Walking with a purpose

There are something's about this year that I'll never be able to get back. I lost what felt like a lot but really they turned out to be blessings in disguise. I'm thankful that God was able to create beauty out of ashes of burnt trials and tribulations in my life. What did I learn most you ask? Allow me to give you my top 5 things and hope that they will give you life as you head into a new year.  1. God is always here with me even when I cannot feel him or sometimes in my eyes falls silent. This year there were so many times where I felt so alone and made the decision to seek everyone but God. One day while I was in my quiet time God reminded me that he not left my side. He showed me constant things about him and his love for me in the word. You want to know the crazy thing? I still chose humans over him! They constantly disappointed me because humans are not meant to be everything to everyone. They are only meant for certain seasons in our lives and cannot give us the lov...

This too shall pass... “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:9) So this last month has been a season where the enemy has really tried to take control of my life. I had to deal with a lot of emotions that were brand new to me. The hardest part during this time was trusting God to prevail. I had to really learn about GRACE and having a heart of FORGIVENESS . God is so awesome y'all because he spoke to me even in this trying time in my life not only through his word but through his people.   This text from Corinthians is so amazing because it reminds me how strong God is and how he doesn't care how weak we think we are because his power is always going to be on display. We have to place ourselves in a position to rely on God for our effectiveness rather than ourselves. When we admit that we are so weak that we can't do it on our own then it affirms God's strength.  So recently I was talking with a friend about life a...

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: (Philippians 2:3-5)  What have you done for someone else lately? Like really stop and look at the last few days of your life... What have you done for someone else? Okay if you have some something for someone else have you done it for the right reasons?  People really only purely live to make good impressions. Rarely in a society like today's does a person do something just because they want to be sweet. Paul writes asking the Philippians to love one another and be one in spirit and purpose... It's simple when we work together caring for one another we demonstrate Christ's example of putting others first it's a symbol of unity.  Think about Jesus... He was so humble. Willing so many times to give up his own rig...

There have been a few times in this precious life of mine where I have been so guilty of not giving 100% especially in my relationship with God. These past few days I've been in a golf tournament and it always amazes me how God deals with me when I'm in a setting such as this one. Before I even started competing this week I received a heart wrecking text from a friend where she brought up this thought " Romans 12:1-2 you are probably familiar with-- Be transformed by the renewing of your mind!! Well sometimes I forget to continue asking God to transform my heart an renew my mind and thoughts. We need to be able to recognize our negative thoughts and patterns and realize that God is our partner and power over them!! We need to put a stop to those thoughts as soon as we realize that they are not from God. But we can't do this without filling our mind with something new and life- that is Gods Word! We must then repeat new positive thoughts to ourselves over and over- it t...

All summer I have been on this journey of finding myself and becoming a more confident me. While on this journey I've had to identify with things that I didn't really want to address. No matter what these things were they all had a central theme of personal forgiveness. Now I'm going to let you all in on something as my readers and that is that all summer I've been struggling with listening to God he's been telling me to talk about personal forgiveness and its come up in multiple settings. I think in a sense I ran from it because I had not truly forgiven myself for all of the sins I've committed even though I've asked for forgiveness. So in preparation for this blog God led me to Psalm 103... I love how David's praise is focused on what God is doing for him but where God wrecks me are in verses 12 and 13 "as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has...

" The Lord is my helper I will not be afraid..." Hebrews 13:6  Last year I had the chance to be a mentor to a group of freshmen during that week we spent the day at an outdoor camp with all kinds of activities. One of my freshmen talked me into getting in the zip line rotation and of course knowing that it was a fear of mine I still got in the line. The time came for me to climb the ladder and meet the attendant at the top and I felt sick. I looked down and saw all these people and I thought to myself "what am I doing?" The attendant could see the nervousness in my face and she touched my shoulder and said " I know you don't know me but I want you to know that it's going to be okay. It looks scary now but first off find comfort in knowing that you are safe and I'm not going to let anything happen to you, trust me and just jump right into the air and enjoy this." I said a quick prayer and jumped.... All summer I've been attempting to conquer...

I wish I could convey my excitement about this series of blogs I'm embarking on the next three weeks but instead I'm going to hope that it is evident in my thoughts that I put down.  Fear has been a huge topic for me lately, and my fear has in a sense kept me from being completely transparent with God. It always blows my mind when God reaches down and drops something in my spirit. Tonight I'm in the car listening to the radio and ordinarily my mind doesn't really key in to things that are going on around me, but tonight God was telling me to pay attention. Natalie Grant was talking about her new single "Hurricane" and what inspired her to write it. She talked about how it's he was in a deep depression and she found solace and comfort in the story where Jesus walked on water.... I came home and I decided to brush up on my Bible skills regarding Jesus and his ministry. I went immediately to that story found in Matthew 14:22-33 but verse 28 is the one that re...

"I'll sit on his sunlight as long as he's sitting with me"  At the beginning of the summer I had one of the realist conversations ever with my dad and for the first time I was really listening. He talked about how I had been running from where God was calling me to for so long, trying to please everyone but me. He said "just be Creseida" you know that in 22 years of life that no one had ever told me to do that?  "As a father shows compassion to his children, so the  Lord  shows compassion to those who fear him ." Psalm 103:13 I'm very blessed I have two fathers, I have my real earthly blood dad and then I have God. God is like a father, tender and compassionate. Not every child is blessed to have a relationship with their earthly father but I'm very thankful that I have had my father. Make no mistake though just because you don't have a relationship with your biological father doesn't mean God is not there. God offers himself to us,...

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good. (Genesis 1:1, 9, 10)  I think I have probably read this particular text about the creation so many times in my lifetime as a Christian, but today I'm seeing this text in a whole new light coming off of my vacation. I sat on the beach the other day and I stood in awe of where I was at that particular time in my life. I could not help but see how amazing God is. As I prepare for the next chapter of my life my goal is to look at it with fresh eyes. My goal is to see something new and amazing everyday that God gives me. I had a conversation with someone I worked with recently as I was preparing for a huge interview. He was telling me sometimes when people have been in the same position in life that it seems hard for ...

I have a real hard time with being real with myself. Because of that I keep a real tight circle of people who are what I would like to call "realist". Sometimes I feel like they come off mean but one of them made a very valid point this week when she said "no I just like to be transparent with myself as well as others...I have nothing to hide." That is when God hit me with a revelation for my blog this week. When a person is transparent it means that their motives are easily read by their actions, meaning they have nothing to hide. I consider myself to be a very guarded individual, I use feel like sometimes if I let people see the real me that they would leave. Not true, the people that are in my life love me for the goofy, dramatic, and guarded individual I am and they draw out the best in me.  What if we looked at God like that? I asked someone close to me about if its hard being transparent with God. Their response was "I think it's hard for everyone! I ...

" But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own"Matthew 6:33-34 You know what I am learning? That people worry about the craziest things! People worry about anything from finding their lost car at the grocery store to how their bills are going to get paid. While I know that everyone does not have the same faith in God that I do I sort of wished that they did. God speaks very clearly about worry more than once in the Bible yet people still stress out about things that they should turn over to God.  There have been many times in my life where I have not trusted God nor have I sought him like I should have. Four years ago today I remember sitting in my mothers room senior year of high school with her asking me what I wanted to do about college. I had sent out video after video of my golf swing and it was looking...

When I think about the type of woman I want to be some day I think about the women that are in my life. The women that are or have invested  time and resources in me, women that pour into my life. I think of my  grandmothers, my aunts, my sisters, my friends, and most importantly my mom.  All week I have been looking at certain scriptures and women in the Bible who were God led women but I kept coming back to Proverbs 31. Proverbs has so much to say when it comes to women. People confuse the the idea that women in the Bible were all dried up and completely domestic. No the women in those times were EVERYTHING they got up early and stayed up late. Their strength and dignity did not come from their achievements they are a result from her reverence for God. We live in a society where appearance is everything...they never mention a women's appearance because it did not matter attractiveness in those times came entirely from character.  My mom is a woman of great characte...

What a week this one has been. I had finals and that stressed me out and I was just feeling overall defeated. I really couldn't convey to my friends about how I really was feeling because they were just as stressed as me. Sunday night I decided to really just stop. I stopped and pulled out my journal and my Bible and I began to dive into the word. I remember asking my roommate what our positive affirmation for the week was going to be and she said "eat more ice cream sandwiches" haha needless to say I stared at her. I decided on this "no matter what this week throws my way I am determined to be more than a conqueror" she loved this. I wanted God to take away this feeling of stress that I had. God led me to Romans 8:28-39 and then I was like okay God I see you! Then Monday I was talking to my roommate and I asked her what her favorite scripture was and she said she loved all of Romans 8. I laughed out loud literally because that was the second time he dropp...

Warning this may cause you to see yourself in a whole new light...or I'm praying it will My view of myself: I'm too dark. I'm not small enough. I can be rude especially when I have my headphones in. I'm selfish in my quiet time. Most times I'm way too critical on myself. God's view of me: he loves me just the way I am. How do you view yourself? How do you think God views you? Take some time and really dwell on those two questions. This blog in particular has been wrecking my heart ever since I got an email from my adopted mom here at school with the Dove beauty sketches video. I want you all to go watch that video! I'm going to post it at the bottom of this blog because it kind of really changed my view on beauty which thus led me to spiritual beauty. Have you ever heard someone say "it's what's on the inside that counts"? I am not going to lie when I heard it for the first time in middle school I was like that's just a sweet way...

Okay when I was younger I had a temper. There was this one time in elementary school when this guy kept putting his hand on my desk and I asked him politely to move it...yeah he didn't move it. So asked him one last time and he still didn't do it...so I took my pencil and stabbed him in the hand. Okay while that was not the best choice of action I had a point to prove or I thought I did. Me and that guy grew up together graduated together and everything and he hated me and spread rumors about me. We became enemies because I didn't know how to exercise patience. I regret that now I wish I could back and react how God would have reacted.  Life is crazy. I laugh about it sometimes. You wanna know what really makes me laugh? When people do not like me and they take that dislike to a whole new level and slander my name. You want to know what I do? I still smile. Because God is the ultimate fighter of battles. I am absolutely in love  with Exodus 14:14 " The Lord will fig...

I can remember the first time I ever won something. That feeling I received as the officials put that first medal around my neck. It was such an amazing time that I knew I wanted to feel that feeling again. How do you duplicate that again? How do you push yourself to win again and gain that feeling? Well I'm glad you asked. I recently watched something where he indicated a recipe for champions but I put my own spin on it. Today I'm going to walk you through how to become God's champion. There are 5 ways that I believe are key in this process and because I believe in you so much I'm going to share them! 1. Commitment If there is one thing that we cannot be in our walk with God and that is lazy. Okay I'm going to be honest...I'm lazy. If you have known me my whole life you will know that I hate doing most things. I do them on my own time but I've learned that in my  relationship with God I cannot afford to be lazy. You must spend  time with him daily. You h...

I dedicate this blog to all my Jonathan type friends. I want to thank you for all that you do to uplift me and push me closer towards Christ.  With a week like I have had where it has been busy but my mind has still been on a lot of different things. Yesterday was the birthday of someone that I held close to my heart for a short time while he was here on earth but he still taught me a lot about God's love for his children including me. So yesterday I took a personal health day and I just laid around and I prayed and asked God to send me memories in that time I prayed and really reached out to God earnestly and I thanked him for the relationship that I formed with Brandon for his time here on earth.  So while laying around I received a text from a close friend who told me that she was praying for me and that she knew that I was going through a tough time and that she was there if I needed to talk. Okay first I was not expecting it which is how I knew that it was God lead se...

I want to send a early happy birthday to my best friend Brandon Vaughn...I thank you for all that you taught me here on earth. RIP love you tons . Well I'm back after a much needed hiatus where I took some time for myself. Lately I've been struggling with this notion of the future. While I'm completely content in where I am at right now I'm still apprehensive about the future and what it holds for me. I stopped worrying about it and now I'm giving God more time and I'm writing and praying to him about my worries,letting him lead and direct my life. That time is so precious and crucial to me. In that time recently I realized this....we live in a fairy tale land. Think about when you were younger you wanted everything to be perfect when you got older. You wanted to meet the perfect guy (or girl for my men) and you wanted to live happily ever after. What the fairy tales failed to tell us was that everything is not what it seems often times you have to go through...

I have two places that I love to be in the whole entire world and one of them is on the golf course in the spring time. I love it because I can smell the fresh magnolia trees and the grass is really green and the sun shines brighter than ever. I feel so FREE. Golf is my escape its where I feel the most myself and I get a lot done thinking wise on the course, sometimes I allow God to talk to me there. I thank him for all the beauty that he has created especially in that very moment because I am undeniably happy with the blessings that he has given me.  Where is your favorite place to be FREE?  It may be your hammock, on your couch, or even in the world of your favorite novel. Wherever it is do you allow God to talk to you there? Do you give God his time?  You don't have to just talk to God on Sunday when you attend church, or when you say your prayers...sometimes he just likes to hear your voice.  Real moment... I'm really bad about calling home. When I ...

Hello all it's me here again with another weekly thought for you all! I hope that this week has been amazing for you and if it hasn't I pray that it will get better. This blog this week is close to my heart so I hope it reaches each of you in a special place. So here it is... How many of you know that people are watching you everywhere you go? In a society like ours image is everything, and people base a lot of things just off of how you look. I've played golf for ten years and ever since I first picked up that first club on the driving range with my dad people have always stopped and looked...not because I was good (which at the time I wasn't) but because I was a dark skinned girl playing. I can even think back into my relationships with people and I have always been insecure with my skin and how dark I am. I placed my value in if guys came up and talked to me or not. Why???Why do I care what people think of me, God loves me and that's all that should matter rig...

Hello all, It's me Creseida here for another weekly blog. I trust that this blog is finding you all very well and blessed. What a week this has been! I have been torn down since it started and I allowed it to be that way, I realized today that I could have turned it over to God at any given moment. I think as humans we like to sit in our mess. Now if that offends you I am so sorry but it is reality. I also say that we like to sit in our mess because we know that there is a positive alternative to the mess that we are sitting in but we do not want to face that reality. My mess this week was one I actually could have prevented I chose not to because in a sense I liked feeling sorry for myself and I wanted other people to feel sorry for me. God does not want us to sit in self pity and wallow he wants us to come to him for comfort but he is not going to force it on us either. When I reflect on my life and where God has brought me from versus where he is taking me I get excited just t...