• Monday Mindfulness

    MM.003: One Bite At A Time

    A popular dad joke you may have heard before is, How do you eat an elephant?….One bite at a time! This seems like such a simple concept yet it is so hard for us to apply to real world situations in our lives. Why is that? Okay so lets imagine eating an elephant was actually a thing you had to do. Obviously you wouldn’t look at it and tell yourself, “Well I can’t fit it all in my mouth at once so I may as well not try!” So why is it that we look at the dreams God has put in our hearts, see how big they are, and say to ourselves that they are too big to achieve all at once so let’s not even try!?

    Every God size dream is going to appear to be too huge to accomplish! That is one way of knowing it is from Him! This dream I have had for Flow Angel Media is enormous and for the longest time I had no idea where to start or how to explain it to people. (I still have trouble explaining it, that won’t change any time soon! haha) In college I discovered an enjoyment for most any form of digital artistic expression from Photoshop to 3D printing to coding and web design. I felt overwhelmed by all the directions I was being inspired to walk in career wise and in the end I settled for complacency in IT.

    If you know me, you may know that this wasn’t my dream. If you have kept up with me recently though, you may be starting to see, along with me, how I have began to realize just how much God has taught me through my journey thus far. Nothing is wasted! Even though it hasn’t yet looked the way I planned for it to at first, God knew that I needed to take this slower route through some tough things in order to learn things I didn’t know I would need to know! Even though I spent years not knowing where to bite the elephant of my calling first, I didn’t stop wondering, learning, and seeking guidance. In the mean time I have grown in so many ways which has prepared me to take this next step which I will reveal to you soon…keep reading.

    Another thing about elephants that I have seen people use as an illustration which I love is the fact that, an average elephant’s gestation period is 18-22 months long. That is at least twice as long as a human’s and at most almost two and a half times as long. The common illustration talks about how when we know something, like the fact that we are pregnant or that God has promised us something unbelievably awesome will happen in and through our lives, people may not believe us because they see no progress. Their unbelief does not discount the truth you know. Some times we are not called to share certain parts of our calling right away because the unbelief of others can rub off on us and cause us to lose faith in it as well.

    I have been challenged in this regard a lot lately in different areas of life. I have been growing in wisdom about when and with whom I should share the glimpses of my callings, big and small, in order to protect them in their vulnerable unformed state. My fundamental flaw is overthinking and then being so sure of myself that I talk up a storm and then either lose all desire to follow through or have things crumble in front of me and make me look like the fool I was for presuming to know how God would work things out.

    In light of all of that, I do not share this lightly. Some close friends and family already know what has been going on because there are some that I crave advice and prayers from and whom I trust to support me and not bash down my excitement. I feel like it is official enough now to share publicly and it may not come as a major surprise but….as of 8/8/2020, Flow Angel Media, Inc is officially registered as a nonprofit! I submitted the paperwork on that day and received the confirmation that processing has been completed just this morning! It’s finally official!! As an added display of God’s perfect timing, I ordered 50 stickers of this elephant design to have and offer as a launch special product. My vendor had an amazing deal on them but they were not supposed to make it till the 24th. However, yesterday I got confirmation that they would be delivered today and they have! I cannot ignore God’s perfect timing in all of this!

    It feels like I have finally birthed this long gestated dream out into the world and now I get to nurture it and watch it grow! I am so excited for this new journey and cannot wait to see what God does through it all!

    Blessings FAM!

    p.s. Keep an eye out for the elephant stickers to hit my shop! I’ll have a special launch deal on them for a bit to celebrate the establishment of FAM, Inc!

    What is a dream you have felt called to by God? What is holding you back from taking steps towards that dream? Do not let the unbelief of others discount your internal conviction to chase after it! God speaks directly to us and others are on their own journeys, they cannot always see the progress God is making inside of you. I pray for your wisdom to know when and to whom you should share your dreams with and for the boldness to work towards them each day regardless of external forces of encouragement or a lack there of. I hope that God brings your people around you, like He has for me, to believe with you in prayer for the realization of your calling.

  • Wednesday Worship

    WW.002: Promises | Original by Sarah Crawford

    The last song I posted about was Do It Again by Elevation Worship. This week I wanted to share with you an original song I wrote Just a few long months ago before this pandemic took over our lives! I wrote it near Christmas time and during the process, was dealing again with the fact that I can’t always guess what God’s will is…surprise! haha wouldn’t that be nice?!

    This is something I foolishly try to do all the time. I overthink everything and find reasons why God should let certain things work out. Ultimately I can never know what God’s plan is and He likes to remind me by blowing my ideas completely out of the water, sometimes in good ways other times in ways that may be really hard to accept. It was out of a particularly disappointing reappointment that this song was birthed. I wrote it on a walk I went on around my neighborhood to calm my mind and refocus on the fact that whatever God’s plan is, it is always going to be greater than what I can imagine so I can trust Him no matter what!

    No experience is wasted and so all the joy I may have had over that particular dream was still used by Him in it’s obliteration to carve out pieces of me that needed to be chipped away. I am His masterpiece and every “lost” and shattered dream is His chisel on my life, slowly but surely revealing the character He designed me to be, from before the beginning of time. I am learning to trust Him more each day with the things I can only guess about. His promises are good, maybe I misunderstood but I knew He always would because His promises are good!

    Blessings FAM!

    Share with me in the comments some ways God has been shaping you lately. If you would like to be more personal and share specifics privately, please don’t hesitate to reach out via the contact form. I would love to hear from you and offer prayers and encouragement if I can.