My life. My world. Love, hope, peace, joy & happiness.
Good Morning☀️
Forget how much further you have to go or how steep the climb may appear. Just know that each day moves you closer to your dreams. Today you are closer than you were yesterday and the day before. Keep going! Keep going until you see what you dreamed.♥️
I love you,
Shaun
I’m built to stand on my own ten. So, I’m good. –Shedeur Sanders
I saw a snippet of an interview with Shedeur Sanders expressing how all his drafted teammates were drafted in pairs or more and had each other to lean on, but he didn’t. He’s in it alone. The clip ended with his quote above—basically, he’s saying he’s built to hold his own.
When I tell you I felt what he said to my core! I’ve spent my entire life feeling like I have had to do things alone—to hold my own. Not because I wanted to, but because I was raised to feel like it was expected of me. When you are the oldest and in charge of everything and everyone younger than you, there is no one else to depend on. You are it! So, you learn to stand alone. I believe this is one of the reasons I have a difficult time expressing emotions like sadness, grief, and even pain. Expressing them makes me feel vulnerable and as if I can’t handle them on my own. BUT… I’m working on it. Little by little, I am beginning to open up and express those feelings, not only in writing but verbally. I am slowly realizing and accepting that it’s okay to let others know when I am not feeling strong. I don’t have to hold my own if I don’t have to.
Y’all, I am so grateful that God continues to reveal areas where I still need healing and pruning. I look forward to meeting the woman I will be a year from now and even ten years from now. (Just another nugget of encouragement I’m leaving myself. Girl, you’re growing!☺️.)
God, thank You for loving me.♥️
Shaun
Good Morning☀️
Be intentional about encouraging others and yourself. Leave little messages for yourself here and there so you will see them when needed. I found the following in one of my posts from 2023.
“It always amazes me how God has me leave nuggets of wisdom and encouragement for my future self. Nuggets that are always relevant for when they are needed. Forever grateful. I’m blessed.”
In the same post, I wrote about finally becoming comfortable with sharing my works and ventures on all my platforms. That I was no longer intimidated or worried about being judged. I used to feel the same way when sharing my writings here. My heart would drop whenever I found an error after publishing my post. No lie. I would literally become sick and dwell on it for hours. Today, I don’t have that problem. If I see an error, I correct it and keep pushing. The anxiety I used to feel is gone.
So, I said all that to say that this reminder was a nugget of encouragement I needed today. Where I was a few years ago compared to where I am now is like night and day. I’m so grateful for how far I’ve come. Even where I was a year ago is nothing compared to where I am today. I’m growing, evolving, and becoming, and I love how it feels. God is so good.
Today, I would like to encourage you to reflect on your growth over the years. Look at how far you’ve come!
I’m proud of you. Now, keep going!♥️
I love you,
Shaun
Good Morning☀️
I shared the following on May 12, 2022—
That was God’s word to me three years ago, which I so graciously shared with you. Smile. You’ll never get to where you want to be if you can’t see or feel yourself there. It’s all about mindset.
Same questions as before:
– Can you see yourself there?
– Can you feel yourself there?
– Are you already there?
Me, I’m already there.
I’m there (here), fully immersed in and experiencing it all.
Y’all, God is so good! When I think about where my life and mindset were three years ago compared to where they are now, all I can do is praise God. I’m so thankful that He never gave up on me. So grateful that He kept nudging me forward when I felt like giving up and when I wanted to settle. I am so very blessed.
I pray you have an exceptionally wonderful week. Remember to keep God first and keep shining!✨♥️
I love you always,
Shaun
Good Morning☀️
Over the past month, I have watched God move in ways I have never witnessed or experienced before. Last night, when I shared that my spirit was having its own praise and worship moment, I was still in awe of how God had shown up hours earlier. Even as I write, I can’t help but praise God.
Short story…
Almost a year ago, I received a direct message from someone asking me if I would share an event on my Mississippi Thriving Facebook page, and I shared it. About a month later, I attended a luncheon for women veterans, and the person who asked me to share her event was the guest speaker. Towards the end of the event, I introduced myself to her, and she invited me to have coffee (hot chocolate for me) the following week. She was looking for volunteers to sit on the planning committee for the event I had shared for her. Well, what was supposed to be a quick meeting turned into a two-hour conversation. During our conversation, she shared her vision of providing resources, services, and assistance to unhoused communities in Central and South Mississippi.
When I tell you our meeting was divinely orchestrated! I had asked God for a mentor to help me with my nonprofit, which had been sitting idle for three years, and He sent her. After a couple of conversations with her, I finally launched my nonprofit.
Since meeting my mentor, who is now my newest friend (as you can see, I’m not ready to share her name yet), I have made more connections with the community than I made while doing community-based research—nearly 20 years. I have also participated in more community events (participating in another in a few hours) in less than a year than I have in my entire career. When I tell you I am so in awe of God! I asked, and He moved.
Yesterday, I attended my first public hearing to support my friend. If you didn’t know, providing assistance to the unhoused community isn’t very popular with cities. Over the last several months, my friend has had to jump through hoops to renovate an abandoned hotel that she and her husband have planned to turn into a day/resource center for the unhoused. Yesterday was another hoop… BUT GOD!!! When I tell you I watched God work! Yesterday, when I shared “God has the final say,” I was sitting there watching Him in action. At first, things appeared to be going downhill, but at the last minute, it all worked out in their favor.
Listen, you can’t tell me what God can’t do! When He gives you a vision or dream, hold on to it. It may take years to come to fruition, but it will happen. Also, timing is everything. We both talk about this all the time. Them acquiring the hotel, which had been sitting abandoned for years, was all about timing. Even our connection was about timing, and my obedience. You see, I almost didn’t go to the women veterans event. Kept making excuses all that morning, all while hearing I needed to go. Talk about an opportunity that could’ve been missed!
I can’t say it enough—God is so good! I just love the way He loves me. I asked for this side of 50 to be different, and lo and behold, He’s making it happen. I am so very blessed.
This is all I have for now. I pray that you have a beautiful day. You deserve it!♥️
I love you always,
Shaun
Last year I wrote—
“Heal so you can grow. If you do not heal, you will never grow to reach your fullest potential.”
Now, you’ll grow, and grow well in certain areas of your life, but you’ll never reach your fullest, God–ordained potential. At least, that’s what God told me, and I passed the message along to you. Smile.
When I turned 50, I asked God to allow me to live out my next 50+ years differently than my previous, and one of His answers was that I needed to heal. As much as I wanted to reset my life, I still had baggage I never fully unpacked or addressed—shame, guilt, disappointments, heartbreaks, and other hurts. I had to address them first so I could begin healing.
At first, I felt like my world had been turned upside down. Nothing was the same. My mom had just passed the month before. Then, God kept revealing the areas where I needed to make changes. I called it my pruning season because baby, I was being PRUNED! I was being pruned in all the places I needed healing. So, it was necessary.
Now, here I am, almost two years on this side of 50, and I can honestly say my life has changed—for the best. Not only do I feel it, but I’m beginning to see it, too. Although it’s all new, and I’m still working through some things—healing is a journey—I love my new life over 50. I’m determined more than ever to reach my fullest potential before I leave this earth. I want to see every God–given dream from childhood until now manifested. My recent experiences with so many second chances only prove that I’m not too old or too late for them to come true.
God is so very good. I’m blessed.♥️
Shaun
Trust God.
As long as He’s leading the way, you can also trust your journey.♥️
Love you,
Shaun
Over the past four years, I have used this same graphic in different posts. However, the first time I used it was on May 4, 2021. I went to look for further context and could only find this graphic and caption, “Make it happen.” Even on this site, I had only shared the graphic in the story format (when WordPress was doing stories).
Although I couldn’t find any other details, I decided to add a couple of scriptures from this morning’s reading. I believe they are aligned with the message of God setting the stage for me to make things happen.
Isaiah 46:10-11 (NIV)
10. I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say, ‘My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.’
11. From the east I summon a bird of prey; from a far-off land, a man to fulfill my purpose. What I have said, that I will bring about; what I have planned, that I will do.
There’s a purpose and plan to be fulfilled—God’s purpose and plan. And today, I am prepared to make it happen♥️ ~Shaun
Singing—
“You gave me
A second chance
You forgave me
like only You can
You gave me
A second chance.
For You’re the God of a second chance.”
Yesterday, while I was trying to figure out what God was doing with my life—because I had not remembered asking to go the route my life seems to be going at the moment—I had one of my “aha” moments. On several occasions in my life, I missed what God was doing because I was so focused on things not going the way I planned or looking like what I envisioned. The opportunities to have what I always dreamed of were there, but I kept missing them because I was so focused on my circumstances rather than the opportunities.
For those who haven’t been following me long, as a child, I dreamed of “world peace.” President Jimmy Carter and Sally Struthers were my inspiration. In my eyes, they were both doing things to save the world, and I wanted to help.
In middle school (junior high back then), I started taking French and Spanish classes. Then, I met a group from Switzerland who was visiting our school and decided I wanted to live in Switzerland—hence the reason I’m so set on the Palais des Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. By the time I reached the 11th grade, I already knew I would be living abroad doing some kind of work to make this world better. I had a French, student teacher who had just returned from a mission in Sri Lanka. She had a nose ring and wore saris and sandals, and I thought she was one of the coolest people in the world. She told some of the best stories. Then, I had another student teacher, a UN Peace Keeper, who did mission trips around South Asia. Y’all, I just knew I would eventually be like them until I had a dream and saw myself at the UN speaking to leaders from so many nations. That’s when I decided I should go more of the corporate route and become a translator or interpreter.
Long story short, NONE of it happened!
Instead, I went to college for a semester and decided college wasn’t for me, so I joined the Air Force. Now, here’s where the opportunities came and kept coming, but I missed them because they didn’t look like what I spent my entire childhood planning for. When I was in Basic Training, I was asked if I wanted to take a foreign language test for either French or Spanish or both, and I declined. I was too afraid I wouldn’t pass them. Get this, they asked me TWICE! I declined both times. The next opportunity came when I received orders to Germany. I didn’t want to go to Germany, so I never took advantage of the opportunities I had there. Opportunities like learning the German language or traveling to France. I was stationed near the border and about a 4-5 hour drive from Paris—we even had tours going there all the time—and I didn’t go. Was waiting on my boyfriend to go with me (that’s a whole-nother story🙃). I also wanted to go to Greece and didn’t go. Y’all, I was even stationed in Turkey and didn’t go to Greece. Now, don’t get me wrong, I did travel within both countries but never did the things I said I wanted to do because I couldn’t see past what I envisioned. Talk about a word!!!
So, yesterday, while I was trying to figure out where God was going with all this (a few more things happened yesterday that had my mind spinning, too—this has been some week!), He dropped in and reminded me of those missed opportunities. He told me that even though what was happening didn’t look like what I saw, this was it! This is part of the process. If I want to get where I saw myself all those years ago, I must go through this first.
Ha! Then, this morning, I saw the Facebook memory above.
Full circle.
A second chance.
Last June, I started my term as president-elect, and on June 1st, I begin my term as president.
My life.
My journey.
I know God is with me.🙏🏽♥️
Shaun
The message: Do Not Be Afraid
Do not be afraid, for I am with you…” Isaiah 43:5
Several posts ago, I wrote that I was singing— “Lord, whatever You’re doing in this season, don’t do it without me.” Ha! You know, when you say things like that, you open doors for God to do more in your life. And the word “more” also means “the unknown.” Scary, huh?
The scripture above is from this morning’s readings. It’s the assurance I needed to keep trucking along on this journey. I know God is with me. I have never doubted that He was. However, sometimes I need to hear from HIM (not from someone online or a sermon, but from God himself) that He is and always will be with me through this journey. I am not sure where God is leading me. Honestly, at times, I feel completely lost because nothing is going as I planned—things are just happening. But I guess when you say things like, “Have Your way, Lord,” “Your will be done,” “I’m Your vessel, do what You want to do,” and “I’m open to whatever You want to do in my life,” and the list goes on—you open yourself up to whatever God wants to do. Whew, the things I say and agree to in my conversations with God!🥴
As I smile through tears—happy and nervous tears—one thing I am certain of, and can always be sure of, is that I don’t have to fear anything because God is with me. I’m covered.♥️
Shaun
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