Your Life Holds Value

Your Life Holds Value

"Suicide what kinda talk is that? I've been talking to God for so long and when I look at my life, I guess He talkin back."- Kanye West

I've been the person harming myself in hopes to no longer be here. I've been the person who felt as though I wasn't good enough. I've been the people pleaser who felt I let everyone else down. I was at a loss for my purpose. I thought it was some kind of punishment that God created me just for me to sit here and be unhappy. I could go on and on but my point is- just know, I've hit rock bottom. I'm not telling you my life was rough or that I had it hard and here’s a list of my complaints. I'm telling you within myself I found nothing.

Depression comes in different forms in different people and it's a serious fight against our spiritual being. The enemy wants you to give up. He wants to steal your joy, he wants to kill your faith, and he wants to ultimately destroy you and the possibility of your relationship with God. Now that doesn’t mean if you’re battling against symptoms of depression you’re any less spiritual than the next person. The Word says that our fight is not against those on this earth but against the rulers and authorities and the powers of this world’s darkness (Ephesians 6:12). This does not mean your faith is weak. This simply means you’re under attack and its up to you to make a choice and fight back!

I define depression, as what the world tells us is wrong with us when they gave it to us in the first place. Let me explain, depression normally comes from the affliction of this world. It may be our finances that are our main focus of depression & not having enough money to get the things wanted to live in this world. It may be that we lost someone dear to our hearts and even though we will see them again, they’re no longer in this world with us. It may be not being happy with ourselves in comparison of what we see in others of the world. In actuality the world is not always a fun place to be in the middle of. It was created to be, but because of Adam’s disobedience, we were born sinners into the world. Praise God that once we accept Jesus into our hearts we are no longer children of the world, but instead children of God. He never said the journey would be easy. However, He did promise He would never leave us to get through it alone. (Deuteronomy 31:8)

That’s not always easy to remember with the distractions of the world around us. Being born-again doesn’t mean you’re attack proof. It does not mean that satan will not attempt to feed you with thoughts that can condemn you. It does not mean that satan has given up on trying to defeat you. Most importantly, it does not mean that it is not okay to not be okay.

There was something off with me. I felt out of place in the midst of people who I knew loved me such as my family and friends. There’s even times I had to remind myself how much God loved me but even though I know He did, it still felt like I was down here fighting my own battles alone. That feeling can be overwhelming. It can make you feel so many things that you can almost subconsciously make the decision to go numb.  For me I grew so numb it became concerning and that’s when harming myself came into play just so I could feel something. There were even times where I felt everything at once, and due to overwhelming thoughts, wanted to punish myself with physical pain. Everyone will not relate to this. Some may even read my honesty and think I’m a nut case. However, I’m not sharing this in the hopes of gaining approval from others. I’m sharing this because someone, even if only one person, may relate to this. If you’re reading this and it’s reaching you, I promise you, your life holds value!

God has not left us. It is not a joy for Him to see His children hurting. He is holding on tighter than ever before but we cannot give up and let go. Mankind likes to diagnose depression, and then prescribe medications and ways for you to think. However, I submit that you can get through this without any of that. Just as everyday you may have to take that prescription, I want you to make the decision everyday to set that time aside for God. It may take a little longer than swallowing a glass of water, but it will leave you with more long-term fulfillment. (Proverbs 12:25)

             When your spirit is being attacked you need more than a physical medication. You need to spiritually attack back. Even in the midst of the tears, if your eyes are too flooded to read the Word turn on some worship music. Even if your thoughts are telling you to give up, that you’re not good enough, that it won’t get any better. Stand Firm! Defeat those thoughts by speaking out loud to remind satan of his place and to claim your victory!

Through all that you have gotten through, you are still here! You are more than a conqueror! You are not forgotten! You can do all things through Christ! He will provide for your needs! You are victorious! You have purpose! You are valued! You are chosen! You are royalty! You are a Child of the Most High! You are loved!

That is why we never give up. Our physical body is becoming older and weaker, but our spirit inside us is made new every day. We have small troubles for a while now, but these troubles are helping us gain an eternal glory. That eternal glory is much greater than our troubles. So we think about what we cannot see, not what we see. What we see lasts only a short time, and what we cannot see will last forever.

-2 Corinthians 4:16-18 ERV

For those who can relate to this article but do not have a relationship with God, please know He doesn’t want you to be alone. Jesus came & died just to have a relationship with you. It’s up to you to receive Him. Refer to ‘Invitation From God’ on the “BOSS Ministries” app.

Let The Church Say 'Amen' - Part 2

Let The Church Say 'Amen': Part 2

I have friends that come and tell me they go to church, or at least they try to. They find it hard because every time they go they don’t feel a connection. They don’t have this eye-opening Sunday experience and this is the exact reason that I am writing this. I remember having to explain to someone what church was like before their first time going and it broke my heart simply because, Gods relationship is never as difficult.

There are tons of churches in the world, just like there are tons of buildings. When you go for a job interview and you have NO idea about the employer, it’s definitely harder to do well when they’re talking to you about the job at hand. You can fake it for awhile and smile but realistically you know nothing that’s going on and you just hope all goes well so you can get out of there. It’s like walking into a blind spot but you know you’re supposed to be there because… it’s a job.

That’s very similar when it comes to going to church and not having a relationship with Christ. You sit and listen to people go on and on about a man you really don’t know much about. But you know you’re supposed to be there because, after all…it’s church. This is why God doesn’t seek your Sunday attendance. He wants a relationship with you. He wants you to know Him so that situations in your life will make more sense. No one said life would simply be easier. However, just like that job interview, when you went in and knew nothing it may have been overwhelming. God doesn’t want you to be overwhelmed with the life He has given you. He wants to guide you through but He can’t do that unless you seek Him first. You can go to church 20 times a week but you won’t feel a connection because you’re not connected. And quite frankly, you don’t get connected through the action of going to church. The decision you make when you allow God into your heart connects you.

When you enter into a friendship with somebody you don’t just greet him or her for the first time and let them follow you around until you need them. Now correct me if I’m wrong, maybe you do but that’s odd, and quite frankly not very appreciative. They aren’t there just to be used at your beckon call. You call them friend because of a divine connection. God calls us His friend [John 15:15], which means He doesn’t just want to be a fly on the wall of our lives. He doesn’t want you to only recognize Him on Sundays and confuse Him for a genie when we need Him. He wants to be involved!

He wants you to talk to Him about your problems so He can walk you through them. He wants you to tell Him your needs because He wants to meet them [Philippians 4:19]. He wants you on your happiest day to be reminded that He loves you. He wants this with you everyday, not just the day the world makes you believe He cares.

The purpose of church was designed for the fellowship. A way of friendly associating, especially with people who share the same interest. What I want everyone to understand is that this fellowship with others should be a time of encouragement and strength as you gather together with people who love God. Let me be clear, that God’s love for you is beyond a church experience. His love is unconditional and more powerful than one can comprehend. Therefore, don’t beat yourself up if you miss a week of church or if you never attended at all. God is not mad at you, He does not look down on you for it, and most important His arms are always welcoming of you. Always.

Let The Church Say 'Amen' - Part 1

Let the Church Say ‘Amen’: Part 1

This is my experience of ‘Church’:

An hour and a half service that includes announcements that you probably heard last week. Somehow a lot changes in a day, but not much happens in a week apparently…at least at church. Praise and worship that’s scheduled for 15 minutes turns out to be a half hour because sister Brown can’t hear herself in the monitors enough and the drummer didn’t arrive on time.  Don’t worry if you missed any of the announcements from earlier. The pastor is about to get up and cover a few again because it seems that we all missed the first memo about how much it’s going to take to fix up the back parking lot for the church picnic coming up. He need not mention needing money for the new robes for the choir. And with all the new members coming in we should most definitely give towards the need of expanding the church. Yes, you may see empty seats around you every week, but that’s just temporary. Now hold on before you tuck that wallet away, it’s almost time for the offering right after they accept donations for next week’s speaker. Back to the new members, let’s all just take a break and greet everyone around us as if we weren’t just talking to them in the main lobby. We may even smile and shake a hand with a stranger who we’ll never see again. Isn’t that exciting? After all that is said and done, we understand that you might have missed that entire half hour of worship due to trying to talk yourself into coming in the first place. So, lets do it again!

Now don’t you dare think the pastor would come up and have the nerve to teach before his wife had the chance to greet the congregation, knowing full well she’d rather not. This gives you all a chance to critique her new outfit, talk about the latest gossip you have on her, and give her a smile feedback of fakeness. Finally we can enjoy the pastor come and give us an encouraging story about his week prior, building our faith just enough to walk out feeling motivated. God is good! But it’s not over. And then? He finally starts the sermon for the day. Oh no, of course he wouldn’t leave you with just that 25-minute testimony. After all, we know you spent your precious time in a work-filled week to wake up early and spend your whole day hearing about his. Never would he let you go without the full on details. It appeared to be a message, however you might have not been able to hear it as well as you’d like due to your stomach growling at you in regret. Now before you go and bump into the hurdles of people who like to stay longer for extra God points, we have just a few more announcements! These are basically to make sure you come prepared next week to give.  Whoops! To all of our newcomers, the ones we fake met when we were greeting the people we already knew? Yes you! Don’t forget to spend another 20 of your minutes filling out this paperwork we have for you so we can give you more announcements on paper! All we need from you is your first name, last name, address, date of birth, social security #, the church you last attended, why you stopped & how you heard about us? Once you’re done with that SAT we’ll give you a nice packet in hopes that you come again next week and bring a friend with you to make the time go by faster. Just make sure to inform your friend:

Depending on which Sunday it is, brace yourself- it could be Baby Dedication Sunday, communion Sunday, the 3^rd of the month (which means nothing but its still titled “3^rd Sunday of the month”).

Make sure you have on Sundays best because who are YOU to be too good to dress up for the Lord? You said you speak to Him everyday? And He knows what you look like? Doesn’t matter- put your heels on. God knows what you look like but Pastor Paul is going to think you weren’t raised right. Put the nice socks on your baby too, with the frill!

Now go on and get yourself something to eat because during that time today will probably be when you will be the most appreciative of God Himself! And hey good news for you for coming today-- 2 more heaven points have been added to your chart! Yayy!

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And this is why I hate religion, and have lost all hope for organized church.

Now please don’t get me wrong, NOT ALL CHURCHES are like this. I’m not trying to be a spokesperson for “church” or even bash its existence, because it’s needed. However, I’m over the idea of what the world thinks it’s supposed to be. The world, which let me be clear satan is the god of, has people thinking God is seeking your religion. Everything that I just mentioned above has nothing to do with your relationship with God and that is what He craves the most! He wants to know you but more importantly He wants you to know Him.

These magazines, these newsstands we keep up with about our favorite celebrity help us understand who they are on the surface. We know Will Smith has a wife, a few kids, been in an abundance of movies, etc. However we may not know about his personal goals or which ones meant the most to him when he reached them. No matter what research we do, unless we personally know Will Smith and spend time with him, all we can do is appreciate the idea of him on the surface.

God doesn’t want that surface appreciation. He doesn’t simply want you to just know what others think about Him and how He’s been involved in their life. He wants to be involved in yours! God doesn’t tally how many times you made it to church in a week, or month, or if you made it for the special holidays. He doesn’t judge you based on your attendance at mass. It’s so much deeper than that.

Despite what many think, Gods favorite day is not Sunday. His favorite days are the days you choose to seek Him, spend time with Him, and grow in your relationship with Him.

The ‘Church’ is often looked at as a representative of Christ, that of which the people in it should be. However, the worst part is that many churches have lost the focus for the heart of the people. All while that is the main focus God has. They instead look at the business of it all & the numbers that come with it. They lose sight of the judgment and condemnation that stems from the ‘church attitude’, and what breaks my heart the most, is that this is how God is being represented to the world.

It doesn’t matter whether you show out for God every Sunday, Wednesday, and Thursday. It matters whether you show up and open the door He’s been knocking on [Revelation 3:20].

Knock-Knock!

"Here I am! I stand at the door and knock."

-Revelation 3:20

I always try to keep it real and as personal as I can with all of my BOSS’s despite the judgment that may come along with it. I wasn’t always a fan of God. #YeahIsaidIt. At one point in my life, I actually thought I was an atheist. Then I realized it wasn’t that I was an atheist because I believe God existed. However, I just didn’t want to choose Him. This stage was around 9^th grade for me.

What most people don’t know is that I went to 9^th grade twice. I went through a school transfer and at the time I could care less about my grade so if I remember correctly, I failed about two classes. With the transferring of schools, the school I was going to wasn’t having it and I had to repeat the entire grade over again. Not my proudest moment because I’m hard on myself and I was always an A+/B student growing up. However, I was so frustrated with God that I could have cared less where my life was taking me because it’s not like He was anywhere to be found (or so I believed at the time).

One of my main challenges at the time was that I had an ego and didn’t know about it. God? So people wanted me to believe that this man they never saw had so much power that He created ME and knows MY beginning and end before I do? All these continuous bad things that occur in my life…if God was real then why would any of these negative things happen? Most of all, what was His point in creating me, just to have me live on this earth unhappy? Even on the days that I did feel happy I thought it was because of an accomplishment based on myself, not because He had anything to do with it. I started getting bullied about my weight, about my hair because no one wanted to believe it was real. I had girls threaten me, wanting to fight me without even knowing my name. Where was God then?

My parents spent a lot of my childhood at church. From when I was a baby they were ministering across the country and helping to change people’s lives. However, I didn’t see people’s lives changing for the better at the time, just mine not mattering to others. I grew resentful. I didn’t just only grow resentful towards my parents; I especially grew resentful towards God. My parents were so hung up on Him that I felt forgotten about. So why would I choose Him? Shoot, I was thinking…what has He done for me lately?

I started carrying a switchblade. I even thought about joining the Bloods simply because I wanted to belong. Now for those of you who know me personally, I can only imagine your faces right now. But yes, this is how deep it was. I lost myself in trying to create who I thought I wanted to be. I’m not even really sure what made me give in. It could have honestly been prayers from other people (because I know my mother was interceding every day). I even remember having an argument with my mother in our kitchen and I said, “Why do you always talk about God? This is why I don’t talk to you because not everything has to be about Him”. I could tell it genuinely hurt her feelings because she probably never realized she related most things to Him. However, that’s all she knew. I didn’t understand that then but I most definitely do now. But anyway, back to my breakthrough…

Like I said, I don’t exactly know what it was but there’s one day I remember like yesterday. I got caught sneaking out to go to a basketball game after my parents told me not to but they went to church that night. I took it upon myself, even though I just beat having a fever, to walk outside at night, by myself, to go to the game anyway. When they got home and they found out (my sister snitched) they let me have it! I was fed up because who were they to tell me what to do when they weren’t there for me when I needed them. Now don’t get me wrong my parents would tell me they loved me everyday and if they could they would lay the world at my feet. I knew that but I didn’t see that so I made myself believe otherwise. You know how people in their hearts know God is real but don’t want to believe that so they make themselves believe otherwise? Yeah, it was exactly like that.

I didn’t really know much about God and religion and how to pray. But I listened to other people well enough that I pretty much had the gist. Most people ended there prayers “In Jesus’ name” and I vaguely remembered my mom saying something in reference to a scripture that “if we ask in His name, we will receive” [John 14:13]. So I came to God on what I thought was my last straw and said “look Sir apparently you created me and want what’s best for me or at least that’s what I’m told so with all due respect, if you could just prove that somehow that would be great because I can’t see you and I sure don’t feel you…in Jesus’ name I guess, Amen.” I didn’t have the confidence to know He heard me but I asked in His name so all I could do was what I knew. I truly didn’t even know the full context of the verse yet but I figured let’s give God a shot since I felt I had nothing to lose anyway.

There were chains on my heart I didn’t understand or even realize at first. They were chains of bitterness, lack of forgiveness, anger, and I could go on but my point is these chains were keeping me from opening up to anyone better yet a man I didn’t see. You may have seen in another post of mine that I said my mother tried to convince me to start writing [to God]. Again, my ego got in the way because I didn’t like just talking out loud, I felt stupid. I didn’t even take up writing at first because it didn’t make sense on how God would “hear” what I’m “writing” and it made me feel stupid again. Until…I started realizing it wasn’t going null and void.

It’s not like I saw the clouds break and a huge light was shining up me. People expect all types of physical changes like that because that’s how “religion” is made out to look. However, the changes I noticed were small. I started to enjoy my time writing to God because at least even if I wasn’t sure if he saw/heard any of it, at least I was getting it out of my system. Slowly it changed that when my mom spoke about God, I didn’t get as angry as much. I started seeing my parents as humans doing the best they could and began to appreciate them for it. I realized these chains started breaking slowly but surely, and I wasn’t mad at it.

I was already happy with the changes God was making in my life from my simple prayers, that I started yearning for His comfort. I didn’t have to physically see Him there to know that he was paying attention because He was showing me. I decided to make Him the Lord & Savior of my life and He continued to prove to me that it was the best decision of my life. I started becoming myself with Him through being able to write comfortably and it gave me the confidence to start speaking to Him out loud without feeling dumb. My relationship with Him became the most valuable because as I spoke, He proved that He was listening through His actions in my life. I never had to give Him an ultimatum or threaten Him to grant my wishes because He wanted to the whole time. I just had to ask Him to come into my life and make His presence known because He was present the whole time, I just never made the choice to acknowledge Him.

So I say all this to say- 

Don’t hate Him because He’ not there, accept Him because He is!