"EVERYWHERE life is full of Heroism".....Desiderata

I am so thrilled to be embarking on this journey to share my story with you, but I am continually hit like a big bag of concrete falling on my head.......

WHY? What is the purpose? Who really is my audience?.....and.... how do I allow God's gifts and the experiences of my life meld together to really make a difference for other girls/women?

 I truly believe there is a gap somewhere in all communities, and especially in churches, for girls at the most crucial times of their own development of identity, and I want to be a beacon of hope for those girls!!!! I want to at least be the lighthouse that leads them to a safe place to prepare for this thing we call life!!! 

I made choices that were hard and painful and out of sheer fear at times, and I want to speak out to other girls and mothers of those girls in those important years of establishing who they are, and be a guide for them to write their own story. I want to share the tools I have learned in my 39 years about how to arm themselves at ALL stages of their lives to live the life they were created for, and then to write the story THEY will be so proud of. To use up every ounce of strength they are given each and every day, because tomorrow with the sunrise there will be a whole new batch of strength and hope. 

I want to be a part of a world where women realize their purpose. We were created for an irreplaceable purpose!!!! Not to try to be just like the boys, they have their place, and we have ours.,...and if only we could realize our purpose and strength and the power that God has placed within us, I feel sure we would live our lives much differently!!!! I believe we would live lives with excitement and passion that has no place for fear.

 I want to live out of God's heart everyday and I want it to overflow!!! As my dear long time friend (and at times my life saver and check point of sanity) Carrie says....I want to "ooze Jesus," and I want to encourage other girls to do the same. I have such a strong desire to leave my own legacy, and I want to be the encouragement to young girls, as well as the mother's of those girls to own their place in history and live the story that THEY write along side THE one that made them, to leave their own legacy that changes generations!!!!! 

As I sat through a guided meditation tonight we focused on fear and the effect it has on all of us. But, we have a choice, we can let that fear paralyze us and keep us from living out our dreams, or we can embrace that fear and use it as a catalyst to push us to greater things than we could ever even dream of!!

This is my purpose in writing "my story"...that it will be, not just a story about the daughter of 2 mental health professionals and the grand-daughter of a Southern Baptist preacher who lived a life that for many many years was lived for others.A life of overthinking everything!!! A life filled with the fear of failure and not meeting the expectations of others, BUT instead, the process of understanding and using the tools I learned from those I was raised and surrounded by to help guide others to celebrate every day of this life. To overcome the shame of some choices made, and develop a "program" to live out the rest of their life with purpose and confident hope, and to eliminate that ugly word "shame" from their lives.

My prayer through this process is that as I recount experiences of my life, that have been both incredible AND devastating, that others would be encouraged to claim their life right now so that in the end that can say they are exactly who they want to be, and have lived the life they know they were meant to live.