Now as you read along I want you to stop and really take a few seconds (preferably minutes) to really think about the word freedom, what it means to you? and can it mean something else? I've realized that there are "degrees" to many things in life. There are degrees to love meaning you can love someone to a certain degree but you may not be in passionate love with a person. There are degrees to knowledge and education, a person may be well versed in a particular study like math but may be a novice in a different area of education such as social studies. Furthermore, there are degrees of freedom. A person may be a prisoner in jail but still may be free in every meaning of the word. Likewise a person may have the freedom to do anything he/she may want to do but still be a prisoner. How is that possible? Well, the true source of freedom is none other then Jesus Christ! He in every sense of the word is the one and only true liberator. How so? Or Why do you think that? Or well I dont believe in Jesus you can't even see Him so how can what you say be true? These may be some of the thoughts creeping and subtley making there way in your thinking process right now so before your ship has sailed and you have a nuclear breakdown of the mind, please do yourself a favor and read the rest of this blog. I'll answer all of your doubts if you have any by revealing my intimate experience. "I'm about to get real" or "get naked" if you will. If I'm gonna talk freedom, first I have to reveal the intimate reasons of why I was not free-I'll reveal how I became a slave. Slavery starts from the beginning of my life which is my upbringing. I remember watching a short film and a character said, "The Golden Years of your life are overrated, the childhood years of your life is what you spend the rest of your life trying to get over, it's the middle part that's the best." That statement is a brief synopsis of what life is for most of us. We spend the majority of our lives trying to "get over". Thank the Lord Jesus Christ who is my saviour for setting me free by His definition. Now here's the "slave story". Have you ever heard the saying, "like father like son", well that saying is more true then you know. Ya see anyone will tell you that a child abused will most likely become an abuser; or a child abused will become an abusee. Let me explain, have you ever heard a young lady say something of the sort like "I always ATTRACT or I always have dated BAD BOYS". Ya see chances are if you were to do a little research on that same lady you will find traces of abuse in her life. Either she has been raised in an abusive household or due to some form of lack emotionally has a horrilbe self-image due to some type of low self-image which can also be seen in one of her parents. What I'm trying to say is "history repeats itself" even in our family lineage. I was a child subject to criticism, verbal abuse and emotional abuse. I was raised in an unstable enviornment, very dysfunctional and full of cold heartedness. I was malnourished emotionally and mentally. Meaning the emotional, mental and spiritual food I needed and still need to this day I was deprived of; the comments like "I love you very much", "you make me so proud", "hey whether you pass or fail-I still love you", "you are everything and more", "great job" and "you are very talented and have so much potential" were never in the slightest bit uttered out of the mouths of my parents. Now as an adult I look back on my childhood and with great anger at times I would yell to myself, "WHY THE HELL DID THEY DO THAT TO ME" and "WHY THE HELL DID HE TELL ME THAT". Well God gave me my answer, "Like father like son, like son, like son and like son". Now I put "like son" multiple times for a reason. Ya see my father was also raised in a very very dysfunctional household and my mother was also raised in a dysfunctional household. To sum up both of their upbringings my dad's dad (my grandpa) was a rolling stone. He beat my father's ma (my grandma), he would show my dad and his brothers and sister's money and then go out and spend it partying while my dad and is brothers and his sisters stay home with nothing to eat. I remember my dad saying that his dad wouldn't even let him call him dad, in other words my father wasn't allowed to call his father by the name "Dad". My mom was raised in an equally dysfunctional household. I remember I was staying with her for a couple of days in Memphis, Tenn and I was about 19 years of age; I met my "real" grandpa, after 19 years he just decided to "pop up". The guy who I thought who was my grandpa wasn't at all my grandpa. Ya see my mother's father left my mother and my grandma and went to Chicago where he was a great father to a wife and a few beautiful children (those kids are grown and are my uncles and aunts and I still don't know them). Now, I want you to do the math, with these type of upbringings how has this affected my mother and father? What has this done to their self-esteem? What has this done to their self-image? What type of patterns could they develop as a result of this upbringing? and lastly How do you think they have raised my sister and I based on these patterns? Take a few minutes to answer these questions. Now folks we, we meaning the human race, as a whole are all creatures of habit. In most things we do what we know! And if all you know is dysfunction then more then likely you will act dysfunctionally and if you were malnourished emotionally and mentally then more then likely you will raise malnourished like children because you can not give what you yourself have never been given. So with that being said the cycle continues and abuser produces abusee/abuser and so on and so forth. I USED to be an abusee. I had a horrible self-image, full of insecurity, full of self-doubt, self-hatred and low-self esteem. I remember looking at myself and thinking "wow I am so ugly and so very stupid", at times I would literally wish I looked like someone else. Until Jesus found me, and I say found me because I wasn't looking for Him I was looking for affirmation. I was looking for approval, so I used to dress up real nice in hopes a girl would be attracted to me. Now I wouldn't admit it to myself but in the back of my mind I wanted to be WANTED, I validated myself by the women I "bagged", in other words, the ladies whose numbers I got from ya know "bein cool"/ "spitin' game". But thank Jesus for saving me and freeing me from the generational curse of an abusee and keeping me from passing those patterns on to my children. This is how He freed me; after years of following Jesus and being filled with His Holy Spirit I was still an abusee, when Jesus would tell me things and answer my prayers I would think "Jesus won't talk to me" "I'm stupid and dumb" "I'm not good enough". This presented a problem because I would TRY TO EARN GODS LOVE. The same way I used to seek affirmation from women by DOING THINGS I would do the same THINGS concerning God's love. So rather then doing what God says to do, "Ask and it shall be given unto you....For everyone who asks receives" Matt 7:8, which is to simply receive His Love. I was trying to earn it; "because I wasn't good enough and I was low and I was stupid and I...." you get the point. But due to continuos seeking the Lord for who He is meaning Loving God just because He is God and wanting to know God for the purpose of wanting more of His love, the pattern of abusee has been broken and here's how: God told me
Stop TRYING to earn my love, you are good enough, I love you, I the most high God am very proud to call you my son, you were made perfect in My image and you are Good Works.
And ya know what I did-I believed it!! That simple. God said it I believe it and so it is-period. For the past couple of days I've been crying my eyes out, years of low-self esteem, self degradation and self-hatred have been lifted off of my back and life. I am truly free and it is like nothing I have ever Imagined-True freedom according to God's word the gospel of Jesus Christ is the only freedom. I pray that this reaches the right people and pierces your heart and plants a seed of Godliness that Satan Himself can not pluck from your heart and I prophesy that to be true in the name of the most high God Jesus Christ. May God bless you and your family and if this has been a blessing to you, please leave a comment.
Today, I was just thinking about myself and it had seemed like I had changed very little. Meaning, I see myself going through the same situations and I just started thinking if I am changing and becoming more of the person I dream of becoming. The answers that I got weren't very pleasing from all of my questioning. I asked myself how do I change? What practical and daily action can I take to be this person that I dream of becoming? I got some answers from reading this book titled " Live like a King" and the others from prayer. I turns out that who we are is like the sum total of a long equation. Meaning the person you are at the core, your attitude, your desires, your dreams, your ambitions and to make it simple: everything that makes you...you, is the result of the atmosphere you're in. For instance if you put a palm tree in front of a house in CT, that tree has no chance at any type of microscopic growth. However, if you plant that same tree in Florida it just sprouts up with ample success. Well, in a sense we are all like tree's. We have certain corks, experiences, genetics, etc. that make us different from one another but none the less we are all prone to grow in certain atmosphere's and die in other's. So, getting back to myself and the real but harsh answers I got from all of my questioning I have a solution for that: change my atmosphere!! How do I propose to do this? Well I am going to change what I'm connected to and what I'm spending the bulk of my time doing! I am going to pray more during the day and daily, fast weekly, read at least a scripture a day!! and overall change who I hang out with. I honestly want to be a person that makes a visible impact on the world in a Godly Christlike way!! So I am going to make and build a Christ like atmosphere around me in which I can grow in..It's not easy but I have to try, I just can't stop ya know..
I watch the Kardashians every once in a blue and I kinda have mixed emotions on Kim for real. Sometimes I see her and I think to myself she is bad and other times I'm like she is maybe a bit over-rated but after seeing her in this complex shoot I'm thinkin': "okay, it's official-she is right" and after seein' the chicks Ray-J has on his show I'm kinda thinkin' that he made the wrong move..Kim is def wifey material.
