What's your story

I was having a conversation with friends from church and a number of times, the comment was made "that's not my story" or "that's not gonna be my story".

It made me think. This kind of statement wasn't necessarily in relation to the "big story", which is more of what I've talked about on this blog...you know, your legacy. It was more of the day to day experiences.  For examlple, I will not suffer with high blood pressure just because everyone else in my family does. This means we must take responsibility for our actions.  However, what it really tapped into was the fact that we have authority, through the power of our speech,  to accept or reject what is put before us. 

For those of us who are Christians, the Bible tells us that "life and death is in the power of the tongue". By virtue of our speech, we are creating (or destroying) quite a bit of what we experience in life. How does that look? For most of us, it means we either are so oblivious to this authority that we say nothing at all and just accept what comes our way or we are so caught up in the discourse of the rest of the world that we speak doom and gloom (death) upon our situations.

Nope. Now that's not gonna be MY story.

I shall speak Life. Hope. Restoration to every area of my life. I shall be different and unapologetically so.  I shall fulfill the small and large dreams in a timely fashion, if necessary, breaking glass ceilings of time, gender, race or age. I shall not settle for what typically happens, when I know what God has offered to me if I just ask and accept it.

Most salient at this point, I will not be like everyone else who has gone before me who took 2 years (plus or minus a couple months) to complete a dissertation. THAT's not gonna be my story. I'm not superwoman, nor will I submit anything subpar but I will complete this project and be ready for graduation for 2014. The journey un-officially began in Fall 2012, but technically the time clock probably won't begin until February 2013. At this point, my goal is June 2014 for graduation. I understand that there are some curve balls in life (which I am currently experiencing) so I'm willing to accept Fall 2014 graduation but I will be done with everything and just sitting and "waiting" by summer 2014.


There are other areas that I realized that I've been silent on. You know, I bought into this idea that since it is how it worked for others (or the masses), that it was how it should work for me. Nah. I'm taking stock in a new way and assessing those things that I've just thought to let be...

I'm boldly declaring, that's NOT gonna be MY story.

Grace peace and love,
Gia