Reshaping Molded Clay

 

It is as much a secret as it is common knowledge that I absolutely love Will & Jada (Pinkett) Smith. Over the years, they have seen a lot of press surrounding their relationship, and even more around their parenting style, but what I saw today cemented, for me, what makes them truly awesome parents.

I feel that they are actively moving the needle in the tearing down of long held beliefs about ownership as parenting within the Black community - what it means to bring life into this world and the nurturing of that life into adulthood. I would also go as far as to say that they directly, yet however unintentionally, are working to change the narrative around black parenting, while inadvertently, uplifting a biblical argument about parenting that has been, as yet, unconsidered.

In a special episode of Red Table Talk Father’s Day couch edition, Will Smith made the statement, “I saw how much I was making, and forcing, and pushing the things that I wanted and… I had a real epiphany on how bad a person will hate you if you keep forcing your wishes onto their lives.”

His statement immediately made me realize just how much, historically, black parenting has been a largely audacious and borderline egregious affront, not just to parenting as an institution, and Christianity, but to the God-Man relationship overall.

See, as Christians, a lot of people like to use the Bible as a weapon as much against other people, as we should use it against the devil! You know the ones. The church mother or revered “Bible scholar” who always seems to have a scripture at hand to use against you in trying to make you do what they want you to do. The ones whose view may not be as objectively upright biblically speaking, as it is acceptable practice based on religiosity.

The late Bishop of my former church used to always say “you so heavenly, you ain’t no earthly good”. My attention to language and tone allowed me to understand his meaning long before discovering the Johnny Cash song.

If we are called to be fishers of men and to live Christ-like as the very definition of Christian, how dare we attempt to use God’s Word as a force of hand to make someone else be to us, or for us, what we decided they should be. It’s disrespectful to God!

Isaiah 64:8 says, “yet you, Lord, are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter;

we are all the work of your hand.”

(Black) parents have got to stop asserting ownership over people that simply do NOT belong to us! All things (people, property, and otherwise) belong to God! We are merely the safe keepers of that which He entrusts to our care.

My daughter is my daughter only because I was the vessel chosen by God as the means of her entering this world. I can give her everything that I have, to bring her up as an upright and decent, Christ-like human being, but I do not get to decide what that looks like for her. I went through an entire college life and applied to law school based on a vision that my father built for me, decades before, based on who he decided I needed to be in this world, in order to be of value to my race and lineage. I had to be the one to do the thing that no one else in our family had ever done. Oh, how much more burdensome his promptings would have been, had he been a “Bible scholar”.

By weaponizing our Bible knowledge against others, what we fail to do is realize that we are also using the bible against ourselves, making everything relational toward us instead of relational toward God.

God is supposed to be at the center of all of our relationships, not our flesh-driven desires.

As a young mother, allowing for my daughter to find her voice in the world, I would throw Proverbs 29:15 at her all the time, “a child left to their own devices will bring shame upon their mother”. Not their father or anybody else, their mother…and you ain’t gon’ make me look crazy in these streets!

Again, so quick to weaponize the Word, not realizing that it is much more a boomerang, than a baseball bat.

No use of God’s Word as a weapon comes without ricochet. You are inevitably going to feel or experience some unintended pain or discomfort of your own because you have placed yourself at the center, within God’s space of your relationship, and not the space intended for you.

I had to grow in The Word to realize that I was beating both of us up with that scripture. To imply that my daughter would shame me, was to imply that (1) she would go into the world and act foolishly, while also implying that (2) I had not properly prepared her to thrive outside of my presence.

When will (Black) parents learn that there is so much freedom in just letting God have His due?! It’s like getting to be a small child again – you don’t have to take on the burden of responsibility that was never intended to be yours. This is God’s stuff! Not mine. But (Black) parents, and especially (Black) mothers will take on the burden of their children’s decisions, especially their sons, UNTO DEATH!! Literally, because this Walter Lee (Raisin in the Sun reference) Syndrome ever-present within the Black community will kill you!! IF you let it.

Let me tell you a secret – the choices of your children, especially your adult children,

ARE NOT YOUR FAULT OR RESPONSIBILITY.

PERIOD!

Will made an incredible point in admitting that our children are not ours. “They are their own people. I am not going to preconceive what you need to be. There is a real arrogance in that.”

Just as you once desired autonomy as an individual, your children deserve the same. Stop trying to reshape clay that the Lord has already molded.

Follow Me as I Follow God

@RevealingRuth

Lackawanna Blues

My parents used to fight a lot.

That’s not a value judgment on them as people or as a married couple. It’s just an observation. An observation of how seventeen years of marriage can look to a fifteen-year-old girl.  It looked…bothersome, as though they loved each other deeply, into absolute annoyance.  I remember being in high school thinking that they stayed together only for me and my brother.  That the moment I left for college, they would divorce.  They never did.  They went on bickering with a smile for another nineteen years, until my father passed away and my mother lost her best friend.

It’s strange, the one movie quote that has stuck with me more than anything else comes from the movie Lackawanna Blues – “sometimes, a man and a woman have an understanding that no one else understands”.  That line summed up my parents’ entire relationship for me, and amazes me how much it reflects every human relationship in this world.  For me, their relationship made about as much sense as a bubble gum hat, but they were happy together.  I didn’t need to understand it because it wasn’t my relationship to understand.  It was their relationship, that I could learn from.

People say that girls grow up to marry their fathers. I live by a far more accurate truth – we learn what we want by watching our parents. My parents’ relationship worked because it was them, but that doesn’t mean that it would ever work for me.  In order for me to marry a man like my father, I would have to be just like my mother…which I am not.  We’re about as different as peas and carrots.

I’ve worked since I was 11 years old and my mother has worked less than 11 years of her life.  Yet, I have never seen her want for anything.  I can admire that my father did everything he knew how to provide for his family, and I appreciate him for that, but I could never be my parents. I remember my father once telling me that ‘parents sacrifice their dreams to the possibility of their child’s future’.  However eloquent his use of speech, I absolutely disagree. Nothing is more empowering for a child with dreams than to see their parents accomplishing their own.

The nature of your parents’ relationship is supposed to help you learn yourself; to teach you what you want and what you don’t want.  You’ll be able to pick out what works for you and what doesn’t work for you, how you are similar to your parents and how you are different; such that you should be able to figure out who you are and who you want to be in your relationships.

I learned enough from my father to know that he’s not the type of provider that I could marry.  He was a great man and an earnest financial provider, but I was an adult when he figured out how to truly be a dad.  When he realized that sometimes you just have to listen, and not speak.  That not everything warrants your feedback and opinion. I will never berate my father for being who he was.  If he weren’t who he was, I wouldn’t be who I am, but because of who I am…I could never marry a man like my father.

I need a man who understands the importance of communication.  I could never follow a man blindly in shrouded adherence.  To fall in line with him, step-by-step, for no other reason than him being the man of the house. This is not my idea of healthy submission.  It feels more like worship. 

I once asked my mother if she would truly, ALWAYS side with my father, even if she knew that he was wrong…. she said yes, she would always stand by her man.  That worked for her, it could never work for me.

I believe in submission, but I will follow my husband because I trust his leadership, not simply because he’s my husband.  I have to know that he’s not leaning to his own understanding, but that he’s walking in a word from God.  I don’t have to see it, but I need to know that we have a plan rooted in God's prompting.

Consider our Heavenly Father for a moment.  The kindest, gentlest, all powerful, all knowing God.  We don’t blindly follow Him and He sees everything from beginning to end!!  We will put our lives in the hands of a man and take ourselves out of the situation completely, yet we tussle with God in the execution of His plan, wanting to have a hand in everything that happens in our lives.

I don’t desire to know all that God knows and my husband doesn’t have to either.  I just need to know me, and I can assure you that whether he be like my Heavenly Father or my earthly one, I won’t be marrying any man that gives me the Lackawanna Blues.

Follow Me as I Follow God

@RevealingRuth

Worth Fighting For

In a previous post, Necessary Roughness, I made mentioned of a gentleman from my past. At present, I can recall myself and the gentleman in question discussing how he would always seek to be honest and forthright (whether I liked it or not) because “how are you going to trust me when you don’t know what’s going on?”

It didn’t take long for that theory to be tested. A few months into our relations, I was unknowingly pulled into a conversation wherein his ex-wife began to assert, what she believed to be, her position in his life. I never responded. I never questioned a thing. I didn’t need to. As she spoke, my mind trailed back to his and my very first phone conversation.

Our initial discussion, like others referred to in that same blog post, was unsolicited. I’d never asked him about the woman in question, so he was never under any obligation to even mention her. Although the two of us would not ultimately end up dating, I was able to see that the unsolicited moments of truth were a way for him to protect not necessarily what was, as much as what might be.

This man knew who he married as much as he knew who he’d divorced.

Proverbs 21:9 (NIV) says it is “better to live on a corner of the roof than share a house with a quarrelsome wife”.

What people often fail to realize is that everything you do in this life is most always in efforts of answering a question. In a relationship, people become misguided, often working to answer the question, “how much do you love me”, when the greater question is, “how much do you respect our union?”.

I can remember watching a Sarah Jakes and Toure Roberts video in which she said, “I’d had a love worth fighting for…literally, but I’d never had a love worth protecting”. That statement struck me.

I could recall accepting a man’s ring, having just months before, showed up to his ex-girlfriend's JOB, ready to bash this woman’s face in. This was a woman who had stalked us for the greater part of a year. I was livid with her for not respecting our space, our privacy, and our relationship, when the reality was that he had failed to protect our union.

He knew who we were dealing with and thereby, should have known the necessary measures to put in place to prevent the ridiculous and dangerous situations born out of their residual conflict. As adults, we often wander from one romance to the next, trailing behind us the weight of our former relationships. We like to play a game with ourselves and others, as if we have no idea why we are burdened and exhausted by the effort necessary to maintain successful relationships. The truth is that we are well aware of the weight that we carry. Whether we accept responsibility for the outcomes of our past relationships or not, we carry the truth of those relationships somewhere within our being.

The gentleman of recent note can carry the knowledge of our interactions with the weight of a feather. No harm was caused; no ill-will is harbored, and the remnants of our time together are in no way burdensome. Yet his ex, along with the woman who stalked me & my ex-fiancé, those were heavier relationships - the type that require deliberate unpacking.

I was so angry about this woman playing on our phones; being camped out in bushes across the street from my apartment; shining lights like Girl Scout signals in my bedroom window; showing up at events that we attended, and a host of other acts, that I never stopped to question where she was getting her information. That was... until he called me one night because she had him locked in her apartment.

There are some doors that are better left closed, while others require padlocks and chains....theirs was a door requiring chains.

This woman pretended to have car trouble so that he would bring his mechanic brother...with no car 😒 to her home to check things out. While waiting for his brother, he asked to use her bathroom, and she deadbolted him in.

Do I question the validity of his story? No.
Was he being honest? Sure.
Do I care? ABSOLUTELY NOT!

It does not matter how innocent you THINK your actions are; what matters is how your actions can be interpreted and received. He knew her well enough to know that the slightest interaction would invite continued, dangerously dysfunctional contact. At this point, if you can’t do it yourself, it is left to the police to rescue you, not the woman who served as the other party in the union you failed to protect.

When we are entering into relationship, we have to slow down long enough to see the forest AND the trees. God closes doors to unhealthy relationships not because He’s testing us to see how far the door will crack without being fully opened - God will never tempt you! He is giving you an opportunity to ransom yourself.

Release the burdens of your past. Otherwise, instead of being protected, you'll end up with a love worth fighting for!

Follow Me as I Follow God

@RevealingRuth

Fighting Together

My father once told me that there’s no such thing as a fair fight.  It took me 36 years to realize that I disagree.

A year ago, I had a very nasty fight with a particular person of interest to me, and Lord God, when I say that it got UGLY…it was ugly. It was so far beyond me, who I want to be or how I want to be in my relationships that I COMPLETELY shut up! Not shut down, SHUT UP. I stopped talking and started praying. I prayed that what the TRUE problem was in our discussion, that it would be revealed to us in a manner that could be rightly understood and addressed, because I knew that what we thought had caused our disagreement, was not what had led us to that moment, and in order to address the real problem, we had to be able to hear each other clearly enough to figure out what it was.

Whether we give in to its practice or not, there is only one way to hear something, and that is to actively listen. Understanding that the two are opposites, we as adults desiring to be in loving relationships, have to accept that you CANNOT talk and listen at the same time!  So, I shut up and did what we all should do – I prayed. I prayed over the broken communication that had led us to that moment. I prayed over the communication filters created by our pasts that had truly led us to that moment. I prayed over everything that stood between us, but beyond our understanding, because the wall of offense had been built long before that moment. The wall between us had been formed from remnants of past hurt that neither of us had taken part in working to heal. 

I prayed for us to see through what was said in pain or anger, and to live out the revelation of what fighting in a relationship should be. Then, when it was finally over, I prayed for God's guidance, and I sent him a very clear email about the types of engagements that I refuse to participate in. 

I get so annoyed when people say that fighting is healthy. IT'S NOT. 

To communicate effectively you, you will need to openly disagree, but in order to do so, within your relationship, there are a few things that you need to remember:

1.     A fight, by essence of its very definition, dictates that a battle take place, within which weapons are employed and there must be a winner. Why would you seek to use words against someone you love in efforts of winning a stupid fight? There’s enough that comes up against solid, Godly relationships - do you really want to help tear the two of you apart?

2.    When you chose to marry, or to date with intention, you took on the understanding that the two of you would become one. Proverbs 4:23 warns that we are to guard our hearts, for out of it flows the issues of life. Acknowledging and accepting that you don’t know what issues their heart has been forced to endure up to this point, you should guard the heart of your loved one in the same fashion that you guard your own. You should never be comfortable hurting anyone that you profess to love, no matter how you feel at the time.

And finally,

3.    In any disagreement between people who care about each other the most important thing for you to remember is that it is never you AGAINST them.

When I became silent during our disagreement, I was able to hear the wounds of his past that remained unhealed, and how even the smallest action could trigger an unfavorable response, because some of those wounds were still so fresh and tender.

After reading my message and getting a good night’s sleep, he realized the one thing that we must all come to terms with – when you care about someone, it’s never me vs. you, but us vs. the problem.

If we can listen, and pray our way to understanding, we can start to heal the wounds that build walls between us; the wounds that trick us into believing that we’re on different sides, when what we really should be doing, is fighting together.

Follow Me as I Follow God

@RevealingRuth

Stay the Course

I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong … nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happens to them all.

-          Ecclesiastes 9:11

How many times do you have to do something wrong

before you finally decide to do something different?

Every year between Christmas and Valentine’s Day, we break out the memes, “walking into next year like…” and everything is stamped #NewYearNewMe.  The same holds true every time you see a relationship end.  There’re weeks of subliminal messages that end in something like #NewLookNewMe, but what’s actually new about you?  Everywhere we turn, we are bombarded with mystified messages of everything that we’ve done wrong in previous years being magically washed away by the word “new”.  Newness is this ultimate attainment that has us profusely professing to be “starting over”, just to end up right back where we were.

So, when does enough finally become enough?  I write this, not only because I’ve had millions of my own “fresh starts”, not after witnessing the repeated “fresh starts” of others, but because I’ve come to realize that none of our fresh starts are all that fresh.  Every time we experience a break up, lose a job, calendars change, or when things just don’t work out the way that we expect them to, we watch the ball, or metaphorically wait for the “other shoe” to drop, and kind of like a starter pistol, the second it hits ground, the race is on…but when will we finally finish?

There is this moment when we reach some type of epiphany.  We entangle ourselves with one of those made for TV ‘eureka’ moments that somehow convince us that who we are, or where we are, in our faith, in our family, our relationships, or life in general, is not who or where we’re supposed to be. 

It is as if this revelation hits you all at once, clearing your mind and forcing your lungs to take in air that you’ve never breathed.  Although you’ve lived, breathed and slept in the same space for years, suddenly your life has gone terribly wrong and there’s a quick fix to get everything back on track.  All you need is the word “new”.

So, what do we do?  In the past, we would block people’s phone numbers from our cellphone; break up with those who we decided we were in dead-end relationships with, deleting dozens of people from our address books, and metaphorically, our lives.  Now that social media has hit, we tweet about all the great things we’re going to do now that we’re #FREE or #SuperSingle! We delete people on Facebook, and unfollow them on Instagram and Twitter.  All this we do in the name of change and “cleaning out our closet”.

We’ve all “cleaned out our closet” at one time or another, haven’t we?  We’ve gone to bed thinking everything is fine and awakened suddenly to a closet full of skeletons haunting our hopes of a bright future.  So, we changed jobs and ended “unhealthy” relationships that we’d thought were perfectly fine, under the guise of taking our lives back, but from who? Who has it??

For nearly 30 years of my life, someone else told me what I was going to be or what I was going to do, based on all of the things that I do well, the many areas in which I exceled, never thinking to ask what I wanted. I now realize that even when the words were said in my voice, most often, it was still the thoughts and ideas of others. 

As humans, we are all shaped and molded to a particular interest. On the broadest of scales, we call it childrearing.  Though this statement is largely controversial, it cannot be denied. The child of an entrepreneur is groomed to grow up and join the family business just as the sons of sharecroppers were trained and educated to grow up and “be better”. We don’t impress these things upon our children to hurt or harm them, we do it because we want what’s best for them, not realizing that we’re altering their image of themselves.

Proverbs 18:16 says, “a man’s gift maketh room for him, and bringeth him before great men”.  So, why does your path need to look like anyone else’s if your gift is your own?  In the same fashion that God made a way for your parents and others, can He not make a way for you?

What makes life hard for us oftentimes, is our failure to cut the strings.  We allow ourselves to be puppeted out of ignorance, yes, but more often out of fear.  Fear tells us to abandon our dreams because it’s hard work, unchartered territory, or just because we already have a job, or a life lain out before us and we’re comfortable with what we have.  We may not be living in our purpose, we may not have joy, or even be happy, but we’re comfortable enough to feel safe.  So, we run our race, not realizing that being tethered by those strings is what prevents us from finishing. Meanwhile, those of us who are puppeted and do actually finish the race, we do so on our hands and knees.

We tire ourselves out running a race with the weight of others’ opinions, ramblings and ideas tethered to our waist.

So, the next time you find yourself starting over, ask yourself, “how did I get here?” Which of the f’s landed me in this space – ‘fear’, or ‘following’ the promptings of others? If either of them played a role in why you’re ready to give up,

because if you’re going to crawl across a finish line, shouldn’t your dreams be waiting on the other side?

#StayTheCourse

Follow Me as I Follow God

@RevealingRuth

The Process of Unbecoming

In various articles over the past few months I’ve spoken a lot about purpose; pursuing our higher calling and the process of becoming. It wasn’t until bible study tonight that I realized there’s more to becoming than just the pursuit of purpose....there is also the abandonment of comfort and conventional thinking.

In class we discussed John 2, most specifically verses 4 & 5. Everyone has heard of Jesus’ first miracle - turning water into wine, but tonight we heard a very new perspective on the recollection. The Pastor spoke about Jesus’ knowledge of what His purpose was on this earth, knowing that not long after being called to lead, He would be called to die.

That got me thinking. In this discussion about actualizing purpose, we’ve spoken of various obstacles to becoming, but we have failed to address the first step - the process of unbecoming.

A great deal of what makes the actualizatuon of purpose so difficult is not the pursuit itself. No calling is easy, but what truly makes it hard are all of the burdens, baggage and beliefs that we take with us along the journey.

I posted earlier today that ‘my worst enemy is my memory’. Though I posted it with a particular person in mind, it is absolutely true for each and every one of us - Jesus included. The human mind possesses the uncanny ability to encase memories (good and bad) within a steel vault, for recall with OR without our permission.

Some would have you believe that Jesus perhaps doubted His power and wasn’t sure that He COULD perform the miracles that He would be called to perform. I prefer a line of thinking that would have us to understand the underlying humanness of Christ during His walk on this earth. True, He was void of stain and sin, but nowhere in the Bible is He portrayed as void of emotion. As such, no matter how He worked to overcome it, his unavoidable crucifixion must have been in the forefront of his mind.

This was God in MAN. He had a family - mother, brothers, a whole life, before He stood to take His rightful place in this world. He knew the task that had been set before Him.  In order to fulfill the Will of God, He had to lay everything down, including His life. For Him, there was no turning back.

I think that’s where we often get caught up. Our past experiences and the memories thereof haunt us in a way that nothing else can. Our memories are the only things that are present before us at all times. So, when you hear a word from God, oftentimes, before you act on it, memories creep in to warn you of so many reasons why you shouldn’t act on that word. You start to recall all of the times you’ve been hurt, rejected, disappointed, or all the times that things just plain didn’t go your way.  Before long, you’ve talked yourself clear out of alignment with Gods’ will and back into the comfort of your own foolishness. 

You abandon purpose for the humdrum of your everyday life, thinking that the devil you know is safer than the devil you don’t, when the reality is that both devils are the same. The purpose is to deter you from pursuit of the promises of God - not because you can’t attain them, but because you can. 

The Bible says that the enemy comes but to steal, kill and destroy, and we often forget that HE USES US to do that. He uses the hurtful and sometimes hateful acts of others to steal us of our joy and hope. He uses the memories of that/those instance(s) to kill the vision that God gave us for our lives, and he plants a seed that WE ALLOW TO TAKE ROOT, and destroy ourselves.

Yes, the pursuit of and actualization of purpose can get pretty uncomfortable, BUT IT WONT KILL YOU! The only person whose purpose was to die was Jesus and He did so willingly.  We should all try to remember that as we fight to remain devoted to the process of unbecoming.

Follow Me as I Follow God

@RevealingRuth

Becoming Butterflies

If she has to do the work of becoming, why shouldn't you?

Today, I was watching an episode of “Married at First Sight” and I was reminded of why it is one of the few TV shows that I actually watch. It was reassuring to see one of the experts – Pastor Cal, championing one of my primary views – there is no such thing as FALLING in love!

Listening to a woman talk about how she’s ‘waiting for the butterflies’, I realized just how much this new-age microwave mentality bothers me. Attraction is important. I would never deny that, and so is chemistry, but neither of those things is love. Love, like change, doesn’t happen in an instant and never without effort.

It was very ironic for me to see this episode today, after catching up on some of my YouTube saves. For the past few years, I’ve saved sermons to my YouTube, to listen to during my commute. Because my commute is significantly shorter than it used to be, I’ve gotten behind in my listening. Attempting to catch up on some of the videos and seeing people’s various responses to the content, it struck me how much people seem to absolutely loathe the process of becoming.

I recall some time ago making mention of the fact that the word ‘aspiring’ is no longer a thing. There are no aspiring actresses, models or entrepreneurs. People wake up now and just decide that they’ve become whatever they desired to be. A girl with one photo shoot and 1,000 followers on Instagram is a model. A guy screen prints a hundred t-shirts and he’s an entrepreneur. No one has any interest in the process and work necessary to becoming.

As we crack the seal on yet another year; as I am confined to at-home workouts or overcrowded gyms for the next 6 weeks, it occurs to me how much our relationships progress and pass away like New Year’s resolutions, and for the very same reason – an utter lack of dedication and consistency.

Compare YouTube sermons where two equally popular ministers did New Year’s videos, one titled, “A Year of Harvest” and the other, “The Year of Becoming” …guess whose video got the most likes. They both had hundreds of thousands of views, but people were only interested in liking the message about harvests. It never occurs to them that harvests take work! You cannot glean what you have not planted and carefully managed. No one wants to do the work, but everyone wants the reward.

So, here I am, watching this girl talking about how she’s “waiting for the butterflies”, when it dawned on me that people don’t even realize how hard it is for caterpillars to become butterflies!

Ephesians 4:23-25 asks that we be renewed in our mind; that we put on the new man; putting away lying, and speak truth to our neighbors, but how can we be honest with our neighbors if we won’t even be honest with ourselves?

We romanticize the very idea of anything tied to our growth or progress. We want to look like we’re #Winning, so everything has to happen right now, as we desire it, in the blink of an eye. It took 6 years to gain 60 pounds, but if you don’t lose it in 6 weeks, you completely give up! Your boyfriend cheated constantly your entire relationship, but because he never proposed until now, he must be a changed man. You are therefore mystified when he strays in your marriage.

Let’s be clear, I am not one of those folks who think people can’t change. I am one of those people who feels like real, lasting change takes work. Just like our relationships.

LOVE IS A CHOICE.

MARRIAGE IS A FULL-TIME JOB.

RELATIONSHIPS AND LASTING CHANGE TAKE WORK.

Focusing on all that is wonderful about being in love will get you just as far as the treadmill that you use as a clothing rack, or the gym membership you’ve had for years and never used twice.

We think about big, elaborate weddings & honeymoons and the sheer joy of being chosen, without ever giving regard to what comes next and lasts …or doesn’t last… forever.

You CANNOT expect change to happen by sheer osmosis. It’s time to DO THE WORK! You’ve been a caterpillar for as long as you can remember, waiting for life to happen TO you. It’s time for all of us to dedicate the proper effort to enjoying the journey of becoming butterflies.

Follow Me as I Follow God

@RevealingRuth