Season 5 Timing: I'm Wearing Me In 2023

Dedicated to Warren Jr., Ashley, Jason & Alyssa

Who knew our butterfly experiences would be testimony later? I love you guys!

New Year greetings and an encouragement to speak life into difficult situations. This episode emphasizes the power of words, illustrated by Pastor Glenn's impactful message urging individuals to wear their own designs and embrace their identity, both physically and spiritually.  I compare my personal transformation journey paralleled with the metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a butterfly, emphasizing the role of isolation in growth. The message underscores living in alignment with God's will, which led me to design jewelry and apparel.

Transcript

  Welcome back to vision in the valley. Happy new year family. I pray that all is well with you and I encourage you to speak life into anything and everything that is not well. Both pastor Hannah and pastor Glenn remind us. that there is power in the tongue, power in our words. And I received that. I've heard from you and I realized the impact that my words have.

And I am too empowered and motivated by your words. Another example of a powerful words I'm going to give you today is Pastor Glenn. He spoke on January 15th during service and The words were so powerful that it changed the trajectory of my entire life.  Now I know that's strong, but it's true.  He said, I'm wearing me in 2023.

You , guys remember that? I just remember sitting at church and saying, Oh, that's, that's good. That's real good. That's strong. It was both profound and prophetic. He was speaking to the designer in you. that creative side of you. He said, we wear other designers. We proudly rock their brands, their labels.

So rock your own,   wear your own designs.  And I thought to myself, what, what can I do? What's my, what's my brand? What can I do to rock me? What, what am I doing?  To represent that part of it, right? But he was also talking about the spiritual being Wear the skin you're in  Be happy with who God made. So let's break it down.

Let's start to talk about the spiritual side first the spiritual being.  So I'd gone through a bit of a metamorphosis within the last 10 years or so, with some stages lasting a little bit longer than others. You already know, right? I saw increase and I saw favor, but I also saw dry, dry, dry bone seasons too. 

What I realized  And what I want to be sure to share with you today is that the favor began to feel different after I went through something differently. After I began to pull away from the world,  after I began to seek his face and focus on God and his will for my life, the favor increased. But not only did it increase, it felt different.

It was, it was on another level. Not only did he change my taste, he changed my heart's desire.  I couldn't explain the favor. I couldn't quite explain the metamorphosis. I just knew that they were connected.  I knew that the increase was connected to it, but I couldn't quite speak to what was happening. Not until recently. 

So I was listening to Sarah Jakes Roberts and I had a breakthrough. She said, transformation happens in isolation. It can't happen when you have company. And I kind of giggled and I thought to myself, that's, that's cute, right? But it's good. It took me back in time for a moment. So it took me back to a time where my kids were younger. 

And during this time we had a yearly routine just centered completely around the Monarch butterflies.  My then boss, who was an executive vice president of environmental affairs. He had several young kids and he shared with me what he had been doing with his kids for several years. He was a true nature lover.

That environmental affairs thing was something that he took very seriously and he had been teaching his kids about the many cycles of the caterpillar.  But he found that showing them, having them witness what was happening for themselves was, it went over better than just teaching. So he had a milkweed plant.

Now this is the only food supply for the monarch butterfly. The butterfly lays eggs on the leaves of the plant and then the eggs hatch and these tiny caterpillars begin to feed on the leaves. As a caterpillar grows, the skin eventually stretches and it sheds and a new skin is revealed. It's actually called molting and it happens several times before the butterfly stage.

I bet you didn't know that right? I thought that before my kids experiment had started I thought that the caterpillar went from the caterpillar to the butterfly, right? We know about the cocoon thing But no, there's several stages of this molting that happens before it ever even enters into the butterfly cycle  Look at God transitions just happening, right?

When the caterpillar reaches its final size, it finds a safe place to molt for the very last time. And then it encases itself into a chrysalis.  Now the chrysalis or the cocoon as you may be familiar with is what my, my boss would bring into me gently dangling from a tiny twig.  It would hang from a twig that had been pulled from the milkweed plant. 

The chrysalis would be green with these intricate gold like little dots  securing the whole thing in place. And it was always so beautiful to me because it looked like a jewel. It was so perfect and we've done this year after year and each time it would be as if something man made or it was just perfectly designed.

You wouldn't, it's hard to imagine that a caterpillar did this and mind you from the inside  you couldn't see through the chrysalis. But inside of it, transformation was occurring. That caterpillar was growing wings she'd never had before. She was growing new legs and new eyes. She was about to see the world from a different perspective,  a different vantage point. 

As the change happened, the chrysalis would slowly, slowly offer a little bit of a hint or clue as to what was happening on the inside.  In fact, the night before the butterfly would hatch, the chrysalis would become transparent.  We become pros at this and could almost guess down to the hour because of the fact that we did this year after year after year. 

So after she hatches, she hangs upside down and she pumps her wings.  She's getting her strength together, right? She's stretching those wings. These are new. This is something she's not happy for and she's also drying those amazing colors because when the caterpillar first emerges, it's wet. So the colors, those vibrant orange colors, they have to dry.

And that's what that pumping of the wings is doing. Now, who told that butterfly to do that?  She's never been a butterfly before.  All she's been her entire life is a caterpillar.  Now, albeit she's been a different size caterpillar at different stages, but a caterpillar nonetheless, and guess what? A caterpillar is not a butterfly.

So how does she know to do that? How does she know to turn upside down, pump her wings? Who told her that? How does she get that information? She knows because God downloads information during her isolation. I like to think  that the Caterpillar, In those many stages doesn't necessarily get that download because maybe that's too heavy duty for the, especially that baby caterpillar, that little tiny one.

That's too big. That's too big for that caterpillar to imagine that it would one day soar through the sky and have wings. I don't even think that the stage right before the, Cocooning is that download given. I think that the download happens in isolation when nothing can be heard or seen except for this download.

Right.  And I thought about myself and my own cocooning, my own isolation.  It wasn't a team event. I had to commit to spending time with God by myself.  The change, the transformation could only take place in isolation.  And during that isolation period, God also downloaded some things to me. Y'all among other things, he downloaded alignment period. 

It's a lifestyle movement.  It's a proclamation, if you will, that I want to live my life in alignment with God and what he intends for my life.  It's saying, Not some aspects of my life, but all of my life, that man, that job, that house, those friends, my finances, my words, everything.  Alignment period is about connecting the dots in between Sunday services and Bible study, right?

It's all of those moments in between all of those days in between I'm saying I Won't settle for anything less than being in alignment with God period  and Remembering that a lifestyle movement. It's a journey not a destination. You can't just arrive at alignment with God It's a work in progress and you'll do this every day for the rest of your life something you have to commit to  So the spiritual metamorphosis that I went through gave way to the creativity that launched a whole jewelry design, a whole jewelry line, in fact, and an apparel line. 

This line includes brooches and necklaces and bracelets and belt buckles and  cuff links and all kinds of wonderful things. But it happened in isolation.  During the spiritual metamorphosis he deals with us on the inside out and an entirely new creature emerges and in this particular  time I emerged as a as a designer, as a jewelry designer. 

I have a couple of Bible verses I want to share with you that I believe this just further drives home the point I'm trying to make.  Isaiah 43, 18 and 19 says, forget the former things. Do not dwell on the past. See I am doing a new thing.  In Ephesians 4, 22 through 24  you were taught with regard to your former way of life to put off your old self,  which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires.

To be made new in the attitude of your minds and to put on the new self created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. And finally, second Corinthians 5, 17. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come.  Wow.  I like the part where the chrysalis becomes transparent, right? You can start to see through it even though you haven't seen the fullness of the wings expanded and the beauty of the colors Anyone looking into the chrysalis can see that something different has happened something some kind of transformation Has occurred so I want to remind you that we see you We see what the lord is doing in you and we see what the lord is doing through you  So I encourage you, butterfly, to spread your wings and do your thing. 

So 2023, I began to wear me, but in 2024, I'm praying for more. I'm going higher.  I'm asking for more discernment, more wisdom, more grace, and more favor. I can't wait to talk with you soon.