Hello Love Muffins, 

I pray all is well and going well with you and your family.  Today, as I lay in bed I always give thanks to see one more day.  As we are halfway into the new year of 2023.   God has kept you for 6 months of this year. What a blessing! There have been challenges that have crossed your paths and you wondered how you will get past them. Two words, come to mind, BUT GOD.  I must be very honest and transparent with you. The last three years of my life have been such an inspirational journey. I have experienced, cancer, divorce, shingles, pneumonia, and spiritual warfare.  There were plenty of days the devil wanted to whisper in my ear how I will never get thru my fears.  Fear of surviving thru cancer, the fear of feeling like a failure because my marriage didn’t last, and feeling like at age 50 plus I should be further than where I thought I should be with my life.  Again, two words come to mind, BUT GOD.  As I would sit in my quiet time with God I would like to thank Him for all the things I have gone thru, for without it, I wouldn’t know my own strength, not to mention other thoughts that would consume me that would try to take me down the road of depression.  I kept repeating to myself, I am a child of God, if God brought me to it then He will bring me thru it. If He can trust me with it then I know I can trust Him. 

I remember, as a young lady and when I was in my dating age of life I would be so quick to mention the things that I thought I was missing in my life. As I verbalize those things to the men I have met in my life I started to recognize everyone felt as though they would be my saving grace, I would mention time and time again the things that I had experienced in my life with other relationships and found myself in the same space after each relationship. that was leaving any relationship where I felt there was no growth or no substance. For a long time, I would wonder to myself why I keep running away from every relationship that I seem to be in. I finally came to the conclusion that if I can leave a relationship with no regrets then that relationship should have never happened in the first place.  If I leave a relationship and it was easy to walk away and not feel an ounce of regret for leaving, then the relationship wasn’t a genuine relationship it just solved the purpose at that particular time.  I can’t blame the person for why I left, I’m sure maturity was a factor as well on my part and they were stepping stones and the pieces of the puzzle that I needed at that time.   It’s just that years and years of lessons that transpired were learned and I have grown to know they will not be repeated. I have studied, meditated, and birthed a renewed thought process. If you don’t change the way you think about life it will pass you by and the lessons you need to learn will leave you and you will repeat the very same thing you are trying to escape.   

As you grow in faith, you will learn three things known to be true for me, you can only control your thinking, you can only manage your feelings, and you should always trust God in the process. God places things in our paths to remind us of the Book of Life, which provides us with all the instructions we need to manage our way thru life. When we are in our own way we tend to make things much more complicated than God ever planned for it to be.  God is our salvation, He is our waymaker and is not a God of confusion.  Why do we get frustrated, confused, depressed, worried, and filled with anxiety? It is because we refuse to let go and trust God.  In Proverbs 1:7 “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction”. We have a God who waits for us to call out His name.  On deck 24/7 for whatever we need.  It’s just that simple.  

It’s unfortunate that we get so caught up in the world believing we have to conform to it. We have God, why conform to the evil of the world? Our faith makes the difference, it’s not magic it’s not something that magically appears and poof all the madness gone. No, the craziness of the world happens because God has already equipped us with all we need all you have to do is apply it to your way of life.  BELIEVE, TRUST GOD AND HAVE FAITH,  MEDITATE ON THESE THINGS Philippians 4:8-9, Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are Nobel, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy-meditate on these things.  The things are which you learned and received and heard and saw in me these do and the God of peace will be with you. God walks with us and we do have free will but we must discipline ourselves to do what is right.  Just keep in mind Philippians 3:12 Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.  I know life gets hard but you have accomplished many things, let us not forget how wonderful you really are. We focus on all the strife but let’s celebrate the blessings. Take time to celebrate the victories. They are far more than the adversities. We look at blessings as if it has to be this BIG massive thing and overlook the small blessings as well. A blessing is a blessing, big or small. Appreciate it all. Thank God for all you have! Wake up and if all you can manage to pray is THANK YOU, that is sufficient. Now go out in this world and be the wonderfully made person God created you to be and if that mountain is in your way speak to that mountain, believe and have faith, and move that mountain!!!!

Blessed by the Best, 

Lyneshia