The Confidence Formula

So as Believers, People of Faith, we are called to trust an invisible God and believe that the words He left for us are true and effective and relevant in our lives currently. As a Christian I was often baffled by how to know if I was really standing in faith. This struggle came from my personality. I am a planner I make list and forecast the future. So my math was hindered by my logic. This is why as a Believer I had to learn how to do just that BELIEVE. 

If you need a scriptural reference Romans 8:1 should do it, but today I am going to talk out of my heart. No matter how many times you go to church the clergy urge you to get in the word. To study more often to be closer to God. For me my journey to confidence in what God had for me and my right to its attainment came from me doing just that. I had to first learn the what God said on the matters that concerned me because if you have read “The Guide To It!” Then you know that I believe in praying God’s promises. I then had to find a way to make it my own. Secondly, I resisted my excuses to not sit still with the Lord. I always had one more thing to do, I was tired it was too early or I just plain didn't feel like reading the word or going over my meditation. I walk in my truth and often I just didn't want to. Have you ever looked over your excuses and realized that your humanity a.k.a your flesh was acting out its enmity towards God? Thirdly, I began to confess over my confessions that if God be true every man or situation that makes what He said untrue is a lie. Read that again! 

What began to happen was I could say like David: Who does this uncircumcised (ungodly) giant (problem circumstance) think he is! Not only will I slay him, but I will break the curse and the strong hold that created and supported him! (1 Samuel 17:26) 

In case you missed it the confidence formula is about Knowing what you believe, what promise you are standing on, why despite the seeds you have sown the lies you have told, you can be forgiven and victorious with that same word! So I still make lists, plan and forecast the future but instead of preparing for the worst as an ending I prepare for it as a temporary trial and expect the manifestation of the promise. 

Get That For Yourself!

Love

ANR

Saving Some For Yourself: Love Can Never Be Unsure

Saving Some For Yourself: Love Can Never Be Unsure: Love Can Never Be Unsure ~Maya Angelou This quote has and continues to help me determine when I have arrived at the end of the road w...

Love Can Never Be Unsure

Love Can Never Be Unsure

~Maya Angelou

This quote has and continues to help me determine when I have arrived at the end of the road with anything. “Love Can Never Be Unsure," a line delivered by the deceased force of nature that is Maya Angelou.For me the words are a barometer of effort. When you love yourself you love life and that is because the people in your life, the place you find yourself in and the things that accommodate you make you happy. Trust you knowing also referred to as your spirit man. I have heard people say that you can’t love inanimate things, for the record and the purposes of this blog I respectfully disagree. Love takes effort interest and involvement.

Loving another human being is easy living with and being in relationship with another human being is a purpose driven endeavor. There are times when it feels perfect and doing whats asked of the relationship is a joy but as we all know there are days when you want to burn the breakfast on purpose just to prove a point. (I am the only one? Fine.) As a ferocious lover I have learned that in the hardest moment the easiest question to as yourself is “Are you sure?” The one thing you have to know is that the love is real and there. Subconsciously we answer the question all the time, we draw on love to do the things we don't feel like doing. The thing I want to address here is the caregiving nature.

I have always been a caregiver. Without cognition I have always taken care of people and after the death of my mother I found myself uncared for. I did for people and they did for me but the caring wasn’t there was indiscernible love and a lack of intimacy. I was unfulfilled in every area of my life. I felt abandoned by everyone that was supposed to love me, but what I realized and began to change was the reality that I had abandoned myself. I had to take some time to spend with just me. Sometimes you have to rediscover the love in you for you, this is always the starting point. You can’t give what you don't have. 

Seeing life through the lens of love allows you to see things clearly and with mercy. So while I have talked about relationships here the truth is that I check my knowing to be sure in everything. What I have learned is that God is Love and we should live in his presence reflecting Him as Love to the earth. With God guiding you the feelings of doubt are warfare and that is easy to confirm by submitting and drawing closer to God. Resist the desire to not want to know. I am not saying that by accident, I have many times not wanted to hear what God was saying because it was easier to just be unsure and not make a decision. Dont let that devil ride, stay in flow. 

Keep that for yourself,

ANR 

Find Your Place to Refresh

Are you in a dry place in your life? Do you feel like you can not access the fruit of your efforts. Have you emptied your cup for the saucer experience? If this is where you find yourself then come here and sit with me for a while and I will attempt to help you. My love once taught me that help is only help when it is perceived as such otherwise it is interference. I hope that if you have read this far I am not interfering but I am going to get a little in your business.

Here are five of the places that dry us out.

1.      Negative relationships

2.     Dwelling on past failures and disappointments

3.     Wanting more for people than they want for themselves

4.     Dying with the lie

5.     Involuntary Surrender

One  two and three are pretty self explanatory and if you have ever sought to better yourself then you know these relationships and habits are hard to break but worth the effort. It is draining to let anyone speak into your life things that do not edify it. You can’t be okay with the relationship that doesn’t feed you plain and simple. I will starve before I eat molded bread. More people will always come, you can make new friends and that man is replaceable beyond your hurt feelings and a few lonely nights protect your prosperity by removing these types of people.  We all make mistakes and living in those moments divert you attention from current opportunities and leave you seeing life in the rearview experiencing loss and sadness.  Go get your life back. Release the past, I have a process that I follow for disappointments. It is available on my website. (link the word website) And number three is about family. Your family are the people that you can not get rid of even if you do not have them in your life on a daily basis they are still your blood. For these types of draining relationships you have to do work of loving people where they are. If you don’t want a college degree then okay Im sorry that is your choice but as a result you have this amount of time to get out of my house and you can expect this much and type of help from me going forward. Finish with “Don’t believe me just watch this moving company come in box your things and leave them at the edge of the driveway. I love you.”

Now for the reasons that ignited the need for this blog. Number 4 – Dying with the Lie. I would often accuse my love of being a cheater and I was right he was and is. The reality of that was that I did not mind the cheating as much as I despised being lied to. I hated knowing and not being able to talk about it, not getting the details so I could move on with my life. Now that is odd and doesn’t relate to most people but the point is I had to live with his lies that he would swear by even in the face of proof that he had lied. Living in a place that wasn’t true to who I am made me sick with myself and as a result I was draining my cup. Prior to that growing up in a terrible parenting situation trying to call the man that I look like my father when he had never been an active part of my life. Saying the words mother to a woman that had tried since birth to kill me physically and emotionally since birth felt like a lie I could not live with as result I started referring to them by name and felt immediately better. They were not my parents they were the vessels that would bring me to my real parents. Lying to myself that they were more than that was draining my cup. You get the picture? Something in your life is a lie, honor yourself with the truth and let the lie die.

Number 5 – Involuntary Surrender.  I have often found myself caught up in situations that I had no idea how I had gotten into the mess or how I would get out. More often than we realize we surrender to people to situations to responsibilities that we have no capacity to take on. I have learned to honor my gifts by only doing what serves them. Only attending events that feed my purpose and if it doesn’t and I happen to go I don’t stay long. I make it my business to be present in my life to show up for myself and to ask myself what the yes will cost me.  What is the yes costing you that you have not accounted for?

I said all of this to say that after every tough time after all of the energy depletion and disappointment you must seek to be refreshed. I love the beach and going there revives me, but when I can’t get there I clean my house and have a staycation in which I rest, pray, read, write, sleep, plan, eat well, and binge watch television. I cut-off my cellphone and only take house phone calls. Yes I have a house phone, are you judging me? I have child a business and a job.

So in closing find your happy place by resting in the power of God and self. Re-enter your life refreshed and protect the power and resources that you have stored in your cup. God will add increase for the saucer, but he has to have something to increase. It is not magic, while I do believe in magic, I am convinced that growth and prosperity are achieved by an increase to effort. I can’t expect to win blogging awards if I don’t write blogs. I cant expect to have bestsellers if Idont market the books I write. I do the work God gives the increase. You do the work and as sure as he promised it God will give the increase.

I love you

Atiya

My #uglytruth

Tonight, I watched Being Mary Jane and decided to tell my #uglytruth here. I blog because sometimes I have so much to say then I fail to blog because I can't figure out how to say the multitude of thoughts and opinions flooding my brain. So here I am blogging and telling my truth.

The truth is that I spent noticeably 18 years of my life wanting to die. A truth that has brought me to my greatest call in life, to share with others my pain and how I came to a place of healing. I was abused disregarded and fractured in so many ways as a child that I just couldn't cope. I shut down and hid my truth from not only the adults in my life that may or may not have been able to help me but from myself. I trusted no one and held hatred like an all too familiar blanket. I stored my pain in a closed off cell of my heart while I went on to damage my body by choosing lovers that were damaged and fragile, choosing friends that had something to prove not support to offer. I took care of everyone but myself and believed the lie that I was just fine.

Then after missing a really nice event because I had taken far to many sleeping pills and instead of killing me they made me vomit and sleep for two days, I asked myself the question: Why are you doing this too yourself? I had no idea and the cell my pain was locked in raged war inside of my but I had no idea that freeing it would fix it. I began what I had decided to define as my yearly purge cry. I would cry for days, just weeping like I had lost a loved one or a job or things that matter to people that much. I had no idea why and this had been happening for years so I for the second time sought medical attention. They gave me drugs that literally hurt my teeth. I could not get it together so realizing that the pills didn't make a difference in my mood I continued my quest to stop the emotional spiral. I have been in church my whole life and nothing about my religion or my spirituality had stopped me from fantasizing about running my car off the road and how to do it right so I didn't wake up in a hospital. So I knew that prayer and meditation were a tool but not the answer. So I stayed the course and began writing more. For some people gardening does it but for me nothing makes me feel clearer than words on a page, out loud, I love words. So I wrote until I received an epiphany. I got to my truth. Man it was bad. It was all kinds of horrible abuse, neglect, shaming, bullying I had lived through the nightmare and because i wouldn't accept that it had no power in the present it was keeping me up all night. I inventoried the emotions and I faced them one by one. I looked into the eye of my storm, right at that broken little girl hiding in the closet and I said to her that she was okay. I helped her understand that none of her experience was going to break her that she was born for greatness and like Joseph she was being made ready by the words of her testimony.

So when you are faced with giving up and letting go don't accept the lie that world will be better off without you. It will be better off by you becoming the person that all the evil tried to destroy. As always: Suicide is an unfortunate choice that a sane person makes when they feel like they aren't worth fighting for.  I plead with all of you today to choose yourself. Say out loud: I deserve to live this life and the best for me is yet to come I want to see it. After all the hell I've been through I should stick around to see my life get greater.
I love you because that's easy, I don't live with you!
Get Some For Yourself,
Tia

Dealing With Depression

I have a family history of mental illness and drug abuse. Early on in life this terrified me and being a believer in the power of a testimony I sought out people who were successful against all odds from King Saul to Tyler Perry. What I learned from their stories was that you never come out of these things unscathed. Some demon of your past always haunts your present. For me it is deep sadness, and I just disappear into myself in an effort to avoid my pain or disappointment.  So if you have to deal with depression and you have tried and failed at ignoring the sadness associated with your plight here are my own steps that I am working right now, as in as I write this.

Step 1: Acknowledge what triggered the sadness or disappointment. Clearly face that this has happened and your feeling about it, how would you have liked to had changed things, what do you wish had happened instead.

Step 2: Accept that this is a page in your book of life and grieve it. Cry over it, eat ice cream on it, or my personal favorite, sit and look one way. Whatever it takes allow yourself the process that loss has to go through.

Step 3: Announce Your Forgiveness: Enough is enough with anything not getting you to your dreams. The bible says that when you stand praying stand forgiving. So forgive yourself for allowing it, forgive those that left hurt or denied you and forgive the universe for not yielding to your will. Say it out loud in a place that you will remember being. This marks your thinking.

Step 4: Resist The Emotions: You will remember parts oof it, you will remember your failures your will regret doing nothing or regret doing to much. These are demonic forces trying to allow the depression to enter in. Remind yourself of the place you stood and forgave and how you accepted that their was nothing more to be done and fight to focus on moving forward.

Step  5: Do What You Are Afraid To Do: Whatever the depression made you feel like you did not have the strength to get done, complete that very thing. Whatever overwhelmed you face it and fight forward. It teaches the world and the depression that you are the victor!

Step 6: Be Gentle With Yourself: Sometimes it will feel like to much, sometimes moving forward means moving through a mess you made. So as you work through the pain of not having what you wanted or not having what you need, return to Step 1 and know that you have an expected end. To whom much is given more is required, and if you were not born with purpose these word mean nothing to you.

We fight when something is at stake: freedom, a way of life, an ideal, or to force people to our will or religious beliefs. So if the evil of this world is fighting you: you must protect your freedom, fight for your way of life, wage war to see manifestation of your purpose, and violently take by force the universe to submit to your will and God's will as it relates to your life. 

Save This For Yourself
ANR

Know The Promise

Today I am reminded of a quote I posted earlier this week “When stuck between rock and hard place stand still and demand that God clear your path.”

I have realized a few things I want to share about putting a demand on The Promises of God:

1. You have to know what the promises are
2. You have to have a revelation of your purpose
3. You have to have faith which is believing and acting on what you believe

-Whenever I am in a bible study group or sunday school class I suggest that women read the word and know what God promised. In my current denomination of faith we talk a lot about the testimonies of God’s people in the bible but not about God’s promises and how they translate. So I am often encouraging people to read the bible and pray for revelation. Ex: When God said that tithing would cause him to rebuke the devourer for my sake, I confess that no man can harm my life and I am redeemed from accidents, theft and untimely death.

-When you have not sat still with yourself and God to understand why he put you here and what you need to be successful then you are at a disadvantage because I have realized that God is not the only Being aware of your potential, Satin is too. So if your don’t get in the game then you have no idea what your angels are fighting for and you will make decisions that are contrary to God’s plan for your life and find yourself in places that God has to work a miracle to get you out of. Which is not a good thing because miracles are a sign of the power that works in us to the none believer.

-Self explanatory! If God called you to be a teacher start with a degree. If God called you to be an news woman practice reading  script while being recorded.

If you know where you are going work the plan and work that word till you are where God promised you will be and when it feels like you can’t make it another step the breakthrough is so close that Satin is scared to keep charging towards your goals and take the kingdome by force. God promised some things and it takes valiant effort to see them manifested in our lives.

Be strong, Be Purposeful, Be Successful!