Tag: authentic

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life

Ode to my thirties

Being embraced by the first day of fall, 2023. Andonnia backed by the blue skies and green trees.

Many times reflections start with alllll of the negatives… BUT THIS AINT 35 MM FILM… so… BLESSINGS from my thirties!

There were trips. I didn’t take many trips as a youth unless it was a school conference. Shout out to that trip to NYC in seventh grade with our intercity choir! So… my thirties held visits to friends in other cities and states. It also included some passport stamps, discovering some cool places, taking stunning hobbyist photos, and enlarging my mind.

Here is the beautiful thing about the mind, don’t read brain because they are related but not the same, once it expands…it expands. The new knowledge becomes a part of your knowing and of you! Come on. That’s exciting. (The hard part is recalling the knowledge when you want to… whew ::insert a great big exhale here::).

So the three most powerful parts of my latest decade is: The POWER of GOD in my life, people, and expansion.

If I was to string together the pieces of my testimony that steamrolled my thirties we’d have to also develop those negatives, but KNOW that I know Him. I have seen Him Move for myself. I have felt His embrace. I have prayed and He has answered. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God (Romans 10:17)… and the more you hear and study the Word, the more of God you learn. You lean into that new knowledge and in turn… activate more trust that the Bible is truth.

People. I know and have met some pretty awesome people. What I love is when I meet someone and God whispers to me that they are a gift! I’ve met musicians, politicians, artists, preachers & pastors, but the most impactful are my friends! I’m grateful for the people God’s sown into my life like seeds that bloom in DUE season.

Finally, the expansion. Mind expansion. Faith expansion. Creative expansion. Expansion of self. Knowledge expansion. Lesson expansion. I’m grateful for it.

I’ve begun to really settle into my house. I’ve been in it over a decade…but slowly I’m making changes that reflect my current pallet. My tastes are being refined. It’s the same with my life. Boundaries aren’t prisons, they are protection. The same way expansion pours in newness, it recognizes what must be pruned away or restricted. That requires a healthy perspective. Will you allow yourself to expand into your current season and assignment?

My thirties were a lot, but not perpetually bad. I am grateful for it.

Hello forties. Bring some hydration, sunshine, sweet memories, and expansion ok?

IVY OUT

Categories
life

Real Attraction

This is a lesson that I have learned about attraction based on people I have never physically met. Well I met some, but much later than the original connection. Why do I point that out, because I don’t need anyone trying to figure out if I am talking about people who are currently in my life or those who populate my past. While this applies to them as well, I really do mean people that I have gotten to know prior to meeting in person. I am grateful for it too.

For me, the initial look is going to give you some data. Is this person aesthetically pleasing TO ME, yes or no. If the answer is yes, it encourages me to want to know more about that person. In the beginning it’s very surface and shallow as far as the ocean analogy goes. What does their voice sound like, how their day is going, their likes/dislikes. But then, the tug for attraction moves into who the person is on the inside. The more I know the more the attraction is validated or not supported. What do I mean by that… when we first find ourselves attached to someone, we tend to gloss over little things. Sometimes those little things end up mattering more than we initially gave it credit for. If a person is aesthetically pleasing on the outside and rotten internally, I want a refund for the time I spent viewing the outside. I am being silly, but I am 100% serious. The physical attraction could also be invalidated by misalignment. That person can be phenomenal and still be ill matched for me. This is a concept I wish people would gravitate to more. Quit casting people into categories because they aren’t a good fit for you. Realistically most people shouldn’t be… You don’t need a million, you need your person.

Social media has granted access in a way that was foreign before. People are able to reveal or create whatever version of themselves that they want to be shown/seen. Here’s the rub, so can we. What then becomes difficult, or a daunting task, is sifting and sorting the sugar from the salt. Your eyes can’t do that. You have to experience each grain in order to sort them. Hence, experiencing more of the WHO and not the packaging. The advances of the day make the exterior a variable. That inside though, that requires a different kind of work to change. Some people don’t even think there is a need to change. THAT is what validates the attraction, the stuff on the inside.

The Taj Mahal is BEAUTIFUL. It’s also a giant tomb. Look at people. Really see them. See yourself. Know what you know. Investigate and search until you sort salt from sugar for self. Weigh your attraction by that.

IVY OUT

Categories
life

Weird.

Just BE what you ARE.

That would seem simple at first glance. However comma it is not. We live in a world that seeks to smother the uniqueness out of you, as if they are a cluster of T-cells. THEY try to strangle the you out of you – calling it things like weird, as if that is a bad thing. If you wear your clothes, hair, or any visual differently than the masses you are automatically singled out. By some miracle, a sliver of these grouped individuals is seen in a positive light.  They are deemed social celebrities worthy of snaps, tweets, toks and shares. We can’t forget the shares. The rest of us are weird. Oddities plastered with opinions like wood paneling and recycled wallpaper.

Here is your PSA for the rest of existence: CALLING ME WEIRD IS A COMPLEMENT.

I was NEVER made to be LIKE YOU. I was made to be the best ME ever. My life is a continuum of better, correction, growth, and celebration  and it was never doomed to carbon copy the masses. HOW DARE… any of you/them/they/sub appropriate pronoun for society here… Just HOW DARE?

CELEBRATE the weird, the artistic, the avant garde. Those willing to carve their own style/path/trend/journey within this shared experience we call life. Kudos to those with courage to unapologetically be. WE laurel originality and difference. A failed attempt at a relationship taught me something about four years ago. Difference makes us beautiful. If the world were void of colors, think of how awful it would be. If every human being on earth was some robotic stepford version of the next person, this would be a nightmare – even more than the current hellish climate.

So raise high your short cropped cuts, your dressed and jeans, your style, your creativity. Mix your prints, sing your songs, have your opinions, love hard. But LOVE. Don’t let societies hate and fear cause you to harden and scar. Love because it’s more powerful than hate. Love.  Be.

IVY OUT.

Categories
life

WE are too impressed with right words, rather than right hearts…

#annlettered
#annlettered
I feel like I haven’t posted a blog in a lifetime. I apologize to anyone who has ever come to this blog for peace, comedy, sarcasm, or encouragement. The hiatus came on the heels of a lot of “life”.

Anywho. I have been feeling a lot lately. Is it just me? Not “in my feelings” like some of my friends and I blurt out during sensitive times, but actual feeling. I have been emoting. I have paid attention to the feelings that would consistently rise up. Not because they are supreme in my life, but they usually are a good thermometer for my heart. Emotions are to thermometer as heart is to thermostat. Let that sit with you for a bit. Brew over it like tea.

I had a very intimate conversation with several of my friends, at different times. Birthed from many exchanges, and prematurely inked on paper, I labor at this hour to produce my reunion blog. This is my reunion with my authentic voice. ::clears throat::

I have come to the conclusion that we often are too impressed with people’s right words instead of their right hearts. The biblical picture of this was the day future king David was anointed. Not initially considered for the invitation by his earthly father, David was tending to sheep- his father’s business. A world without social media alerts and instant feedback, David didn’t know he was the reason for the entire experience. Nor did the other human beings in attendance. One by one, David’s brothers were passed in front of the prophet and rejected by God for THIS assignment. It wasn’t the stunning and good-looking one. It wasn’t the next in line in their father’s lineage. It was young David. Not a mature David. Not the Goliath slayer (yet) David. It was young shepherd boy David. David smelled like sheep. It didn’t stop the anointing. God chose David because of his heart. We would later read and celebrate David because he was a man after God’s own heart. This was the same David that was passed over at his own party.

In 2015 we are often deceived by crafty, well thought out, and methodically organized words. After the hamster wheel of “nope”, “not you”, and the proverbial “haven’t I heart this already”, right words can be music to bruised ears. I am reaching here, but I believe both men and women are tired of both itching ears and bruised ones. Bruised ears have been abused with lies, fluff, and the noise pollution that comes from empty plotting people. (Subsequently, it could also come from negative news, social media, and strangers trapped in the friend zone that will never surface in a genuine light because it’s just not in them.) Right words can sound like a soothing balm…unless they are coming from someone with the wrong heart. My words are heavy, but my message is clear.

Your words could be mere lip service if your heart isn’t pure. If your motives aren’t pure, your heart is tainted with schemes, malice, or even disdain. Some people mean you no good. They simply are after what God is doing in you during a particular season. IS this FOR everybody? You can be the judge of that. My message is simply this: watch what you allow in. Filter your existence. Satan was an angel at one point, he knows word too.