From the time we are children, barely learning to talk, we are surrounded by the pressure of becoming something, SOMEONE! Growing up, we all have dreamt of becoming rock stars, fire fighters, doctors, cowboys, princesses, etc. and our whole lives are based on working towards the person we dream of becoming! As a child, the possibilities are endless; the image is so exciting! As time goes on, the thought of whom we’re going to be and what it’s going to take to get there is terrifying and the pressure is overwhelming sometimes! Where has the imagination gone? Have you given up? Are you frustrated with where you’re at and losing hope in dreams you once held tight? Well, if you answered yes to any of the above then you don’t want to stop reading! If you’re not quite there yet, someday you might be and I think this blog will be just as relevant to you as anyone!
As I mentioned in my first blog “Handle With Care”, I thought that I had everything figured out after I graduated from high school. My dreams were arms length away and there was only a summer break standing between me and achieving them. My whole life I had wanted to lead worship but never felt good enough. It always seemed too far; too out of reach and starting my junior year everything started to fall together! My senior year, I was accepted into a school of ministry for worship! I could not be more excited, I felt like my mom and I were at TJ Maxx every other weekend buying new things for my apartment! As summer came to an end and as the school year grew extremely close, my family realized that financially it just was out of our budget! I grew extremely mad. I blamed everyone! I was mad at my parents, I was mad at myself for not doing better in school but I was the angriest with God. I had myself convinced that I had been right all along; I was never good enough! I refused to take part in anything that had to do with ministry or church or anything! I became extremely rebellious and without realizing, became an entirely different person. From moving out of my house to trying to separate my bank accounts from my parents. I worked every day and partied every night. It became routine and the longer I associated myself with this lifestyle the less I recognized the person I had been before. In every way possible, I was different. Once I stepped away from this lifestyle, I began to find hope again! Although I had still given up, to an extent, on worship, due to insecurity and fear of rejection, I was determined to become something! I had always been good at hair and make up and always had dreamed of becoming a cosmetologist on the side. Therefore, this was my chance! I applied to a few different cosmetology schools and after scheduling a tour date, received a call from the school of ministry that I had already crossed off of my list of possibilities! Now I have a scheduled tour date and have applied for multiple scholarships so that I can attend this fall. Not only that but I am also going to Montana to help with worship for Easter Sunday. One thing, I have noticed with people is that everyone has dreams but it’s become absurd for people to actually achieve them! If there is something that you want to learn or that you enjoy, you should at least give it a chance! You should always pursue your dreams whole-heartedly. Regain the confidence in yourself! This isn’t dress up anymore… You can actually be anything that you want to be! I am that person who wants to be just about everything, I want to be a cosmetologist, a worship leader, a fashion designer, and most importantly someone who encourages people; who leaves people feeling better than I find them! After a long year of waiting and dreaming, I am enrolled in the same school of ministry, looking at a cosmetology school the year after and I just recently made my own Easter dress from scratch! Not only that but I do my best to blog, whether anyone reads it or not! My dreams seemed absolutely impossible a year ago and now I’m slowly achieving all of them. It is possible! You have the ability and the potential to do anything that you’ve ever wanted to, you just have to take a chance and make it happen! The only thing standing between you and your dreams is yourself! Stop saying you want to do things, I want to learn how to sew or I want to learn how to play an instrument, just do them! I want people to see me and be inspired by me, I don’t want people to look at me and want to be just like me! What good would the world be if there were only a million little Jayden Montera’s walking around! Take the time to get to know your self. This last year, I have had very little distraction and have been able to figure out everything that I want and the person I want to be. Don’t be discouraged because you don’t know what your future holds yet. It’s hard to be out of God’s will when you’re completely surrendered to His promises! God will guide you in the direction He wants you to go, when the time is right! I personally find it ignorant though to sit around doing nothing just because you are waiting. Pursue God and the dreams that only He could have instilled in your heart. Psalms 37:4 says, “Take delight in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.” I am a firm believer that as you pursue God, your desires begin to change. Your desires are no longer your own but you become passionate about the things that He’s passionate about. Just the same as your attitude becomes a lot like those with whom you surround yourself! Therefore, if you are pursuing God faithfully, and you pursue the desires of your heart, you’re getting much closer to the destination that He has set aside for you! Another one of my favorite scriptures: Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans that I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” If you are faithful to God, He will be faithful to you! Stop worrying so much about what the future holds and start focusing on what’s right in front of you. Enjoy the journey and allow it to prepare you for your destination! Never lose faith in yourself and don’t be afraid to try! As far as I’m concerned, until the day we die, we will always have some growing up to do! No matter how old you are or what your circumstance is, you can be anything that you want to be! God knows what He’s doing and what seems like a disaster is only the temporary, He sees past the blue prints. He sees the masterpiece! No more excuses.
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Okay, so the following is probably going to be somewhat lengthy but with last week’s being reasonably short... I think you guys will be just fine! If I, of all people, can focus while writing it... You guys can definitely endure. I have faith!
So this last week, the night my last blog published in fact, I received a few very interesting messages. It was brought to my attention that, on a site where you can meet people, someone was using a large variety of my Instagram pictures under the name Briana. Sounds flattering right, well wrong! I clicked the link that had been sent to me and as I scrolled down, I sat in absolute disbelief as my pictures, with someone else’s captions under someone else name faded from the top of the screen. This profile was not a compliment to me! The comments that my pictures were receiving and the statuses that were being posted; they made me sick to my stomach. I was distraught and my heart instantly dropped down to my toes. How could someone do this to me? Why would someone do this to me? Within seconds of looking at the page, I broke. The comments that these guys were leaving on my picture, whether absolutely disgusting or simple like, “Can I be your date” or even just heart eyes, made me feel so disgusted, in myself more than anything. One of the status posts read, “Let’s have sex” and another “Can I message you?” Guys, who had never even met me nor knew nothing about me, were responding to the person behind this profile, to me! In 38 seconds, the status had received 14 likes! 38 SECONDS. The page had been up for only 3 hours and the pictures were receiving outstanding amounts of likes. I have a small idea of who this might have been but honestly that is not what bothers me, so I am here to explain to you what does… This page made me feel so violated. Other than reporting the page, there was nothing I could do and no matter what I did too, I couldn’t forget the things that I had seen. I felt so disrespected by these guys, not one person on that page out of the hundreds seeing it cared to protect me! If these were the things that they posted on the profile of this page, what kind of messages had been sent to me? Where was the guy to comment on this page, “That I was worthy of more” Every one of those guys truly believes that I would post such low class, provocative status updates. The thought of this still makes me sick and every part of me trembles when I close my eyes and envision the memory, forever engraved in my mind, of these comments. The entire situation mentally had destroyed me and was negatively consuming my entire being! Even the next day, after finally forcing myself to eat something, not to be gross but within minutes after finishing, I had thrown it all back up. I didn’t want to move, I had to force myself out of bed. I was embarrassed for something I didn’t even do, I was ashamed of pictures that were completely appropriate and that were taken with an entirely innocent heart, with good intentions. After I finally stopped feeling sorry for myself, I realized that this is a huge problem! We’ve all seen or heard of the show catfish where profiles are faked on a daily basis. But even beyond that, there are multiple sites that have become corrupt in purposely blasting one another! Whether it be on anon, through twitter, posting things that are never intended to be seen by someone but are completely based on belittling someone. Not only that but even these anonymous sites have become useless when people are sub tweeting others regularly without any shame, insuring that they expose someone brutally where everyone can see it! Cyber bullying is taking over social media, it’s outrageous and the worst part is that it’s becoming easier for people to post! The problem is, a lot of us don’t know what it feels like to be on the other side of the status update. Now there are a couple of different things I want to address here… GUARD YOUR IMAGE. Who are you really? I have seen, time after time where people take on this persona… Social media is not an excuse to say or do things that you wouldn’t in person. Twitter is not your diary, no one cares who you hate, what someone did to you, or what you think of someone. Social media is totally leaving our generation handicapped, with no respect for others much less for themselves. It’s all connected though, find who you want to be known as and be that person all of the time. What happened to me even makes me think of all the times we have portrayed an image that doesn’t match up with our character. On this profile, the way I looked, the things that “I” was saying, gave off an image. How many times have we as Christians, portrayed this image that hasn’t actually been characterized by our lifestyle. It might look great in pictures but behind closed doors, who’s anonymously behind this persona. Imagine the way we make God feel when we post pictures that honor him through scripture but then we turn our backs on him because outside of getting likes and favorites, we don’t actually need Him. Or vice versa, when we post curse words or pictures that compromise our integrity but ask for His help when we need it. Our generation has gotten really good at acknowledging Christ when good things happen, whether it be celebrities after winning a Grammies, some form of thankfulness after we shoot the winning basket, we’ve gotten good at praising Him for our achievements… And you bet, He’s the first person we turn to during times of difficulty or hardship but we’re neglecting him during the times that aren’t convenient for us and/ or our reputation. The popular kid at school, posting pictures at the parties with all of their friends, having a blast… Who’s behind the screen? What are they actually going through? We don’t think of the effect our actions are having on other people. It’s the release that these posts and these decisions give us that we try to justify because some of us never see the result of what it’s doing to others. GUARD YOUR INTEGRITY. Now I say this because what good is having integrity if it is only used to protect yourself? If you see something happening that you know is wrong, it doesn’t make you a better person to sit around and do nothing about it. Had one person said something on this profile that might have made all the difference. Maybe other guys would have been embarrassed and maybe not but I wouldn’t have felt so humiliated, by every other guy who had disrespected me. Not only that but the fact that these men were even egged on by the involvement of one another, the things others were saying encouraged more and more of them to voice their thoughts. I guarantee you that it was easier for guys to continue commenting once they had seen others already had. But I can also guarantee you that it took some form of guts to be even the first guy who initiated it all, so where were gentleman, the guys with the guts to come to my rescue. Where was this superman then? Online, when there are twitter arguments, where are the people who are willing to take that risk. Because I promise you that just like the guys commenting, favoring these tweets is only egging it on. I’m tired of watching as our generation continues to pull one another down only to build themselves up. This is where it gets real. Ladies, knock it off. If someone intimidates you, take a step back and learn to cherish your own unique characteristics. Don’t idolize your flaws and envy someone else’s features! If its over boys, clearly you need time to yourself to figure out the things that you love and that will make you happy outside of another’s compliments and sweet talking. Don’t go blasting others on social media because you’re feeling insecure and if you feel the need to post your emotions on social media, buy yourself a diary or scream your problems into your pillow because you are better than that. No girl is too far gone to take the little bit of class that’s left and utilize it. If you want respect, demand it by first respecting yourself. You are worthy and you are beautiful. Don’t be afraid to be yourself! God created you the way that you are and as cliché as it sounds, He finds you worthy. If you are not aware of your beauty and potential, you clearly are not aware of God’s love and His everlasting grace. No matter where you’ve been or what you’ve done, there is a God that longs to show you love and mercy. You will never know confidence if you are confined by the expectation of a world that doesn’t know black and blue from gold and white! Guys, think of your sisters or your mothers. How upset would it make you to see guys talk to them the way I was talked to on this site. Have some respect for these women! I guarantee you none of you guys want a girl that posts trashy things like that anyways. The main reason women are acting out now is because they long for affection and want to feel appreciated, girls want attention! We need it! Girls shouldn’t feel like their only way of impressing you is by posting compromising pictures or hinting through their tweets! So man up and start respecting women the way that they deserve. Now I know it is not all men who are responsible for this and I apologize to the few of you with whom are actually trying; who know better. In the end, there are two people affected in these circumstances and they both sit on opposites ends of these status updates. It’s time that we start respecting one another online and off, anonymously or identified. |
Purpose of BlogI am just a regular mom and typical preacher's daughter, living and learning day by day. Facing the inevitable and learning to embrace flaws! I'm finding beauty in disaster, contentment in disappointment, and hope where it's become impractical. I'm here to provide support in learning to love yourself, love your life and embrace the scars and the stories left behind, obstacles you've encountered and the suffering you've endured. Archives
October 2018
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