I was sitting in church Sunday and I swear Min. Jamaal Pickens was speaking directly to me! His title of his sermon was"The Authority of Persistence". His text came from Mark 10: 46-52 . Where he was speaking of the blind man named Bartimaeus who was sitting on the side of the road begging. When he heard Jesus was there he began to cry out for him. People told Bartimaeus he should be quiet but it only made him cry out more. Jesus heard his cries and told him to come. But before Bartimaeus came he removed his garments. Jesus asked him what it was he needed and Bartimaeus told him that he wanted his sight back and Jesus gave it to him.
The reason I bring this up is because Min. Pickens said so many things that touched me and hit home with me as I'm on this journey that my heart and soul asked me to share this with you, because I truly believe this will help you as well. One of many points he made was that "This is not the real me." People tend to look at you from the outside and judge you and think this is who you are. As with Bartimaeus he was blind and others as well as he felt his "thing" was to sit on the side of the road and beg. But God created him to be BETTER than that. When people see you overweight they "assume" that you are fat because you are lazy, don't care about how you look or feel, you can't control yourself when it comes to food and whatever else they may assume about you. And they could be NO FARTHER than from the truth! They DON'T know you. They DON'T know what you have been through. They DON'T know your story. NOW is the time for you to take a REAL GOOD self evaluation and say,"Hey I am in no way shape or form the person they THINK I am!" My God created me in HIS image therefore I AM GREAT! I AM BEAUTIFUL! I AM UNIQUE! I AM SMART! I AM LOVE! I AM LOVED and I AM WORTHY!! You are worthy of ALL the blessings God has for you and MAKE NO APOLOGIES for changing your life to receive them!
Make NO apologies for loving you enough to PUT YOU FIRST! I can not say this enough, YOU CAN NOT HELP ANYONE IF YOU HAVE NOT HELPED YOURSELF FIRST!!! How you gonna teach somebody how to ride a bike and you have never got on, wobbled, and fell and scraped your hands and knees from experience and got back up and tried it again,and again, and again til you were rolling right along? Sometimes baby you GOT TO GO THROUGH something to have a testimony to ENCOURAGE someone else that they to can be MORE than a conquer! We are all given choices and test in life and how we deal with them and OVERCOME them is how we HELP others!
Like with Bartimaeus people talked about him like a dog. How he was sitting on the side of the road begging even showed him a little pity and threw a coin or two in his cup. People WILL TALK ABOUT YOU! They're goning talk about you when your doing bad and they damn sho' gonna talk about you for doing good! It's like the rapper Jay-Z says " you gotta brush that dirt off your shoulder." Cause the haters are going to throw mad dirt at you. Make NO apologies for the path that you have decided to take! Whether it be a spiritual path, a healthy living/weight loss path, getting clean from drugs path, leaving that abusive relationship path ( be it romantic or friendship). Make NO apologies for taking that step into your DIVINE SELF that God created you to be! Make NO apologies for NOT being complacent with where you are and wanting more! Make NO apologies for being DETERMINED to receive your blessings! and DON'T let people try to deter you and shut your spirit up! When they try you cry out even more I AM WORTHY !
Know that before you can receive ALL these blessings you gotta do some shedding of garments just like Bartimaeus did. God didn't tell him to, but he knew if he was going to "receive" his blessing he had to let some stuff go! So you gotta let go of the stuff that your holding onto that is holding you back from moving forward or slowing your progression down. Stop being your own worst enemy! This was another point Min. Pickens made that " Some of the stuff we are holding onto is not even out stuff. Some of this stuff is inherited to us!" Meaning we were "taught" this stuff. As Min. Pickens points out that some of us were "taught" "to lie,steal,cheat, abuse women,and that all men are dogs." So you go into this world with this warped thought process and we manifest it as true and dare not to seek otherwise. So your momma and granny and aunties cooked with fat back, lard, and put two,three four spoonfuls of food on your plate and you were "taught" that was normal. Eat til you are full. "Don't leave no food on the plate cause food cost too much to be wasting, so you bet' not move from that table til its gone!" So now you have learned not to practice portion control but not only learned to over eat because you don't want to or scared to waste the food. You may have been "taught" we don't talk about our feelings because nobody really cares how you feel, or someone hurt you and nothing was done about it so you learn to suppress those feelings with food because it taste good and you enjoy that "good" feeling so you correlate the two and say when I feel bad it feels good to eat. NOW is the time to shed those thoughts! I always say "when you KNOW better you DO better." Times have changed and you don't have to live like your parents,granny and aunties lived. Not saying their way was wrong because their way was right for them at the time and it helped them survive,provide and keep moving forward. You now know the effects of eating unhealthy. You now know the effects of suppressing feelings. BREAK THE CYCLE! Teach the younger generation something better. Let them inherit a better life and positive view on life.
I made the conscious decision to leave and divorce my husband because I didn't want my daughter to think this is how a man should treat a woman. I didn't want my son to think this is how your treat a woman. I had to FIRST want better for ME in order to want better for them. I made the conscious decision to leave the eight year relationship because I didn't want to my daughter to think that you have to settle and sit around and wait for a man to decide if your are wife material while your playing that role for him in his life all without the commitment and the title of his wife. I didn't want my son to think that you just toy with women's feelings as long as you possibly can and tell them what you they want to hear to pacify them. But I had to realize this for myself before I could say I DESERVE better than this and so do my children. I'm teaching them that you can OVERCOME through persistence. Yes, they have seen me cry, they have felt and seen my pain, but they have also watched me stand up and rise above it all STILL smiling and acknowledging my pain and releasing it,learning from my mistakes,and move forward. Take off those old garments so that God can outfit you with NEW and IMPROVED ones! I make NO apologies for the decisions I made.
Min. Pickens said " Just because I can't do everything, doesn't mean I can't do something." take the FIRST step to move forward and I promise you God, the Ancestors and your TRUE friends will support you ALL the way. You may even inspire them to make NO apologies and take off on the path they know deep down inside God has for them. As you travel on this path and make NO apologies for it. Don't be afraid to let people know,"You ain't seen NOTHING yet the BEST is yet to come!"
