yourself, regain control of your life because only then will you be able to give that control to God. You cannot give what you don’t have. If you’re seeking the approval of others, if you trust their decision-making as opposed to yours, if you’re constantly waiting for others to rescue you, you don’t have control of your life and neither does God. He never intended for you to depend on others to speak into your life.

He can do it all for you, you only need to trust that He’s working IN, WITH, FOR, and BECAUSE of YOU.

My grandma’s faith confronts mine. She doesn’t have this big ambition towards God. She doesn’t believe in Him hoping to get something great out of Him of their relationship. She finds rest in praying her rosary, believing He listens and somehow that’s enough to soothe all her pain. She’s not trying to preach to the world, save thousands for Him, she just hopes to pray another “Our Father”. She’s not out looking for anointing, or platform, or conversion. She just believes, she has enough mind to ask Him to take away the leg pain that torments her without questioning Him if the pain never goes away. She’s not doubtful, she’s not confronting Him, not scared, just a faithful believer of a God she may not completely understand but fully follows. How lovely, such uninterested, unaltered, unfailing love.

That’s who my grandmother was. What a lesson that is. In a world un satisfied with that is given, asking for more constantly and desiring all it feels it deserves, she was happy with her portion. She believed for more and better, but that didn’t stop her from appreciating what she had at the moment.

Why do we keep battling with the notion of time and positioning in this world? I know I do!… Let’s get real, I constantly feel like a failure. I see people younger than me with a family, or an amazing career, or both. I’m not there yet, some may think I’m not even close. There’s a lot of it that doesn’t get to me anymore, and I’m thankful to God for that. But it isn’t always easy. It isn’t always positive. I’m closer than maybe a month ago, but the road still seems long. What keeps me waking be up everyday with a smile on my face every morning? Knowing that this season matters. That the moment I see all those dreams realized, there’ll be nothing that can take them away.

See? Divorce is real and threatening, job loss is palpable, businesses fail, humans fail. But the moment I stand on the ground of my blessing I know my humanity won’t tear it apart. The moment God brings a that man into my life is the moment God will be able to hold us both, as a couple. The moment the business skyrockets God will take it as far as He can sustain it. I can achieve those things today, but their tomorrow won’t be guaranteed because my strength can fail me, but God’s hand doesn’t shake.

I’m willing to wait as long as God needs to be working in me so that when those things come, it is He through me and not me on my own. Other people who have what I hope for can fail, maybe they’re trusting God just like I hope to do. My battle isn’t with them, it;s with my own flesh and my own twisted mind that feels constantly cheated and thinks I should have what others enjoy. It’s a lie.

Nothing that is for me can be stolen because God owns it and no one can truly steal from Him.

People’s blessings are theirs to enjoy, as will be mine for me. No one robbed me of my future husband, if it didn’t work out with someone, it wasn’t it. If an opportunity didn’t come my way, it wasn’t it. If being an entrepreneur didn’t work as planned, it wasn’t it — not the time, or not the way. Regardless, God will make “it” all work out, for His glory, His way, and in His time.
I’m not late, with God, things are always on time.