Stop Pouring From An Empty Cup

You can be the strong one, the dependable one, the one who always shows up and still be running on empty. We get honest about what it really means to “pour from an empty cup” and why self-love is not selfish, it is necessary. I connect the message to Scripture, including “love your neighbor as yourself,” because that verse assumes you actually have something healthy to give yourself first. 

I share my own story of wearing a mask, confusing confidence with wholeness, and how unhealed pain can shape the choices we make in relationships, friendships, and even the way we see our own bodies. We talk about the reality of trauma and grief, how stress can show up physically, and why healing takes time, sacrifice, and serious boundaries. When you do not value yourself, you will keep falling for people who drain you, and you will call it loyalty. 

We also get practical about faith-based self-care: prayer as real communication with God, time alone the way Jesus modeled it, treating your body like a temple, and refilling your spirit through quiet, nature, and rest. If you’re tired of being the rescuer, tired of being depleted, and ready to rebuild your self-worth with God at the center, press play. Subscribe, share this with someone who needs permission to rest, and leave a review with the boundary you’re choosing this week.

Transcript

Worship And Freedom Declaration

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Don't let me, don't let me, God on my spot, you can't play on me, play on me, devil tie, but you can't take on me, take on me, I'm too cut, you can't let me, don't let me, don't let me, come here, don't let me, don't let me, God bless me, devil, bless me, death, don't bless me, don't bless me, don't bless me, don't go.

SPEAKER_02 0:30

Hallelujah, I am free. The chains are broken. Victory is mine.

Tonight’s Theme And Opening Prayer

SPEAKER_02 0:40

Hey y'all, hey, happy Thursday, baby. Happy Thursday. Oh, praise be to God. Y'all are in for a treat tonight. Of course, y'all know I got my script, but baby, this topic here, woo! I can do this topic all night. But let's be obedient. This topic for tonight is you can't pour from an empty cup. Ooh, yeah, that's a good one. And why self-love come first? Okay, but y'all know what we got to do. We got to give our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ some praise first. All right, because if it wasn't for him, guess what? You nor I would be here. So let's give him all the praise, all the glory, all the honor. It all belongs to him. And remember, if you are driving, do not take your eyes off the road. Do not pick up your phone. Do the replay later tonight when you get home, okay? All right, close your eyes. The heavenly most gracious father, father, I come to you tonight giving you all the praise, all the glory, all the honor. It belongs to you, Lord. It does not belong to no one else. All you in spite of what's going on in this crazy world, Lord, you still got us. Each and every one of your children, you are protecting, you are covering from the top of the head to the bottom of their feet. In spite of what the enemy is trying to do and doing and derailing in every little obstacle, even today, Lord, this evening on our way home, everything that could have tried to go wrong, tried to go wrong. I had to whooside and just remember, but Lord, you know how passionate I am when it comes to deliver the message to your people. But I rebuked that devil and I'm gonna give this word, Father, for you know your daughter has been tried and tested many times when it came from giving from an empty cup. So, Lord, on tonight, I ask that whoever is walking in the shoes I once walked in, and overdoing it or just pouring it to others without pouring into them, I ask that you touch them, Lord, deliver them, heal them. For Father, we cannot love others, even help others if we don't love and pour into us. Because if we are drained, we're no good. We're no good, and we can't love nobody. We can't even love you if we don't love ourselves. So, Lord, thank you for this day and all that's in it. Let this word you send from on high and it zoo through me. Ministers to someone's heart, mind, and soul. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen and amen. All right, y'all. Let's go, let's go, let's go.

Love Your Neighbor Starts With You

SPEAKER_02 3:59

All right, so in Mark 12 and 31, love your neighbor as yourself. See, this verse assumes that caring for yourself is part of how you learn to care for others. But first, you must love yourself because without loving you, you can't love nobody, you can't even love God. Yes, I said it. We can fool ourselves, we can fool men, but we cannot fool God. And I'm gonna tell you, I'ma I'm I'm gonna stop right there for a moment and I'm gonna share something with y'all because people can be around you 30, 40 years. I'll give you one even longer than that. My my play sister, y'all hear me talk about we've been best friends since kids. Okay, so almost 40 years. My oldest daughter wasn't even born, and I think Ingrid 30s, Ingrid is easy to 36 or 37, y'all. Once they get past 30, I can't keep up with it. But my baby is in between 36 and 37, so just imagine. And I remember recently, a few months ago, maybe two months ago, we were having Bible study at my house, and uh Nay say, I can't believe I've been knowing you all these years. I can't believe you didn't love yourself. She like, you you you just always seem like you love yourself. See, a lot of times we get confused with love and confidence as being love. That's not love. You can be confident because I learned to be confident because I've always been an entrepreneur. When I was eight, I told y'all I was picking up cans. By the time I was 10, I was selling candy. By the time I was 12, I was babysitting. So all I knew was how to hustle. So even when I worked in corporate America, I had a business outside of that in network marketing. I always done something, or I had my own business because even before having a daycare back in the 90s, early 2000s, I had a very successful daycare going into a million-dollar business, and Satan came, snatched that, you know, uh right from underneath me. But if it was God's will, it would have continued. Okay, but I just want to show y'all through my life and my experience that people can fool other people where they think and I smile. You know, now people know my smile genuine, because even people say you're going now. That's God. When God really dwells in you and exudes through you, baby, can't nobody tell you you ain't shining as bright as the sun outside. Because that's the God in you, that's the love of God. Because remember, God is light. Gotcha thinking, right? So that was my way I was able to exude that confidence, but I didn't love me. That's why I settled with the choices of guys I dated, with the friends, the business partners, everything. Because I'm trying to fit in, wanting to be light, worrying about people peeing at me, and then I'm tired. I mean drain, soaking wet, tight. You talking about flare-ups. Y'all hear me talking about air and I then baby, them flare-ups was every day because stress triggered flare-ups. So you can only imagine me hiding behind this mask, pretending like I love me.

The Mask Of Confidence

SPEAKER_02 8:14

And you know why I couldn't love me? Cause that little girl who was hurt since she was a kid, a baby. I couldn't get past when I was five. And those five teenage boys and that one grown darn man. Well, that's it. Cause I'm in my mind, I'm a baby. I don't know nothing. That's your pure innocent. So I always suppressed that and kept that with hid within. Y'all hear me talk about it now, but I never talked about that, and I never forgave myself, I blame myself. I kept saying, What did I do? Why would somebody want to hurt me? Because even to this day, I don't understand why they put one girl with a house full of boys and a man that didn't work. But anywho, until I sat down at 22 and healed. But see, God is so smart because I kept trying to, I knew it was something with me not loving myself and not even understanding the concept of healing. It wasn't until I lost that last fetus. That's why you hear me say heartbeats now. Because I three made it. And my last one, they didn't think she was gonna make it. That's why her name Mariah Fate, because I wanted MM's since I had Miracle on it, you know. I gave Mariah because I love Mariah the uh name and also the singer, so that's where her name came from. But I kept the fake because doctors kept saying she ain't gonna make it. I mean, I was literally bleeding, they just told me stop coming to the doctor. But I knew my God. And one said you need to abort, you can have another when you're still young. And I said, I don't believe in abortion. Well, she's gonna be in our whatever God's will. Because I know here, I know most people tell me you shouldn't say God, you know, know what we can bear. Yes, he does, if he's our creator, he definitely knows what we can bear. So I knew whatever the outcome was gonna be, I was gonna be all right, and I mean, sure enough, she's here, but that last one, baby, that did a toll to me. And the reason I think it did more of a toll to me, because the way it just in the beginning, I was so sick in pain, and everything. I say, Oh, this might be my son that I always want, so I'm excited, y'all. All is medous. Oh, but I wasn't thinking about that in my mind. I say, Well, me and the father be Sarah and Abraham. Um I'm just being honest, I'm being real. Because all I was seeing was the son. I always warned, although I have grandsons and I have a godson. I don't I I will say to the day I leave this green earth, it's just different when it's your son because sons are overprotective moms, and nobody can tell me otherwise. My godson, he's protected of me to uh a degree, but his mom, my grandsons with their mom to me to a degree is just something about a son, they love their mothers and they love their mothers hard, and they go to bat for okay. So after that situation, I went through my little down spiral, but it made me sit down. So,

Trauma, Grief, And The Turning Point

SPEAKER_02 12:14

although my child didn't make it on this side of the earth, it conquered its mission, and that mission was to come get me to sit down and truly heal this time without starting and stopping and playing and and and and just acting like I'm gonna do something and not do it because the familiality was the toxicity and dysfunction and just running on films because I was exhausted. I didn't, you know, even if I went to the nail shop, I just went, it wasn't like I was doing it to pamper myself or just take a day away and just wind down and just focus on me. When I start listening to certain music, when I start reading my word and praying to God, and I mean praying to God, getting to know him and allow him to come in his temple. This is his temple, not mine's. I extended an invitation for him to come in and dwell and exude, and and that's what God did. But it wasn't until I got through playing games. See, I tell y'all, I'm gonna be very transparent. You look once somebody is sugarcoated and and and tickle your ears, that ain't me. Never have been. Easy, baby. I was fighting demons daily because Satan was constantly, it was like we was boxing, because he was not trying to allow me to have that gratification and satisfaction of being healed. He was trying to find every which way he was using because I tell y'all all the time I had um bell palsy many years ago. I know it was some medicine I took over the counter at Dollar Tree, but I didn't have ten thousand dollars to do a test, so you know they just took it off the shelf, never put that medicine back because I I saw I didn't think nothing of it, and somebody said, Well, if you see my white uh substance, that could have been anything. That's true, but I didn't think nothing of it because it was sealed. I wasn't thinking somebody inside could contaminate until somebody sent me a um um a clip from the medicine where somebody died years ago from taking some medication. So I thank God that I didn't die from it. I it just triggered off the um bell pause. The doctors thought it was a stroke, but it was the opposite side, and then the stress um added on, so the bell pose came. So, long story short, you know, um it messed with my right eye and and and mouth still to this day. Do you think I care? No, I thank God I'm here, and that don't mess with my beauty because I'm a still beautiful chocolate woman, but I had guys I dated in the past and was married. The first one, not not as bad with talking about it, but my second one, so it really hit my self-esteem, like knocked me down. Because why would you build somebody up to tear them down, to tear them down what you know that's their weakness, but that's how the enemy operates because when he sees where you're weak, that's what he attacked you the most at. That's why we gotta love ourselves in spite of. And when I started loving myself in spite of, and even my king now, every he don't see nothing what what I see, but see, that's the God in him, and that's the God that's exuding through him that loves me, and he was the reason of breeding back life into me and causing me to start because I'm like, okay, after a while, by him speaking it over me, I'm starting to speak it over myself. I'm starting to love me. Yes, so I'm crazy, but it's the truth because I didn't see the beauty that he's seen until after I started loving me, and people was like, Well, you always dress like she always did. That doesn't have anything with what's internal. See, a person could that's just like let's let me give you another example. You can be sick, it's inwardly, but not showing outwardly. See where I'm going. So just because a person looks good, talk good, smell good, don't mean they feel good about themselves. So many of us wear masks, I've worn masks for so long. And once you love you wholeheartedly, you take the whole mask off, and you start putting you first. See, I've learned to start making time for me. I have to refuel me, even if I have to go to in seclusion and take a whole day, get me a room overnight. Yes, I have a house, but I need to shut it down, work and all, and be just away from the world. Didn't Jesus do it? So, what make us think we're different? See, that's what we can confuse if we understand our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ came down in human form as an example to show us love. He walked this earth, he he never judged anyone, he never criticized, he did everything in love, and he even showed us how we were supposed to go in isolation and have that time with God. How do we expect to expand? How do we expect to grow?

Healing Through Isolation And Prayer

SPEAKER_02 19:16

I'm gonna be even be honest, I'm gonna go deeper than that. I never seen Jesus go to a priest, go to his pastor, or any of that. Every time I read the word, who he went to? Our heavenly father. That's where we supposed to go. Because God is the healer, God is the deliverer, he will turn them gloomy, rainy, dark days into nothing but light. But we must trust him, we must believe him. It ain't just cliche, we walk by faith and not by sight. It's the truth. We can't see God, but we can feel him, and we know he's real, because why he dwells in us, and if you got God dwelling in him, in you, baby, it's a whole different feeling. I'm not just telling you something I don't know, I'm telling you the truth. My life haven't been the same since I sat down for real in 2022 and really started healing late 2022, and then God brought me to my trial on TikTok, and I mean it was it's and and and the follows, yes. We we when I tell you we all started this healing journey at the same time, and all of us are on this path of helping others in in the world because we know what it's like, we know how hard it was, we know it wasn't easy, but we all give credit to God, and we all know it was God, and see, God was very clever because see, God knows how Facebook is, they ain't as friendly as uh as TikTok, so he had to wait until I heal something. That's why you didn't see me. I don't think I came on Facebook really doing my talks and all that. You might have seen me talking about Knox a whole year and talking about other stuff, but you didn't really see me doing my word of the day and really sharing and being bold and being who I really am until I was healed enough. Notice I say healed enough because there's no way you can have 40 plus years. Overnight. Somebody tell you that they lie. It takes time. Just like somebody going on a life change journey to lose weight. If you do it quickly, you're going to gain it all back. But if you're doing it where you're changing your eating pattern, you doing more activity, whether you're going to the gym, walking, skating, whatever you're doing, you made a lifetime change. You sacrifice. That's how it is in the healing. I did a lot of sacrifice. I had to give up a lot of friends that I thought were friends and associates that I once confensated with. So when God never brought that marriage together, baby, it ain't gonna stick anyway. I don't care who tell you it will, you can pray till the cows come home. Because I can guarantee you, if it wasn't God ordained, God forewarn you. How I can say that and boldly say it because God gave me signs. I didn't even want to see him. Even in 2021, because I didn't love me, I loved my ex-husband more than me. He put a situation where I could have easily walked away, but no, not me. Oh, I gotta save him. That's the problem.

Stop Saving Everyone But Yourself

SPEAKER_02 23:55

Too many of us won't be Captain Saverhoe, and none of us can save nobody if we can't save ourselves. The first thing we should be doing is saving us. Focus on you and pray for others. Don't try to get in God's way when He's trying to work on them. And if they don't want to fix what He's trying to work on them and He's trying to remove them out of the equation, you get in there like you the referee. We gotta sit down somewhere and let the real OG, as I call them, he don't play the radio. Because when he says enough is enough, you playing with my child, you playing with my daughter, you playing with my son, I'm coming in there and tear it down. That's the God we serve, and then when we get in the way, he said, Let me step back. I'm allowed them to hurt you because you think this is a joke. We have to learn, God knows best because at the end of the day, He created us. We didn't create ourselves, and everybody that said, Lord, Lord, ain't for God. Remember that. See, we gotta stop looking for the red horn. What we grew up with, so the devil had him plain sight, like you and me. He walking among us like you and me. He smiling, manipulating. I'm gonna tell you even one better. What pedophile you know is just mean before they get the kids. Don't they always play nice man? Don't they always bribe you with some kind of goody? We gotta think, beloved. If we don't love ourselves, we go constantly fall for the people who will take advantage and take us for granted and drain and use our energy. I say all the time, we are all energy. That's why your churches have revival, if you really want to know. They know you have to be revived, refilled. You can't just go off of air alone. Some of them even know we gotta go back to God because He's the one that truly breathed the life back into us through His Word, through being there for us, and then we should have partners. See, I'm grateful today for the man God sent me. I remember telling God, you I'm done with your sons, I'm done, I'm gonna be single for the rest of my life, blah, blah, blah. And then I say, you'll probably have to come down here and tell me yourself, that's here. Even when God was showing me sign, I'm sabotaging, doing everything possible because I didn't love me. And this man kept being patient, and he's he'd tell you like he told me. God told him to be patient with me, he was working on me. But see, it wasn't until I set my attache down and allow God to heal and deliver me that He can allow He could allow us to come into a relationship, a whole relationship, because you have to be whole, you have to love you, and now it's equal give and take. We both reciprocate, so I'm not drained now. I remember I had to take a power nap every day. Lord have mercy, and still was tired. Now it's just like, oh my god, and it makes you say sometimes, well, Lord, why are you waiting so late in my life? God knew I wasn't ready, just like so many of us, because you're not gonna appreciate nothing that's good for you until you heal and deliver everything bad that broke you, because when you broke it and you're in pieces, you're gonna tear everything else up, and it's true when they say hurt people, hurt people, it's true.

Scriptures For Worth And Wholeness

SPEAKER_02 29:00

Let me go into some more uh verses because this is good, job. Psalm 139 and 14. I praise you because I'm fearfully and wonderfully made, a reminder that your life has value and purpose. See, when y'all see me praising God, I know my value, I know my purpose now, and I know without a shadow of a doubt, I was wonderfully made by the great I am. I was wonderfully made. It doesn't matter what people think of my style, it doesn't matter what people think of my size, my God made me in his like and his image. And if I love me, and the God God sent me, love me, and all of me, guess what? It doesn't matter who else don't like it. Because we are too focused on what other people think of us. That's their business, that's their opinion. If we mind a business that pays us, we won't even know what Joe Blow thinks of us, and we really wouldn't care. Everybody have a right to their opinion because guess what? It's their opinion. Who cares? Ephesians 2 and 10. For we are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works. You were created intentionally and with meaning. See, God didn't make no mistakes. Okay, you were good works, no matter what comes along, health, bad relationships, because God can always turn that bad for your good if you his Romans 8 and 28. Always, and everything you lost, he gonna restore, and always remember this he give you better than what you had. Y'all heard me right? He gives you better than what you had now. How can Sean say that? I've had one or two decent men in my lifetime. Notice I said one or two, and I'm not talking about neither ex-husband. I married twice, but I had one or two, it was okay. But this one I have here now, nah man can now talk. He he knocked it out of the park for everybody. That helped me want to sit down and heal as well, because when you have somebody good, it encourages you to be better. They always say a man changed for the right woman. I think it goes both ways, it's not just a man. First Corinthians 6, 19 through 20. Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. Discourage respect and care for yourself physically and spiritually. So if your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, you need to care for it physically and spiritually. How you do that, Sean? Spiritually is your word and relationship with God. You got to read your word and you got to talk to God. People think prayer is all it is is a communication line between you and God, and physically, you gotta love on yourself, you gotta learn to take yourself out on dates. I told y'all that was a time I used to go nowhere by myself, and I dare sure didn't travel by myself. Baby, I would go out on a date with just me and travel by myself now, and it and I now have a group that I go with now, thanks be to God. You know, have a group I go with and travel abroad, so I'm not out there by myself, I'm by myself, but there's other people around, but that's things I didn't used to do. I it was like I just couldn't be alone. Romans 12 and 3. Do not think of yourself more hollow than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment. The Bible teaches healthy self-respect, not arrogance or self-hatred. You know how some people they they always gotta be, how would I put it? Like the center of attention. If somebody is admiring you and what you're doing, they gotta interrupt and and and make themselves look good. Or we we we see it right now today. Arrogance, the whole country gone wild. That's all I can say about that. But thank God for my God and self-hatred. See, when people hate themselves, they're gonna be little everybody else to break you down, and see, I didn't understand that because I didn't understand how persons say they care about me and they love me, but yet you hate everything about me. Why did you marry me? Why did you pretend? And it happened to me because I didn't love me, so I couldn't even discern that. Because when you don't love yourself, anytime somebody makes you feel love or feel good, you just fall for it. That's why self-care is important because if you love you, you're not gonna put up with no shenanigans. I promise you not. Matthew 22 and 39. Love your neighbors as yourself. Notice they say it again that healthy self-love becomes the model for how we treat others. So you can't love nobody. Now I can't stress that enough until you love you. So valuing yourself because God created you. That's what the Bible is encouraging you to do. Caring for your mind, body, and spirit, because you will tie yourself out, you will empty your cup, your cup will no longer be full.

Empty Cup Truth And Self-Care Practices

SPEAKER_02 36:29

You know, that's just like I got a cup right here, right? Now, this cup is full, but once I drink all this water in here, it's empty. What can I pour out of it after it becomes empty? Nothing's gonna come out of it, even when it's close. I'm dripping on my paper because it's full. But an empty cup ain't even gonna give me a drip. So the whole moral of the story, you cannot pour from an empty cup. I don't care how much you try. And yes, we were raised by elders, you know, every the woman was the wife, the mother, everything, but never took a break. We can't do that. We can't, it will tire you out, beloved. Avoiding pride or selfishness, and understand a lot of people think self-care, because I once did, was selfish. That's not selfish, not at all. It's selfish if somebody don't want you to take and give yourself self-care. Because any human being that understands love, know you got to take time for yourself, you got to, and loving others without neglecting yourself is also what the Bible wants us to understand. We got to, so we must understand what I just said here because at the end of the day, the word doesn't lie. God allowed the men who wrote the Bible to interpret it, and they perspective for us to have today, but God wanted us to come to Him for revelation to get the real perspective He wants us to have, not what man wanted us to have. Because trust me, God don't make no mistakes, He can use anybody, He can use Satan Himself, yes, he can. As you can see, Satan out here running rapidly. That's all we gotta say. Also, who today, who are we gonna choose to serve? But at the end of the day, before I close out tonight, beloved, I want you to understand loving you first is not selfish. Loving you means everything. See, I used to put myself on the discount college discount stores. Oh no, baby. Now I'm up there with Bloomingdale's and Macy's and them, and you name all other high-tech ones. I no longer for sale on a discount. I know my value, I know my work, and I celebrate me. I celebrate this queen. It wasn't easy becoming her, but it was so worthwhile. My peace surpass all understanding, my joy surpass all understanding, my love surpasses all understanding, my caring for others surpass all understanding, and just being there for others gives me even greater joy now than it ever did. And I always, always love being there for others, but it's just different now. So I hope my message tonight blessed someone. I hope it makes someone say, even if you don't do nothing, you don't have to go do your nails and feed or take a trip or go get a room like I do. Just go outside in nature. That was one of my biggest things with my self-care. That's why now you see me, you know. I was like, God, I gotta have my my rural area back, that nature. It's just something about trees, it's just something about water, it's just something about the air. Everything correlates with God as you heal, as you love yourself, even the birds chirping just bring me joy. Watching the squirrels running up and down the trees, watching the deers in my backyard eating the grass. It's things like that that one person might think crazy or just off the chart, but it's it's soothing for me because now I'm getting to enjoy everything God created, it has a healing element to it, a loving element to it. Watch how the animals come in unity, they all come together. That's all God wants for us to love one another, be there for one another, help one another, but more than anything, He wants us to love us first, then love Him. Okay, all right, so we're gonna go ahead and close off tonight.

Closing Prayer And Send-Off

SPEAKER_02 42:40

We're gonna say a prayer, and then we're gonna exit into next week. So we're gonna close eyes again and give God some glory. Dear Heavenly Most Gracious Father, I thank you for this word on tonight, Lord. I pray, Father, that somebody understand through my story, my testimony of just sharing more than anything, and then line up some words that came from the Bible, Lord, that can help them and guide them. But help that woman, even that man, because Lord, believe it or not, you know, but men don't know that there are men that go through too, they go through hurt just as well as women do, that have been hurt so much that they get sick and tired of being sick and tired, and they give up. But deliver those that want to be healed on tonight, deliver those that want to love themselves like they never loved themselves before, so they can be delivered and healed, and they can love you and others like you required us to do. I pray this prayer. Until next week you love it. Bye bye.

SPEAKER_01 44:14

Preparing me for greater for the hell nothing for the beat. I wanna have be. If it had be a bit allowing it to be grow, he's preparing me for my bread up.