Dear beloved, 
I know you are hurting and you want to give up, but I want you to know that your heart is in the potter’s hand. You might feel like you are forgotten and He’s not responding to your cry for help. Darling, He has heard your cry and your petition. God is requesting that you rest in Him and allow Him to fight the battle for you. His angels are waiting for their command, waiting for you to make your request and leave the case at His throne. I know it’s hard to just let go of the pain when it hurts so much, especially when it is all you can see and think of. But from one previously heartbroken to you a now heartbroken, I implore you to leave it at His feet. If you’re struggling to do that, I pray the Holy Spirit will guide you and teach you how to. I cannot give you a step by step guide into the healing process because it is a journey that is different for everybody. So as you start this journey, I remind you that God is not a man, that He should lie (numbers 23:19), the Lord is living, and a mighty saviour. He will take delight in you with gladness, calm your fears with His love and He will rejoice over you with Joyful songs (Zephaniah 3:17). The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit (Psalms 34:18).  
Spending time in prayer with a broken heart and a spirit that has been crushed may be hard, so I remind you that tears are a language too so don’t be afraid to just cry if that’s all you can do. God is always on your side and He’s closer than you think.  ​

Ps: God loves you unconditionally, flaws and all. You are Gracefully, Beautifully Loved. 

​by: Shanice Brown 
 
Battle Scars 
Everybody's got them whether prominent 
Or not, 
Easily seen or not.
They mar the surface of our bodies,  
Our hearts or just the simple complexity of 
 Our intellectual minds.
Battle scars 
Whether stripes like the tiger, 
Dreams that reflect horror films 
Or just the thoughts of our deepest fear,
We all bear them and learn to survive with them. 
Whether or not we were able to control  
the situations that caused these scars  
But we live with the story and the  
expectancy of being more broken in the  
eyes of society. 
But even Society itself is broken 
Baring its battle scars 
Trying to fit the mold it built for itself. 
Battle scars,
everybody’s got them.​

Inhale…. Exhale
The sweet aroma of the chilling air swept up her nostrils and beat upon her skin, but there she stood. she stood there and allowed the biting winter air to have its way with her, just as she has allowed everything in her life, until she decided enough was enough. She has had her fair share of struggles, you know, the ups and downs of life, but learned how to dance in the rain. It wasn’t always easy, but she had to keep going. Many were the times that she felt like giving up and throwing in the towel and just moving along with the lazy ocean tides without a care through life, but then she remembered that God doesn’t give us more than we can bear, and He most definitely won’t leave His child to suffer or beg for bread. So, she kept pushing. Praying until something happened and having faith although sometimes it dwindled. Though she was dependent on God, she was eager to live a better life. So, she changed her lifestyle to one of self- control, gentleness, self-love, humility, kindness and self- acceptance. Thus, cancelling her life subscription to self-doubt, anxiety, depression, sadness, living up to people’s expectation and the idea of never being enough. She embraced her new existence through a “Spirit Empowered Life of Faith” and not a “Sin Empowered Life of the Flesh” remembering she lives in this lifetime but only once and she doesn’t have to be perfect. Her imperfection was her charm and gave her that whole lot of difference in a world of indifference as she carried the birth mark of Christ.
 
“If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.”
- Maya Angelou
• • • •
"Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life." - John 6: 47
In our human perspectives, living life can be a chore sometimes. However, it is just a journey where we are allowed the unwarranted grace of God to experience the gift of being alive. Life allows us all to have different experiences as we learn to appreciate ourselves, the things and people around us and the love of God as He shows us that we don't have to do anything but be alive for Him to love us as His love is undeserved by us humans; who make a mess of ourselves every day. Amazingly, He's a God of compassion. He gives us His love so freely that us humans found it unnerving that someone could love us with no hidden agenda or price to be paid that He gave us the choice to worship Him and establish a relationship with Him. This was His sole purpose for our existence, for Him to love us and us to love Him in return through our praise and worship.
Throughout life I found myself at the famous "standstill", trying to figure out life and its free reign where we are given choices that ensure we have the best life experiences. I was stuck between choosing to emulate the lifestyle of Christ and living for God or living life on the edge with the sole purpose of just enjoying the now, never expecting anything to have a lasting effect on my future (the sad mindset most of us have). So here I am with two choices and having no idea which would be best, but having the benefit of growing up in a Christian household and was taught my whole life to take everything to God in prayer, I decided to go have a conversation with God. This conversation led to me being reminded of the many stories in the bible where the Israelites worshipped foreign gods and lived other lifestyles away from God which lead to the lasting effects it had on them compared to the stories of these people living for God and holding up their end of the bargain and how much better their lives were (Deuteronomy 29: 25-29, Jeremiah 16:11). I then asked how do these stories connect with this our present world that has a different way of living and I was led to the notion we humans have now that " You. Only. Live. Once" and we are all in for the instant gratifications. Those references allowed me to see the fact, that although we now have a different way of living and approaching life, the people of the bible days and us the people of modern Earth are not different and we are really one in the same, as both sets of people are searching for something to worship whether we know it or not but we refuse to give the worship to the right person, God, and we see this where the persons who choose/chose to worship and believe in God, lived a better life than those who chose not to by the experiences each group had/has to go through and the end result of each experience.
Life is a cycle. You have free reign with your choices but each choice leads to a different end result, just like an algorithm. You get to choose how you are to live your only life whether through instant gratification or prolonged gratification (Galatians 5:13). Enjoy your days and enjoy them well with self-control in your thoughts, actions and deeds as every choice we make has a lasting effect on our lives, whether we like it or not. Life comes in stages and stages means there are changes. Changes are important so we can evolve into who we are meant to be and not who we want to be or who anyone else wants us to be. Although we get stuck in our situations at times it is not for us to ask what is wrong with us but rather, what are we missing from the lesson being taught in our current life stage in order to move on to the next.  Love God, love yourself and those around you and learn to accept yourself for who you are. Live life to the fullest with choices you won’t regret later with remembrance that God didn’t call us to be perfect or to live a perfect life. Mistakes are there so we can learn a life lesson as He, God, is made perfect in our weaknesses.
"Then Peter began to say unto Him, Lo, we have left all, and have followed thee. And Jesus answered and said, Verily I say unto you, 29There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake, and the gospel's 30But he shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life." - Mark 10: 28-30 KJV
 You Only Live Once. 

​​

by: Shanice Brown
​Till death do us part
​But after death we got closer
Because you loved me to death
And thought of me when no one else did

​Your blood shed for me
To set my captive soul free
Then, you set my soul on fire
​Showed me, my beauty in you
Healed my broken heart

You gave me your love unconditionally
Despite my many unwavering conditions
​Your heart of gold captured
My heart of stone
And O' you made me whole

Now your saving grace
​Abide with me
Our hearts connected 
Our love everlasting

No end
​to Our Beautiful Love Story.

​

As humans we thrive off having relationships with our peers and the wider population, whether it be a personal or public relation. No man is an island, just like a pack of wolves can’t function without the alpha or an army of ants without the queen, so then we cannot live without God. Many a times we try to close off ourselves from having a relationship with those around us because of some pass or present hurt, we are not gaining any substantial benefit, or simply because we lack the self-love to realize that those around us are deserving of our time and effort.
As a result, we find ourselves lost to the knowledge of self-identity, become broken mentally, emotionally and even physically majority of the time as we go in search of that missing piece or that something to fill the void. But as we search we may end up sinking further into ourselves not having the strength to even go through a day or just simply breathe. That’s until we catch that breath of fresh air and our mind is not clouded by all the negativity and we see and get addicted to that positivity we feel while in the presence of God.  
We then move to asking Who am I?
For the longest while that has been the scariest question that someone could ask me, because I in myself didn’t know, so I’d say, “if you stick around long enough you’ll find out.”  But what I really meant was, welcome to my roller-coaster ride cause I’m figuring me out too.
I’ve always believed in God but never truly knew what it meant to trust in him. It wasn’t until one day my mom said to me that there is a difference to know God and knowing about God. That’s when the gears in my head started to turn and my natural problem solver of a brain started to think, and analyze, and critic repeatedly.
Then I realized all this time I had that empty feeling within me, that didn’t seem to fill up with anything I tried to stuff in it was because I wasn’t giving it to the rightful owner to fill. It was then I realized that you cannot believe in God and not Trust in him, you’ll feel unaccomplished no matter what you do. It was then I realized what it meant to have God at the center of your life, the beginning of your day and the ending of it. Because it was then I became a Christian and not just said I was a Christian.
I was no longer a part time Christian with one foot out and the other in. It was that point in time I handed over my broken self to God the potter for him to mold me the way he saw fit and to use me the way he wanted to, because it was in that instance I realized my life is not my own, my body is not my own and I’m on His borrowed time.
So, one step at a time I started working on myself with His guidance to live according to the fruits of the spirits and to believe in His identity for me. Because I am His child, I am a royal priesthood, I am A Friend of God and I am Uniquely and Wonderfully made. The journey has not been easy but through it I’m learning my strengths and I’m allowing 2 Corinthians 12:9 to be my constant reminder that He is always there, even when I feel so alone and dismal and feeling like I should let go.
I started to believe in myself, that I am worthy of love, that I am loved and those around me are deserving of my time and effort. I gained spiritual fulfilment while I lived different from those around me and I dared to be the difference in a world of indifference.
​