Shoulda, Coulda, Woulda

Have you allowed yourself to be paralyzed by what ifs?

The past fifteen months of my life have proven immensely difficult.  I spent 382 days unemployed, but I'm able to look back on that time with far more thanksgiving than regret.

When we suffer storms and drastic, unexpected life changes, it becomes so easy to focus on the shoulda, coulda, wouldas of it all. I should’ve moved faster, if I had, I would’ve found a job faster. I could’ve lost 30 lbs. I could’ve already finished my book. I should've gone to the doctor sooner.

If I let it, my mind could be completely overpowered by a million ‘what ifs’. Instead, I prefer to focus on ‘what is’. What is...true is that I, just like you, am exactly where God wants me to be right now.

As another Michigan winter approaches, I’ve been thinking about all of the references and clichés we use to discuss seasons. In relationships we have “cuffing season” and "wedding season" – as one prepares to give way to the other.  Those who don’t make the transition from one to the other often quote the phrase, “people come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime’.

In practical terms, we all have our favorite seasons (mine is autumn) for whatever reason we can muster and the same holds true spiritually. Ecclesiastes 3:1-2 KJV states that, “to everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven…a time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted”...but the most powerful word in that scripture is PURPOSE.

I could have done any of a million things in that 382 days but I did the only thing that God intended…I healed. Not just physically (given that there was a major surgery in that timeframe), but emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and even professionally.  I learned more about who I am and what I want in those 382 days than in the whole 35 years that preceded them. I learned to be honest with myself about what matters to me, what I want, and what I'm no longer willing to accept. I LEARNED TO BE HONEST WITH GOD. If I am going to be His hands and feet on this earth, then I have to walk in a way that is not only pleasing to Him, but that is actively pursuant of purpose.

I realized that as Believers, we tend to get tunnel vision.  Because Harvest time is our favorite Christian season, we tend to hone in on the calm OR the storm – but what about the calm IN the storm? Paul says in Philippians 4:11 (KJV) that, "I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content".  As we approach this Thanksgiving, can you say the same?

We focus so much on the peaks and the valleys of life, that we fail to realize - looking upward doesn’t mean craning our necks to see only the mountaintop.

I quote it often, because it’s true, “II Timothy 2:3 NKJV says, “you therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ”. It doesn’t say that you might, it says that you must. It doesn't matter how closely you walk with God or for how long. Valleys are inevitable, and storm clouds are always just over the mountain. Our problem is that in experiencing one, we often fail to prepare for the other, and we are seldom honest with ourselves about either.

When I lost my job, the shoulda, coulda, wouldas had me angry with God, even though my positioning was no secret to me. I took a job for passion and purpose, but I kept it for pay. Dozens of times, before any word of merger or acquisition, I thought to move on and look for something else, but God just wouldn’t let me do it. Whenever I thought to look at a job or submit a resume, I would be nauseously unsettled in my spirit.

God was telling me to be still. 

When my position was eliminated, then came Team SCW! I shoulda applied and kept looking, I coulda found something long ago. I woulda been prepared...but that was the point the entire time. Preparation.

I wasn't worried about money for a good long time.  Not until I found out that I needed surgery and wouldn't readily be able to return to work. That's when I realized that my season of preparation, that my best friend had warned me of months before, wasn't about being financially prepared. It was about being spiritually prepared. It was about finding my calm IN the storm. It was about learning that no matter what state I'm in, therewith to be content, but it was also about learning which of the 'what ifs' to focus on.

There were likely a million 'what ifs' that kept me in that old position. What if I quit and it takes a while to find something else. What if the next position turns out worse than this one or the commute increases, taking more time away from my daughter. What if I quit to write, but no one buys my books. I was craning my neck for the mountaintop and the glare from the sun was blocking my vision.

Once I started to look above the mountain and beyond the clouds, my focus adjusted and my 'what ifs' matured. I started to ask myself the real questions like, what if God had taken me out in any of those three rounds with cancer? What if that lump in my breast wouldn't have come back benign? What if I'd died 16 years ago, back when doctors gave me just 6 months to live?

WHAT IF I LEAVE THIS EARTH HAVING NEVER DONE THE WORK THAT GOD SET BEFORE ME TO DO?

That's the 'what if' that should have you in its grasp! Not the shoulda, coulda, woulda.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. Spend the day with your family reflecting on ALL that you have to be thankful for - not just the blessings you've seen, but the ones unseen. Think about what it is in your life that has you paralyzed, then wake up on Friday, boots to the ground, ready to walk again!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Follow Me as I Follow God

@RevealingRuth

Waiting for You

When will you act on the vision that God gave you?

We all know the tale of Jesus’ first performed miracle.  He and his mother Mary go to a wedding that runs out of wine, at which time, she says to him, “they have no more wine”. He responds, “woman, why do you involve me? My hour has not yet come.” Looking upon the servants, she says, “do whatever he tells you.”

This week, I want to talk about doing what God told you.

When I started this blog, the vision of this ministry was clear. After all of the young women I’ve counseled over the years; seeing all those around me who are still so confused about purpose, relationships – how they work and the role they play in laying hold of the promises of God, I just wanted a place where we could break those things down into small, more easily digestible pieces.

I really didn’t have full regard for how this blog would or could fit into God’s plan for my life. I wasn’t thinking about Romans 8:28 and how “all things work together” for my good. I was thinking about your good. As you read this piece, or any other piece that I’ve written/will write. I was thinking about how difficult it can be for us to see ourselves sometimes, until our predicament changes context or is presented from a different perspective.

I have learned and truly believe that everything in this walk with God is about relationship. Not just our relationship with Him, but our relationship with one another.

By looking at John 2 the way that we always have, we can only see the miracle performed. For some people, turning water into wine isn’t altogether inspiring. It’s awe-full to watch, and we may wonder how it works, but it pales in comparison to the very prospect of causing a blind man to see or a lame man to walk.

So, what if I said to you that in re-reading that chapter this morning, turning water into wine wasn’t actually the miracle in that text for me. Again, turning water into wine is important, perhaps even impressive, but for me, what was more important was the spark.

In the same way that for you, this blog is just another blog, for Jesus, that water just became wine. This is where relationship comes in. Jesus didn’t see His moment, his mother did. He caught the spark because she directed Him to it.. She took the first step.

The miracle comes in knowing when to act.

Do you have any idea how many lame men, blind people, and dead things Jesus must have encountered on His journey? Yet, the Bible tells us only of a select few - that’s because the power of the miracle is in timing and the presence of relationship.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about breakthrough and the parable of the lame man in Mark 2, whose friends delivered him to Jesus to be made whole. The miracle in that moment wasn’t Jesus causing a lame man to walk, it was those four men getting their friend to Jesus. You have to align yourself with your miracle and that requires forward movement!  Those four men took the first step necessary to seeing a man who had never walked, take his first step; and that’s the power of Jesus turning water into wine. The wine doesn’t matter, it’s the step that makes all the difference.

Jesus knew his purpose, but felt that His time had not yet come. Without his mother coaxing him into that first step, how long would we have had to wait for all of the many miracles of God?

If you know that the actualization of purpose begins with a single step, when are you going to take yours?

A dream is just a dream until you act on it and purpose is never truly purpose until actualized. How long ago were you told of the promise? Most of you know what God wants you to do, but you won’t move on it. You’ve spent years of your life stuck, planning, and preparing for the promise, waiting for your moment, believing that your “hour has not yet come”, when what we really need to do is act! God wants to see you move. Once you do, you’ll realize that you wasted so much valuable time waiting for a moment that was waiting for you.

Follow Me as I Follow God

@RevealingRuth

Same Ex, Who Dis?

In honor of Halloween, I'd like to chat a little bit about the masks that some of us wear daily.

I previously spoke about an ex who was just about everything that I‘d asked for. This man checked…almost…all the boxes on my list, causing me to question - if we spend our time focused on checking off boxes for everything that we think we want, what do we do with the extras that we end up with?

We corrupt our own head space, skewing our views of healthy and successful relationships.  I had a conversation with a fellow women’s counselor once about the prevalence of re-dating, both literally and figuratively. We began the discussion because I, at the time, had a 35+ year old client, recently engaged, who had only dated two men in her lifetime. Since the 9^th grade, she’d bounced back and forth between the same two men - one in high school, the other in college, the high school love interest returned in her twenties and they had a child before breaking up and she became engaged to the college boyfriend in her 30s.  When we look at her story it looks like insanity, but only because it’s literal. We figuratively do the exact same thing without a second thought.

According to a 2017 study by SuperDrug, the average person will have sexual intercourse with 7 people in their lifetime. If we then consider how many people we date and never have sex with, consider the likelihood of them all being completely different and not sharing any of the same traits that caused a previous breakup. The concept is difficult to grasp because we can't always pinpoint the reason for our breakups; mostly because we seldom ever take the time to analyze the do's and don’ts of our wants.

I do want a:

God Loving, People Loving

Purpose-Driven
Family-Focused
Self-Aware
Passionate
Encouraging

Mechanically Inclined

Supportive

Black male, 6’1” or taller, aged 35-45

I don’t want:

Someone who doesn’t go to church AND have an active prayer life

Arrogant
Proud & Egotistical
Lazy or happily stagnant

Poor Communicator

Shorter than me

Who hasn’t figured out who he is

These points are the obvious things that can be checked off in boxes, but what can’t be checked off are the spirits we carry and the unhealthy aspects of our character that haunt our relationships.

I will never forget dating a guy who everyone around me thought was amazing until I visited him unexpectedly one afternoon.  I watched him get mad at his 3-year-old for crying, and then spanked his 11-year-old for standing in the driveway playing catch in “his good shoes”.   (It was the height of the summer, by the way.)  He also introduced us to what will forever be referred to as “the mad daddy voice”. 

My daughter was confused and riddled with questions when we left – why can’t babies cry? What are good shoes? How is a kid supposed to play if he only has “good shoes”? Why was he in such a bad mood? Are you going to call him again?

Because let me tell you what I’ve learned - anger is an emotion, true enough, but it is also a spirit, in the same way that poverty is both an economic status and mindset.  This man was making good money – had received a promotion and two raises in the summer that we hung out, but in his mind, his son couldn’t play catch in his “good shoes” because they couldn’t afford new ones.

When he was planning for our presence, he had time to put on the face that he wanted us to see, but when our visit was unexpected, his real face came out.

How many times have you gone from David to Daniel to Eric to Mike thinking they were different people until that one argument or unexpected visit when he forgot to put on face and you realized that you had spent the majority of your dating years re-dating the exact same guy? You hop from one person to the next checking off boxes until you realize it's always the same person...over and over...like

Follow Me as I Follow God

@RevealingRuth

What Break Up?

Confession – I haven’t always been the best communicator in my past relationships. I’ve had arguments in which I focused more on winning the disagreement than seeing the other person’s point of view.  I’ve had exes tell me how they feel and had their feelings go virtually ignored because my not understanding their feelings prevented me from effectively processing their words.

Because I am now aware of this, a large part of my wholeness and growth journey has focused much on communication. Today it occurred to me that as adults, the majority of our day is spent deciphering language, yet we still fail to see the importance of sound communications in our relationships.

I am somewhat famous for my Shan-isms mostly because I most often use language literally. If I say to you, “I have no idea how to respond to that”, don’t expect a response.  If I say, “I am officially done with this conversation”, don’t be surprised if I leave you standing alone, arguing with yourself.

So, as I think about the way that I use language, it led to heightened curiosities about how others use language, today, most specifically, the term ‘break up’.

I have seen lives completely turned around by ending ridiculous and unhealthy relationships.  I will never forget, a few years ago, a friends’ adult son left his relationship and when his mother asked about [who she thought was] his girlfriend, he replied, quite evenly, “she got hit by a bus”.  When the mother remarked that they’d broken up, he responded, “nope, I’m good”.  She was baffled. I was proud.

In that moment, he proved that he understood language affects the way that we respond to the events in our lives. The Bible says that the POWER of life and death is in the tongue, so why don’t we understand that we give things power by the way that we verbally refer to them? This young man was  saying, that relationship was broken, I’m NOT!

The more I study, the more I counsel, the more I explore my wholeness and the journey that is life, I realize that I will never have another break up. I will have friendships, partnerships and relationships that will inevitably end, but I will never break up again.

Webster’s dictionary defines break up as “the act or instance of breaking up”, which is to say, “to end a romance; ceasing to exist as a UNIFIED WHOLE”.  How many people have you witnessed functioning as a UNIFIED WHOLE, who ended their relationship? It doesn’t happen!  People end relationships because of a failure to co-exist as a solid, stable, healthy unit.

The bible says in Ecclesiastes 3:1, “to everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven”.  To say that two people broke up would imply brokenness and thereby a need for repair, but most often, the end of the relationship isn’t the break, it’s actually the fix.

We have to stop allowing language to trick us into attempting to reconcile volatile and otherwise unhealthy relationships.  You cannot fix what was always inherently broken.  So, going back to or even mourning the end of unhealthy relationships will never serve your highest good.

No, your ex doesn’t have to be hit by a bus in order for you to heal, you just have to understand that God’s purpose for your life and the level of wholeness necessary for you to actualize that purpose is far greater and more important that that relationship.

Remember, ‘to everything there is a season’, so dig up those roots!  Glean whatever you are meant to reap from that season and go plant closer to your intended harvest!  Some lessons taste more like medicine than sweet nectar, but that doesn’t mean they can’t bear fruit. When it’s over, it’s over. Do what you need to do for you. Focus on moving forward, being whole, healthy and focused on your future, not your past!

Follow Me as I Follow God

@RevealingRuth

Restored to Wholeness

If the Bible tells us that married people are one flesh, how do you divorce and remain whole?

When I was younger, I remember going to school with kids who had “uncles”.  I can’t recall how old I was when I finally found out what it meant for a woman to make her children regard her gentleman callers as “uncle”, but as I consider all of the divorcees that I know, I have to question if either way is truly better.

I can remember thinking about how weird and gross it seemed to call your mom’s boyfriend uncle, but what about marriage makes that any better?  Women who marry and divorce ... somewhat frequently, create a stream of men for their children to call dad or stepdad that is just as temporary as a boyfriend.  They’re both equally disturbing.

Two friends have weighed heavily on my mind as of late. The first has an elementary aged daughter and is on her 3^rd marriage. The second has a teenaged daughter, 2 ex-husbands and a baby daddy.  The current condition of the teenager makes me terrified for the young daughter of the other friend.

When we think about past relationships we often talk about the luggage that we take into our new relationships and how it influences our interactions with other adults, but when are we going to consider the way that it impacts our children?  Here is an otherwise healthy young lady who has never seen anything other than volatile relationships and, as such, is beginning to act out in her own relationships – mainly the non-romantic ones.  By watching her mother be devalued, she has learned to devalue others.

For the most part, I’ve refrained from dating for the majority of my daughter’s life.  Now, at ten years old, she is well-adjusted. She understands healthy relationships and how to recognize them. However, she has also gotten used to it being just the two of us.  So much so that I have been asked by a potential suitor how she might receive the prospect of having to share me.

My friend’s teenaged daughter is struggling with behavioral, social and mental health issues, having no firm example of what a healthy relationship looks like.  She has learned to be mistreated, mishandled, and to accept the scraps of half-hearted appreciation and ignorance of worth.  Conversely, the daughter of my thrice married friend will likely bear the weight of entitlement and a level of self-centeredness that will result in an utter lack of compromise.  She has been taught that people, like wedding rings, can be removed to fit your whimsy.

She hasn’t witnessed the beauty of self-reflection, redirection and dedication to the elements necessary to making relationships work.  These days, people treat spouses like boyfriends/girlfriends – someone that you can walk away from the moment it looks like the honeymoon has ended; the moment the slightest bit of unhappiness surfaces and things are no longer new enough to carry your infatuation.  We celebrate 5 years as though it were 50, with no regard for the way that our grandparents and great grandparents made it work for so long.  Instead of addressing the issues in their relationship - the roles that both they and their spouse played; they file for divorce and move on to the next one.

I am not saying that there is anything wrong with divorce, but Matthew 19:6 (KJV) reads that two married people become “one flesh.  What therefore God hath joined together, let no man tear asunder”.  The question therefore becomes how many times will you enter into a marriage that God never put together, before you start to question what’s driving you into the arms of men who you never intended to be your forever? So, you travel from one relationship to the next, one husband to another, carrying the baggage of your brokenness until you collapse beneath its weight. 

You are spiritually tearing yourself apart without regard for how you can be restored to wholeness.

Follow Me as I Follow God

@RevealingRuth

The Lessons We Allow

What has your past taught you - to fear, or to love?

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the seasons of life and the positions we allow others to play in our lives.  In doing so, a connection to a friend has been heavy in my spirit.  Unknowingly, I spent years in this man’s presence, the two of us teetering along the edges of each other’s lives, until about a year ago.

For a moment, the two of us stepped outside of the norm and were able to see one another in a new light. A strong, beautiful, powerful light. A light that has inspired and empowered me, and for him, I can only pray the same.  However, our encounters cause me to ponder the nature of things.

Generally speaking, the most influential relationships of our lives are the ones that happen, not the ones that don’t.  So, how does a man with whom I have never even been on a date, so greatly affect me and my relationships? Plainly stated, because I allowed him to.  We spend so much of our lives focused on RELATIONSHIPS that we forget the importance of RELATIONSHIP.

'They' say that a man and a woman can't be friends. Though I beg to differ, such beliefs highlight the fact that we give relationships too much power. We allow the joy and pain of our romantic history to dictate elements of our lives that should have never been affected.  It dictates where we can and cannot live, work, spend our free time. It especially dictates how we treat the people who come into and out of our lives thereafter.  All of this, we allow.

I vividly recall, the gentleman in question once saying to me how his ex-wife would “cut up” if/when he got married again.  I remember thinking, “WHO CARES!??!”  Yet, even then, it didn’t occur to me the level of power that we give people from our past over our present lives and future.  The remnants of our romantic relationships clutter our minds and dictate how we treat others.  His remnants built a wall around his heart, making it extremely difficult to penetrate for fear of further hurt or disappointment.  My remnants built a mirrored glass wrecking ball, replacing my own walls. I have decided what I want and work constantly to destroy anything outside of that.

Lord’s grace, I have had the time to reflect on the effect that my previous romantic dealings have had on the way that I live my life.  I understand now that no one has power in your life that you’re not willing to give them.  When handled wisely, our past should guide us along the path of wisdom.

When I say that this man has a wall built around his heart, it could sound like I’m taking shots at him - being unfair or somewhat judgmental, but I truly am not.  There is a portion of wisdom that is closed off, strategic and methodical.  Proverbs 4:23-25 directs us to guard our hearts, while reminding us to remain focused (fix your gaze directly before you).  The question becomes how many of us do one without the other?

I have not been in a relationship since my 10-year old daughter was born.  I haven’t been on a real date in seven years.  The way in which I have navigated her exposure to the world, have also limited my own exposure. On the other hand, this man has been in one serious relationship since his divorce. A long distance relationship that allowed him engagement outside of his life as a parent, true enough, but I would argue that it was also the type of relationship that allowed for him to nurture his fear of commitment and limit potential exposure to future pain & disappointment.

I write in next week’s #WednesdayReveal “Say Uncle” about the issues plaguing the daughters of women I know to have…. unstable relationship histories.  Both of whom are currently married.  On the flip side, both myself and the gentleman in question are single, but have healthy, well-adjusted children.

The comparison paints a picture as though we as parents either fail our children – passing in and out of relationships, or we fail ourselves – refusing to allow anyone but our children close enough to love us.

Neither of these positions is a healthy place to reside.  Our relationships should be teaching us to exercise wisdom, not to be afraid.  If 2 Timothy 1:7 teaches us that God has not given us the spirit of fear, then we should start to question where we learned it, and from there, start to be more mindful of the lessons we allow.

Follow Me as I Follow God

@RevealingRuth

Take Up Your Mat

If someone else’s walk depended on the healing of your lameness, would you take up your mat?

In my last post, “Out of the Valley”, I wrote that our purpose is not for us alone. I would like to reiterate that in this week’s post. As Christians, especially those desiring to be or remain married, we often forget that the cornerstone of every romantic relationship is an overall healthy understanding of how relationship works. Not relationships as in husband and wife, but relationship, as in the state of being connected as people.

In order to know how to treat your (future) spouse, you need an accurate understanding of how to treat your fellow man. All of our relationships are connected, beginning with our relationship with God. The way that we respond to and interact with others is a direct result of our relationship with and closeness to Him.

In my upcoming book, I write about the way that communication affects our relationships once we have learned to focus as much on what is not said, as we focus on what is said. We have to understand this same concept with the bible. If prayer is us speaking to God, and He speaks back to us when we read the bible, then in order for us to fully grasp what He wants to say to us, we have to consider what is not said. I’m not saying to make things up and I’m not even referencing interpretation; I’m talking about inference – information that can be reasonably deduced from what we read.

In Mark 2 we are told the story of a paralyzed man whose four friends carry him through the village of Capernaum to encounter Jesus, that he might be healed of his paralysis.  The bible says that ‘some men came, bringing to Jesus a paralyzed man…since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof…and then lowered the man before Jesus’. It goes on to say that when Jesus saw their faith, He declared the mans’ sins forgiven and bid him to rise, take up his mat and go home - which he did!

Here's the problem, when we read the bible, we focus on the takeaways that a pastor or teacher told us were important, or we focus on the words that we read instead of processing context. If you truly want to get the meat of the word, I challenge you to focus on the relationships that you’re reading about, because here’s the fix – the true miracle at work in Mark 2 isn’t in this man’s healing by God’s word. Jesus performed miracles all the time, causing a lame man to walk wasn’t necessarily all that special. The miracle is in the relationship between those five men and their faith.

Consider for a moment, the ‘law of gathering’ is reliant on a five-fold investment. If you want 3 people to show up somewhere, you will generally need to invite about 15 people, ESPECIALLY if you’re looking to do something as “outrageous” as see a lame man walk. But this man was paralyzed, feasibly for his entire life, he didn’t have the wherewithal to gather 15 people. He had only that good, strong four; four men who knew God to be the omnipotent Jehovah Rapha that he needed.

Here’s the catch, we make a lot of assumptions when communicating with God. We assume that God is too busy with the “big stuff” to bother with our “little problems”, or that our prayers are going unanswered because we don’t see God show up in major ways, without realizing that God most often shows up in other people. I remember a Bishop telling me once that I needed to learn to accept help when it’s offered, not just because I need it, but because the blessing, faith and even the deliverance of the PERSON OFFERING might be reliant upon it. That’s what we learn from the parable of Mark 2, because in all the things that we take from this story and all that this chapter says, what it does not say is that the trip to Capernaum was taken at the request of the paralyzed man! 

WE DON’T EVEN KNOW THAT THIS MAN DESIRED TO BE HEALED!

He’d been paralyzed his entire life. He may have been perfectly content in his infirmity. This entire trip could’ve been planned by any of those four men. Any one of them could’ve heard of the healing power of Jesus and thought to himself that the greatest test of his faith would be seeing his friend walk, knowing that surely if Jesus could heal the brokenness of a man who has never taken a single step, He could heal the brokenness of the man who brought him there.

Never neglect the importance of your relationship with other believers. You may be the only bible that someone sees today and their salvation or wholeness might rely solely on your willingness to take up your mat and walk!

Follow Me as I Follow God

@RevealingRuth

Out of the Valley

FACT:  The devil will never present himself to you in the form that you expect.  John 10:10 (NIV) tells us that, “the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full”.  His purpose is stated clearly – to steal, kill and destroy.  He’s referred to as “the thief” and we all know that every good thief wears a mask.

Our problem is that we watch too much TV. We expect the presence of the devil to be obvious and assume that we’ll be able to see what he has stolen from us, but it’s never that simple.

The devil attacks the building blocks of our future. He steals our hope; kills our dreams; and destroys our faith. If you’re staying close to God and stretching toward your purpose in this life, how can you know when the devil has stolen hope from you?  How will you know that your dreams are slipping away before they’re completely outside of your sight?

While we’re keeping an eye out for something as obvious as a red-skinned demon with horns and a pitch fork, he’s attacking us subtly in places we find comfort.  He comes wearing strong arms and broad shoulders. Buried in the voice of the man who, “just wants to spend time with you” but that [insert dream] takes up all of your time.  If you’re lazing on the couch watching a movie, he’s fine to lay next to you, but pick up a pencil and start writing music, or a paint brush that you haven’t touched in weeks, and suddenly…you’re focused on your dream to the detriment of your relationship.

He comes in the voice of your mother when she asks, “why can’t you just get a regular job?  You’re trying too hard to make [insert dream] happen and nobody has ever even done that before”. You start to wonder if you can truly be the first.

He comes as a best friend when they say, “why are you writing a book?  People don’t even read their emails!”  Or when they quote all the negative statistics of small businesses because they “don’t want to see you get hurt”, when the reality is that they don’t have enough faith to support you in your vision and you didn’t have enough wisdom to keep that vision to yourself until you could stomach the backlash of disbelief.

These are the sneaky ways in which the devil comes to you.  Yet, most often, he comes wearing the same mask that you see when you brush your teeth in the morning.  That version of you that smiles wryly to cover the blotches on your skin that have come from the “comfort” of your own doubts, fears, and insecurities.  The same doubts, fears and insecurities that have suppressed your dreams into dormancy.

I learned two very important things last week. While writing last week’s #WednesdayReveal “The Joy of Becoming”, I learned that (to some extent) we control our time in the valley.  If I had cast aside my doubts, fears and leaned not unto my own understanding, perhaps my tears would have dried sooner, clearing my vision enough for me to head in the direction of my mountain.  I wouldn’t have reached it until God knew I was ready, but at least I would’ve been on the right path.

The other thing that I learned is that no dream belongs solely to the dreamer.  I have a dream for this ministry to bless the world, and I believe God for that to happen within His time and design, so selfishly, I’ve kept my dream close to me.  Yet, after allowing a friend to read some of my work, she said to me that HER dream is to live long enough to see me “sit across from Oprah on Super Soul Sunday” … a show that I don’t even watch!

Ephesians 3:20 (NKJV) says God is able to do “exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works IN US”.  I would have never asked God to bless me to be on a show that I can’t watch because it airs during our church service.  There would be no way to ask it because there would be no way for me to think it.

But check this out, it says above all that…according to the power that works WITHIN US.  We have far more power than we give ourselves credit for.  I could have potentially come out of my storm earlier had I realized that my dream isn’t just for me.  It’s not just for the wholeness of my children and grandchildren. It’s for the healing of their brokenness, for their dreams and their children’s dreams, and for the benefit of all those around us whose dreams are reliant on us tapping into our own power.

I’m sure that I’m not the only person who has been caught paraphrasing Isaiah 6:8, being the first to say, “send me Lord, I’ll go!” It wasn’t until the valley of these last 15 months that I truly realized what it means to go first.  My dream is for me, my family, my friends, and any woman who will be touched by my work and comes to the understanding that she can do anything, and go anywhere that she and God are in agreement that she should go!  It doesn’t matter if no one has ever done this thing the way that I seek to do it, because no one else has the same power that works within me.  No one has been given the same dream, to fulfill the same purpose that God has for me on this earth.  So tell me something…

if you knew that there was a nation of people tied to your dream, would you allow the tricks of the devil to keep you stuck? Or would you embrace the promises of God and come out of the valley?

Follow Me as I Follow God

@RevealingRuth

The Joy of Becoming

Fifteen months ago an unexpected acquisition caused me to leave the longest standing position of my professional life.  For months I had felt uncomfortable with work.  For weeks a friend had asked me what I was going to do about it. Was I applying for jobs? Was I going to quit?  What does uncomfortable mean exactly?  I had no answers. All I knew was that however one could come to explain my discomfort or uneasiness, it couldn’t be attributed to me being spiritually out of alignment.

I was still active in my prayer life, seeking daily to clearly hear the voice of God, and although constantly uncomfortable, the only time that I felt out of alignment was when I went to apply for a job. I just didn’t feel like applying for a job was what God wanted me to do.

So, I did the thing that is often most difficult for Christians – I remained still.  I promised God that I wouldn’t move unless He told me to, and He kept me in that season of uneasiness for about 3 months. Who would’ve guessed that a year later, I would be desperately praying for that lost season of discomfort.

I spent 11 of those 15 months unemployed; at least 7 of which without a single check coming in. I didn’t even qualify for unemployment.  At one point, I was very actively tracking and had applied for 67 jobs within ~ 6 weeks with NOT A SINGLE OFFER!  Here I was with 9 degrees, hadn’t been unemployed since I was 11 years old, and God wouldn’t give me a job no matter how much I begged him!

I have never felt so forgotten in my life.

I reached a point where I was crying in the shower nearly every time I turned the water on, pleading with God to tell me why He was so mad at me.  Asking God, how did I get here when I did everything that you told me to do?

I was in the valley, and I watered it daily.  Then, I decided to stop.  I decided that instead of crying over something that God wasn’t doing, that I would praise Him for everything that He was doing. I can honestly say that despite scripture, teaching and everything else, it was very hard to find things to be grateful for in the beginning. So, I started small - thank you Lord that even though I didn’t get a job offer today, at least I didn’t get a rejection! I thanked him for our home, for no car note, and being able to feed my daughter.  I got back to daily mediation and thanked Him for that, because it was not until then, that I realized what was happening.

I HAD FORGOTTEN.

You’ll notice that I speak a lot about process, and that’s because I feel like we don’t give process enough credit.  As people, we focus on the sunshine vs. the rain.  As Christians, we focus on the mountaintop vs. the valley. We forget that just as there is always a place, there is also a process.

When life hits us, we lean on common scriptures like Deuteronomy 31:8(NIV), “the Lord himself goes before you and be with you; He will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged”.  We quote these scriptures and people recite them to us in hopes of providing comfort, but those scriptures alone are not comforting.

When I stopped crying, I figured out that none of us lands on a mountaintop or in a valley.  There is a PROCESS attached to every PLACE. In order to get to the valley, you must descend from the mountaintop. In order to reach the mountaintop, you have to climb the mountain.

The discomfort that I felt before leaving my job was my descent. I was headed for a very necessary valley.  The valley within which I cried often, unsure how I would care for my daughter. We know that Matthew 6:26 says birds “do not store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them”, but when bills keep coming instead of checks, or you start to see the back of your refrigerator…. does that scripture feel real to you?

I know that we are taught that we reap what we sow, and that I had always tried to sow love, grace and good works.  Unfortunately, when you’re in the storm, you can’t see any of that, because this isn’t a movie, it’s real life, and climbing a mountain is hard!

I cried in my valley wondering how long the storm would last, not realizing that my tears added to the flood.  When I stopped watering it, I stopped sinking.  I realized that if God wouldn’t pull me out, that I was okay if He would just join me.  I couldn’t sit in that valley alone.  Instead of dwelling on how I got there, I invited God to get down in there with me.  My resume wasn’t helping me.  My degrees weren’t helping me.  The prayers of my family weren’t helping me.  I had to shift my focus.

Some of us need to learn to pray – ‘Lord, if you won’t deliver me, join me. Be with me where I am and show me the way out’. The Bible says that the Lord goes before us, but He cannot go before us unless we first invite Him to be with us. He can only lead us out, if we give Him our hand.

When I invited God to sit with me in my valley, He showed me that of those 67 jobs that I’d applied for in that 6 weeks, I was only actually interested in 11; and of that 11, at least 4 would have required so much of me that I would hardly ever see my daughter.  That’s why we need logic in the valley, why we need God and wisdom in the valley.  Why we need clear vision.   If you spend enough time crying in the valley, you’ll blur your vision enough to think that the nearest mountain is yours to climb.  I accepted 2 positions in that first year of unemployment and neither of them was my mountain.

90% of those jobs I’d applied for would’ve caused me more harm than good.  That’s why God wouldn’t give them to me.  I was in my valley. I recognized that, but I had to stop crying in order to see MY mountaintop.  I had to stop focusing on how unhappy I was, in order to get to the joy of becoming who I want to be.

Follow Me as I Follow God

@RevealingRuth

Make a Good Wife

How many times have you questioned whether you'd make a good wife?

I have literally witnessed a young woman pray for a good, pure-hearted, Christian husband, and later overheard the same woman asking her boyfriend if he would use a toy on her...she didn't understand why they broke up!!

Understand this - NO ONE changes on their wedding day!!  That's not how wedding days work. Wearing a white dress won't make you pure. You cannot marry potential. We marry people, and God will not damn one in the blessing of the other.

A few months ago, my best friend’s family relocated. Visiting her new home for the first time, we got into a conversation about preparation. 

In recent years, I have purchased a home believed to be my dream home, where I am not always completely comfortable. I met a man who met nearly every item on my list of desirables, and we never even made it to our first date. 

When considering what it is that we want in a mate, we always think about the desirables, we never truly consider what we don’t want. Moreover, we never give consideration to what makes us (un)desirable. We consider what they bring to the table, but have no regard for what we offer...or lack.  How often do we truly evaluate ourselves? 

That young woman asked for all the things that she felt that she was supposed to ask for in the presence of "church folk", knowing full well that she was not ready to receive what she gave request of.  Judging from the fact that they broke up after her question, she also clearly lacked some understanding of the man that she was spending her time with.  This may seem like an extreme example, but a real one nonetheless.

We have got to start considering what our thoughts, desires and petitions to God could do to others. I was speaking to my daughter today about how unfair it is for someone to commit suicide by walking into traffic.  It is among the most selfish things that you can do, to take your own life and the future of a complete stranger.  Even if that person doesn't go to jail for killing you, they have to spend the rest of their lives tortured by your death. 

Along similar lines, what do you think happens to people who marry someone based on the person they thought they knew? 

When a woman considers a future with a man, whether she writes it down or not, she lists what she loves/hates, likes/dislikes about her mate to determine if she would say yes, should he ever ask her to marry him. Yet the bible says to examine yourself, not everyone else. 

Deuteronomy 4:9 (NKJV) says that you should, “only take heed to yourself, and diligently keep yourself, lest you forget the things your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. And teach them to your children and your grandchildren”.  How can you teach something to future generations that you don’t actually know? 

The entire premise of what is to be the Revealing Ruth movement is founded on wisdom and self-awareness before we can even get to love. The embodiment of this woman, at the center of the bible’s greatest love story, is knowledge of self and the actualization of purpose. 

The bible holds no record of Ruth ever questioning whether or not Mahlon or even Boaz would make a good husband. Instead, she focused on heeding the word of the Lord and wise counsel (Naomi) in ensuring that she was properly aligned in doing the Lord’s work. 

My friend says that I am in a season of preparation, and I welcome that with open arms, because the very last thing that I would ever want to do is to spend the rest of my life torturing the man whom God has sent forth to love and honor me, because I never considered my shortcomings as his wife.

In order to receive God's best, you have to be trying your best.

The Lord will not send you a Godly, upright Christian man, working in The Kingdom, walking in his purpose and wanting to love you as his own flesh, if your brokenness will:

     - Make you mean-spirited and distrustful 

     - Cause you to act out in perversion

     - Compromise his wholeness because you spend all of your time together making him pay for the mistakes of your past, or just 

     - Ruin what would've been the greatest blessing of your life because you were allowed to lay hold of it before you were ready

Each of us present in The Body of Christ have an assignment specific to us that no other soul has the wherewithal to carry out.  In order for God’s Plan to be successfully executed to our own greatness and His glory, we have to turn our gaze from without, to within. 

There is no way for you to know if a man is your husband except for God telling you that it is so, and the only way for you to actually hear God when He speaks, is to cleanse your senses with the living water of God’s Word.  2 Corinthians 13:5 (NIV), says “EXAMINE YOURSELVES to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves.” 

So the next time you're home alone going through lifes' shoulda, coulda, wouldas, or you're on a date and wondering if that guy would make a good husband, ask yourself this question instead

COULD I, WOULD I...MAKE A GOOD WIFE?

The inner healing work necessary to finding this questions' answer will be what dictates how long you wait for that soul mate you so desperately seek to find.

Follow Me as I Follow God

@RevealingRuth