Keeping Yourself Unstained from The World

Everyday I find myself struggling in being content with what God has given me. As well as struggling in being content with His promise for my life. Social media has a way of making you feel that way sometimes. Everything you see pressures you into wanting to be part of this "glamorous world". You start to harbor an unhealthy way of thinking, and become more and more discontent with the outcome of your own life. 

But you see, as I keep scrolling through my feed on various social media platforms I begin to notice a familiar pattern. In each post, everyone looks and acts the same. The world has left a mark on each individual, actually no it's more like a stain. You know, those really annoying stains that take forever to scrub away. Many believers have come across one of these worldly stains more than once in their lives through enticement of the lavish and care-free lifestyle that it presents. As a result, we stray so much from God's purpose in our lives, all while walking around with a huge stain on our blouse!

We start becoming less and less the people God destined for us to be, and more of what Satan has been trying to prove.

I don't know if you're familiar with the book of James in the New Testament. This book is essentially a series of letters that he wrote to believers in GENERAL. He comes to the realization that Christian don't have it all together, and may stumble in their walk with God. 

He starts talking about the importance of having faith in order to build up endurance in this Christian walk, so that we may be "perfect and complete, lacking in nothing" (James 1:4, NASB). In doing so, he calls us out to not just be hearers of the Word but doers of the Word. The sooner we are able to apply God's Word into action, He will bless us in whatever we do. This will  put discontentment to the side, and cleanse out worldly stains from our hearts and minds. 

I encourage you today, to embrace the Lord in your Christian walk, and avoid being tempted by the what the world has to offer. If you truly believe God has a plan for your life then prove yourselves to be not only hearers of the Word,but also doers of the Word and God will Bless you in whatever you do. 

I know.

I've been MIA lately, but I've just been so busy with getting organized  for my move to a new city, as well as trying to keep up with graduate school reading assignments before classes officially start. On top of that, I have been experiencing the whole newlywed life and it has been wonderful so far. Anyway, I will do my best to upload more posts about grad school, faith, medicine, etc more often. But in the meantime, here's a quick little study pic ;). 

Featuring my second cup of coffee 

OVERCOMING DIFFICULT SEASONS

I have always battled with God, telling Him that I was ready for whatever blessing He was supposed to give me during a certain season in my life. And every time I would get disappointed when I would not receive it.

We are constantly telling God all the things we want from Him, because we believe we have been faithful in our current season. I admit it, I am guilty of that. I always find it easy to be faithful during my good seasons, but what about the bad seasons? When something goes wrong in my life or not the way I planned, I forget about God. I completely lose faith in Him and all He has done for me. There was a year where my faith was tested brutally. I’m telling you, it was one of the worst years of my life. 

I felt like everything was building up for this very year, and in this very moment, I wanted to give up on God completely. I started believing that He was choosing not to listen to me, to the point where I thought I had to keep Him in check of what He was doing with my life. All around me, it seemed like everyone had it together, things were running smoothly in their lives while mine was stagnant. 

I constantly wondered “How come this person received this blessing?! They don’t even go to church! Do you see how much they’re sinning right now?!” God, Look! I was always comparing my chapter two with someone else's chapter thirty. I was trying to run a race that wasn’t my own. Everyone has a different story, and God has a different plan for each one of us. Yet I wasn’t seeing that. 

Now Job,is a character in the Bible that I will always admire. He was a faithful servant who lost everything he had including family, yet he still remained faithful to God. What would you do if you lost everything you owned right now? Your many titles, your degrees, your job, your wife/husband, your identity..Everything? Would you still be as faithful as Job in your bad season? I know I wasn’t. One day I felt like my whole world was falling apart, days before graduation because I told that I wouldn't’ graduate with the degree I intended to, over one credit. I know it may seem like nothing, but I lost complete faith over one credit! It was as if that moment had triggered everything that I was going through that entire year. And I wasn’t sure who or what to cling to. 

My mother, father, and I were in the car on my school’s campus trying to figure out how to fix the situation at hand. They knew this was the roughest year of my life, and they saw their daughter drifting away from God slowly. Nothing could control my anger, I was literally angry at God for not listening to me, or granting me what I thought I deserved! My father was so fed up my negativity that day and turned around yelling “WHERE IS YOUR FAITH?! CONFIDE IN GOD!” I remember this day like it was yesterday. I looked deep into my father's eyes and said“ I don’t have time for that”.  

I’m sorry, what?! Who doesn’t have time for a little faith? A little blessing? Oh that's right me, I don’t. I’ve been so negative that entire year and my faith was just spiraling downward ever since. Job’s wife even lost faith, she encouraged him to curse God during the difficult season he was going through. But I love Job’s response to her, Job replied “You foolish woman. Should we accept only good things from the hand of God and never anything bad?” (Job 2:10).

Let me tell you something, God knows your weaknesses, but so does Satan. And both interplay with them in different ways. The power of the Holy Spirit manifests in your weakest season, and in your hardships. So I ask you this, who do you become when you lose your faith? What do you become? I’m saying this because some of us aren’t even human at this point. We constantly choose fear over faith, when we should be choosing faith over fear. We must let go of our fears and let Jesus guide us. 

Let the Lord manifest His grace unto you! After my rash comment about not having time for Him, the Lord would look at me with eyes filled with love and say “Then let’s make time. Let me show you. Follow me. Let’s take it one step at a time.” We never seem to have time for the Lord, yet we have time to indulge in our sins time and time again. And time and time again, there He is patiently waiting.

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and he will make straight your paths” Proverbs 3:5-6 

“For we live by faith and not by sight” 2 Corinthians 5:7 

I encourage you to walk in faith this week, regardless of what you’re facing today. Let God guide your path. We can fight fear with faith, and place our burdens and worries onto Him. Step out in faith, don’t let fear win. 

COMING SOON: CHRISTIAN LIFESTYLE POSTS

I am so excited to incorporate something that has always been part of my life to this blog: my love for Jesus. Growing up in a Christian household has taught me many valuable life lessons. Although I’m not a perfect person, I know there is a God who loves me and who’s always guiding me toward the right path. I hope to encourage women to step out in faith and discover their God given purpose. This is something I have always wanted to do, but never knew how to do it. God has been placing this in my heart for so long, but I’ve always ignored it. Beginning this  faith-based segment, is just the first step in Gods plan for my life. 

Stay Blessed!

💖

GRAD SCHOOL: THE ACCEPTANCE

I am unbelievably excited and nervous. This week, I was informed that I was accepted into a Masters program for Reproductive Science and Medicine!!!! Honestly, after being waitlisted from the program and receiving a ton of rejection letters from medical schools, I thought I wasn't cut out for anything. In the meantime, I continued providing tutoring services at my alma mater and enrolled in an EMT course (more on another post about that soon!).

In all honesty, there were many times were I felt like a complete failure. I kept questioning my motives, and was so caught up on trying to please others in life. I kept giving in to other people's opinions, and allowing it to change my approach for my future. All along, I should've been focused on my dreams and goals. The negative opinions of other people were never going to allow me to be where I needed to be because I kept focusing on where others wanted me to be.

This was my life, and I had to take control of it. If you are in a similar situation, don't let anyone rain on your parade. Focus on your interests, don't just apply to medical school, graduate school, physician assistant school, or nursing school because everyone else is doing it. That was the biggest mistake I ever made, and ended up taking two whole gap years to figure out what I really wanted to do.

Remember to live life at your pace. 

Some people may have a hard time understanding your dreams, and that's ok.

Nonetheless I am even more excited for this new journey ahead. All this time, I have been in a constant spiritual battle with God (if you're religious you know the feeling)  cause I believed He wasn't revealing to me my purpose. But all along He was preparing me for something better. All I had to do was be patient,  and remove all the distractions. It has taken me so much time to learn that Gods got me, He's holding me down, and my battles have already been won. So why have I been stressing? All good things work in His time, not mine.

I cannot believe I'll be be moving to a new city! This is just the start of many new things in my life!
I will do my best to do some graduate school updates. In the meantime, let me know what kind of content you would like to see on my blog.

Let's inspire and be inspired.

❤

FINDING MY PURPOSE: THE SOCIAL MEDIA DETOX

I have taken a detox from social media for a few weeks now, and honestly it was the best thing I have ever done for myself. I was going through a wave of emotions every single day. I spent hours scrolling on Instagram, Twitter, etc, comparing my life to others. And for what? Everyday I was seeing posts that made me unhappy and angry at where I currently was. 

It was during this social media detox that I became content with my journey and with who I am. Going cold turkey on all social media was extremely difficult, but surprisingly, I didn't miss it at all. I became more focused on my journey and my spiritual purpose; building myself up from the rubble I was in yesterday and seeing the masterpiece was proof that all that ME time was worth it. Today, I can say that I am more in tune with my perception of self. Everyday I am recognizing the woman before me in the mirror and I am excited to see what I can accomplish this year. 

So if you're feeling overwhelmed, take a look around you and see what is preventing you from reaching your destination. Is it a jealous heart, non-supportive friends, or social media? Whatever it is, remove it temporarily from your life. If you believe it needs to be removed permanently, then so be it! Do not help others or things build obstacles in your path. Do not hesitate to knock them down! 

Live this life for you! 

We were made with a unique purpose on this universe! So stop comparing yourself to others, it will only cause harm to your journey and cloud your purpose.