With jubilant praise I celebrate my 37th birthday fully owning who I am. Loving who I see. Excited to do God’s work.

This past year has taught me so much. So much about who I am as a person. Who God created me to be. Who I don’t want to be. Who I don’t want people to perceive me as.

I have learned, matured, grown in depth of character, had many aha moments with some tears along the way. But I feel like all of that was part of the process of shedding my cocoon so I can step out to be me.

Simply just me.

This is my second birthday during a pandemic like so many of you. However, I am choosing to look at it as a way that I get to spend pouring into myself opposed to not being able to go and do as I would have wanted.

I’ve learned so much in just a year of my life. And none of it was related to business, career, etc. It was about me. About being able to hear the Holy Spirit speak to me. Knowing when it is the Holy Spirit speaking to me. Understanding that I was meant to pour into others this past year.

I was forced out of a place that I sought spiritual refuge when my world was crumbling. But God pulled me out because I needed to step up into who I was called to be. It was painful as I wanted to contribute all that I knew and could give but the way things turned out, it wasn’t meant to go as I thought it would.

While I haven’t gone into detail on that situation, it was one of the most pivotal moments of my life.

It opened my eyes to the fact that God brought me out of darkness in 2018 so I could be poured into for a specific purpose. I just wasn’t aware of what that purpose was.

Y’all this was NOT something I had ever thought of. I actually had officially closed all but 1 of my business names as I wanted to scale down and streamline my effort. In other words, focus solely on my blog and let all the other businesses and projects I had, go.

But I will say that when you are creating something for God, the stretching you will grow through is not anything you can prepare for. And that has spilled over into all areas of my life.

How I conduct myself, my thoughts, my behavior, what I say, how I respond. All of that is changing because I want to not let that be a hinderance to the blessings coming my way and for me to be a blessing to someone else.

My 36th year of life was all about restoring me.

God did just that.

Now is the time to celebrate with jubilant praise because when I’m all alone and the only voice I can hear is mine, there is a calm and peace that permeates. I realized I really do like who I am. I don’t feel the need to put on “airs” or justify living my life. I know I have God’s work to do. So I do that. But I don’t feel a sense or need like I used to for applause, appreciation or admiration from others.