Beauty for Ashes

As I pulled into the parking lot of my daughter’s school one cold January day, my cellphone was ringing—it was my husband—“Babe we got MacDill!” (one of our most highly sought after military installations to become stationed at). I could not believe it! This was “the base” of military bases to be assigned to; mainly because of the sun, bustling city of Tampa with its’ grand population of north-easterners (much like ourselves), amusement parks, powdery beaches, amazing culture and food; there was no doubt we were excited to call this place home in the months to come.

The wait was nerve wrecking leading up to the move, but nonetheless, we were game. Not even the slightest of disappointment could phase me at that point. I was moving to Florida boo! I’m all the way good, and no negativity was about to knock me off my natural high.

Thoughts of swimming after a long day, eating authentic Latino and Caribbean food, going on roller coasters, taking pictures with Mickey Mouse, driving to Miami, you name it; it all flooded my mind as I daydreamed day after day.

Even when I lived in other states across the nation, I always found the good in it. The adventure. Sadly, I’m not particularly sure why I struggled to experience “fun” in New Jersey, but it just didn’t hit all of the boxes for me. And, don’t get me wrong, New York and Philadelphia were both a hop-skip-jump away, but the state itself fell short on my list of excitement. What more can I say other than I’m extremely thankful for snow-days and the local farmers market.

So the day finally arrived. We were outta here! The packers came and packed our three bedroom home up in a day and a half. It was so odd that at some point that house felt pretty big, but now it felt more less like a tightly cramped closet. The moving truck was massive, cutting off traffic onto our street, and the movers hustled the huge crates and boxes onto the semitrailer. I practically didn’t look back at the house other than to show my daughter the cherry blossom tree that we think a bird planted by the water fountain I staged years prior when we first moved in; it had grown into a healthy 10 feet or taller tree by now. My daughter really had no other connection to the house, but she waved goodbye and that was that.

After 4 long gray winters in New Jersey, this was the breakthrough we know God had His hands all over. And, shortly after our arrival, Florida did not disappoint! It felt exactly like what it looked like in the magazines; sunny, sandy, blue skies, bright smiles, just an overall glow covers this area and it is amazing. The temperatures were just right, even though the locals warned us of the daily 5 o’clock rain (the hurricane season is upon us now) and increasing temps in the late summer; my family and I took to the culture easily. I’m not sure if it was the weather or how happy my family had become almost immediately upon arriving here, but my spirit was full.

We stayed in temporary lodging facility (TLF) for about 2 weeks. Now that part I was not a fan of, but it was temporary, and every single day I drove from city to city in search of a rental property that I found adequate enough to house all of our household goods, and that had a good-great school district for my daughter. Unfortunately, with such a high demand to be at MacDill AFB, and the increasing amount of newly stationed military members arriving throughout the summer, the housing waitlist was at an 11 month wait. There was absolutely no time to waste.

Everything we loved seem to fall through, and the mediocre properties were pending with other potential renters. I was over the idea of renting. The discouragement was beginning to set in, and my patience was running thin. I was doing a majority of the house hunting alone, but for good reason. My husband was busy getting back into the swing of things at his new office and in processing. This was the part of the balancing act that most military spouses do, that often get overlooked, but we play an integral part of the process as well.

Thankfully I abandoned the “house” renting idea, and switched to the apartment living concept for the sake of my sanity. Due to the horrific traffic (oh and it is just that, awful!), I branched only 5 miles away from base, and there you have it….we found a place.

There was an awesome move-in special and it was near restaurants I loved, what more to ask for! Basically the amenities sold me, and it was perfect for my husband’s commute and for me to find potential employment. With an 11 month wait to get base housing, this seemed to be the right choice—especially with our home goods on the way to be delivered soon.

May 4th, 2018. The day before the celebratory “Cinco de Mayo”was our delivery date. Dispatch had contacted us about the delivery of our home goods, and we had plans to spend the weekend unpacking and organizing to store a good portion of our belongings in a storage unit. My husband rented the U-Haul truck, and we patiently waited to see if the semitrailer was arriving. The two hour window of 10am-12pm came and went. We called dispatch and received no answer. This was highly unusual considering that the woman who handled all of the logistics was very responsive.

In my pondering, I was bored and tired of waiting so I decided to call my father. We talked about blessings and patience, and how we were thankful that we were closer in proximity now that we moved to Florida. The apartment was quite empty and echoed with every word we said. In the kitchen, I could hear my husband’s phone ringing and him starting a conversation. I ignored it because I was still in the middle of my conversation with my dad. Then I was interrupted by news that would change my perspective on life forever.

“Jenn I need to talk to you, it’s important”, my husband said to me through the halfway open door. I immediately got off the phone and asked him what was going on, and the look on his face was like nothing I have seen on him before. He then explained to me that the truck that was carrying all of our household goods had been involved in an accident and caught on fire. Nothing was salvageable and there was no police report. Just like that, all of a dream became dark. The sun was out but the clouds seemed to have rolled in quickly. Visions of all of my possessions, including my husbands and daughters possessions, going up in flames was playing over-and-over in my mind. All I could imagine was flames and heat consuming my life’s accomplishments and keepsakes. Nothing short of bad movie that I could not stop playing.

To say I was overwhelmed would be an understatement. Not for nothing, I distinctively knew my sadness had a place, but this was not the time to exercise those feelings. I also knew that I should not covet, and to do so is not what God wants for me to do. I literally was placed in the position to let things go without my permission. There was no sorting through my things, picking out what I wanted and did not want to keep. It was gone in a matter of minutes. The very thought of not seeing familiar pictures and holding my childhood memories was now my new reality.

The weeks went by. We were practically in regrouping mode. Everything that was lost was now a distant memory. A good friend suggested we setup a contribution pool, similar to Go Fund Me, so that we could quickly recoup the necessities. That was extremely helpful and allowed us to get back on our feet after the loss. All-in-all, it still felt surreal. The clutter that I once complained about, the toys that we in the way as I walked through the living room, the maternity photos that were in my daughter’s bathroom, the CDs I collected from my adolescence, and the yearbooks with well wishes were now minuscule in comparison to life itself.

Thankfully the driver was unharmed during the accident, and so were my family and I. We were not in the vehicle, only our belongings. The perspective that I prayed to view this from was to take on the incident, manifest the positive aspects of it, and in spite of all of the tings that were lost, those “things” were just that...things. Without any doubt I know God was control, and our resilience fueled our faith in Him more now than ever before. There’s something about being stripped of everything that is sobering and leaves you vulnerable. That enabled us, and it allowed us to see the situation from a different scope. Isaiah 61:3 (NLT) reads:

“To all who mourn in Israel, he will give you a crown of beauty for ashes, a joyous blessing instead of mourning, festive praise instead of despair. In their righteousness, they will be like great oaks that the Lord has planted for his own glory.”

Nothing Satan tried could break that promise that God made to us (all of us), because of all the “things” the world has to offer, God will always supplement and give us more than what we deserve. He most definitely was my strength and my salvation during and after the storm. And, in no time during that storm did I ask Him to get rid of the storm. In fact, I asked for Him to walk me through it. I’m imperfect in many ways, and this has never happened to me but I knew he’d be my comfort when I felt all was hopeless.

When I reflect on the circumstance, it was a revelation of sorts for my family and I. Only can God take anyone from losing everything, to being in a state of thanksgiving. From what I thought was the “good” part of my life, to preparing me for what is very likely to be the “best” part of my life. The blessings are flowing, and they are coming in so many different forms that I cannot help but be thankful to God and those He has used to bless us as well.

Throughout this process I have been open to sharing my testimony (my story), taking my time to come back to my brand, blog, and give you all the honest story of how my life has been shaped as of late. I completely took a step back to let go of the fear of reliving the loss publicly, but the secretiveness was not what was intended for my story, it is the part of me that cannot be undone, and that I am forever thankful for.

I will continue to share my story with you, and thank you for your support and for being patient with me. 

Blessings! 

-Jenn

Growth: Good Seed, Bad Ground

Some things are self-explanatory. Clear to see. However, I’m definitely guilty of trying to make certain things work out in my life that just aren’t going to; and for obvious reasons. I have spent hours working on problems, years mending, months mulling over specifics. Ultimately, a good seed won’t grow in bad ground.

Now I would never say I have a green thumb, I usually can only keep house-plants alive, but here’s the thing…the seeds will grow roots where there is good nourishment. I compare many of my ideas to a seed. Something that was planted in my mind and/or heart (which I believe are jewels and blessings meant to be acted upon), I try my best to consider it as an importance nonetheless. And, with great effort, I try to make things “work”. That’s where things get tricky. Like most, sometimes I’m 100% full-force, steam ahead, confident, and not lacking any doubt that God will provide the idea and make a way. Other times I fall victim to thoughts of self-reliance, and that not only clouds my judgement and decision making and problem-solving skills, it can harden the soil necessary to make the blessing flourish.

In this day in age one thing I have noticed about the mentality being adopted is embodying more individuality and less dependency on God. More climbing the latter, less sending the elevator down. More telling everyone the success, less sharing the testimony. More giving the universe, people, and everything else a shout out for your glory, less giving it to God. The list goes on and on, it’s not surprising to see more and more of. With that, what also looks like others in getting ahead of you in, they may be getting setup to fall behind in.

As of January of this year, I turned 33 years old. I went to a HBCU, joined the military simultaneously, met hundreds of people, and traveled many places over that time. One thing that stood out to me was how well everyone seemed to be doing in college and the military. In college, by my senior year I had second thoughts about seriously pursuing a career in my concentration of Biology. I ended up falling in love, getting married, and making an executive decision to quit college. Yup! I dropped out my senior year (you don’t want to know the bill). Following that decision, I explored every odd job there was that may have interested me. I worked as a hotel desk clerk, administrative assistant, retail sales employee, customer service agent for a cellphone company. You name it, I stayed with a job. I wasn’t too concerned about the dough per say, just wanted to get my feet wet and see what I wanted to do with my life—what made me happy. None of those jobs made me happy by the way. I ended up falling into the trap of thinking that the idea to drop out and work in multiple fields over the course of 3 years was a complete waste! That basically I had squandered opportunities, blamed myself for mistaking closed doors as open ones, condemning myself for making an irrational decision. Meanwhile, all of my peers had degrees and higher, went on to large corporations and other successfully designed employment structures; meanwhile I was feeling like a washed up used to be smart kinda girl.

By this time, Facebook was more than relevant. Every single move someone made was applauded by likes. Who in their right mind was going to “like” my tales of meeting my sales quota while I worked part-time? I dawned in me though, in one of the most interesting ways…something as simple as a phrase I heard my father say, “It’s all about how you get it. Everybody didn’t get what they have the right way.” From there, I basically shook my head in agreement. And, to tell the truth, most of what is shown by others—I didn’t desire “that” anyway. It was a personal responsibility of mine to start over, see where I missed the lesson, and tune into the understanding that the struggle was crafted for me because He couldn’t get through to me when it was easy to understand, and that I had to be faithful to what has already been given to me before more is delivered to me.

See, all of this time leading up to this realization, I had the notion that I missed a step. I apparently didn’t have enough popularity, or clout. My business ties and resources maybe were too thin. I second guessed everything, literally! Was I supposed to join some group, or keep in touch with certain people over the years? Could I have done something different? Of course hindsight is 20/20, but at the end of the day, this was about obedience. God made that extremely clear to me, because “my way” was not working. Out of all the millions of things that I have done wrong in life; the very thing that caused so much confusion in my life (suddenly dropping out of college), gave me the most experience, crafted understanding about what I wanted to do and be, and helped me to look at what I was growing my seed out of (it’s amazing how out of confusion the biggest lessons and blessings come about).

It has become very easy to compare ourselves via social media and in real life with our peers; now more than ever. We’ve caved in for likes instead. But everything that glitters isn’t always gold my friend (you know the saying). So I took my three year hiatus, and all of the kicking and screaming that came with it, and invested myself one more time into being a student. Yeah, I started school again. I went and learned Algebra A and B all over again at a local community college (I absolutely had no concept of math that I could comprehend. WHATSOEVER!), that was liberating because I passed both with B’s. Then I moved on to heavy-hitters like micro/macroeconomics (that almost killed my positive intentions altogether). Next, I took political science, another surprise to me because I did not know I would like a law formatted class (who knew). Once I wrapped up my accounting courses, I took the plunge, and took my talents to the bachelors program in Business Administration, two and a half years later—done!

It was like I blew the lid off of my own head so a second. I found every single academic weakness I had, made them stronger, and applied it to areas in my life. I still wasn’t sure where it would lead me to, but I remembered all of the times I was told that if I would just finish what I started, God would bless me. So what began to manifest was confidence within me, and the dots began to connect. The ground that the seed was planted in was being nourished by faith, and faith alone. My actions were the water reaching down into the roots. The months later, God was saying that I needed to keep going, and so I started the master’s program and finished 16 months later.

Overall, I can say this with confidence no that I have lived in the confusion or sorts…growth is being subservient. It has nothing to do with “you”. In fact, it has everything to do with how you treat your gift, how you manage and use your faith, and surrendering. All of the jewels dropped along this journey of life are the blessings, meant for “you”, due to your actions. So when we take it upon ourselves to take credit for the seed and ground in which it grew, we are not correct in doing so. The humility is no longer there, and award from the world has replace the reward from God—everlasting life.

So as we continue to go about our day today, take a minute to examine your ground in which the seed has been place. Have you watered your seed today with faithfulness and obedience? Are you expecting growth with no actions? Are we looking forward to awards of the world instead of the reward from God? They’re all important to ask ourselves so that we do not blindly press towards goals on our own effort, but with the assistance and guidance of the Lord.