While this is the first episode I'm sharing, this is the 4th podcast episode I've recorded. I had this podcast set and ready to launch in January 2020, but God had different plans for me. So here we are, exactly one year later, and it's time. Hope you enjoy this brief episode about authenticity and what I plan to share on this podcast.

Essay #1:

 A year ago, I was the girl on fire. I was motivated and full of grit. I was
inspired and searching. I was looking at every possible avenue to make my
visions and dreams a reality. I was at the top of my game and in a place
professionally that I had aspired to achieve. I was finishing up a portion of
school and training and I was leading a large group of people. I wanted to help
people. I wanted to see them through their darkness. I wanted to point them to
Jesus and help them see the light.


I was an associate Pastor at a church leading a kids ministry, the youth group
and also preaching. I was trying to be a part of worship too, but my
participation was being actively blocked. I did my best to shrug that aside and
focus on everything I was being thwarted towards and asked to guide and lead. I
was living my dream of preaching. I had wanted this for a very long time and I
was actually doing it, and I was pretty good at it too. I loved preaching. I
adored preparing each message and learning more about God than I ever imagined.
I was at my peak.


Unfortunately, once you reach a peak, there’s always a trip back down.
Sometimes you stay at the peak for a long time while in other instances, you’re
really holding on for dear life while trying to act like you have it all
together. One way or another, you end up facing the truth and see the valley
that is inevitably before you. Denial works for a little bit, but reality soon
starts to set in and you have to face the music.


Things aren’t okay. Your environment isn’t as healthy as you’ve been telling
yourself. You are being taken advantage of and even lied to and manipulated.
All of the momentum you had is weakening and failing and you’re starting to
fall down this hole that is getting darker and darker each day. You start to
acknowledge that you’re being abused and that you are hurt, that you are
hurting. And then you hit rock bottom and your lights inside, everything
that gave you life and joy and spark, is out. Everything becomes black.


What you had that gave you credibility is gone. What you had that legitimized
you disintegrates. And you are left with, what you believe to be, nothing.


Welcome to darkness. It’s a lonely ride.


Welcome to indentity crisis. It’s crippling.


Welcome to anxiety and depression. It’s debilitating.


Welcome to my road block for the next year.


When all motivation and passion exits the room, it’s a pretty bleak outlook.
There is nothing to fuel a fire of creation and to share anymore. My passion
had amounted to creating a brave vision board for 2020 and all I wanted to
accomplish. My vision board included writing a blog, creating a podcast,
starting a skating ministry, writing a book, and the list goes on. I had
created a trajectory that would accomplish so much and I felt ready! But that
passion died a really sad and horrible death, all before covid hit. My
depressive state was already in full swing by the time I lost everything else
that brought me joy once we hit quarantine.


There was no way to “get past this”. My situation called for a deep dive into
my inner self. It called for soul work and shadow work. And these take
everything inside of you to tackle. The first thing I did to help myself was
that I got myself into therapy as soon as I could because I knew I was lost. I
knew this was a bigger fish to fry than my usual tiffs I’ve dealt with up to
this point. I knew that if I didn’t, I was going to go down a worse path than
what I was already on. I’m a wife and mom. People depend on me and at this
stage in the game, I wasn’t getting out of bed. I needed to get better for my
family.


I know you’re probably thinking, “So you left a church, so what?” The
reality here is that I was a workaholic, an absent parent and I was suppressing
trauma. I was using how busy my job at my church was to run away, to bury and
never have to face what happened to me 18 months prior to taking my job with
the church. I was in survival mode while thinking I had been living my dream
and now that was gone and I was staring my demons head on.


While I thought I was “ready”, I was simply being sanded down and primed for
what was to become my life over the full year of 2020 and it was do or die.


So I did.


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