You know how sometimes you just can’t. We just can’t do anything right. We miss appointments. We miss communication. We forget to do something. Maybe it is because recent our life has been upside down and turned around. Maybe we have over committed. Maybe things have changed completely and totally out of our control. Either way at some point, I think most of us can relate to this on some level. 


If and/or when it happens in my life, I find it is really easy for me as woman to slip into the mindset of disappointment. It can make us feel like we are not enough, like we will never be enough. Like we have somehow failed and all of a sudden all of our accomplishments, all of our truth, all of how God sees us goes right out the window.


Why do we do that to ourselves? Why do we so easily let the enemy come in with lies and make room for them while we lock our God given truths of who we are away? And we begin to allow our losses, our pain, our struggles to dictate where we are, how we act, and what we do. It seems that God is far and out of reach. 


1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 says,
"Rejoice Always
Pray Continually
Give Thanks In All Circumstances"


At our church for the last year or so we have been very intentional about one thing.
Everything is done in proximity. Abiding. Presence. Abiding in and with the Father, Jesus and Holy Spirit.


You see everything good in the Kingdom comes from proximity. It comes from being close to the Father. Not from good works, not even god-works (Matthew 7:21-23). It comes from nearness to the God who adopted us when we received Him. The more we are with the Father, the more fully we know we are the daughter, His daughter. We are not slaves; we are children. Let that sink in…


We are His daughters. He is our Father. We have been completely and totally adopted into His family when we accept Jesus.


But those who embrace Him and took hold of His name He gave authority to become the children of God!- John 1:12(TPT)




I love the phrasing here. Can we sit on that for a moment…


…those who embrace Him…took hold of His name…




Embrace can only happen within proximity. We can only embrace someone if we are close to them. Close enough to hold. How often am I that close to God?


So close that I can hear His heart beat. So close that I begin to look like Him.


(Have you ever seen those photos when people look like their pets?LOL) 


I want to look more and more like my Daddy. The one who breathed out the stars. The one who created me in wonder. Who knows every strand on my head. So I have to get close. I have to lean in. I have be so full of God, so close that it leaves no room for the lies of the enemy. 


I am blessed and surrounded by amazing women in my church and my tribe. Women who speak their relationship with the Father not with their words, but by their actions. I am surrounded by women that I get to witness come closer and closer to the Father with every passing day. 


I have a tribe of women around me that regardless of what is going on in their lives they are actively pursuing the Father. They have tasted what it is to be a daughter of the King and they are shaking off the lies and titles that they have had placed on their lives by themselves and others around them. 


These amazing women are not afraid to shed the I am “highly blessed and favored” in the public and just be real. Just be open and honest about where they are in that moment. 


These woman have had hurts, been hurt, done the hurting, and with everyday they release more of that hurt and loss and receive more of the Father’s truth about who they are. These women are real with where they are at. They do not fear it. They do not dwell in it. Instead they walk it to the cross and lay it down. 


We will never be able to receive what God has for us if we are not first willing to lay down our hurts, our losses, our struggles, and open our arms to our Good Good Father. 


Embrace Him. He WILL embrace you! And I will promise you that it will be better than you could ever imagine. 


In Matthew 7:11 it says, 
"If you, imperfect as you are, know how to lovingly take care of your children and give them what’s best, how much more ready is your heavenly Father to give wonderful gifts to those who ask him?”


I was amazingly blessed growing up with a step-father who loved me as his own. He was and is an incredible role-model who gave and showed me love and still does to this day everyday. He raised me in such a way that Matthew 7:11 is not hard for me to believe, but instead quite easy. I can trust that Jesus meant what He said. That Father God is a Good loving Father.


I understand that not everyone has had that same childhood… but sis… please take that chance… 


Give Father a chance to right the wrongs and breathe life and love into your world. To restore what the enemy has taken. 


Embrace Him and let Him embrace you. 


Who told you ‘you were not enough’? 
The Father says “YOU, you daughter have always been enough for Me.”


He just wants us. He just wants you.


Beautiful daughter, give Him a chance. It may not be what you think it should or look how you think it would, but give it to Him and He WILL make something good for you. Come close. Draw near. Abide. Embrace.


Love you!


Alexandria
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Have you ever felt stuck? Not really sure where you are going or what you are supposed to be doing? Maybe, you have a vision of the end point or have a particular goal in mind. I did. I had been given the vision. This incredibly, scary, intimidating, only God-capable, impossible on my own vision. 


I see this incredible end point that is so strong and real it is almost tangible. At any given moment I could reach out and grab it. It is both exciting and terrifying at the same time. Anytime I think about it, there is an energy and excitement deep in my spirit like I have never felt before. When I think about it, everything in me says YES! This is it! This is what I was made for! 


And at the same time with every passing month, year, season it is almost as if my shoulders slouch farther and farther toward the ground as if carrying a heavy weight. The weight of this dream seeming harder and harder and further and further to reach. Instead of me coming closer to the goal, the goal is moving father and farther away from where I am. “I cannot do this, what am I thinking.” “There is no way.” “Some dreams aren’t meant to come true.” “Who do you think you are?”


And it was with that last lie of the enemy that I snap out of all of it. 


I know who I am. I am who I AM says that I am. 
I am treasured. 
I am His vessel. 


I am His child.


I had a pretty spectacular role model when it comes to displaying the love of the Father. I always knew in my knower that I was loved unconditionally by my father. I think that is one of the reasons why I am able to believe scripture so easily when it says,


If you, imperfect as you are, know how to lovingly take care of your children and give them what’s best, how much more ready is your heavenly Father to give wonderful gifts to those who ask Him?”
                                    Matthew 7:11[TPT]


I know my Father’s heart. I know He is waiting for me to succeed not to fail. I know that if the vision, dream, goal, achievement that I am seeing or looking for was given by Him, He will make a way, and I absolutely have a part to play in making that a reality. 


Ok. Now we have come full circle. Let’s catch up. I (we) have a goal, dream, vision (fill in your blank here). We doubt and listen to the enemies lies. We snap back out of it, realizing that NOTHING is impossible for God and when we ask in His will He does not hold back.


But How?


I think that we as women are really good at talking our way around things sometimes. “I can’t do that now because I have to much to do already.” “I will work on this when things slow down.” “I will start when I find THE one.” “I will get active about this when the kids are in school.” “No, when they're out of school and living on their own.”…


Have you ever been guilty of procrastination? I have. 


I have these really wonderful ladies in my life, let’s call them God-Mother, they mentor me and speak to any and every part of my life in a very real way. Recently I was asked about my dream, my plans for the future and what it looked like, sounded like and felt like.
After digging for a very short while we came to realize that even though this plan was believed to be so tangible, I really had no idea what it was… or even how to figure it out.


And then…


The flood-gates opened. 


Ever hear that saying “If your aiming for nowhere, nowhere is where you will end up.”?

Well I’m not going nowhere any more.


Want to know how I got unstuck? Want to know if it will help you? (Yes, it can and will)


I asked questions. First, I asked those kind-hearted, truth spewing God-Mothers of mine. 
I am both embarrassed and thankful for my first question, you ready for it?


“What are the questions I should be asking?”


I think I shocked one of my Mothers when I asked that question. It was honest though. I didn’t even have a starting point. I felt overwhelmed and somehow just expected that one day God would drop this crazy dream into a reality and it would simply be placed in my lap, no work necessary on my part to receive it. Ok. Ok. I knew that that was not a reality, and still that is how I treated this incredible dream.


As humans we have been trained for so long to show, or speak what we know out of pride that I believe some of us (many of us) have lost the art of the question. We get so caught up in making sure that people know that we are smart and sensitive and kind and strong that it becomes so easy for us to lose sight of what really matters. I have some loving ladies in my tribe though and we have begun helping each other to re-train our minds to dig deeper with questions.


So that’s where I started… 


We came up with a list of questions that I would later go home with and sit down with Holy Spirit and do some frame work and vision casting.


I sat down, ready with paper and pen and prayed and read and asked God to open my eyes and ears and heart to what He was trying to speak to me. As I imagined I wrote everything down. And IT WAS AMAZING! He actually showed up!


My paper started like this…


Write down what you see?




Who’s the audience?




What would a typical day look like?




What would the audience output be?




What is one active step I can take right now?


My paper ended covered in notes. All because of those starter questions. Some of those questions are a little more pointed toward my dream, but they helped me to find a new starting point. Before I was stuck. Paralyzed by what I expected to happen. I keep hearing in my head the phrase from Big Hero 6, “Look for a new angle.” In the movie the young heroes are literally stuck, about to lose and someone yells out “Look for a new angle!” and their mindsets change. They are able to pause for a moment, ask a question of themselves, and shift their thinking and get out of their trouble and later defeat the villain. 


Sometimes all we need is a new perspective. If you're stuck this morning, in any area of your life, I would just like to invite you to sit with your Father God, who always wants to give you good gifts and ask Him questions. AND, expect answers. Did you know that He actually wants to talk to you? That’s why He sent His Son after all. 


Maybe you have a dream that is not quite reachable on your own. Or maybe you have no idea and you are stuck thinking this is as good as it gets. 


Sit down. Ask Father God “What do You see for me?”


It doesn’t matter what you ask. There are no wrong questions when you talk with the one who loves you most. He is not looking for you to have all the answers. He is just looking for you to come. He is looking for you to just ask. He wants to talk with you today.


Love you sis,


Alexandria

As we get into the car exhausted from a long day with family and kids, I look at my husband and sigh. I remembered I still had a blog to write tonight… 


As we drive home he asks about the topic, I laugh and say, “Rest.” 


His response simply, a giggle and the hushed words, “That’s ironic.” 


I laugh as I write this because, rest, to anyone looking at my life from the outside, would seem like a foreign word. In this crazy chaotic time of life there is no time for rest. As a matter of fact it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that previous to this last week, rest was NO WHERE on my radar!


This morning as I was pondering what I would be writing about I thought, ‘Rest, oh a nap would be so good right now.’ Now naps, naps are good and sometimes we even need to refresh our physical bodies and we can do that through naps but, a nap was not what I needed. 


The rest that I needed was a rest from the expectations. I needed a rest from the to-dos of the day, week, month, year. I needed to let my guard down and just be. I needed to lay down what had to be done to do what needed to be done. Luckily, I know just how to do that. Or rather, I know just where to get it. 


In Psalms 23:5-6 [MSG emphasis added] it says,
 You serve me a six-course dinner right in front of my enemies. You revive my drooping head; my cup brims with blessing. Your beauty and love chase after me every day of my life. I’m back home in the house of God for the rest of my life.


That was it! All I had to do was come to the table. All I had to do was sit with my Father and I was at rest. 


I went to the table. I took the time in the middle of my business and sat at His table… My table… the one God specially made for me and in that moment God revived me. I found rest in Him. I found my peace in Him. There was no more striving or accomplishing. Exhaustion was a thing of the past. Stress seemed as though it just melted away. I seemed as if I was wrapped in the Father’s arms.


 All of my chaos didn’t disappear, but it took a backseat. I still had a list of to-dos. I still had obligations and commitments, but those mountains that I was facing just a moment ago,  that were exhausting just thinking about, no longer looked unattainable or impossible.


I was refreshed. I was renewed. I was rested.


When we take the time to spend with the Lord we realign our thoughts with His and He is so good to remind us that nothing is impossible with Him. No matter how big or small, nothing is to much. He reminds us that He is ours and we are His and that Father God really wants to be with us  every step of the way in every moment of our lives. 


It is not a long list of steps to find your rest in the season that you are in. We don’t have to follow steps A-Z until we attain total rest. Instead, the Father made is so that  we always have an open invitation to go to the Lord’s table and find rest, always. He never leaves us hanging. We don’t need a reservation for this meal. We simply show up. 


Sometimes there are seasons of rest in our lives where we can spend those long periods of time in the day where you just soak in the Lord and sit and read His word or worship for hours on end everyday. (That is not the season that I am in. LOL) And for some of us our seasons of rest in the Lord are those quiet couple of moments you get to have with the Lord in the morning before the rest of your family is up or you have to get to work. Sometimes it’s in the quiet moments of the night. Maybe, just maybe it is in those special moments where you are around family and friends, and maybe sometimes it is when we are on a lonely drive. 


Either way, regardless of your season of life the Father always welcomes us to come to Him and find our rest. I invite you into that moment with the Father right now. Right where you are at.
Whether you are at work or home, alone or in a crowed room, there is no place the Father won’t want to meet you. (Insert awkward shower or bathroom moments here. You know who you are (-; ) It only takes a moment. Let Him refresh and revive you and give you rest. 


Love YOU!


Alex

Being a leader? What does that even mean?


Over the last year or so I believe God has been shifting and growing my perspective of leadership. Leadership not only in ministry and in the work place, but also, leadership within my own home. 


You see for a very long time I thought that there were two different types of leaders. Leaders who were out front taking charge, you know the ones. The ones who always seem to have all the information and all the answers and direction. And then there were the more background style leaders. The leaders who make sure that no one gets left behind. This leader was perfectly described in a meme that went around a few years back that showed the formation of wolves and that the older and baby wolves were up front and set the pace and then the protectors and so on and so forth and then at the end of the pack were the Alpha leaders making sure everyone was protected and no one was left behind. 


Those two styles were how I viewed good leaders. One was not better than the other, it was just that they each had their own redeeming qualities, if you will. 


I read a statement recently that said, “Great leaders lead from the inside out.” And it challenged my view of leadership.


I feel like I hear the statement, "You can’t lead on empty," so much that it has almost become cliché. I hear it and I automatically agree with it, but in my mind I just go, "Yeah yeah I’m good though. No problems here. All is good in this neighborhood. (Insert winky face and two thumbs up.)" When, in reality, I’m just simply keeping everything from crumbling down. 
Sometimes I don’t even realize it. I’m too close to see the damage that I have done as a leader due to me leaking my junk on those around me. 


Faith does not deny a problem's existence, faith denies the problem a place of influence.


You see, being a leader has nothing to do with having our ducks all in a row or having the right answers and directions all the time. That is just unrealistic. 


Even Jesus did not have all the answers to the demands of the people himself and he was fully God and fully man. He said in John 5:19 “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself. He only does what he sees the Father doing. Whatever the Father does, the Son also does."


Jesus only took his cues from God.


When we look at Jesus, even most non-christians can agree that Jesus had some definite leadership qualities. Jesus led all kinds of people and he led well. 
All throughout the gospels we see people following Jesus, even when he was trying to withdraw to his core group of people. I don’t know how many times I have read the phrase "they withdrew by themselves to a town… but the crowds learned and followed…" or something along those lines. 


And still Jesus waited for his cues from the Father.
Even Jesus was not controlled by the demand of the people only by response to the Father.


Jesus knew the importance of not “leading on empty” better than anyone in the world. But what was it about Jesus that drew people in? That made him a Great leader in every season of his life? (Other than the obvious answer of Him being the Son of God…)


The Lord has been showing me that becoming a great leader is not linked to an experience or calling, rather it’s linked to the overflow we create around us. It’s linked to what we are leaking.


We leak on those we come into contact with… Good or bad.


We have to live a life filled with the Spirit of God in order to lead others into having that experience with the Father. A true right relationship with God.


It is not enough to lead having only had the corporate experience with God. We must first have that closed room, personal time with Jesus and Holy Spirit to effectively lead people in His presence whether we are at work, church, home or the grocery store. 


In order to lead well, to lead the way that Jesus did doing only what the Father said, we must be first willing to sit with Jesus. We must be willing to surrender. We must be wiling to give our time to hear and see and know what God is wanting to do. We must surrender our embarrassment when it comes to the who, what, when, where, and why of what God is telling us to do.


When the crowds came to Jesus he did not say, "Ok give me a second I need to pray a long prayer to see what the Father wants to do."
No. Jesus was prayed up long before the crowds ever arrived. He had already invited the Father into His day to day activities. He had spent the time sitting with the Father. And what the crowds were experiencing was simply the overflow of that time with the Father.


Have you ever being in a place where someone walks into the room and all of a sudden everything feels very exhausting, sad, or even angry?  Or, or maybe the opposite, someone walks into the room and it feels like the party is just beginning? We call those people thermostats. They can change  the “temperature” of the room. Whatever mood that person walks into the room with they leak on the other people in the room thus changing the mood of those in the room. 


When we consistently are spending our time sitting with Jesus he begins to leak on us and we in turn get to leak on those around us. It’s in the overflow. That’s how Jesus led. That is what we should be aiming for in every area of our lives. Leading from the overflow.


We are all called to lead one way or another. Some in our work places and some in our homes. Regardless where we lead, how we lead is going to determine who we lead.  So let’s lead well. Let’s strive to mirror the One who gave us everything, 


My pastor (John Poundstone) has a saying that goes like this,
“Transformed minds transform people. Transformed people transform families and groups. 
Transformed families and groups transform cities and transformed cities transform nations.”


Leading from the overflow.


Let’s be women who shake up our understanding of leadership and follow Father God’s leading first and always. 


Love you ladies,
Daughter of the King!

WRITTEN BY: ALEXANDRIA BROWN

For more from Alexandria, visit her website at www.alexandriabrown.org.
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Head over to the Community and join the conversation!

Head over to the Community and join the conversation!

In the Bible there is this thing called the Law of interpretation or expositional constancy, it states that when you use a figure as something that figure is always that specific something. For Example; If a seed represents the word of God in one parable it always represents the word of God. 

You still there? Hang with me…

When Jesus explains the Parable of the Weeds He give us the interpretation of “the field” being the “world.”
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Have you ever tried to plan something, anything, and had to keep changing different things? I’m not talking about the little things like who is sitting where or who is doing what. I’m talking about how life was supposed to look. How your marriage was suppose to be. How you would raise your little (or big family)? And instead of it looking how you picture it, life throws curve balls and the very people or things you were counting on have shifted their stance making your life one crazy hectic rollercoaster that you don’t know how to get off of shifting your life from the good to the bad and ugly…

Life is funny like that sometimes. People are funny. Even our own selves are the culprits sometimes. If only we lived in a world were everyone was perfect one hundred percent of the time doing one hundred percent of what we should. HA! Right. But, then again, how boring would that be. Making mistakes is one of the greatest gifts that we have in this life. Stay with me here… Ok so maybe not the mistake itself, but the gift of reconciliation through and in love that we get when we finally choose to clean up our mess whatever that may look like. That, that is a gift that only a messy life being cleaned up can give.

I have gone through some tough times in my life. Some when I was young, some in my marriage, some in my walk with Jesus, and some from me just plain being stupid. There where times in my life when I wonder what in the world is going on? Why has this happened? Will I survive? How can anyone make it through this? What was I thinking? There were times when I cried. Times when I hurt. Times when I laughed and loved and times when I have never felt so alone. There are times that I would not ever wish on my worst enemy, but even if you offered me all the money in the world I would not trade a single one of the bad times.

I hear ya… “Yeah right Alexandria, everyone has a price.” But the truth is, if you took away even one part of my past or present experiences, I wouldn’t be me. Because it is in the dark places that I found the brightest light. It is when there was no plan B that I was made aware just how much my God loves me. And until you have been to that darkest of places, that LOVE that we just love to talk about is only an idea, a notion that is fleeting and there when we need to comfort someone, or ourselves, with the right words or things. It’s the idea of love that we have, not the undeniable belief and understanding of love that only comes through really experiencing it.

The Bible in numerous places talks about hearts being hardened, and because their hearts were hardened they didn't understand. I believe that those dark moments that we go through in our life can soften our hearts and teach us Love. Real Love. Agape Love. Not because we are standing in the dark, dark in itself does not, cannot teach, but it is the darkness that makes us more aware of the littlest light. We were not created as children of the dark, but children of the light. We crave it, need it even. When we come to that place where we lack light in our life it is up to us to open our eyes and seek it out. We are not going to be perfect. We will stumble, but we must not give up. We must not quit. Keep going. Keep moving. Only then will we receive understanding of that Love that most people talk about. And only when we have experienced that Love can we share it.

You see, when we are walking through our “stuff” God promises that He will never leave us or forsake us that He will be our light. In Romans 8 it talks about nothing in all of creation being as strong as God’s perfect Love for me. I take that to mean literally whatever I come up against in my life, my God’s love for me will get me through it. Just a few verses up it says in verse 28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him… I only need to remain in His love for me (John 15:9). In Psalms 139 it says that He knew all of my days before I had one. My life both good and bad has never been a surprise to God. He is not afraid of my mess. Isaiah 30:19-21 says, How gracious He will be when you cry for help! As soon as he hears, He will answer you….Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you saying, “This is the way; walk in it.” He knows all my good, bad and ugly and still He says ‘Don’t worry, My Love for you is stronger. Just come to Me and I will be there.’ (Alexandria paraphrase version LOL.)

​But we have a part to play. Are you ready for it? We have to call. We have to cry for His help, when we do He WILL come. “As soon as He hears.” So my challenge to us is this, call on Him. In the good, the bad and the ugly and watch what He does in your life. It isn’t always easy, but it is simple. Call on Him. Ask Him to show you what He is doing. Ask Him for help and direction and wait expectantly for what He says knowing that His love is enough.