This Girl's Worth

Do you ever have plans but feel God is calling you towards different, or the opposite of what you want to do? That was me all 2022. I started the year with a list of plans. I was going to be the most productive I’d ever been, the most relaxed I’d ever been because I felt like I moved forward from the one thing that was holding me back, fear, lack of boundaries, and self-limitations. I ended 2021 praying that God would release and remove any remnants that kept me from healing.

I didn’t want to be afraid, withholding, guarded, and reactive. In my mind, this meant that God was supposed to take away the complex feelings I had inside, which would lead to me feeling “different” and if I felt different, then things would be different. I should know better than that. I should know that God hears my prayers and if I pray to be free, He’s going to allow me to be tested to uproot what is taking up space.

Last year was the most undisciplined year of my life, but it was so necessary. Everything I was afraid of happening to me, happened. I gained 20 pounds, was overworked, didn’t have time to work on my business, my mental health declined, I was overeating and sometimes undereating in an attempt to gain some control in my life, and I thought about whether I should be pursuing marriage every single day. So many good things happened to me in 2022. I was promoted at my job. I spoke at a virtual conference and was invited for another conference in 2023, I helped who God called me to help, I made more money than I ever have in my life,and while I thanked God for it, I didn’t feel the peace I enjoyed for the previous 2 and a half years. I felt tired.

I thought somehow I failed. I worked so hard to climb out of the darkness that I was in mid- 2019. I worked on myself day and night. I put it all out there to let go of the need to appear like I had it all together. I allowed myself to fall apart so God can put me back together again. I felt “put back together” and 2022 happened. It was one thing emotionally after another. The only thing I kept hearing from the Holy Spirit was to study the word of God and did I? Sometimes, but mostly no. Instead, I cried and complained to God. My prayers sounded something like this:

” God, I trust where You have me. You created me, You know what’s best for me, but why do You keep Your hand from the one thing I ask for from you? God I don’t want to be ungrateful, Your timing is perfect. Don’t give me what I ask for if it will keep me from You.”

Good thing God knows my heart better than I do because chile, I was confused.

I understood what God was doing. He said, “You asked to be free of the past, well I need to dig up the remnants,” but sometimes, we want the good without the confrontation. I had so many pivotal moments that it wasn’t until the end of the year in therapy when my therapist told me how she was proud of my growth that I finally felt I could breathe. I hadn’t realized I had grown. All I could see was that I spent my year fighting. I didn’t realize to look up, see the clouds had passed, and breathe.

Last year, I found my voice again. The most notable moments: I started speaking up for myself at work, and I held my ex-boyfriend accountable when he reached out to me to be “friends.” I walked away from 2022 more confident in myself, less afraid to be vulnerable, and shedding the expectation of always having to be strong and reliable for everyone else. I call that a win.

So no wonder, after God had me confront all of that last year, I walked into 2023 with excitement in my bones. I’m writing a novel, I’m joining social clubs, I’m planning a birthday trip, I have my passport and I’m planning my first international trip, I’m saving for a house. This is a building year, and I can feel that God has opened up something spiritually. There is a time for reaping and a time for sowing, and I can expect that when God tells you to sow, you can expect to reap a harvest in the near future.

Jonathan McReynold’s Excited is my current theme song. To God be the glory. Go get it y’all!