Faith's Findings

Phenomenally Not Me "That's not me. I mean I like it, but I can’t relate. I don't feel like that. I don't see myself as pretty and I don't have the confidence she walks around with." she said. And my heart cracked a little.   As I swallowed back the tears that formed, I wanted to grab her and tell her she was beautiful—that she was phenomenal—that her story was worth being told. I wanted to tell her that we have failed her.   "I get what she's saying. I want to be that, but I only see what I'm not in the mirror." From there, my classroom turned into a heart to heart between young ladies about the pressures of this world. And from there, I was able to sit back and I knew exactly how to finish the following letter. Dear Teenage Girl, I see you walk these halls hiding behind a facade.  I see the unhealthy relationship you let define you.  I see the drive in you to be wanted. Loved. Accepted.  I see the ...

Every year I write a New Year's and/or birthday blog. This year is no different, except that 2016 & 31 go together and it is a bit late. So, here goes... I've been reading a lot of original and shared posts about 2016 being a terrible year and people feeling accosted by the year. 2016 was an eventful year for sure---when looking on a global, national, and spiritual scale. But to say it was the worst personally, I just can't. I can't look back be ungrateful or sad about what this year has been. Without all of the tragedy, I cannot appreciate the beauty. I cannot appreciate the growth in society or in myself without tragedy. I know this maybe sound odd, but 2016 was a year of growth. It was a year where I learned to choose me, and not in a selfish manner.  In 2016, at the age of 31... ...I ended a relationship and said to my friends "I feel like I just said no to getting married and having children." But, what I said no to was settling. What I...

Disclaimer: I really home you read this with my inflection and sarcastic ways. I’ve come to a point in li fe where I desire a child more than a husband. Men, I blame you for this. See, I have a solid relationship with the Lord. I am in this different season of life and it is beautiful. There have been many heartbreaks, which have come with many beautiful lessons. He truly is the lover of my soul. However, I am no stranger to the dating game. And I believe my two readers know this. Yes, I am a single, happy, independent, woman, who would like to have a partner in life and start a family. However, the dating scene is truly a game. And I don’t play by the rules, mainly because I’ve never seen the rule book. So, I am just myself and apparently, that’s “intimidating.” (Yeeeeah, I am confused about that, too.) But you men, you have a perverted and twisted sense of dating these days. You court and swoon and then just stop talking—I mean, maybe the fi...

*This is a paper I wrote for my Women Writing in War class last semester.*             Independence does not always equal aloneness, but rather that one knows who one is, aside from another person or society’s ideals. Independence means charting one’s own destiny.    I come from a long line of independent, hardworking, and successful southern women, but the definition of success for a woman is still debated in southern culture. The first college graduate on my maternal side of my family was a female and ultimately, my mother. Before her, the women in my family were successful in the home and working outside of the home to help provide for the family. As times change, much can be said about the slow change of women’s success in the Southern culture.             Sarah Morgan kept a diary during the Civil War and while her diary addresses slavery with ignorance, he...

I was cleaning up my computer files tonight because apparently my body thinks I do not require a decent amount of sleep anymore. What I found was a bunch of old writings that I had forgotten about. One in particular is an essay that I wrote at the end of this last semester of school. What is funny is that I asked my friend, who usually reads anything I write before I turn it in for a grade, about posting she did not remember this one. She encouraged me to post it because “you never know who you might help.” Below you will find the poem the essay is about and then the essay …maybe its for you…maybe its for me…either way here goes: Driving Home After Marriage Counseling I noticed the moon, one of those eccentric ones, fat yellow, superfluous in the just dark sky, the kinds they call “harvest” or “lover’s”, the kind no one would want to walk on You must have been negotiating carefully the curves on the long farm road that took us home, I don’t remember. What I remem...