Tag: God

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The Other Side of Faith

I will give thanks to You, for the greatness of the way I was made brings fear. Your works are great and my soul knows it very well. Psalm 139:14 NLV

I had several realizations over the last few days, as God decided to give me a closer touch and glimpse of who He is. God speaks to me about and for others regularly…but I needed and still need a regular revelation for myself. So God has shown me that He heard my prayers and wanted to teach me a lesson in faith: have faith in myself.

There are things I innately have felt competent at, things I knew without much effort I could do, like fixing things, cooking, and solving problems. I knew I would get into law school, despite the fact I did not apply myself as I should have (DON’T follow in my footsteps, preparation is essential, as I now know). However, upon getting in and actually starting school, that confidence I have always had in regards to school quickly diminished, to an almost nonexistence. I recognized my faults and am working to rectify them…but this experience had left a mar on the faith I once had in myself.

This was translated from my work, which is the primary reason for this sharing of my testimony lol… I have been working for my job for nearly 5 years (I know I don’t look it lol). I finished all necessary requirements for my developmental training earlier than anticipated (with the inclusion of my nearly 4 months off work due to my health and my dad’s death). I have performed well…but I allowed some of the tests that God has allowed in my life in the form of bad leadership to cause me to question myself. I felt like I did not deserve to apply for my promotion until I had achieved this milestone, which now seems virtually impossible after several months of work on it. But He chose to reveal to me the truth.

I recognize now that I had the formula wrong. I was trying to do it in my own strength. Both school and work, things that have become things I identify myself by, I have been trying to be successful without God. Of course I will come to Him in prayer for clarity and strength…but I had not asked that He guide me, that He goes before me and makes my paths straight. Instead, I have been meandering along, albeit He has been showing me things along the way. This lesson though, to have faith in myself, requires me to have faith in the Father, because He equipped us with the gifts and talents necessary to excel in any situations we face.

I read several translations of the scripture above because I confess it every morning but I remember looking at a few translations and how sometimes different versions will really speak to you. And today I needed to see this. Having faith in yourself is essential to your truly being used of and by God. To believe in God’s plan and purpose for your life, you have to, you must believe in the abilities, talents, gifts, and skills you have. Why? Because they specifically qualify you to be the best person for the specific assignment He has for you. Your having faith in them coincides with your faith in Him because He gave you them!

You must have faith in yourself, because God uniquely created you. He set you apart for something great. Here is the key: we have faith in God. We have faith in His works…we are one of His works. We are His beloved creation. He is within us; having faith within ourselves allows God to have the maximum ability to work through you because we can rest in those things He put within us. How can you do it if you don’t believe you can? Its time to be like the Little Engine that Could and faith it till you make it! Love you….

I will offer You my grateful heart, for I am Your unique creation, filled with wonder and awe.
You have approached even the smallest details with excellence;
Your works are wonderful;
I carry this knowledge deep within my soul. Psalm 139:14 The Voice

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As You Love Yourself

He answered: "’Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’" Luke 10:27 NIV

I have been thinking about this since before I went to bed last night. I have been thinking of how to share this…whether to do an Instagram post or break my Lent fast from Facebook because it seemed so important to share, or whether to simply share it with my girlfriends as I have been doing the last few days. For preservation of anonymity, I decided to do what I do best..write.

After bible study, I had a conversation with a friend that turned to the topic of my singleness. He asked, why don’t I have a boyfriend? My reply was the truth, in that I wanted to detox, release all the baggage of relationships past, release all of the things that have happened to me over the years, be the best me I could be, and do what God asked me to do, but do it for myself. I admitted I wanted to be in a relationship, loved being in one, but I wasn’t ready for it. As I got off the video, I realized that this was something much more than that. Back in 2009 after my transplant, one of the things I asked of God was that He teach me to love others the way He loved me and to love myself that way too. So as He spoke to my heart last night and reminded me of that, I realized that I was loving myself the way God wanted me to love myself by choosing to remain single and celibate until I meet my husband. I was loving myself so that I could love my neighbors as myself. Let’s be real, how can you love other people if you don’t love yourself?

I tried writing this last night before I went to sleep…but delirium and tiredness hit me heavy. As I woke up with this on my mind, it kept coming back to me that it would have been impossible for me to fully love someone, my future husband for example, if I continued to carry around all of the filth and garbage from the past. I realized that I could not give God or him all of me in holding on to what BoBo did to me or mistakes I made. I realized I could not love Marquita and thus I could not love others being who I used to be. Yesterday, I shared with Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and undoubtedly the world how I woke up feeling beautiful. I never in my life experienced that feeling…and I didn’t have on any makeup or lip gloss…just a smile and my clothes that are almost two sizes too big in some areas lol. I realized that of all of the things I have gone through in the last 8 months of this Esther purification process (reply if you’d like more details in how God has been transforming me), the greatest lesson has been in loving myself. The products of this journey so far include knowing my worth, being able to be brutally honest with myself about the mistakes I have made, listening to and learning from others, and just embracing me for everything that includes…in essence, loving me.

I think of this scripture and it dawned on me how it is apparent that there is a lack of love in the world, and that the enemy’s attempts at perverting everything God has created are in actuality, working–but I digress because God already has the glory from this. Hate is apparent in every area of our lives, from global interactions to day-to-day driving experiences. People are isolated and cut off from real interactions with others, they flip people off when driving, or in my case, threaten to ride around with a bucket of rocks to beam at people every time they do something I don’t like on the road, lol. But this is not how God intended us to be. I have learned that it is in loving God–submitting, being obedient, and trusting Him, having faith in every single thing He says–that I learned to love me. The things I have done have been unorthodox, even strange (but hey God is extraordinary, if Naaman dipped seven times in the dirty Jordan and was healed of leprosy…then my celibacy and singleness are mere tasks for the greater glory He will soon reveal).

You cannot love yourself walking around in shame. You cannot love yourself walking around dragging generational curses (which, YOU have the authority to condemn and break, Isa 54:17) or by allowing yourself to be oppressed by demonic influences (let’s be real…lust, perversion, whoredoms, addictions, depression, and bondage define the world we live in…and it was only after being delivered from it that I recognized its hold on me, but more about that to come soon). You cannot love yourself ignoring the truth. The truth is, it has been in my obedience and willingness to trust God that I have learned so much. I have lost so much ‘weight’ both literally and spiritually, because I got fed up with not loving myself and going back to why this and why that, why isn’t my life going the way I want it to go. It all started because I loved someone else so much that I wanted to forgive and be a better woman… But there was a greater gift in store for me, because this journey has been so beautiful–I finally love who I see everyday looking back at me, unconditionally. This journey has opened my eyes to seeing the beauty in others, and also in being loving to others even when the old me could give two…craps about even speaking to people. The greatest commandments–to love God and to love others as ourselves–can change the world if practiced. It is my hope that in my sharing this process, and eventually the whole of it with you all, that you will go against the norm, against society’s demands of assimilation, and be the agent of change in your sphere of influence. I am sure your journey to true self-love–how can you love yourself if you don’t love God–and love of others will be different from my own…but stop resisting it and just be! Love your neighbors as you love yourself…love yourself today!

"I give you a new command: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you must also love one another." John 13:34 HCSB