As we all know within the next 2 weeks we are going to be coming to the end of 2020 and WOW! What a year right? We can all agree that this year has been A LOT! We have experienced unexpected losses and not to mention maneuvering through a global pandemic! The pandemic in itself has cost some of us loved ones, our jobs, homes, and some businesses. We have been whisked into quarantine and social distancing; wearing masks everywhere we go has become the new norm. Parents are now making arrangements for virtual learning for their kids and our frontline health care workers are sacrificing their lives to keep us alive everyday. This year proved that police brutality towards African Americans and systematic racism is still alive and well. Can you believe in 2020 we still have to ask the question, “Does my black life matter?”. Let’s not mention the longest election process and on top of dealing with all of this, we still have to deal with the regular hustle and bustle of our everyday lives. So, I think we all can agree that we are looking forward to 2021 and ending the chapter on a very trying year.
Usually around this time you start to hear the topic of New Year’s Resolutions. You may hear your friends or family members around you talking about what they plan to do differently in the new year. That could be exercising regularly, eating healthier, starting a new business, etc. Which is why I wanted this blog to focus on an idea that the Lord gave to me this time last year. I truly believe this made this year a successful one for my husband and I, despite all the turmoil around us. Within my previous blog I talked about how I was going to move differently in my life after going through some trials and tribulations and that meant putting God FIRST in every aspect of my life. Even though I made that decision for myself back in 2015, even to this day I still strive to put Him first in any and everything I do. Therefore, this time last year the Lord dropped it in my heart to trust Him differently.
“See y’all
gotta act
like y’all know
Who you are
serving!”…
– Diamond Melvin
The Lord gave me the idea of my husband and I writing down all of our goals and plans we wanted to accomplish in 2020 and placing them on the wall in our prayer closet so we could see them. He also instructed me to write down scriptures that represented each goal, so that way if we ever got discouraged in this process we could always reflect back on His Word to encourage us and guide us through. After we wrote down our goals with scriptures we prayed over them, asking God not only for these blessings but to lead and guide us and not let us move before Him at all.
This was my husband and I having Crazy Faith. Pastor Michael Todd of Transformation Church defines Crazy Faith as, “thoughts and actions that lack reason, but trusting fully in what you cannot explicitly prove, it’s not faith if you can see it and it’s not faith if it’s not relating to hope” (Hebrews 11:1). Yeah, so what my husband and I put on our prayer wall last December seemed pretty crazy cause for some things the way our bank account was set up and the way these goals were set up you would have been like yall trying to do what?! Lol. However, I just had enough faith in God to know that EVERYTHING that we placed on that wall was going to happen. I didn’t know when or how, but I knew it would. “How did you know?”, you may ask. See y’all gotta act like y’all know Who you are serving! I’m talking about God! My Father, the Man that holds ALL power in His hands, and not only that but blesses me with unmerited favor. You know that favor when you got that job without the degree that they said you weren’t qualified for? Or how about when the doctor says, “sir or ma’am there’s nothing else we can do”, then you come back for a check up and the doctors can’t find a trace of what they saw in sight! Yeah, I’m just here to remind y’all, God is still performing MIRACLES, SIGNS, and WONDERS (Hebrews: 2:4) and He has NOT forgotten about YOU.
So, let me just brag on God real quick. My husband and I plan on buying a house next year and we had put that on our prayer wall. We knew we needed to make some big financial changes this year to set us up for 2021. So, with the help of the Lord and my bestfriend we got on a strict budget always making sure that when we got paid that we gave our tithe and offering to God first, pay ourselves by putting money in our savings next, and then handle the rest of our bills. In the month of April we were blessed to be able to pay off ALL of our credit card debt totaling $7,829.99. Now, that in itself has freed us up to be able to pay off more debt and save even more. We are on track to have another student loan and my husband’s car paid off before April, and April is when we will start looking for a home. We prayed that my husband would grow musically in ministry (he has been playing the drums at our church for a few years, but he had a desire to learn the keyboard). For his birthday in April I was blessed to be able to enroll him in keyboard lessons for one of his birthday presents. He did six months of that and as of last month my husband is officially our church’s new keyboardist. Crazy thing is he got the position the same week he was on his last keyboard lesson. We put my blog on our prayer wall (the Lord gave this idea to me back in 2014, but He let me know this year was going to be the year it would launch). Even when the year started I had done absolutely nothing to prepare for my blog, and then the quarantine hit! Thank You Jesus for the quarantine, that took us away from all the distractions life brings and because of that I was able to start focusing on this blog which I officially launched on October 1st.
I just wanted to share a few things with y’all that we put on our prayer wall because if you trust God and obey His word it will happen for you too! I really do believe because we took that stance last December, God was able to carry us through this year with such grace. This year really put us to the test, however, my household decided to draw even closer to Christ. I was able to really grow in God even more because this year took us out of the “norm”. In my opinion it made me realize who “the Church” really is. With being a millennial at this time in my Christian journey from what I’ve observed most of us know how to do “church”. We know what to say to get the congregation in an uproar, we know our shouting ques, we know how to play “church”. However, I’m grateful for 2020 because I believe God took away the distractions to have us realize that WE are the Church! Us, the believers of Christ, and He’s coming back for us without a spot or wrinkle (Ephesians 5:27). Will you be ready? So, I encourage you to have some Crazy Faith in 2021; put your goals and aspirations before God and watch Him work. Also, keep in mind to pray that He equips you for the process that you will go through to reach your goals and be ok with a no! A delay does not mean a denial and from my experience God’s no’s are always A1. Remember, wherever God leads you to, He provides the way for you to reach your destination. As my Pastor Jeffrey Johnson says, “If you don’t see it before you see it, you will never see it.”
Love Your Sis,
"Dear God," Blog 