Finally Breathing

Hey everyone!!

I know I know, it's been too long lol. But at least I'm trying. Anyways, this post will be relatively short. Just a small recap of recent events.

So over the past month or so I've been really struggling when deciding what I'm going to do next in my life. I mean don't get me wrong, I love my job but you should always be thinking about the next step. I would stay up making lists and thinking and almost making myself sick over it. If you know me then you know that I stress over almost EVERY detail of ANYTHING. I plan out scenarios A-Z in my head and it can really be tough on me.

So after stressing and all that I decided to just pray about it. And I promise that very next day (today) I felt so relieved. All the information I needed appeared when I searched for it and I had a sense of peace when looking at stuff. 

  

I don't want to spill the beans just yet because I'm still putting together the whole plan. But just know that when you turn it over to Him and LEAVE IT THERE, that everything will work itself out.

 So I'm finally back to normal and not stressing and breathing peacefully which is a blessing in itself.

 Be on the lookout for my next post where I tell my new plans!!

 Until then,

      Love ya,

               Jasmine

God Helps Those Who Help Themselves

Hello All!!
I'm trying to stay true to my promise to blog more often. I think I'm gonna use this blog as my Praise Report instead of Facebook because it gives me more space to talk lol.

But anyways, once again I'm thankful that He continues to see fit for me to live another day and try to do my best to please Him. I don't know what He's looking at but I'm glad He sees it. No major complaints, I'm still working and semi-loving my job. I'm thankful that when I get up I don't dread going to work. That's a rarity and to be one of the few that can say that is a true Blessing.

Today I've been at a kinda down mood. For some reason I seem to have lost a lot of my motivation. It's like i sit down and I know that I need to get up and do a particular errand but I'll just keep sitting and sitting or find something else to do that's lazy and the errand never gets done. And I don't know what to do about it. It's as if I'm really losing in life. My health track is alright, but I know good and well I could be doing so much more.
I use to sit and pray for strength and willpower and determination all the time to help me do better but then I realized something...
  God doesn't give us willpower because then that would be taking away our gift of free will. He doesn''t want to say to me," Jasmine you will choose to NOT eat that bad food and instead go outside" That's not giving me control of my mind. And after I realized this I came to the conclusion that I was HAPPY for this!! This means that by me choosing to do right and go the right direction, not only am I helping myself, but I'm praising Him more. And I'm doing it of my OWN FREE WILL!! Which pleases Him the most.
    He could easily make us all robots that just sit and worship Him all day but He'd rather us do it of our own choosing. And I'm going to do my best do continue to do so. I'm still gonna ask for prayers that I continue to do well on my health journey and make it to my half-marathon in March, but now I know that the saying "God helps those who help themselves" is SOOOOOOO TRUE!!
     Well that's all I have to speak on for now. And until next time!!
    Love,
       Jasmine

Ultimate Praise Report/Recap

Hello All,
It has been an shameful amount of time since my last blog post. And for that I apologize. I don't want to make an extremely long post so I'll try and keep it simple and then just do better at updating my blog. *in my country voice lol* Chile, Where to begin, where to begin?...... 
1) My health
      - As some of you may know I have been dealing with more health issues lately. I discovered that I have an extremely rapid heartbeat and palpatations. As of right now we're still trying to figure it out and surgery may be the next step. But through it all I'm still thankful. I mean, God blessed with the common sense to go and get checked out, the insurance coverage to be able to afford to go to the doctor, and a job that understands my needs and lets me take off the days I need to go to the doctor's office. All in all that's a lot of blessings. And I know that whatever the next step in this process is He has it all planned out and I'm just along for the ride. And for those that know me, to just go with the flow is NOT an easy thing for me to do. But this situation has shown me that I can't control everything and that God really is the Master of it all so worry is really a futile emotion.
      - I have decided to run a HALF MARATHON!! This means that instead of 26miles (im not that crazy lol) I'll be running 13miles. It's in March in Little Rock and I am SOOOOO EXCITED!!!!! People ask why I wanna do it and the answer is kinda simple: I want to give myself a goal that seems impossible and challenges me to push myself. Plus the effects the training will have on my diabetic health are great too. I feel that God has given me so many chances to do better and get right that it's only right that I praise Him through making myself better. What better way to show thanks for giving me a new chance at life than by treating my body well? 


2) My Living
        - If you follow me online, you know that my apartment was burglarized on August 28, 2011. I will never forget that feeling. How could this happen to me? I was never supposed to be robbed. My entire sense of peace had been rocked to the core. I was a hot mess for hours. I cried to anyone that would listen, I blamed myself. I even wanted to quit my job and move back home. ( I can be very dramatic at times lol) But once the initial shock wore off I started to realize what I had to be thankful for. 1. I wasn't at home when the burglars came 2) None of my friends were there 3) I had taken my laptop to work that day so they didn't get that.
          - When you look at it like that I really lucked out. I realize that He is truly watching over me and taking care of me. Then there was another sad time when my apartment didn't want to let me out of my lease along w/other issues. I thought that I would be stuck here in an unsafe place till next year. But again He saw fit for me to leave this place and behold I will be moving out on next Saturday w/o owing my current place a dime!! Look at God lol.


3) My Job
     - A major blessing that I have is that I LOVE MY JOB!!! It's rare that people get to say that and I'm thankful I'm one of the lucky ones. My coworkers are great too. Not only do they share some of the same quirks that I do, but they also are very supportive of my health problems. We crack jokes a lot and have fun too. Also, this job has not asked me twice about taking off for all my doctor's appointments. Any other job would have had me written up or worse for taking off so much and I've only been there 6months.
     - Now don't get me wrong, there are a lot of things that make me upset at the job. Like last minute orders that have to be processed on weekends for example, but that's just the life of a salary worker. I know that this job is just the gateway job I needed to get me to where I ultimately want to be. I don't know how God saw for me to be here but I'm just gonna keep quiet and enjoy the ride.


4) ME!!!
       - God is truly working on me. In past posts I mentioned how I went through a phase where I thought that God couldn't possibly love me etc. But now I see more and more just how much He really does. He has not let a SINGLE bad/detrimental thing happen to me when I know I deserved it.
        - I am becoming more carefree (but still responsible) and able to not worry as much. There are still times when I want to fix everything or take everything on but I'm realizing that I have a big teammate in the Lord and he can block more tackles better than I ever could alone.
            - So for anyone that reads this and thinks that they are stuck in one spot just think of where you could be or what could have happened and you'll realize that you are right where you are supposed to be at this time. I'm trying to take that advice myself lol.


                  Well until next time, and hopefully it won't be this long before another next time lol.....


                          Be Happy and Joyful and Realize that you are NEVER alone!! :-) 

Childlike Positivity

This is just a quick blog I wanted to post. It was mainly to put my thoughts of myself down on "paper" lol and then I can see it in words.
But anyway, I like to think that I have the forgiving heart and mind of a young child. I have been hurt real bad by some people, men and women; family and friends. I have been hurt beyond measure in some aspects even. But at the end of the day. I'd still give the next person another chance.
Now don't get me wrong, I know what to avoid and to see when people are taking advantage of me and I can avoid those people.
It is said that God gives each of us talents and that we should use them. Well i feel that a talent that He gave me was the spirit of caring.
I just do for people because I can and want to. Alot of the time people say "i always help people but when I need help noone is there for me"
I don't think like that. If I do for you and then when I need you and you're not there for me, that's not gonna make me stop helping you. I don't look for reciprocity when it comes to help, I mean it's always nice if you do reciprocate, but if not then oh well.
I know that that is a very hard attitude for people to try and take in life, and that's why I think that that is a talent of mine. Not many people can think like that, and that's not a bad thing AT ALL.
So I just had to get my thoughts down outta my head. This is just a peek into the radomness that is Jasmine lol.
Well until next time,
Jasmine!!

Being Alone

Well, I'm trying to stay on top of this thing, but I only feel compelled to blog when I discover something. But anyways, this post is dedicated to Alone.
If anyone knows me they know I LOVE to entertain. I love having people over my house and cooking for everyone and having a good time. I'm pretty sure I'm gonna be one of those annoying moms that always wants her kids' friends over or is always having a dinner party with way too much food lol.
On the other hand though, I love my alone time. There are times when I just don't want to be around people and just enjoy my tv and doing nothing. 
Lately, I thought that I was feeling Lonely. There is a difference between being alone and being lonely. You don't choose to be lonely. But anyways, I was starting to feel a little down that I wasn't having anybody over or able to go over to someone's house like I could in Fayetteville. I mean don't get me wrong, I have friends in the area but for some reason that wasn't enough.
After sulking about it for awhile, I started to question myself: Why am I alone right now? What do I want in people that I hang out with? etc. and then I realized: I was actually doing some Self-Reflection. I was looking deep within myself and talking to God about what all I wanted and needed on my life and what I needed to change/keep the same about myself. I then realized that there was no way that I could have had that type of inner meditation/conversation with God if I had had tons of people over and trying to be the worlds largest people person.
I used to hate being alone with my thoughts because I was in a bad place in life and would normally end up crying for hours in hurt rather than realizing positive things about myself.
Now I see that God was making me be alone in order to bring me closer to Him and to begin to see certain things about myself that I like and dislike. Just now when I realize things that I dislike about myself, I am strong enough to accept them and try to change rather than to just get discouraged and cry about them.
So sometimes it's good to be alone because that's one of the best times to reflect and have a genuine conversation with the Man Upstairs.
I'm glad He's brought me to this point in life where He can show me my faults and I can accept them. So the next time that you get down about not having anyone to hangout with on a Saturday or something, think, Could this be God trying to get me to have some down time with myself and Him? Just some food for thought.
Until next time,
Jasmine 

Tears of Joy, Peace, and Love

Well now that I've started blogging, i guess i should do better at keeping up with it lol. But I had a moment last night and I'd like to share it with the world, mainly bc if i keep it in my head i'll go crazy! But first here is a little background to my testimony:
As most of you know I'm diabetic. Yeah, I know, another black overweight female with diabetes (shocker!!). But anyway, I was officially diagnosed about 7yrs ago and I've been halfway doing right the whole time. Well, recently I started to have some negative effects from it. Nerve problems were starting etc.
So since I'm in a new city I decided I'll have a new health start as well. No need in bringing old issues to a new place. So i go to the Doctor's office and i hear the usual "you could lose weight" etc. And then this doctor, a black female who wasn't afraid to tell it like it is, said something that shocked me to my core.
She said, "I really don't know how you're not dead or some sort of handicap by now". I looked at her like this ------> o_O. She said that the way that I had been carrying on and not taking care of myself that I should have been on dialysis, lost a limb or two, had eye problems and God knows what else. I had never heard that before. I mean of course I knew the risks etc associated with Diabetes but to have someone actually tell me that I should be dead was mind blowing.
Her statement made me realize that I am truly blessed and never had a clear understanding of God and His works. I mean if you knew me in my early high school years, or throughout college for that matter lol, you know that I've done some things that can be considered unforgivable, evil, wrong, immoral etc. But for some reason He has allowed me to live thru it all.
For a long time I really thought that God didn't love me for all that I had done. I would cry bc I felt I didn't have any worth whatsoever. But now looking over it I realize that all He's ever done is love me. Why else would he allow me to not only live day to day, but to live without any of the health problems that I really deserved to have? I mean you see people all the time that have lost feet, hands to complications from diabetes and for some reason God allowed me to be spared from that.
With all this new info I decided to really make a life change. Now don't get me wrong, I think I'm one of the sexiest things walking lol, but now my goal is to be even sexier. I'm trying to lose at least 20lbs by September. And I want to do it the healthy way.
By looking after all I've been all I can do is cry. But these are no longer tears of sadness and pain, but rather tears of Joy and love and gratitude in knowing that God is there for me thru any and everything.
There is a reason that this blog is titled "Realizing I Can" because I realize that I CAN have a relationship with God, I can be open to Him, I can be assured that He loves me no matter what I do, and I can be a woman of worth in His eyes.
Please don't be like me and doubt His love for you. Because when you think about it, you should have been dead or hurt probably a million times over. This new sense of life I have is something I thought I'd never have and now I want to share it with everyone and hope that noone else has those bad feelings that I used to.
So I'm gonna get back to work so that I can stop crying(I teared up the whole time I was writing this).
Until next time... Be Blessed and Drink Diet Coke lol.
        Jasmine!!

1st Blog/Testimony

Well after talking to one of the most important women in my life MY MOM. I decided to blog to reach out and share my testimonies with the world. A lot of good has happened to me lately that the world said never would.
After graduating ,which ppl said I would never do, I hit a rut where I couldn't get a job or accepted to grad school. I got really depressed and thought that maybe people were right and that I should have just given up and went back to Conway and worked a regular job. But I prayed about it and asked God to direct me to what He wants for me and NOT wht I want Him to want for me(there is a difference bt thts a later post lol).  
After a few dead end interviews I got an interview for a Land o'Lakes (the butter people) in Blytheville,AR. I got the job and was too excited!! Finally after everything someone wanted to take a chance on me. I started gettin ready to leave NWA and move to NEA. But then things took a turn for the worst and the company started to act funny and shady and it started to scare me. Am I making the right decision? Do I really want to live in a town smaller than Conway? If you know me you know I tend to overthink things and this was a major decision.
So while I was thinking and praying for guidance, I got a call for an interview for a job in Memphis. I had already spoken to them once before and had written them off bc they never got back to me. Well I took a leap of faith and went for the interview and I LOVED the place!! And better yet they made me an offer for the same amount as Land O'Lakes and I'd live in Memphis.
So I went ahead and turned down L O'L and began moving to Memphis. And it has been one of the BEST decisions I've ever made!! I love the people I work with, the actual work I do, and I love that I'm in a bigger city and have more to do and go see. Plus I'm closer to my family and friends in this area.
I guess my real testimony is that when I finally decided to step out on faith, everything came together almost effortlessly. We don't need to worry once we put it in His hands and I guess He had to teach me a lesson lol. But all in all Im glad I'm here and can't wait to continue telling all of His goodness (and my own thoughts lol) on here. 
Until then....... All Smiles right now.