Introductions are

Hi there,

I’m terrible at giving introductions…so I’ll keep it simple.

I’m here to share how God has been working in my life. That includes the blessings, the lessons, and everything in between. This isn’t an overly religious blog, I’m just taking baby steps in my journey with Him. We all have a deep connection that needs to be nurtured and uncomplicated.

This blog is my inspiration and reminder to keep things simple as I seek a better relationship with God. I hope it will do the same for you 🧡

What you’ll find here are reflections, bible studies, and goals. 

That’s my spiel, I hope you’ll check in each Wednesday with me. I’ll be creating a space of honest reflection. As a child of God who’s trying to grow into the best version of herself, I promote progress. It’s easy to forget how much you’ve changed when life’s distractions ambush you.

Adulting is hard, period.

I can tell you that when you’re spiritually grounded and aware, you’ll start to notice the many ways the enemy will try to derail you. Last week, was literally adulting on steroids. I'd never been spiritually tested so rigorously in my life. The enemy tried to attack me five times in the span of 24 hours, and it started Tuesday night, on November 28th.

I was lying in bed, heart heavy and obsessing over our finances. I was negative 638 dollars, didn’t know how we were going to come up with rent for this month, and embarrassed that I’d exhausted all my options (including my notoriously unreliable father) to bring my account out of the red.

For context purposes, I'm an overnight customer success rep and work was extremely slow that particular shift. In between calls, I was chatting with Mom about our relationships and we delved into what it looked like to be wifely biblically. It’s a constant battle wrapping my head around submission and understanding my role as a wife in my marriage. My upbringing by a single mother manifested into hyper-independence, which sometimes showed up negatively in my relationship.

My mother’s advice was to read Proverbs 31.

It was a wholesome conversation and I ended our call feeling optimistic, reflective, and thankful. After I got off the phone with her, I started talking with God. We talked about my plans for this blog and I reflected on how my spirit gravitated towards this purpose. Then I got the call. An inebriated man wanted to report a homeless woman who had supposedly harassed him all week.

As he ranted, he became more vulgar and started swearing. I politely asked him to refrain from using that type of language and he proceeded to tell me that in the Bible, it said we could use profanities and call people what we want. God told him he could do it and that I needed to let him finish speaking. The caller became increasingly belligerent and upon requesting him to clean up his language a second time, he began to hurl his insults towards me, my momma, and whoever else he could think of. 

Of course, I’m not forced to take that kind of disrespect or verbal abuse on the job so I ended that call. As I processed what exactly happened, I would later realize that this was only the second of the many attacks the enemy tried to throw my way that day. He started with my mental health, then my job.

Next in line would be my family.

After my somewhat disorienting shift,  I popped over to my Prayer Closet around 6:30 AM for some much-needed 1-on-1 time with the Father. My daughter woke up around that time too, and joined me. Outside of her exploring and touching all of my sticky notes, we prayed together and went about our morning routine to get her ready for school.

Throughout the day I had a pleasant nap with my baby boy and we cruised around outside for a bit with our puppy, Cloud. Later that afternoon I had another bible study session in my Prayer Closet and this time, it was filled with gentle correction and enlightenment. Colossians 3:3 outlined how Christians are to conduct themselves in the world.

It was an honest reflection of the work I needed to do in areas like swearing, forgiveness, and marriage.

I fully intended to pursue these since God brought them to my attention. It wasn’t until later that evening around 6:00 PM, when I was en route to pick Rin up from daycare, the enemy tried to strike again.

I was chatting with Mom on the road and she’d patched me into a call with my father (unbeknownst to him) so I could listen in. The first thing out of his mouth was, “So what does CeCe really need the four hundred for? There’s no way AJ didn’t get his first check by now and I don’t know what she’s hiding, but you can’t tell me they haven’t sent his money in yet.”

My husband picked up seasonal work and he didn’t receive his first check in the mail. It was an entire mess that ended up putting us in a bit of a financial bind, so I’d reached out to my dad to see if he would be able to spot us some money to cover bills. Keep in mind, this was Wednesday and I told him I would pay him back Friday.

My mom interceded for me, “That girl rarely asks for money even when she really needs it. I have access to her accounts, I can see when she’s struggling.”

Which was true. I never asked for money unless I absolutely had to.

She went on to say, “She said she would pay you back Friday right?”

“Nope, nope,” my dad interjected. “You’ll never get your money back from her. I don’t believe anything CeCe says when it comes to paying me back.” 

My jaw dropped. 

“What do you mean?” my mom asked. “She always pays people back.”

“Well, she never pays me back. I’ve never gotten a dime back from CeCe.”

I felt extremely angry at first and even messaged my mom on the side like:

Where did he get me not paying him back?! All the money he’s given me I thought were gifts smh he never specified he wanted it paid back.

I couldn’t believe he’d paint me out to be flaky like that. I was a person of my word, so the fact that my father had this perception of me was hurtful. The attack on my character stung, but as the tears rolled down my face I realized that this view of me was not me. The devil was a liar. In all senses of the phrase. This was his third attempt at knocking me down.

I don’t know who needs to hear this, but people’s perception of you does not matter.

What matters is your heart, which only God truly knows. Just like God uses people to reach you so will the enemy, and he definitely tried through my dad. After that emotionally triggering call, I picked up my little one and we were on our way home.

Our Wednesday night routine included eating dinner and heading out to Family Night at church. This particular night we were on time for a change and left the house around 6:50 PM. The enemy decided to take it up a notch. When we got onto the elevator, Rin usually pressed the button for us to go down to the first floor.

Today, she decided to press all of the floors and when the elevator opened and closed for the second floor, she pressed the number two again.  A light flashed on resembling a scale and an arrow pointing to the maximum weight limit, the buttons flashed once and the elevator stopped midway down. The door never opened up.

We were stuck in the elevator and I panicked.

“Rin! What did you do?!” was my initial gut reaction, and I started to chastise her. 

Until something in me told me to calm down and breathe. The baby was asleep, I could see Rin's eyes welling with tears, and if I didn’t keep my cool I was going to have two crying kids in an elevator with no way to console them both at the same time. I pressed the emergency button and received a dispatcher who said they would reach out to property management. Which was no help to me at the moment because I knew property management was currently behind the building hosting the fall festival and the office was closed. The situation looked grim.

Help was so close, but still out of reach.

Or so I thought, I realized we weren't alone. Jesus was with me and my kiddos. Every time I got on that elevator, my phone dropped the signal and I couldn’t contact anyone until I got off. Yet, for some reason I was compelled to try and call my friend, who also lived in the same complex, to see if she could run over to the event and grab someone from maintenance. It rang.

He was the only reason I had service, He made a way.

When my friend arrived with maintenance, we found out I was stuck between floors and they were unable to get the door open. He told me to try pressing the emergency button again to see how long it would be before the elevator company’s tech arrived. The dispatcher told me two hours. Two hours.

It was here that I realized the enemy didn’t want me to hear the message God was trying to send. I was even more determined to make it to church, no matter how late I would be. In between my revelation, comforting my daughter, and praying the baby didn’t wake, we were able to get in contact with the fire department. My heart began to race as they started to pry the door open.

All I could think was: please don’t let this elevator fall down the shaft. I was terrified but hopeful because I knew God was with me in that space. He was our protector.

When the fire department got us out, it was around 7:45 PM. Church started at 7:00 PM 🙃 I almost turned around to go back upstairs. However, I decided to go and I'm so glad I did.

Pastor talked about the power of telling your story and sharing your testimony.

Everyone was tucked tightly into a room because the children’s ministry had their Christmas play rehearsal. The setting created a different atmosphere of intimacy I never felt before. When it was time to make prayer requests, I felt encouraged to speak up. 

I asked for two things:

1. If they could pray for my husband's grandmother who was in the hospital recovering from a heart attack and three strokes.

2. If they could pray for protection over my family because I felt that we were being spiritually attacked.

After I asked for protection over my family, another member raised her hand and said she would like to pray for all families because times are hard right now. I’m not gonna lie, I initially felt she “all lives mattered” my prayer request...until I received confirmation from another church member the next day.

After Family Night, my kiddies and I went home to what I thought was going to finally be a peaceful evening. I’d completely forgotten it was the 29th and that my baby just turned two months old. I didn’t even get his milestones photos because the day was so hectic, but I digress. My husband made it home from work and we ate dinner, got Rin ready for bed, then put the baby down for the evening.

The house was quiet as I milled around doing some light cleaning. It was about 11:30 PM and the baby woke up crying (he absolutely hated his bassinet and struggled with gassiness) and I knew I only had a short amount of time before he got riled up. It was his feeding window, so I went into the kitchen to warm up some breast milk. I was only in there for about a minute or two tops. When I came back into the room, I heard the sound of choking and gurgling cries.

When I looked into the bassinet, the baby was covered in vomit and his entire body was convulsing.

I immediately picked him up and turned him onto his side, yelling for my husband as I ran out into the living room. My heart was pounding, tears streaming down my face, all I could think about was around the same time last year, Rin had a seizure as well. It was scary for her at two years old, so imagine my baby being only two months. He was too small to have a seizure. I started counting how long his little body seized and it lasted about 10 to 13 seconds. 

This almost broke me. I was triggered, but instead of breaking I jumped into action while my husband got the baby into the car seat. We decided to have him stay at home with Rin since she was sound asleep and we didn't want to wake her. I prayed hard on my way to the emergency room. It was around midnight when we arrived at the ER.

They examined him and asked me to recount the incident. One of the intake nurses (who used to work in the NICU unit) told me that more than likely he choked on his milk. She explained since he was lying flat on his back in the bassinet, when he spit up he began to choke and couldn’t clear his airway, causing him to have spasms and go into shock. 

She told me it was pretty common with newborns and that the doctor was able to rule out a seizure. They also didn’t think it was too serious because he hadn't been choking long enough to turn blue at the lips. I didn’t leave the hospital until around 2:30 AM. 

This was the fifth time the enemy tried to break my faith.

He tried with my mind, my job, my father, my fear of elevators, and now he’d attempted to use my baby. For every positive I had that day the enemy tried to cancel it out with an attack, but I came to God and He pulled me through.

The moment you dedicate your life and take actionable steps towards seeking God, you become target number one 🎯

My prayer for you is that this blog will guide you to Him, lighting your path out of whatever darkness may be trying to steal your joy. Nothing is too hard for our Father to overcome.

“What is impossible with man is possible with God.” Luke 18:27 (NIV)