Ep. 65 | ... and you're feeling grateful (we're back!)

Maybe you're like me and you're feeling grateful.

Today I'm feeling such gratitude. It's a new month and a great time to get back into the podcast! In this episode I catch you up on where I've been and  I share my personal journey through grief, the power of fasting, gratitude, and trusting God's instruction during tough times. 

Scripture references from this episode:

• Psalm 90:1-2
• Psalm 119:92-93

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Transcript

Alicia Watson (00:04.012)
You're listening to Maybe You're Like Me, the transparent musings of a godgirl chasing after her purpose. Maybe You're Like Me is a podcast for dreamers and doers who take life's lessons and level up to look more like Christ. We'll connect through super relatable stories, growing pains, and aha moments that most of us share, just not always out loud. I'm your host, Alicia Watson, creative entrepreneur, playwright, author, wife, mother, daughter of the king, and so much more. And I can't help.

But to think that maybe you're like me. Hey beautiful people, thank you for joining me for another episode of Maybe You're Like Me with Alicia Watson. It's me, Alicia Watson. I missed you. Did you miss me? I'm so sorry. Okay, so March was a really hard month for me. It hit me out of nowhere. If you've been around here for any amount of time, you know March is my month. March is the month where I come out of hiding, where I emerge as my personal new year.

Things that people do and plan to do on January 1st, I reserve for March because March is a time where the seasons change, the sun comes out, things are on and popping. And I love March. But for some reason this year, that grief hit me like a ton of bricks. It hit me like a semi-truck child. I was down and out. I had no idea why. I could not put a finger on it. I was stressed out. I was stressed out for grief. I was stressed out. I couldn't get a handle on my emotions, my hormones. I don't know what was going on.

In fact, I was finding myself crying one day and I'm like, Lord, I don't know what's wrong with me, like crying out to the Lord. And the response that I got was to fast. And so I fasted. I'm so glad I was obedient because it's exactly what I needed. And it's a reminder that in these trying times, these times, these spiritually heavy, warfare heavy times, that fasting is a tool at our disposal that we need to use even more. We need to quiet our thoughts, quiet our hearts, quiet our tummies.

And listen to the Lord. And also, there's just so many like physical benefits to fasting that help with like your body being ready for the warfare too. there's cell regeneration, autophagy, just mental clarity that comes. There's so like fat is breaking down, like it's so much going on with your body because God knows what he's doing, he created your body. So fasting is not just a method of getting close with him, but it's also a method of healing. And I think I needed a little bit of that too.

Alicia Watson (02:26.71)
So I'm thankful that I listen and I'm praying for a continued discipline to continue with that discipline of fasting. so that when I can when I feel the need to do it or I can actually make it something that I do on routine. Maybe a weekly practice, a monthly practice for a longer fast, but just really tapping in because it's rough out here. So and I I wanna be available for the Lord to do my part.

Because it's easy to get distracted. It's easy to have your mind filled with things that crowd out the voice of God, that crowd out the instructions that you're supposed to be having or you're supposed to be getting in, that include instructions for you to obey or things for you to do or clarity on that, like that aren't encumbered by fear or your personal thoughts is filled with wisdom and and peace and instruction, right?

I just want more of that. Speaking of crowding out, maybe you're like me and you're feeling grateful. I say that because gratitude is something that I've been feeling lately a lot in spite of all that's going on. And I think it's a also a strategy, it's also a discipline to practice gratitude. I was listening to Hezekiah Walker. I forget the choir that he had with them on this certain album. It's the album that we would listen to on Sunday mornings.

While we were getting ready for church, the nostalgia, hm, putting on my little stockings and getting on my Sundays best and listening to this boom box that my parents kept in the kitchen while I were cooking. Blasting out gospel choir jams. And this song by Hezekiah Walker just came to my remembrance today. It was on my heart, so I was playing it and it's

I think this is I will bless the Lord. I can't remember the title, but it's like, and his praises will continually be in my mouth. Saying that all off key, out of tune, whatever I'm not about to sing for real. But it just was a reminder of about gratitude and the point that it being continually in your mouth does not allow you to have fear in your mouth or hatred in your mouth or gossip in your mouth or a myriad of other negative things because you're praising.

Alicia Watson (04:44.45)
with gratitude. You're giving Thanksgiving. And if that's continuing in your mouth, it blocks out all of those other things that are stemming from the thoughts that you're having that are not contained within that gratitude. I think a part of my grumpies in March was that I had forgot to praise. It was just a spiritually heavy month. It was grief heavy and it was reminding me of the things I've lost, the people I've lost, the

Dreams that weren't coming into fruition, dreams that would probably never come into fruition, the regrets that I've had, like all these things I was pondering on, that I was dwelling on, but they weren't praise, they weren't Thanksgiving, they weren't gratitude. And I think when you use gratitude to drown out all the rest of the noise, your spirit quickens, you uplift your life. Because I think what I'm also learning is that reality is reality.

And sometimes it feels safer to dwell on the negativity or the things that didn't happen because it feels like truth when in reality it's really just you trying to see all the sides and control the parts that will feel bad. So, like if you have an accident and you walk away from it, it's true you had an accident and you walked away from it. If you can't continuously talk about the accident, what caused it.

how you could have predicted like when you walked out the house this morning, I just knew something bad was gonna happen or that stupid fool ran the light or doesn't that and you talk about all of the things that were negative about this thing that occurred, then it turns the whole situation into a negative situation, viewing it from a negative light. Whereas if you walked away from this accident, very real accident that did happen, but your focus is on the fact that, man, it was just a fender bender.

I'm so glad I have insurance. I'm so glad I walked away from it. Thank you, God, for blessing me. Like that also happened. It's also a reality. And it's really a choice A or choice B on what you intend to focus on, what you choose to focus on. And it actually impacts your view of yourself. If you're a person that stuff always happens to, and you view yourself from that victim perspective or from that negative perspective.

Alicia Watson (07:00.216)
then that's kind of how you view your life. And it just kind of feels like you're that kind of person or you have that kind of life, just a negative, victimized, terrible life. Whereas if you can view things with Thanksgiving, if you can view things from a positive perspective, then you know you can change the trajectory of what your life is, even if it's still negative things happening, because none of us have an experience of a life that is perfect, right? There's always suffering.

There's always struggling, there's always pain, there's always grief, there's always loss. That is true for each and every one of us. But there are always things to be grateful for as well. And that's what we have to focus on. We have to fight to have that perspective. So today, thinking about Thanksgiving, and I just woke up feeling really thankful, led me to reading this book back in March.

I really felt the need to go down to my library and pull it up. It's called Bible Promises for Women. I don't really see an author. It's like a compilation of scriptures. It's not really even a book. And it's not one of those books that you read from cover to cover. It's like a listicle of promises. And so you kind of take what you need for the day. So I felt led to pull this book up when I was doing all this grieving and stuff. And when I picked it up, I opened it up and there was an inscription from my parents. It says From mom and dad to our baby.

We love you, Alicia. September 2008. And the waterworks they came and I felt so loved in that moment. It was just like a little guy wink and love from my parents because I needed to hear that, to remember that. Because again, Thanksgiving, not focusing on what I've lost, but focusing on what I had. I had parents that loved me, that taught me what I needed to know, that poured their wisdom out on me, that put me in places that would prepare me.

For times like this. Like this book was so needed and necessary in that moment. And it's been helping me over the last couple of months of, you know, studying my Bible, having my devotionals, just pulling this out and just taking what I need for the day. So like I said, I woke up today with immense gratitude. So I went to the chapter. I'm finding it. The chapter on gratitude. And it's called The Blessings of Gratitude. That's the title. And the subtitle is Lord, I just wanted to say thanks. Perfect. It was beautiful.

Alicia Watson (09:21.102)
there are some scriptures that I pulled out because like I said it's a compilation of scriptures and there were two in particular passages that really resonated with me today, and I want to read them for you because I hope they can resonate with you too. The first is Psalm 901 and 2. It says, Lord, you have been our refuge in every generation. Before the mountains were born, before you gave birth to the earth and the world from eternity to eternity, you are God.

The second is Psalm 119, 92 and 3. If your instruction had not been my delight, I would have died in my affliction. I will never forget your precepts, for you have given me life through them. I loved both of these because they were reminders of the way that we should view our past. Not through a lens of suffering, but through a lens of suffering with the asterisk that God was there. He was our refuge, he was our help. He was

Our instructor. He is our refuge. He is our our hope in times of affliction, in times of suffering, in times of pain. Because those are every time. That's that's all time. That's every day. There's something. We very rarely go many, many days without experiencing something. But the reason that those somethings don't take us under is because of who God is. We should give thanks for that. It's because of what God's done. We should give thanks for that. We should remember that. We should dwell on that.

And the more that we dwell on it, the more we have to praise for. That's how those praises stay continually in our mouths. From the smallest things to the biggest things, there's reasons to praise. You can find reasons to complain. You can find reasons to fear. You can find reasons to worry, but you can also find reasons to praise and to give thanks. Find those. Find those because he's worthy, because he deserves it.

But also because you deserve to be in a state of mind that allows you to carry on. If we're dwelling on what we lost, if we're dwelling on our traumas, if we're dwelling on what's gone wrong for us and how much we suffer and how much we can't do this and we can't do that, or we're trying to do this, or we messed up, how much we've how much we've taken from people, or how much people have taken from us, how much things ain't turn out the way that we wanted them to. If we're dwelling on that.

Alicia Watson (11:42.414)
We can't have the life that he, the life of abundance that he wants us to have. And it's not just materially abundant, it's abundance in mental health. He's offered us those things. This Psalm 119, 92, and 3 says, if your instruction had not been my delight, I would have died in my affliction. The things that we're experiencing are strong and they're heavy. They're heavy. They're enough to crush us in our affliction.

In our suffering. It's it's enough, but there is there's instruction. And if we delight in that instruction, we can get through it. If we delight in him, we can get through it. Sometimes it's not that he stops things, everything from happening. Some things happen for reasons we can't comprehend and reasons that we don't want to comprehend, like losing someone. I don't want to comprehend losing someone, but we know. When you're born, you're on a trajectory to die. Like it's it's coming.

Where there comes when you're really young or when you're really old, you're gonna lose someone and it's gonna hurt. You know, I hate to say it. We hate to think about it, but it's going to hurt. But what joy we have that we know that in our affliction there's instruction. When you don't know what to do, there's instruction. And if you delight in that instruction, you can you can bear up under the pain of affliction. I'm a witness.

I'm a witness. I'm a witness, right? So I'm thinking that's why I was told to fast to get that instruction. But my brain had been crowded continually with everything but praises, everything but thanksgiving, everything but the positivity that would carry me through, the instruction that carries me through. But when I acknowledged it, it carried me through. And so through April and through May, I was busy. I had a lot going on.

That I was in a much better mental space. And I'm thankful for that. I wanted to come back to the podcast, but it became a lot. That busyness that I spoke about in a previous episode. I'm enjoying being busy. I'm enjoying having a full calendar. I'm enjoying the people that I'm meeting. I have so much to be thankful for. Like for instance, I was talking about my play that was gonna happen in May. It happened. It was fantastic. I had a great time. I can't wait to get on stage again. I can't wait to get on camera again. I can't wait.

Alicia Watson (14:08.236)
To use these gifts and talents that God has given me even more. this podcast hit 5,000 downloads, which is not a lot, but if I was standing in a room of 5,000 people, it would feel like a lot. And it's especially notable for a podcast that I never ever promote. I don't promote it not even a quarter as much as I need to promote it, but somehow you found it. It's found you.

God's put it on your heart to listen. It made you interested. You've downloaded it. You sent it out. It's blessed you. And that's what I'm here for. I'll return to this as much as I need to. I will put it down when God says it's time to move on. I'm not beating myself up for inconsistency, but I'm going to return to this podcast because it is an assignment. And I'm thankful that you're here. I've been networking, meeting new people in the area. It's been great getting out, supporting other people and their creativity, getting inspired from my own creativity.

being more of the person that God has created me to be, thankfully, gratefully, hopefully, with hope, full of hope. Which is a lot to say, cause for a long time I've been lacking that hope. I spent a lot of time with family. My kids have been spending time with family. It's it's been just a beautiful season after a dark, dark month of March. And I'm just thankful. I really am. And I pray, I know I'm not perfect and I pray that.

I can continue along these lines of keeping that thanksgiving and praise in my mouth continuously because through it all and through any of it, we're covered. He's our refuge. He's our strength. He's our life. He's our salvation. We don't have anything to fear, but we have all the things in the world to be grateful for. We just have to choose gratitude.

Well, that's all I have for you today. If you're like me, leave a review on your favorite platform. I'd love to hear from you. If you know someone who's like us, then share this episode with them. Thanks for listening and I hope you have a wonderful week. Okay? Bye.