Where’d the month go?!

In my haste to enjoy the 21 days leading up to my birthday, I’ve gotten a lot of 0_o from the folks around me, when I told them of various plans. I just hope whatever they’re planning (gulp) is low-key and not really anything major…

…the whole thing behind birthdays is that, it’s a celebration of life. The celebration of the impact that a single person has had on the lives of others. Too often, because of life, we’re able to see the ways that we "don’t make a difference". One vote doesn’t matter, one letter won’t change anything, one person just isn’t a whole lot of impact, when we live in a world that has billions…

One voice… Ghandi…. Martin Luther King… Nelson Mandela… Mother Teresa… Imhotep…John the Baptist.

.. Jesus.

"A little bit, all the time." If I just lived every area of my life this way, I’d be awesome. A little bit of consistency in all areas, all the time. A drop of water isn’t a water fall. Heck, it’s not even a river or a stream. It’s one drop. But it’s doing a little damage to the rock, all the time.

My new prayer for the new year I’m going into: "God help me me a drop amidst the rocks."

As I’m a week out from the celebration of my life, I look at all the ways that I’ve impacted people around me… and, it feels good. I know what I’m not, and that’s ok. What’s better than that, is that I know who I am. And everything that I desire to be is wrapped up in a flurry of action, preparing me for that next destination. 365 days ago, I was preparing to make a trip to NY with my nephew — I see you "Sha’k"! 🙂 — and walking into what would prove to be a most crazy holiday. 365 days ago, I was reading some books that changed my life. I was one month into a group that would re-route what I believed was possible for Me. I was beginning to develop my own prayer culture with Christ.

I was a completely different person than I am today.

I had "issues," let some tell it. Lol.
Funny how the people who are bona fide crazy, find fault in everyone else’s face, but never their own mirror. Thank goodness I don’t have those voices in my life anymore…and sometimes, you have to show people where the exit sign is, so that they don’t keep lingering around the edges of who you are. In lingering, they are smothering the edges that you attempt to burn, in becoming who you’re supposed to be! ("Amen goes right there!" haha) But what I also realized in this, was that the things that I kept around as "momentos to never do that again" were just making me angry and messing up my vibe whenever I saw them! So… what’s a gyal to do? "Trow it away!" (Note: the author is using "it" as an adjective — person, place or thing!)

I was learning to trust me, again.
That’s the most difficult part of mending a mistake. At midnight, who do you call, when you wrestle between who you are becoming and who you are turning away from? See, what happened with me, is, I made a mistake. A pretty bad one, where I paid for it. I paid in time, tears, emotional and physical pain. Luckily I only have some emotional scar tissue, that’s being worked out. =] But, what I have learned over the past 52 weeks was that it wasn’t hard to "bounce back." In some regards. Yes, it cost some financial investments, yes it cost some other things, but the hardest critic was myself. I didn’t trust myself in some areas. I had to go and find the good, and literally throw away, unlearn and forget the bad. I looked at myself and listened to all of the negativity and said "well you know… " (and you know that nothing that begins with "well you know" and has a mistake woven into the fabric of the dialogue, ends well). So that was me. Self just all in a mess. Lol…

I was finding new great friends…and God was working out.
No one in the world can pay me to snub relationships that I’ve built with my coasters. East and west, they’ve been my solids. But when you can’t "get" to them, and video chat doesn’t work, who can you call? I was finding these people. And luckily for me, they’ve been there through some of the hardest periods of my 2011. So I’m graatteefffuulll….God literally was working out of me. He was doing some tremendous moving and lifting, and the God I’d known and grown with was becoming so huge that the inward man was working out(ward!).

(stretches)

This journey…. 52 weeks later. Man.

I look forward to another 52.

❤ – G.

Fresh Fire!

I have had that term in my head. I woke up with some lyrics on my heart too:

I hit your back so hard against that wall / you’d never fall

How many times have we looked at something as a setback, only to realize it was a set up?! Man.. I said the other day that God allowed me to dodge a bullet when I didn’t "get" some things!! With a particular person, YEARS later, things came out and I was suuuper happy that I didn’t "get" my man. LOL.

It’s always phenomenal to me. God has a way of allowing things to not happen, as much as he allows things TO happen. So often we blame Him for those things, but not seeing how many things He kept from us, saving us, setting us aside as His own.

Fresh Fire!

>> In a side note: One of my favorite couple’s in the whole wide world is moving away for a while. It was very sad to see them this past Sunday, but, He has the perfect plan. God, I ask that you allow their ministry to grow and to bless others, just like they’ve blessed me with their simple presence and smile. The knowledge share was dope too! <<