The Process

Every other Thursday the girls in our youth and young adults groups get together for a student lead bible study. Each lesson is taught by girls of ages ranges 12-30 and no matter the age, each lesson is always so powerful.


Last week, one of our girls talked about "The Process". As I listened to her talk about the process in which clay must endure to become a vessel, tears filled my eyes. Not because I pitied the story of her ups and downs, and highs and lows, but because I related to them.

I tried to hold my tears back.

"You're not supposed to show that you're hurting.", I thought to myself.


We are apart of a generation that is searching for purpose. We are searching for the meaning behind everything and we believe that when we finally find and are actively engaged in whatever we feel our purpose is, it's then that we will find whatever we're looking for. Happiness, fulfillment, meaning, whatever it is.

But too often we forget that our purpose IS the process.

It's not a destination, it's a journey. We're not going to wake up one morning with everything we need to fullfill our goals. We're still learning, every day and that's okay. This is why it's so important that we don't find our identy in the things we do, but rather in who we are. It's not about what we do in this life, it never was! Each day is a training course for the next phase and each phase is a step deeper into becoming with we were meant to be. And we were meant to be is not a destination, it's an ever changing, ever growing, beautiful process.

And can you imagine how unshakable we'd be if instead of looking at our situation negatively, we took a step back a reminded ourselves that this is not going to destroy us, it's going to grow us? And I choose to grow. 

Molding. It's all molding.

If you're waiting to have all the tools, or to hear enough affirmation, or to have a title that makes you "somebody" before you step out...well I hope your seat is comfortable because it looks like you're going to be there for a while. Stop waiting. You will never arrive at a place where you feel everything is stable enough. Never. But if we lived each day saying "TODAY IS MY PURPOSE." And it doesn't matter what happens, I will be the best version of myself. I will show up for the people in my life. I will be the mother or friend I never had. I will listen more. I will fight harder for the things and people I love. I will find value and meaning in everything I do.

It's okay to be afraid. It's okay to feel pain. It's okay to fail. It is not okay, to be so afraid of pain and failure that we refuse to take action.

If you're waiting for affirmation, here it is. You ARE enough, you WILL get through this, you ARE NOT weak, and you WILL NOT be broken. Shut your ears to lies and keep walking. Even while you're hurting, even while you're still molding.

If you take nothing from this, take this...Even though it may seem like your life is spinning out of control, this will pass and if you choose to step into this moment and not hide you will come out a better version of you. It is only the process.

 

Intentional Pursuit

Proverbs 31:3 "She seeks wool and flax..."

I have always admired my friend Shayla for being so forgiving and slow to anger. She ambitiously searches for the very best in people. She responds in a gentle and meek manner at times where I would find every excuse to respond harsh. In the years I have known her, only once have I ever seen her outwardly angry. Though I know there were many other times.

One day I asked her how she does it. Her response convicted me. She simply said, "Haleigh, I have to intentionally choose to respond with anything other than my flesh." Every morning when she would wake, she would find the face of God and ask Him to refill her. She would ask Him to take out all the rotten fruit (anger, jealousy, pride, aggressive responses, defensiveness, lack of control, exc) and ask Him to replace it with the fruit of the spirit. "...love, joy, peace, long suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control."

Now, you could say, "This is just the way I've always been. I'm just a little feisty." You could say, "Oh I was really hurt in the past. I have to guard myself." All very valid reasons and all deception that holds us back from becoming new creatures in Christ. There is no excuse for rotten fruit.

"She SEEKS wool and flax..."

Wool is a soft material and flax is a beautiful, gentle flower used to make breathable linens and food. Soft, gentle, breathable (meek). Sound familiar? Now, don't believe the lie that says, "So and so if naturally kind, gentle, soft or meek." These traits are Godly traits. But a Proverbial Woman of God "...SEEKS..." these traits.

Shayla possessed something I desired. But I had to be willing to seek them out and pay the cost of a little uncomfortable training to gain them. A P31 Woman is willing to pay the cost to cut out roots of rotten fruit in order to make room for sweet, soft, and gentle fruit that feeds others.

Identify where your responses have not been soft like wool or your attitude breathable or meek like linen when things don't go ask expected or the way you planned. Identify if the attitude in which you unintentionally seek has bruised others rather than feed them.

What excuses have you used to bear rotten fruit? How can you intentionally seek fruit of the spirit?

Prayer: God, forgive me if I have allowed rotten to become part of my idenity. Forgive me if the fruit I bear has hurt others. I'm asking you, knowing there is a cost, teaching me to bear fruit that feeds. And to intentionally seek soft, gentle responses. In Jesus name. Amen.

A Woman's Worth

Proverbs 31:10 "...she is worth far more than rubies."

It was picture day in 7th grade, with my new shirt. I had a brief melt down in the dressing room the day prior when I realized that the size medium I had once worn no longer wanted to be friends.

Like any 12 year old, I had grown. But like any girl, I saw "large" and heard "fat."

The next day, I stood in line patiently awaiting my turn to take my photo, when I heard mumbling and laughing behind me. Realizing my tag (WITH THE SIZE) was hanging out of the back of my shirt, I ran to the bathroom and cried from embarrassment.

Unfortunately, many of us are like my new shirt. We hang an imaginary label, not on our clothes, but on our worth. We label ourselves as cheap, fat, unworthy and worse. We don't believe that anyone could find value in us and we certainly don't understand how God sees us or how He could ever use us in His plan. But nothing could be further from the truth. 

It's interesting that in the very beginning our Proverbs 31 - before God ever asks us to do or say anything - He establishes our worth. He wants us to know that our past does not define us, other people do not define us, and our accomplishment (or lack thereof) do not define us. He established who we were before we ever existed and He wants to walk in that understanding.

1 Corinthians 6:20 tells us we were bought with a price - but too often we put our own price tag on ourselves with asking God what we are really worth. When we name our own price, we hinder God and ourselves because we've bound ourselves to a label that doesn't belong to us. Because I saw "Size Large" and labeled myself as fat, I was unable to see myself the way God sees me because I was looking at a label that did not belong to me. Can you imagine what God could do with us if we really understood who we were. 

As a Proverbial Woman we must not be willing to allow things that add no value to pour into us and we must ambitiously invest in "ingredients" that nurture our true value. Prayer, devotion, studying, healthy relationships. All of these things nurture our true value and block out lies of unworthiness.

Take a moment to write down 5 things that add to your true value and 5 things that destroy it. How can you make a effort to pursue what feeds your worth and push away what destroys it.

What is there to gain from pain?

Posting this makes me nervous. Oh. So. Nervous. A part of me is screaming, "NOOOO! Don't do it! They will see you. The real you. You do NOT want that! Just go ahead and delete it and never think about it again. Trust me." But the other part of me knows what it's like to be confused, heart-broken, and even desperate. So, for that reason I have to share it. (Deep breathes) Here goes...

  On October 6th, while praying, God spoke to my husband and I and told us to begin packing because we would be moving in 3 months. This excited us, because, like any married couple we were thinking about the future and growing our family in a 600-square foot apartment didn't fit that vision. (No pun intend) So - having no idea where we were going, we trusted, and we began to pack. Little did we know; this decision would shake our world.

It felt like everything had begun to unravel. 

It was two 2 days before Christmas when I received the call that my grandmother had passed due to a drug overdose. This news stopped me in my tracks. I could not comprehend this death or the demon that stood in secret behind it. If you have a family member or friend who has lost the battle with addiction then you understand the confusion I'm talking about. 

But I could handle it, I could overcome this. Because I knew He gives and takes away, right? So, there was something to be gained. There had to be. Only... a week later I still couldn't see what there was to gain when I received the text that I was no longer needed at my job. It was during that same time I was working through the shock of finding out that I had a condition that turned every hormone in my body upside down, giving me a 25% chance of adding children to that vision we had for our family. 

I felt like I was swimming in muddy water. Three hits in three months. I didn't feel like I had much else to lose. Oh, how little I really know... One morning, while running late to what was my very last day of work, I threw on a sweatshirt and a pair of slippers and jumped in the car in hopes of making it on time. I turned the corner, only a mile from work when blue and red lights flashed in my rearview mirror. I rolled the window down as the officer approached my car. He was kind and he judging by his behavior, I could tell he was new. He took my license and walked away. 

He was gone for what felt like forever. When he finally returned, he handed me my license and with a change in his demeanor said, "Ma'am, can you please step out of the car."  Naively, I swung the door open and stepped out. I had no idea that 15 mins on side of the road would turn into a traumatizing 28 hours in jail. 

It was 4 am the next morning and still, I sat on the floor of that cold, dirty holding cell. "Why I am here Lord?" I cried silently. I remembered Paul and Silas and I asked, "Is that what you want? I'll do it. I will sing out loud!" At this point, I didn't care about the 20+ other girls in that same cell who would hear my tone-deaf praises as long as it would shake this cold, dirty foundation. "Or maybe you sent me here to minister to someone. Who is it, God? Just show me and give me the words to speak."

Then, He spoke into my spirit, "No, I don't want you to speak to anyone. I just wanted to show where you would be if it weren't for me."

Hearing this, I covered my face and cried myself to sleep on that cold, hard floor. I knew I could never repay Him for my salvation. But the beautiful thing is that He also knew I could never repay Him long before I did. 

I was heartbroken, with no home, and no reward to show for the pain I had just endured the last 3 months. In my flesh, I felt so silly for boasting about what God had promised before I received it. But still, I knew without a shadow of a doubt what He told me October 6th and I knew He was only preparing me to receive my promise. 

Today is March 7th. 5 months later and I have still not received my promise. But one thing I have learned is how to endure. I could live my entire life and never receive what God promised me 5 months ago and I would still be content because now, I understand; I truly understand, that every trial and every wilderness experience is not merely meant so that I may gain the promised land, but rather to learn to hold tighter to one who made the promise.

To talk about pain takes courage. I don't tell you this story to provoke sympathy for my pain. I would much rather you not know anything about me and consider me a fool than to see every scare and consider me a hero. But I have to tell you this so that maybe you can understand that God isn't trying to hurt you. You haven't sinned and you’re not experiencing this pain as punishment. He just wants you to know Him. 

But we can't really know him unless we endure through our suffering just as He did for us. 

The definition of enduring is to suffer (something painful or difficult) patiently. Did you catch that? Patiently.

Think about Paul for a second. He would have never known that "to live (and suffer) is as Christ and to die is gain..." if he remained comfortable in a cute house, with a beautiful wife and a few cute kids. But Paul came to really know God through the ugly, painful, uncomfortable sufferings that he patiently endured.  

John, Job, Esther, Jonah, Elijah...Shall I continue? They all experienced incomprehensible pain. But because they endured, they all gained through their pain. 

John was called up to be with the Lord. 

Job came to really know the God of the universe when He spoke to him through his pain. Esther endured, though she may have felt fearful and insecure, patiently she waited for her timing.  

I could go on, but I think you get it. There is something to gain through your pain… if you just endure.

My REAL Identity.

Yesterday, I reluctantly went to church without my husband. He had really hurt his back and decided to stay off of it as much as he could. I opened the front door and turned back and said, “are you sure you don’t want to come? I’ll wait for you.” I knew the answer, but it didn’t hurt to ask, right?

I climbed into my car, alone, and drove away. What was this feeling? I couldn’t shake it. I go places without him all the time, so why do I feel like a part of my identity was missing?

Then it dawned on me…a part of my identity WAS missing. Before you pick up your phone to call the shrink on my behalf to discuss a personality disorder I may have, just listen. Because I am Haleigh, 25 years old, and married, Daniel IS, in fact, a part of my identity. A big part actually. When I decided to marry him I gave up my former identity to take on his. So now when people see me, they think of him and when people see him, they think of me. I can just hear the feminist turning in their graves, but it’s true.

I arrived to the church and parked, waiting to go inside, wishing still, Daniel was with me. I wrestled with myself for a few minutes.

“But who will I talk to?”, I asked myself. “You have friends.”, I answered. “But who will walk with me, or sit with me?” “There are others you can sit with.” “This is silly, you go places all the time without him, just go inside already.”

I took a deep breath and then I heard God whisper, “Do you feel this way about me?” “What?” I thought, as tears streamed down my face. “Are you uncomfortable when you leave the house to face the world without me? Do you want me to sit with you or talk to you when you’re lonely? Am I a part of your identity?”

Woah...Isn’t it just like God to interrupt us as we walk oblivious sometimes? I just sat there, I couldn’t do or say anything. I thought about this revelation God had just spoken to me out of a few simple words.

So, I had to ask myself, is God a part of my identity? Is He a part of yours? Yes, I gave up my old ways to follow His, my old name to take His, but was it just an exchange that I pick up and put down when I please or did He really become a part of my identity?

This may sound like an easy answer. Yes! Yes, God is a part of my identity. But how often do we forget to invite Him to sit at the dinner table with us, or join in a conversation with friends? Or to sit in the back seat of the car while we bring our girlfriend/boyfriend home? When we begin to start treating our relationship with God like a marriage, rather than a couple of one night stands (yes, I went there), then that’s when God really becomes part of our identity and it's not just you that's seen, but it's Him.

I pray that God makes us uncomfortable when we forget Him, or when we get too busy or distracted to invite Him. I pray we make Him a part of our identity. I pray that we don’t want to move, speak, walk, breath, or live without Him in the midst of everything we do. I pray that when people see me, they see my true identity. Jesus Christ living inside of me.

About Us...

Hi there!
My name is Haleigh. I am a certified Life Coach. I have made it my mission to help people overcome their limited mindset and step into who they were meant to be. Personal Psychology coaching is my niche but I have coached clients and friends through emotional, relational and even career issues. I enjoy life with my amazing husband of four years. He is my biggest encourager and I am his biggest fan.

We live in an incredibly diverse city and I absolutely love it. My husband, Daniel, who is a Cheif by trade, love exploring our city and finding hidden gems. We are both major foodies and love finding food trucks and restaurants that are off the beaten path. 

I proudly stuff this blog full of all things lifestyle tips and tools, positivity and encouragement.

My hope is that you find inspiration and encouragement to make it through whatever you face. Life is about one thing...living and living every moment to fullest.