Weekly Topic Saturday #11: Top 5 Best Moments of My Life

Welcome to Weekly Topic Saturdays!

Hello all, I pray that your week was filled with joy and love. Welcome back to those who have been with me here at A Golden Dream. For my first-timers, a great big hello there, if you haven't already please check out my previous posts when you get a chance.

Please don't hesitate to join the conversation, there are no right or wrong answers or questions. I'm not proclaiming to know everything, I am simply just discussing and picking topics on things that I personally have gone through and that I know would help someone.

1. Knowing God For Myself

Thus says the Lord: “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the Lord.”

Jeremiah 9:23-24

Getting to know God for me has been and still is one of the best moments of my life. You have heard me talk about it before in some of the previous posts that I grew up in the church but I never really had a close connection with God. In all honesty for a while, the only time that I opened my bible was when I went to church on Sunday and for the remainder of the week, it sat closed on the shelf. It wasn’t until recently that I began to seek him out for myself. With having to be quarantined due to Covid-19 I began to open my bible more. It started in June with me reading a book called The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren.

While I was reading this book I found myself taking lots of notes and going to my bible and reading the scriptures that Rick Warren referenced in his book. This was something that I did every day. Before I knew it the scriptures that I began to read turned into passages and the passages turned into reading whole chapters. The more I read the bible the more I wanted to know God and understand what his will for me was. God wants all of us to boast and be proud that we know him. He wants us to share it with the world that he is our friend, that he is our everything.

“Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known.”

Jeremiah 33:3

What I have found in getting to know him is that he is always there and he does speak to you. The more time that I am spending with him in the word the more that his voice is becoming clearer to me. He is showing up and giving me signs of confirmation and speaking through others to help guide me through it all.

2. Healing From Past Traumas

“Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”

Isaiah 41:10

Over the course of my life, I have been through so much trauma and hurt that for a while I did not know how I was going to make it through. I certainly didn't know how I was getting by. I often felt so lost, unappreciated, depressed, and anxious. Some of the trauma that I dealt with was abuse, losing several family members within the span of three months, losing my childhood, homelessness, and abandonment just to name a few.

These feelings never went away, in fact, they were just stacking themselves on top of each other weighing down my shoulders and my heart over the years. For years it seemed like so many bad things were happening everyday especially during the holiday season. I never healed, I just suppressed it. Instead, I mastered the skill of pretending to be okay and hiding my emotions. But suppressing my pain and the trauma was taking a toll on my health. It was causing me to have severe chest pain, panic attacks, and headaches, pushing people away, not trusting anyone, I mean I can go on. The chest pain was so unreal that it made me feel like I was going to have a heart attack at any given moment.

“The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.”

Psalms 18:2

I was so angry with God because he was allowing all of these things to happen in my life. It wasn’t until recently within the last four years that I truly began to understand why God allowed it to happen. One thing that my mom has instilled in me was that God will never put more on you than you can handle. There's purpose in the mess. I was made to go through what I did so that I can share my experiences with others and potentially help someone along the way. I was tired of pretending to be okay. I wanted to regain my peace, joy, and inner inspiration. Four years ago I started on the rough path of self-healing and self-discovery, and self-awareness. Through each of these three separate processes, I relied on God as my anchor.

“It’s amazing how people can judge others and so critical but when reflecting on themselves, there’s no problem. Everyone has room to evolve and grow. Everyone, so be humble and kind!”

-Sherronda Best

The closer that I became to God the better that I began to feel. I was feeling stronger and more at peace. I was learning through the word that I needed to protect my joy. During the path of self-discovery, I began to learn so much about myself, my deal breakers, and my self-worth. Over the course of the past four years, I have been able to take my joy back, have fewer panic attacks, set boundaries for myself and others, heal my inner child trauma, and truly let go of the past so that I can be complete in my present. The process of creating this blog has and still is an incredible outlet for me and with every post, I am able to heal, worry less, and live in the moment.

3. Developing a Support System Family

Two are better than one because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up! Again, if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone? And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him-a threefold cord is not quickly broken.

Ecclesiastes 4:9-12

This is another one of the best moments of my life. As I have mentioned above, there were so many moments in my life where I felt like I was either abandoned by my loved ones or I was all alone with no one around who truly was there for me, or could understand. Developing my support system family was something that helped me greatly. This support system family that I created, provided for me the faith, love, support, and trust that I needed. There is a saying that goes it takes a village and let me tell you it is so true. When developing my support system God was the first to be added, then my therapist, and then a FEW family friends.

My village is amazing and I wouldn’t trade them for anything in the world. We support each other and when we see each other in need we jump in and help no question. You have to find a few good people that are genuinely there to be there for you, ones that are praying for you not plotting against you.

I am not ashamed or embarrassed to say that I have a therapist. I know that in the black community it goes against the grain to seek therapy. That is not the case for me, I will tell any and everyone to get the help that you need. Y’all Self-Care is an absolute must. I found an amazing therapist that has helped me through some of the darkest moments of my life.

4. Meredith College

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.”

Philippians 4:6

I attended and graduated from Meredith College here in North Carolina. Getting my Bachelor's Degree caused me so much anxiety and stress. Having Dyslexia was definitely a major obstacle for me when I was in college especially with the direction that I chose to major in. Fashion is ALL numbers, adding, subtracting, and measuring. It really is a science y’all. There were so many moments through my time as a student there at Meredith where I didn’t know if I was going to graduate on time, or at ALL.

One of the best moments of Meredith was actually participating as a designer in the senior fashion show. I created 18 original designs and brought them to life. Seeing my designs walk down the runway on the day of the fashion show was so amazing for me. I felt accomplished because of the amount of work that went into me designing and creating these pieces. There were many nights where sleep was not in the equation at all and I would literally get out of class and head right back to the sewing lab on campus and be there until it was time to go to class the next day. Whether it was standing over a table drafting out pattern pieces or sit down sewing up fabric, or pressing out seams, faithfully I was there. 16 to 24 hours every day or every other day it was just me in the studio sewing. My friends were mostly the custodians that cleaned the labs every night. When I saw them I knew I would be burning the midnight oil. Would I change a thing about it, No!

Once the senior fashion show was done, graduation was next. Graduating was such an accomplishing moment for me because I had completed what I had set out to do and I had proved to all of the people that said I couldn’t do it.

5. Being Self Advocating

“That the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.”

2 Timothy 3:17

To be self- advocating is the ability to speak up for oneself and ask for what you want and need. One example of this was a church after moving to Raleigh for college.

STORYTIME:

For years, I became weary-looking for a church that I gave up and stopped looking altogether. It wasn't until 2016 when my best friend and I were shopping for glasses at Walmart that we ran into a woman that walked up to us and struck up a conversation and at the end of that conversation she gave us a card of the church that she was attending and told us to come and check it out. I had been praying to God to help me to find a place that I could fellowship and worship at because I was longing for it.

One morning I woke up desperately needing to go to church, it just occurred to me that I remembered where I put the card that the women gave me. I took it upon myself to look up the church and go there that morning. Only 10 minutes away from where I lived and from that day to this one, I've been content in calling Union Hill AME Church my place of worship for the last 4 years. The lady that confronted my best friend and I was the Minister of Music and both of us have been singing under her in the church choir ever since. I have grown spiritually with the help of my Pastor and 1st Lady, and church family and community. It indeed takes a village as I recalled in point 3.

END

God hears your thoughts and if you truly desire things of your heart he will give them to you but in his time. I'm grateful for my church family but it took asking God 1st for what I desired, and he supplied it fully.

What Do You Desire?

Questions To Consider:

1. What are some of the best moments of your life thus far?

2. Did they come easy, or did you have to work for them?

3. Do you have a solid support system?

4. Do you look for positivity in negative situations?

5. How has feeling from your past trauma made you better?

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With Love, the best moments of our lives are the ones that we create and work for. I think that just because a moment may start out as a negative it doesn’t mean that it has to stay that way. It is all in your perspective, if the only thing that you see is negativity then that is what you will get. Change your way of thinking, the battle is in the mind! Try and find the good in every situation and it will make every moment a great one! Remember to always stay positive and lean on God because even in the darkest hour God’s light will shine through and it can turn your worst moment into your best outcome even if you didn't realize it then.

All Things......ALL Things Work Together For The Good To Them That Love God, To Them Who Are The Called According To His Purpose

Romans 8:28

~Just Breathe...A Golden Dream~

Amen.