Other times, He has greater.

While looking for an email regarding my schedule for this week's Society for Financial Education & Professional Development (SFE&PD) conference, I came across this #rejectionemail from last year when I was hoping to simply promote my business in their conference materials. The conference is heavily attended by school officials, financial guru's, researchers, etc. As I reflect now, I have no idea why I thought my ad, which was all about God and purpose (my lane) and made no mention of financial literacy, would have fit anyway! 
 
Fast forward to May 2016 - I get a call from Mr. Theodore Daniels, the Founder and President of SFE&PD (a man I truly admire) asking if I would be interested in speaking at the conference, specifically for a workshop catered to women as they manage life’s transitions. Fully aware of my purpose-coaching lane, he expressed such confidence in me and asked that I think about it and let him know…
 
Well here I am today, in a hotel room in Atlanta, preparing, feeling so grateful, and in awe of God for who He is. I can't wait to serve as one of the speakers for the Life Transitions for Women workshop where I'll share tips on how we bounce back from financial adversity with our purpose in mind, being responsibly aware that our ability to be good stewards of all that God has given to us (time, family, finances, etc.) is tied to our ability to walk boldly in our purpose.
 
Moral of the story? Sometimes what you want aligns with what God has for you; Other times, He has greater.
 

Honor the blessing of connecting with others.

"For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many." Mark 10:45 (NLT)

This past Sunday, my friends and I turned Calvary Women’s Services (a transitional housing organization for homeless women in Washington, DC) into a full service day spa. We’ve been doing this twice a year for the last few years and I’m always amazed at how God moves through our service.

Our volunteer service providers have been quite consistent over the years and most have never missed a spa day. However, there were quite a few scheduling conflicts which provided an opportunity to bring others in to serve.

One of the service providers that joined us for the first time had never volunteered in any capacity. Toward the end of the day, I asked about her experience and she was overjoyed as she shared how blessed she felt to use her gifts to serve others. She was almost in tears trying to describe what the day of service did for her. She shared that she would never forget the looks on the faces of the women after being pampered, the stories they shared about their lives, and what led them to this time of transition, as well as how serving made her feel. She stumbled trying to find the perfect word to describe the day, saying “it’s a feeling I can’t describe…it’s like hmmm, it feels like, I don’t know, it just feels good.”

It truly is an indescribable feeling that I can’t adequately put in words. A number of emotions arise while serving like gratitude, euphoria, and peace (an emotion of faith) which can truly change your perspective on life. Serving makes you forget your troubles – or at the very least recognize how trivial some of them are in the grand scheme of things. Serving urges you to not sweat the small stuff and reminds you that things could always be worse. It transforms you, shifting your focus from ‘me’ to ‘we’ and helps you to honor the blessing of connecting with others in the most selfless way possible, through service!

If you’ve never served before or have been away from it for some time, it may be just what you need! Seriously, if you’re in a funk, feeling like something is missing, or consumed by all that just isn’t going “right” in your world, considering stepping into the world of others and serving them.

Philippians 2:3-7, "Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men." (ESV)

Not quite the dream I imagined...

We all have dreams but never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that I would be featured in a StyleWatch magazine ad, highlighting the work I feel blessed to do in the community. 

The October print edition of StyleWatch was released to newsstands and media outlets on Friday (9/16/16) and the ad was shared worldwide via social media. I was in Atlanta when I was tagged in the photo on the StyleWatch Instagram page. I don’t think I can adequately describe the feeling; it wasn’t a sense of shock because I knew the release date but it was most definitely surreal. It all started a couple of months ago when I received an email from one of the project managers of StyleWatch advising that I'd been chosen as one of two women to be featured in the European Wax Center’s Strut Strong Campaign highlighting women who are doing work in the community to inspire women. They flew me out to New York for the photo shoot and we were advised then that the ad would be released in the October edition, so I knew it was coming. But it ‘got real’ that morning and as I reflected on God’s grace I was overcome with emotion and deep gratitude.

As I shared, this wasn’t something I envisioned and maybe that’s because life has a way of bounding our dreams based on what we’ve seen and heard. We limit ourselves and contain our thoughts of what could be but God is limitless, uncontainable, and He’s more than capable of doing the unthinkable in our lives. “But as it is written: Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.
(1 Corinthians 2:9)



P.S.You'll never know where your purpose will lead you if you aren't willing to invest time in finding it.

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