The bible says to trust in Lord with all of your heart, and to lean not to your own understanding, and in all of your ways acknowledge Him, and shall direct your path(Proverbs 3: 5-6).  If only we will adhere to the Word of God, we would enjoy the benefits of Kingdom Living; which are righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit (Romans 14:17b).  Our lives would be much more successful and prosperous, if only we would allow God to lead us in all that we do and say; Trust Him to lead you and even when you don’t know the way, he will make your crooked path straight.

Sometimes we are so hard on our self, we forgive others, but we hold onto our  own shortcomings and past mistakes forever.  It is important to learn from choices that we have made in life and move on.  I know from experience it is easier said than done, Nonetheless, it is not like we can change the past anyway-so grow from it!

Loving yourself. What does it mean to love yourself? The bible teaches us to love your neighbor, as you love yourself.  What does loving yourself look like?  For me, it is taking care of yourself–mind, body and soul.  I am reminded that when I travel by airplane, before take off ,the flight attendant teach us how to use the oxygen masks.  When demonstrating how to use the  masks ,we are told to put the mask on yourself first, before helping others.

For many, many years, I have put my needs last to the point that I lacked self-worth.  I can recall telling myself you can’t get your hair done, you don’t have enough money (unworthy); yet I go to work everyday and pay bills, as well as do for others financially.  Or I tell myself, you can’t afford to buy that, you don’t have the money (unworthy).  Then there’s you don’t have the time to exercise, you have to many other important things to do (unworthy), as if my health is not important.

But now that I am on the journey to wholeness and wellness, I see things differently.  I am learning how to love myself.  I take time to exercise most days, eat healthier more often, and buy things for myself and not feel guilty about it.  Although, I am wearing my hair naturally now (which is very liberating), I know that I can afford to go to the shop if I want to! I am on the path of learning how to celebrate myself–mind, body and spirit.

I am on the journey of self-acceptance.  Recently, I made the decision to become a naturalistic.   The other day I decided to style my hair differently .  The style did not turn out the way that I had expected and I did not have the time to re-style it, because I had to get to work.  I felt horrible the entire day whIle I was at work.  My hair style truly had an negative effect on my self-esteem that day.

As soon as I got home from work, I washed and re-styled my hair.  It felt good washing that ugly hair style away!  The next day I spoke with one of my co-workers who has been a naturalistic for years, and I was expressing how I felt the day before.  She taught me that “self-acceptance” is part of the natural hair journey.  She stated that there will be days when you don’t like the way that your hairstyle turns out, but you learn to accept that it is, what it is!

This lesson reminds me about the choices that I have made in other areas of my life as well.  I must accept the decisions that I have made , give myself permission to forgive “myself”; accept where I am on this life journey;  then move on, making better choices in every area of my life, one decision at a time.

Have you ever been paralyzed by fear? Well, so have I!  What I have learned in this journey called “life” is to move forward in spite of fear.  I used to have the mindset that fear would leave and then I would be confident.  Or I would allow my fear to increase and my confidence level decrease and then I would not put my heart into what I was attempting to do.  Let me tell you, fear is not your friend and remember God did not give us the spirit of fear (2 Timothy 1:7 King James Version).  So I challenge you to seek God first and if there is something that He has placed on your heart to do then do it afraid.  Step out on faith and move forward.