21 days… 15 to go.

21 Days

3… Divine perfection

7… Completion.

21… 3 cycles of completion.

For me, this is why the 21 days exist. The past year, I have grown professionally, personally, spiritually and physically. I am stronger. I know much more about myself. I’m willing to take risks in areas that I wasn’t before. I’m more transparent…. And I have to thank PapaB for showing me how to really share my testimony, follow the unction of Christ and do it all while not bragging on me but on HE! (So kudos PapaB!) But for real, when I am on the mic, I feel like I can share anything I want… but when I sit down, my logical self wants to sink away from my own melanin LOL. I think the best accomplishment that I can say, is that I’ve learned how to live in my stretch zone. But this stretch zone isn’t home. Sidebar: We’re going to talk about Jesus and his leading me but how I set myself up EPICALLY for this later.

The very first thing that got revealed to me when I started the 21 days of Trish, back on 11/8 (my pastor’s anniversary), was the level of dopeness that is Jesus. He crafted in me, who I needed to be over the past year of learning what it means to work in the music industry. As a baby (born a premie), I naturally have a level of determination. As an engineer, I have practiced that determination into a skillful will. As an athlete, I was able to learn how to have tunnel vision. And being the strategic person that I am, I’ve developed my "there’s always another way" mentality. And when I tell you this has taken EVERYTHING I’ve got….! You really don’t know the HALF.

But back to the dopeness that is Christ. See, when my faith was flailing, my focus kicked in. When my focus was on the wrong things, my strategy stood up. When my strategy had run out of options, my tunnel vision lasered in on the destination, and when people laughed or avoided me, I just remembered what God said. And you know, when I look at my future, I still don’t have it all "figured" out, but I’m willing to take a leap into dreamland and vision cast it.

Over these 6 days (since the start), I’ve been focused on what HAS happened, even though much of it hasn’t happened… yet. Dig it — when you work for God (not literally in the church, but literally in your life, following his instructions), he knows every day that you’ll ever see, and gives you what you need before you get to the test. It’s up to us to respond properly, understanding that He’s done it, so we too, have accomplished whatever mountain/feat/goal is in front of us.

Like I said, I’m vision casting & seeing what’s already done. If you see me with my eyes closed, I’m not sleep… I’m just working on something!

I don’t know all the ways that I’ve changed, but I do know that I am on the journey of my life. I thought the past several years were somewhat magical and topsy-turvy, but they weren’t. They were my proving process. The pain, the abandonment, the discouragement, the joys, the memories, the creativity — it was refining me for right now. I never thought I was courageous, but I know I am, now. I never would be willing to show my emotions in the past, but now, I’m so emotionally available (lol)… See, I could not be the totality of who I need to be now, without that.

So, cheers + a tipped hat to the past: You’ve prepared me well.
With open arms, I await the next chapter & it’s challenges.

Eyes Up & happy 21 days of tA!

I never realized Jonah’s story was my life….

​Today in service my pastor preached a message that was part my life, part deliverance, part stripping of pretensions and all the way necessary. See, I have trouble being in service and it’s just another service. You know, the choir or music department isn’t really interested in worship… I feel like a sign should blink that says "due to our lack of worship, there will be no power in our service today." I mean, I really get frustrated. I ask myself why I have so much negative frustration with services like this — but that’s another post.

Unfortunately, the worship today, started off in that direction. But thank GOD for his mid-course correction. When Pastor Williams got up to preach, he preached from a book that most have heard about but not really spent time in. As he preached, we walked through a real understanding of the man that God chose, and his disobedience. All I could see, as he stretched the choices of Jonah out in front of me, was my life. I saw the times when I had, like Jonah, actively removed myself from the presence of God, by choosing to go with my own actions. Whether I felt righteously justified like Jonah just makes me feel different shades of black. LOL.

Why is it so easy for us to rely on our wilfulness? Why do we think we can really change situations with our own actions or that our decisions really are that important?

I have to let the rest of this digest before I can blog on it like I want to…. but yeah…. More to come…