I Still Believe in Fairy Tales...

Wow! I can hardly believe that 2010 is only less than four days away. As this time of the year approaches I always seem to get into this mode of reflecting on the past year and eventually I go back in my life and reflect on the years. I love to reflect on how far I have come and where God has brought me and I am amazed! In my ministry, God has placed a passion to help young women... this passion that God has placed in me has led me to what I have done today. I never knew that I would have the privilege to be where I am and I feel humbled. This past year God truly opened so many doors for me to minister and be apart of the dream that He gave me many years ago. I've been able to sit down with young ladies and be apart of their lives which is a huge privilege for me. One of the most common struggles that I have talked to young girls about is their season of singleness. After talking to many girls about this subject, I have heard so many "mentalities" and opinions on how one should handle this particular season. However, after prayer and really living in my season of singleness God has taught me some very valuable lessons. First of all as human beings we we're not created to be alone... we find this in the bible...

"The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him." Genesis 2:18

As woman, it is extremely hard for us to be alone. We are emotional beings and we are born with the need to be dependent on someone. We want to be loved, needed, and sought after. Since childhood, we dream of the day that we will meet the man that we will give our heart to. Unfortunately by the time we do meet that man, many of us will have given our hearts out to more than what we had hoped for. However somewhere along that journey, we will go through different relationships and experiences. We will experience heartache, loneliness, bitterness, and many other struggles. However in this season, it can be easy to reach a comfortable place and loose our sense of needing to be dependent on someone else. It's easy, especially as you get older to loose that "fairytale" mindset and just give up on love all together. Your life motto then becomes "I don't need a man to survive life". Others will say that they need to wake up to reality and settle for less than what they had imagined for the future. They will give up on "shooting for the stars" and settle for the man that drowns them with flattery instead of giving his heart to her. However, I believe that as woman we need to go back to the beginning... God made us females and we should never be afraid to dream and BELIEVE in our fairytales. God has a plan for each and every one of us. So many times we declare our future, and we do not realize the power of our words. Hearing young girls say "I will never get married" brings a sadness to me because they do not realize the power of their words. If you desire love, if you desire a man of God to give your heart to, God will give that to you! I have seen to many times young woman who act as if having the future they dream of is a luxury made for only special girls but they do not realize that we are children of a KING who has access to every dream that one can fathom! I challenge you to get back to your fairytale days and dream away! God has someone so special for each and everyone of us and I tell you this; that it is truly worth the wait. Esther took the time to prepare herself for one night with the king... I'm sure she had her days where she felt anxious, scared and so lonely. Longing to be with the King and longing to be loved... but in the end she found her king and she lived a life that was legendary! The one night that she had been waiting for her entire life... that one night alone changed her world. I want to live that love story... to know that the man I will be spend the rest of my life with was worth waiting for and I took the time to prepare myself for him because I still believed in fairy tales.....

"I dream of LOVE, not fondness" - Author Unknown

VC

Lovely LADY Where Are You?

As women, God created us to be wonderful beings. However, we find that many times we find ourself trying to figure US out. We get lost in the midst of trying to find our self. God created woman to be dependent creatures. Think about it... if we could stand on our own... all on our own, God would of created us as a separate "piece" from Adam. But instead He made us from Adam's rib. We can not stand alone. We exist because of Adam. God created us to be simply lovely. We are Ladies. According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, a LADY is defined as: "a woman of refinement and gentle manners." As woman of God, we should be a living definition of a LADY. As I mentioned in my previous blog that woman are creatures of needs. This is how God created us. We are in a search for someone to fulfill those needs that we find in our hearts and souls. Many times we look in the wrong places for that fulfillment. But I want to share with you, what I feel are 4 essential needs that a LADY is looking for. As woman, we are driven by our emotions. We think, we feel, we act with our emotions. We find that in life, while we are in search of our needs being fulfilled, it's easy to loose track of what we are really searching for. Please take this journey with me as I lay out, what I think all LADIES are yearning for as I define a LADY...

Loved - "an intense feeling of deep affection; a deep romantic attachment to someone" ... a lady needs to KNOW and feel that she is loved. This is what women live for. To be loved and to love. All the way from when she is a child playing with her dolls as she imagines her future, up to motherhood as she showers her children with love.  She dreams of the one day that she will fall in love with the one she has been waiting for her entire life. She needs to be loved. This is her life, her everything. She needs to feel worthy of love. 

Accepted - "received as adequate, valid, or suitable" ... I can say that 99% of women feel that there is something wrong with them. They do not feel valuable or "good enough" emotionally or physically. This is why you will find that women are constantly changing their appearance. They try to "fix" themselves. They look to men to feel this void of being accepted emotionally. They find one man that will tell them that they are beautiful and they will give them their heart. Sadly many times, men take advantage of this fragile part of a woman and use it to fulfill their physical desires. A woman needs to know that she is genuinely accepted. She is perfect the way she is. That someone loved her for being her... that who she is; is enough. 

Desirable - "wanted, or wished for as being an attractive, useful. Sought-after, valuable." ... A lady must feel that she is wanted. Sadly, this area has been taken advantage of by men and some women do not get to experience this in a genuine way. Even though roles have been reversed between ladies and gentlemen; Women still desire to be pursued. They want to be sought-after. They want to feel that they are worth something, that they are valuable. A lady needs to feel that she is simply beautiful. She is desired, that someone wants her. 

Yearning for Protection - It does not matter how strong a woman may be, she needs to be protected. God made women as fragile creatures and however much we have endurance, a lady must have protection. Women are strong, they can carry heavy loads but at the end of the day she still looks for her knight in shinning amour to be her protection and strength. A woman who is not protected, like a flower with no care, will wither away and eventually something in her spirit will die. 

Many times as ladies, we can feel somewhat guilty of the feelings that we have. It's as if we are embarrassed of being a woman. We have lost our sense of being a lady. It's time to return to being the lady that God created us to be and not be fearful that our needs will not be met. This is God's plan and He would never leave our hearts unanswered. We were called to be feminine. It's time to live as a Lady once again.

VC 

Chocolates Anyone?

Life can be very confusing many times. It's constantly changing. As quoted from a famous movie "Life is a like a box of Chocolates, you never know what your going to get". You can find yourself barely getting comfortable in the place you are at and then all of a sudden, out of nowhere life takes a turn. Sometimes this change can be good, other times it is not so great. You'll find that if you live life trying to constantly figure things out, you will run around in circles. You will end up confused, hopeless and standing with a handful of shattered dreams. BUT if you decide to live life with a different mind set, you may find that you begin to look at life a little different. Ok GIRLS, let's talk about this... if you admit it or not, we are always thinking about our life. We are the QUEENS of daydreaming. We can daydream and create this beautiful magical scenario of any situation. We've been doing this since childhood! When we were girls, Disney hooked us on watching every princess and we dreamed of one day growing up and we would live our own true fairy tale. As we got more mature, we began to look at what society calls "chick flicks" and we secretly began to fall in love with each movie as we watched the story of a young woman living out her modern day "fairy tale" despite all odds. However, somewhere along the way, something happened while we were growing up. Something died. The hope that we too can have a life of beauty and happiness was lost. Maybe you lost a love one, maybe your parents marriage failed, maybe a friend let you down, or you experienced a broken relationship. But somewhere along the way the reality of life hit us and the little girl in us realized that she needed to stop daydreaming and wake up to the real world. I will admit to you today, that life is not always a fairy tale. There is a lot of very real tragedy and heart brake. Many times, woman experience a lot of loss and sorrow. So many little girls today are not growing up the same with the opportunity to live as a child, instead they live their lives with horrible conditions and lifestyles that is out of their control. However, despite our circumstances, we can change and choose our destiny. I want to give someone hope today. You can live a life worth living for but YOU have to make that choice. No person or situation has power over you. Only you can decide to live a better life, a life worth living for. You can face tragedy, fear, hatred, bitterness, anger, sorrow and survive! God gives peace that is overwhelming. Even in the darkest nights of your life, He will come in and be your comfort if you let Him. We face all sorts of circumstances in this life BUT how we CHOOSE to REACT to that situations, determines what type of person we CHOOSE to be. Through our trials, we will be molded into the person that God wants us to be... Woman of God. It's easy to focus on the bad things in life but when you begin to look at life with a grateful heart; "despite all odds I'm here!" - It's in that moment that you begin to look at life a lot differently. You stop looking at life as something that your just trying to survive but you now view it as a privilege to live and you begin to live life more abundantly. Which we know is the will of God for our lives. We need to stop trying to write our own life stories and let God write our story. Believe me, His version is much better than what we have in mind! I want HIS story for my life! So my friends, get our there and start loving life!!!

VC