Author: Just Leah

My man Jesus!

/ Just Leah / Leave a comment
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Pastor Ray spoke about the three wise men at church Sunday. He talked about how long the wise men traveled to meet Jesus. It took them approximately two years, give or take, to reach him. When they met him for the first time, they worshiped him and gave him gifts because they knew he was their savior. My journey to Jesus took a bit longer than that, okay a lot longer but the result is unconditional love. So much love, that all I want to do is share it with somebody else. And this past Sunday.. God blessed me with that opportunity.

About three years ago, my friend Erica took me by my hand and walked with me through the doors of my new Church home. The moment I stepped foot into that Church it changed my life. Never in a million years did I ever think I would find myself siting in a pew on Sunday mornings. The more I went the stronger my cravings for the Lord became. I wanted to learn about Jesus and what his life was about. Don’t get me wrong, I went to church as a little girl, and I heard all the bible stories. Jesus was no stranger to me but truly believing in him was where I fell short.

So, here I am.. a total noob at this praising God thing and the desire to worship him just became stronger but the fear to show it overcame me. People all over the church would reach for the heavens, you could hear them all singing their hearts out and then there was this crazy lady that would stand up on the chair just so it would put her that much closer to reaching the Lord. (That’s a story in itself) Eventually I mustarded up the courage to tap my hand on the side of my leg and every now & then I would do the side to side swaying. There was no way anyone would catch my hands up in the air.

Now fast forward to present day, not only do I throw my hands up in the air, now I’ve gotten the courage to pray for people… in front of them… out loud. Praying has been my biggest hurdle. Lord knows I can talk a person to death but praying for them…. my brain flat lines. This anticipation builds up, I start thinking of cool stuff to say and my mouth opens… then nothing… just nothing! It’s so dumb! Why is it so hard to do?! Well, God chimed in and he said, “Just let me talk.” And he reminded me that I must keep walking forward with my prayer life so I can get closer to Jesus.

The past few Sundays at church during alter call I would stand up front if anyone needed prayer. The very first time I stood up there, my heart started pounding and I said, “Lord, please send me somebody easy.” I just wanted to pray for someone’s hurt toe or something like that! The more I got up for alter call the easier it got, but I would still ask God, “please just send me something easy.” This past Sunday, alter call came and up I went. This time I didn’t ask God for anyone easy. The spirit was all over me and I was ready to save the world. “Okay God, give it to me. I’m ready to do this!” Here came this lady, she grabbed me by the hand, and as I pulled her closer to me, I said, “How can I pray for you?” She started balling and buried her head into my shoulder. All I could do was wrap my arms around here and on the inside, I was freaking out! “What do I do Lord?!?! What do I say!!!!” I just opened my mouth and started talking, no clue what I said but after about 30 seconds my brain flat lined. She’s balling and I just kept hugging her! She needed to be loved on and that’s exactly why God sent her to me because he knew I would love her. God poured his blessings over both of us and I felt every bit of it. Even though I didn’t really say anything to her, I knew she could feel God’s arm wrapping around her and I was so blessed he picked me to witness it.

Prayer is what I feared the most, but it just takes practice. The more you stay faithful to your prayer life, the better it gets and I’m starting to see that now. Love wasn’t something I got a whole lot of and showing it to other people has always been a struggle. Now, I have no choice but to show people love because God keeps filling me up with it! It must go somewhere right?! My journey to Jesus is still a working progress but as my best good friend says all the time, “I’m not where I need to be but I’m sure not where I use to be.”

God is so good y’all! Open your heart and watch him work.

I am a warrior

/ Just Leah / 1 Comment

About eight years ago, I was challenged to take a photo of myself every day for the month of November. To be honest, I didn’t want to do it, but because it was a challenge I just did it anyways. On the very last day, it was cold & rainy, I had no idea what to do so I just set up my tripod put my camera on self-timer & there you go. It wasn’t until a few days ago that I realized that this photo is a perfect reflection on how I’ve been living for a long time. It was dark, cold & I had no identity. I wasn’t allowed to have one…

My fears were preyed upon and used against me in a way that made me numb to reality. My very first blog I ever wrote spoke a lot about living a in a bubble of denial. Denial was my happy place.. it was the only place I felt safe from the boogey man. God laid on me to write and now I understand why, because the more I wrote about myself the more I learned about myself. When you start to realize that you truly are a good person, the enemy will press harder into you and he did… My heart truly believes that God led me to blogging because I needed you all to help me. If my fears, thoughts & feelings were put on blast then the enemy couldn’t use them against me anymore. By writing, I was setting myself free and God was working his way into my soul.

1 John 4:18 says, “There is no fear in love.” Fear loved me and I loved him. Now, after all these years I realize… that wasn’t love. Nothing about it was.. This photo was also taken during the selfie challenge eight years ago. Again, my camera was on a tripod and the self-timer was on. The light was in my hand and I just let the camera do all the work. The title for that photo was the darkness was overcoming me. If my eyes were open to the truth back then my story today would be different. When I look at this picture now, I see God’s light reflecting away the darkness.

We must surrender to God’s will and not lean on our own understanding. For so many years, the little voices in my head kept telling me I was a nobody. No one loves you… you’re fat.. you’re not very pretty.. everyone thinks you’re stupid. When I started writing, those voices started back up again. You are irrelevant, you’re insignificant, you don’t deserve to be loved in a real way, you brought this on yourself, you’re getting everything you deserve, no one is reading your words…. nobody cares about you… So I would post blogs all the time, then I would stop… I would post all the time, then I would stop… because I kept letting those stupid voices get to me.

The only light in my life was the church I attended. If it wasn’t for Pastor Ray feeding me the word, if it wasn’t for my friend Pam that kept holding me up, if it wasn’t for Christy that kept speaking truth into me and if it wasn’t for my friend Erica that held my hand as I walked into church willingly for the first time, fear would have overcame me and I wouldn’t be here to share my testimony. So many people played a role in my salvation but the most important person was God. He placed all these women in my path that just kept loving me and feeding into me.

There is an entire series of blogs & vlogs I plan to release over the next few months and the vagueness I tend to use will all be revealed. God is pressing into me in ways that are taking me out of my comfort zone. Joshua 1:9 says, “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.” So, I’ve made my mind up, I’m giving you my entire heart.. it’s broken, battered and bruised… Please pray for me, even if you have no clue who I am. I need strength, guidance & peace to overcome my fears.

My prayer for the women who live in similar situations is that you know you’re worth it. God created you in your mother’s womb and if you doubt yourself then that means you are doubting God. I’ve doubted God for a very long time.

I am beautiful.. I am enough.. I am a warrior…

I’m getting in the chair

/ Just Leah / 3 Comments
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My ability to feel my own feelings was taken from me, or at least that’s what I thought. It’s been up to me to trust in God by not living in my flesh. I wasn’t living for God, I am living for myself. Psalm 130:5 says, “I am counting on the Lord; yes, I am counting on him. I have put my hope in his word.” I’m going to let you in on a big secret I’ve been carrying around for a very long time. I wasn’t counting on God to get me through the storms, I was counting on a figment of my imagination. I was waiting patiently for some miracle to fall in my lap and a lot of time was spent searching for the answer when I had the answer right in front of me… Jesus…

My prayer for as long as I can remember has been, “God, please help me. Reveal to me what I need to do.” He kept revealing what was being prayed for and I kept ignoring the obvious. So obvious that he was putting huge flashing signs right in front of my face and I will still wouldn’t listen to him. In my mind, I was putting all my trust & hope into the Lord. But day after day I continued to walk around in this fog like state. Not understanding what was really going on.

The word says, “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me” Revelation 3:20. I keep writing about living for the Lord, I’m trusting him, I’m listening to him but it was all a bunch of lies. I figured if I could just keep saying it over & over that one day the words that were being said would finally come to life, but the version of reality I was living in was blinding me. God gives us all free will to choose what path we are going to walk down and how we are going to live our life.

“I’m getting in the chair” is the title of this blog and the link to that sermon is on the bottom of this post. I highly recommend watching it from beginning to end. The end of the video he tells a story about a father and son, the son doesn’t have the ability to walk or talk and was given the chance to communicate through computer technology. Through that technology the son told his father that he wanted to participate in a 5k run. His father wasn’t a runner so he trained by pushing 100 lb. sack in a wheelchair so he could push his son in the race. When the race was over, his son expressed that he felt free, long story short, his father continued to participate in these races with his son. Again, I encourage you to watch this sermon to hear the full story and basically the moral of the story is that we need to get in the chair and let God push us… so we can be free…

I on the other hand haven’t been sitting in that chair, it was decided a long time ago that I’m just not that worthy. Instead of just letting God talk to me, I put my fingers in my ears and gave up on trying to live life. When my eyes closed at night, I didn’t want them to open the next morning. Depression hit me hard and it was overcoming me in every aspect. The inside of me was screaming for help but on the outside, I just acted as if everything was okay. Every day was spent just going through the motions just hoping today would be better than yesterday. The longer I kept doing that, the harder each day got. There was a battle taking place that I just didn’t want to fight, so I just stood there with my arms open telling the devil to just come get me. I was a willing participant.. #butGod I may have been standing willing to let it all go but God said no ma’am. He stood in front of me taking all those daggers until I realized that life is worth living, especially when you live it for him. So, I got in the chair and I’m letting God push me.

Today God gave me the word for this blog. He said, just let me train you, let me mold you so you can see what I see. “Trust me” he said. Proverbs 3:5 says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.” My heart has been hurting for so long that I became dependent on that pain. Now, not to feel it anymore is something I have get used to..if that makes sense. Once I learn to organize my thoughts in a way you can understand this will all make more sense. At this point I’m letting God do his thing. A good friend told me, “when in doubt you stand still until God tells you to move.” I’ve hung onto those words ever since; those words have been my life line. It’s all in God’s timing and I’m slowly understanding what they mean.

My journey is only beginning and from this point forward I need learn how to put on my armor so I’m not a willing participant to fear. We all need to learn how to armor up, so we don’t fall victim to this world that is only temporary. Life sucks, it’s hard and it’s full of stuff that will bring you down. Even Jesus himself asked God, “Do I really have to do this.” Jesus took it all for us. He did it for us so he could show us it can be done. Stay strong, have faith and know that it will not always be like this. Colossians 3:2 says, “Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.”

#justsayJesus

I can’t even..

/ Just Leah / 3 Comments
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When I was in the ninth grade, (for the second time), I was tested, and I discovered that I had a learning disability. Basically, if you just stood in front of me and told me how to do something, my brain wouldn’t be able to process what you were saying. If you stood in front of me and just showed me how to do something, I would master it in seconds. My brain holds so much information that I can’t remember anything important like, where did I just put down my cell phone?.. It turned out that as a 16-year-old girl, my ability to learn by sight scored in the Albert Einstein range and my ability to learn by listening, well let’s just say that I am not smarter than a fifth grader. The devil knows that if I sat down to read my bible that I would learn so much and he knows how far I can go when I learn things. So instead of using my eyes, I use my ears and I listen to all the lies not learning a thing.

Right now, I’m not okay. I haven’t been for quite some time and in some ways, it was probably a good thing. I had to face the storm so I could be blessed by it. God blessed me with so much love that it was almost ridiculous. I mean I can’t even… I’ve let so much weigh me down for so long that I just didn’t think I could ever recover from it. When I tell you that I was hanging on by a string, I mean the string was on fire and I was hovering over a pit full of hungry alligators. For a good portion of my years here on earth, I have chosen to surround myself around people that don’t have nice things to say. Especially to me… I kept swiping it off my shoulder and “getting over it” because I thought I was strong enough to take it. Obviously, there is something way deep down that makes them say such mean things so, I’ll just sit here and take your words until you feel better. Well let me tell you where that got me… nowhere…

After a while, it just got to the point where the nice stuff came so far and in between that it was just harder to believe it. When you hear the mean stuff more than the nice it just means that something must be wrong with me right? Well maybe if I act this way then it will be better. Maybe if I just say this more then it will get better. My life has been filled with nothing but a bunch of maybes and I’m no longer going to stand for it. Jesus told me I didn’t have to do it anymore and I’m pretty sure he’s the one I need to be taking my instructions from.

I completely understand the meaning of forgiveness now. The enemy has stood in my way for so long and I let him block all my blessings. I can no longer keep letting that stuff weigh me down so I can receive the blessings that God has in store for me right now. All I can do is forgive and ask for forgiveness. Now I’m free… and now it means it’s about to get even harder for me. Tomorrow morning when I open my eyes, I must remember every word I just wrote, and I live my day for Jesus and for him only. Pastor Ray taught me that today, he started out saying that he was going to stomp on someone’s toes, and he stomped all over mine. Let me tell you, Pastor Ray.. he wears big shoes… Ouch!

Typically, you will find me in the sound booth at the Church I attend. When I do get to worship, I’ve found myself standing up front so I can throw my hands up in the air. I like being up front because everyone else is behind me and I can’t tell if they are judging me. I know.. it sounds stupid… Today was one of those days I got to stay on the floor, and I wasn’t up front. I stood in a row of chairs and looked at the screen the entire time. I didn’t dance, I didn’t smile… All I did was sway and cry… sway and cry.. I was so disappointed in myself because I had finally gotten to a point where I started to love myself and I started going backwards. I bought a pack of cigarettes a few weeks back and every puff I took I screamed at myself… STOP IT!!!! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!?!?!?! I didn’t listen, I just kept smoking them. Don’t worry, that phase was very short lived.

As I swayed back and forth all I could think was, God why do you love me so much? What about me is so special?.. Why me?… He said, “because I made you.” I felt so defeated today that I didn’t even know where to start. Church was over and I went straight to my car, my friend wanted to go to lunch and I turned her down. Came straight home and felt sorry for myself the rest of the day. I cried so much that my eye lids were folded over, I don’t even know how to explain it. I looked as if I had two black eyes and they were swollen. It was horrible… Then I just cried out for help and Lord have mercy the Army that God sent for me. They all came crashing down on me and told the devil to take his butt right on down the road. #butGod

I’m never going to start receiving the love God has for me until I learn to love myself. My friend Christina told me today, “God turns brokenness into beauty.” God is has taken my brokenness and he has taught me to share it with you, so you know that it’s not just you… Girl it’s me too! It’s all of us.. even the guys. God restored me is so many ways tonight and he will continue to do it every day. Every time someone tells me they love me; I’m going to believe them. Every time I tell someone I love them.. I’m going to believe me.

Lord,

It’s me Leah. I know you know me, I’m your favorite!…

Thank you for the struggles in my life, Thank you for the fear, the tears, the pain, the brokenness.. It brought me closer to you. I’m sorry… I’m sorry for not trusting you completely. Forgive me for keeping a part of my heart closed off. I spent so long believe that my words aren’t real, that my feelings were false, and my thoughts were wrong. I have failed you in so many ways, but you continue to encourage me. Lord, because of you, I can sit here and praise you. You give me all the time I need; you give me all the love I need, you give me all the attention because you made this world for me to enjoy. Through all the mess that goes on, you give me the free will to stop and enjoy the beauty of the brokenness. Lord, thank you for this day. Thank you for all the love you poured out on me today. Thank you for never leaving me. I ask for strength Lord. A lot of it…

I love you..

I’m going back to my roots.

/ Just Leah / 1 Comment

I want to go back to the very minute God put the word write in my head. When I was a teenager, I use to write a lot. Poems, short stories, songs, just whatever. I kept a journal and I wrote in it just about every day. The desire to move forward as a writer never occurred to me. Never in a million years would I ever imagine me trying to become known as an “inspirational” person. What would people find inspirational about me? There isn’t anything special about me, so why would you care?

Now that I think about it, God kind of nudged me into the writing career a few years back. A local magazine where I’m from asked if I would take pictures for them. Someone else would write the article but I would just take pictures. It ranged from local food reviews, to just taking a picture of someone they were writing about. One day I got an email, and this time instead of giving me my assignments, they offered me a spot writing about local businesses. I would go myself out and interview them &take their picture. No clue what I was doing but I said… okay… I did it a few times and they ended up selling the magazine to someone else. Even then, I didn’t really think about pursuing it any further and just like everything else, I just walked away from it.

Walking away is so easy for me. It’s easier to just forget about something rather than remembering it, especially if it’s something bad. I walked away from just about everything, because I didn’t think anyone would think I was good enough. Instead of just being rejected, I just became the person that would just reject you first. Photography was probably the only thing I really stuck with and the only reason why I’m not taking pictures now is because I don’t have a camera.

When I realized that Jesus didn’t find me but that I found him, my life started to change. Slowly but surely, I was starting to become the Leah he created. I was a total amateur at this whole loving Jesus thing and one night I was sitting still enough for God to whisper one word in my ear. He said, “Write.” It was the first time I truly ever felt the Holy Spirit and the first time I heard his voice.

I’ve given this testimony a few times, but the reason I keep going back to it is because I must remember that God wouldn’t have told me to write if he didn’t know I could change someone’s life with my words. My prayer is that if you are reading this right now and you don’t know who Jesus is, that it leads you to him so you can see exactly how beautiful his love is. Every day I struggle to stay true to his word because it’s so much easier to just walk away. Walking away is no longer an option! I’m going back to my roots; I’m going back to that night God told me to write and I’m going to keep writing about it until I can’t write no more.

Another thing that happened that night, is I raised my hands to worship him. I was sitting alone in my garage on a beautiful spring night listening to worship music. My playlist wasn’t very long but there was this one particular song that I played over and over again. The name of the song was Holy Spirit and when it came on tears formed in my eyes. I closed my eyes and instantly I could feel God’s arms wrapped around me. The wind started to wrap around me and I could just feel him there. My eyes were shut so tight but all I could see was his light. He was there and he was there for me, he left it all to come get me. At the exact moment I held my breath, all the thoughts in my head stopped long enough for him to whisper, “write.”

My first thought was, “write what?” That was on April, 29 2019 at 9:42 pm. and exactly one month later is when I wrote my first blog. I made a cheap free website and posted my first blog-ish. Tonight, I am re-writing that story because for you to know where I’m going, you have to know where I came from. I came from Jesus… No matter how many road blocks the enemy tries to throw in my path, I’m just going to keep over coming them until the day I don’t have to overcome them no more. When that day comes, all of this will be worth it. It will all be worth it, because there will be no more pain, no more fear, it will all just be a life of beautiful. Eternal life in heaven is what I will have.

There has been a lot of pain in my life and the majority I went through on my own. Never really talking about it, but I would always write in my journals. It was the only way I could release it because no one was around to listen to me. I didn’t think anyone would hear me, so I never reached out. My teenage years were very hard and when my grandmother died, I closed off from everything and everybody. If God didn’t exist, there is no way I would be alive right now. Many days that the idea of going to sleep and never waking up just seemed so much better. When I think back to some of the events that have taken place in my life, I see now that God has always been there even when I didn’t think he existed.

God was just a figment of my imagination; I knew all the stories, but they were just stories. My concept of what was real and what wasn’t didn’t coincide with one another. I put myself in a fantasy world filled with things that would make me happy. I used to call that my bubble of denial. Living a life of denial was so much better than what was really happening around me. It kept me sane! As a kid, if I didn’t have anyone to play with, well that was fine. Climbing a tree and pretending I was living in Africa watching baby elephants running around was a lot better than worrying about how many friends I didn’t have.

Now, friends are coming out of my ears. God has blessed me with so many good people that I can’t keep up with them all sometimes. As Pastor Ray said today, if you don’t know the word then hang around people that do and you’ll start to catch on. Was he ever right about that!! If I choose to surround myself with people who are debbie downers then I’m going to be a debbie downer. If I hang around people that are like, WOO HOO JESUS!! Then I’m going to be like WOO HOO JESUS!!! Now when I get around the debbie downers I share a little WOO HOO JESUS and I pray it rubs off!

God took my struggles and he made something beautiful out of them. Hearing what other people have gone through gave me hope that it’s going to be okay! Showing the love of Jesus can be as big or as little as you like. Giving your food to a homeless person or just helping a little old lady grab something on a high shelf at the grocery store is showing the love of Jesus. When God whispered that word in my ear, he gave me the ability to open my eyes and just enjoy the life he’s given me. If you are still enough, you can hear him too!

Remember, I came from Jesus and so did you…

It’s just me… Me & Jesus..

/ Just Leah / 5 Comments

I closed my eyes on Sunday night and I opened them Monday morning a different person. Why was I different? Because I was alone for the first time in my entire life. I had only me… me and Jesus. This week I have been in a total fog and trying to piece my life together. By the grace of God, he has gotten me this far and I will depend on him to keep me going even further. God is picking up all the broken pieces and putting them back together one by one. So, where do I go from here? Another failed relationship, another reason to give up, more reason to look in the mirror and see nothing but failure.

When I opened my eyes on Monday, they instantly filled with tears. I prayed, “Lord, please give me strength.” I maneuvered around the unpacked boxes, the piles of clothes and all the memories I’ve carried around for ten years. My heart was heavy, it was broken and there was no hiding from the world like I’m use to doing when things get rough. Life wasn’t going to stop because I thought it was over and there was no way I was letting the enemy keep me down.

There has been so much that has taken place over the years and it all came down on me like a ton of bricks. I tell you right now, if I didn’t have Jesus in my heart.. I’d probably be in a bar looking for a warm body, needing fake assurance that I’m good enough to exist. Instead of going to the bar to feel pretty, I went to Church and felt loved. I know the choice I have made had to be done and I’m going to have to go through the emotions and i will come out cleaner on the other side. Jesus knows my heart and he knows who I am. He is the defender of my heart…

God has been giving me lots of hugs this week and one of the biggest hugs is my itty bitty kitty. I wrote a blog about him a while back. Ari was personally picked out and given to me by God himself. He never leaves my side and he knows when I need a hug, even right now as I’m pouring my heart out he’s laying right next to me. He’s helped this process be a lot more entertaining as he plays with all the papers on the floor and jumping all over the boxes. The night before last, I pulled my little chair into the living room just to sit and take a breath. As I turned to grab a blanket, didn’t take me more than 10 seconds… He already stole my chair.

As I found myself wandering through Walmart to get somethings I needed, I came across this little wax plug in that said “Enjoy the little things.” It was the only one on the shelf and I snagged it. It’s the little things in life that make me the happiest and that right there was little thing from God. My basket was filled with cute kitchen towels, a new comforter for my bed and just constant reminders that it’s going to be just fine. God knows that I use to love the little things in life and as long as I keep my eyes on him, he’s going to continue to bless me with a lot of little things.

Now that I am on my own, that means I have to do everything myself. Now it’s up to me to remember where I left my glasses, or my phone, or my keys, or my mind. When the air is low in my tire, I have to learn how to use the air machine. When I need to hang something in a high place, I now I have to figure it out on my own. Then God reminded me that he is here to help me. He will guide me to where I left my keys, he will hold me up as I hang up my pictures. The more I put into my new little space, the more it starts to fill with God’s presence and all I can feel is his love. The more I kept wanting to write about this, the more the enemy filled with me doubt. He wanted to hold me down and keep me away from filling my broken heart with God’s grace. I can’t do this on my own and I need help. By telling you being alone is one of my biggest fears, I’m stopping the devil in his tracks. Don’t look at me and say I’m so sorry, look at me and say.. Wow, but God! It’s him and only him is why I’m able to even share my words with you. Hiding under my blankets and pretending like the world doesn’t exist is what I really wanted to do.

It’s time to trust what God has planned and it’s time to be faithful to it. We stumble & we fall but he picks us up. When we thought we lost ourselves, he finds us. I checked out on life a long time ago and didn’t even realize it. Walking around doing what I do and not a bit more than that. Thinking I was being faithful to the Lord when in fact I was further away from him than I realized. I wasn’t living for him, I was living for my flesh. The Lord was convicting me every day I walked in lies. Every smile I planted on my face so people couldn’t see the truth in my eyes, every tear I hid from my friends, every scar I had on my heart but I covered them up with jokes and every time I told you I was fine, I wasn’t. Just when I thought all was lost, God swept right in and he grabbed me. He left the 99 and he came for me because he knew I had a purpose to fulfill and that purpose is my testimony.

Days to come are going to be very hard but I will persevere by staying faithful to the one and only man that has stayed true to me. That man is Jesus…

Lord,

It’s me… Leah. I come to you right now and I ask you for forgiveness. Forgive me Lord for not trusting you sooner. Forgive me that I checked out on my life, on my friends, on my kids and I kept listening to the lies. I kept listening to fear and it over came me. Please forgive me. I pray for your grace and your mercy, I pray that you help me put one foot in front of the other to go out and do your work. Lord through my hurt, my tears and my brokenness, help me shine my light that you’ve given me. Help me be a better me, help me be a better mother, help me be a better friend. You are the man I want to serve and through you I want to show people what your love has done in my life. I lost myself and you helped me find me again. You were always there and you will continue to be there. Lord I love you and I’m so thankful that you picked me to be Leah…

Amen

My Girls!

/ Just Leah / Leave a comment
She’s my favorite!

I’ll tell you one thing, if ever you find yourself in a hard patch. My prayer for you is that you have a tribe of women that are there holding you up. I have blogged a few times about a few women that hold a special place in my heart. There are so many I don’t know where to start! God has blessed me with so many good people that if I felt how much these women actually loved me, it’d probably kill me! My last blog, I’m broken, was a release for me! “Boldness” has been the word of the week for me. I keep hearing that word from everyone. They all tell me they wish they could have the same boldness and my reply to them is, “Why can’t you?” Seriously… why can’t you? It’s because of you that I gained my boldness. You showed me the love of Jesus and I wanted to show the world my light too!

In the first picture, this is my friend Tamara. She holds a special place in my heart. She is my favorite person in the whole wide world! I didn’t give her a chance the first time I met her but God knew I needed her and she needed me. My dear friend Tamara has a smile on her face from ear to ear because she knows that every day she’s alive, it’s a good day. There is nothing to be mad about! Currently, my friend is struggling with a mountain but she knows that she will make it to the other side. She told me today that I probably wouldn’t have wanted to see her a couple days ago. I reminded her that no matter what she was doing or what she looked like, she would still smile at me and I’d never know anything was wrong with her. I absolutely adore her.

First impressions aren’t something I’m typically good at. When I’m nervous, I start with the joking sarcasm. I’ve managed over the years to put a filter over my mouth, but I can’t seem to manage putting one on my facial expressions.

She’s my rock and my favorite!

The next picture is my friend Pammmmm! (You totally just said it out loud in your head.) I hate to be the bearer of bad news but that woman was placed on the earth solely for me. She is mine, you can’t have her! My life can not go on unless I have Pam. Jesus lives in her heart 24/7 so I get the best of both worlds at the same time! The first time I met her, she didn’t like me. She thought I snubbed her and she’s right I did. She met me at my very worse. I knew who Jesus was but he probably didn’t know me. She needed me just as much as I needed her but we were both so lost that we couldn’t see why. Thank you Jesus for giving me a second chance! She mothers the crap out of me but she will tell you that I am her rock.

She gets me!

She tried for the longest time to get me to go to church with her. The church she attended was one of those big stadium ones and there was no way I’d be caught dead around that many people. God willing, she did try to get me to go to church. The next picture is my friend Erica and it was her hand I held as we walked into the church that I now call home. The minute I laid eyes on her, it was love at first site. She is my favorite and there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about her. She was my light in the world when all I saw was darkness. The very minute when I called Jesus into my heart she was right there at the alter with me holding my hand. She said to me, girl all you have to do is say it. Just say, “Jesus.” I love you.

She is my favorite!

This lady right here, I love her and she loves me. There we were… she said these very words to me, “Do you want a wedding?” My answer to her was, “Well yea.” And wow did she throw me a wedding. I can’t even right now… this woman could rule the world with her hands tied behind her back. Scoot over Jesus here comes Jan! She will tell you right now she’s got this! She is the strongest person I’ve ever met in my life and I know a professional arm wrestler that appeared in sports magazines in Europe. The first time I met her, I felt like I was meeting a celebrity. She’s going to kill me for saying that but I’m sorry it’s true. She knows everyone. We could be stuck on a deserted island but I wouldn’t be scared because she probably knows one of the native islanders. If they didn’t know her well… they will. She is my favorite!

Remember the professional arm wrestler I was telling you about?! Well this is her. Folks, meet my friend Nicole. This girl right here knew me when I didn’t even know myself. To say that she’s my favorite would be an understatement. There aren’t words to describe the pure, natural beauty that radiates from her. Whoever Jan doesn’t know, well Nicole knows them. The girl puts Glam in Glamorous! One Sunday during the announcement portion of our church service. My duty at Church is the sound booth, which puts me above the congregation so I have the best view in the house. The Pastor’s wife was talking about a concert that was taken place of a man that ministers to prisoners. At that exact moment it was being talked about, here comes Nicole looking fabulous… in her black and white striped dress. It was like she was the spokes model for prison ministry. She’s just casually strolling through Church finding a place to park it, totally unfazed. I’m looking like a dork laughing to myself. I guess you just had to be there… I love her!

There are so many more to write about and trust me I will. It’s a series I would like to continue with and the reason why is because you need your sisters. Whoever you are reading this blog, if you don’t have women in your life that make you better then please go find some. Trust God and watch what he will do. Regardless how often I see them it doesn’t matter, they know I love them and I know they love me.

Pray for your sisters! God reminds me on a daily basis to pray. Stop & take a moment and thank him for what he’s done. Just like you need to know that you are important to someone. He needs that from us too! He is God and he does have feelings and it blesses him when he knows we care about him.

Stop listening to the lies that the enemy tries to instill in you. God places people in your life for a reason. Remember that he gives us free will and just because he places these people in our lives doesn’t mean he makes the road to a beautiful friend an easy one. No matter what it is they did to hurt your feelings, no matter what they say behind your back. It doesn’t matter… It does… not… matter. They all can’t love you at the same time all the time, but it’s up to us to make sure to band together and tell the devil to go straight to hell.

Pray for your sisters! I love you all and thank you for it all.

#youareboldtoo #girlpower #Jesusisrealyall #yougetme

I am broken…

/ Just Leah / 9 Comments

When I don’t want to be seen, it’s when I want to be seen the most. When I run and hide from the world, I just beg for someone to reach out to me. These past few weeks have been hard for me and the harder it got, the more I started listening to the whispers of deceit. Choosing to play video games was a lot more fun than glorifying God for all the blessings he has given me. Becoming one with my flesh because I allowed other people to let me think I was fake, unworthy and an attention seeker. I’ve believed those lies my entire life and right now as you read my words, I am declaring in the Jesus name that the enemy is a friggin’ liar! It doesn’t matter what the days ahead have in store for me because I have Jesus on my side.

I used to be scared to show people that I loved Jesus. When I would see people praise the Lord all I could think is man that looks like it feels good. I wasn’t judging them; I was saluting them. How do I get there?!?! Well God said, “Leah, just hang on because it’s about to be a bumpy ride!” By staying as faithful as I possibly could to him, he continues to give me the courage to persevere through the storms. It’s okay to tell you that I’m not okay right now. Just because I have Jesus in my heart doesn’t mean I portray to be this perfect well together person. I’m not trying to fake my way through life by planting a smile on my face. I am merely showing you the love of Christ because no matter what life throws at me, he is a great reason to keep smiling.

People misconstrue me quite often and it use to bother me but now it makes me laugh. I’ve come to learn that not everyone thinks like me and sometimes there will be people that just flat out don’t like me. It’s okay really… I’m still praying for you because in heaven we are going to be BFF’s! Saying that I “dealt” with rejection is an understatement, I wasn’t dealing with it because I let it get the best of me. If I did deal with it then I’d probably be writing more than blogs by now. The only thing that stood in my way was myself. For every person who thinks I’m an idiot, there are ten people who think I’m pretty cool! There is an even bigger person that knows I’m cool and that’s God! His opinion is the only one that matters.

What it all boils down to is, keep trusting in the Lord. Don’t laugh at that statement, don’t say “You don’t know what I’m going through”, don’t roll your eyes and DON’T think that there isn’t any hope. Staying hidden away did nothing but hurt me even worse. Staying in bed rather than taking care of my kids, smoking weed instead of cleaning my house, letting other people pay my bills because I was too lazy to get a job. I’ve done unthinkable things just trying to get through life because I was too stupid to open my eyes and know that the Lord had my back.

Thinking back from where I was and where I am now isn’t the prettiest thing you’ve ever seen but like my dear friend tell says all the time. “I’m not where I need to be but I’m sure not where I use to be.” It’s a daily struggle for me sometimes and some days I feel like going on isn’t an option. The more I thank God for getting me through each day the easier it is to get through them. The more I praise the more the devil loosens his grip because good will always prevail over evil. The God I serve is so much bigger than hateful words, mean looks, whispers behind the back, judgement or rejection.

It seems to me that the more I try to be right with God the more my life seems to “fall apart” so to speak. While my life crumbles on the inside, the outside of me wants to take on more responsibility as a Christ follower. My whole thought process is, take something that is going wrong in your life and use it to glorify God. There is a woman that recently came into my life that is a true inspiration to me. The woman was losing her home y’all! She was down to the last three hours of being removed from her house and she’s all like, “God is so good!” The world needs more of that, the more you love and the more you trust, the less the world brings you down.

Recently, a lady left a comment on one of my signing videos that wasn’t very nice. The moment I read her words; they went straight to my heart. The whispers of the enemy turned into screaming. God whispered in my ear and told me to stop it. Her comment has now given me the motivation and brought of tons of ideas of future videos I’ll be posting! Shut it down and the enemy scurries away with his tail between his legs. Here lately I’ve let a lot of negative things consume my mind, words that are being spoken stick to me. If I keep hearing the same thing over then it must be true right? Lies…

If every person on this planet had the same mind set, then it would be boring. Everyone has a talent, something they are good at. The reason why we are miserable with our flesh is because we aren’t feeding it good things. Waking up and scrolling through Facebook isn’t going to make your start your day. I know because I’m guilty of it. Listening to my music and reading one verse in the bible would get me going a lot quicker than the typical drama you read every day on social media. Now, I fill my news feed with motivational words because I realized that it’s my responsibility to change my own situation. I control what I read, I control what I hear, and I control what I see.

When you submit to God and just sit still for a minute, he will fill you up with his love. I’m currently siting outside with my laptop listening to my praise & worship music. God has been talking to me through this entire blog and at one point I stopped, put my hands in the air and he just surrounded me. The wind blew all around me, I could fill his arms around me and I know he is proud. My goal from right now on is to keep pressing through, keep my head up and I’m going to keep on trucking down the path God is laying down for me.

The more I serve the Lord, the less the enemy must hold against me. God has placed people in my life that know when to reach out when they don’t hear from me. They know to be nosy when I get quiet, they know to drop by when I don’t answer the phone. They don’t give the enemy the option to get to me because that is what we do for one another. We stand up and fight for each other when one of us is falling. Half the time the one that fell before you soften the blow because they caught you on their way back up. It’s an endless cycle of love once you submit to it.

My name is Leah Riffe and I’m here to tell you that it will be okay. I promise!

#Godissogood #Jesus #Godsloveisreal #praisehim #healmeLord

My face when someone tries to tell me I’m not good enough!

Three, Three, Three… Three!

/ Just Leah / 5 Comments

God places people in your lives for a reason. Sometimes to annoy us, sometimes to strengthen us and sometimes to make us laugh. I’d like to think I hold all three of those traits and then some. Having friends was never my strong suit and now God has given me a gaggle of them. Some of these women have helped me get to where I am today.

We all need those kinds of friends that hold us accountable in a loving way, not a judgmental way and we need someone in our lives that we can just be still with. I intend to write about each one of them but right now I must talk about the woman who made me love her. No seriously, she didn’t give me an option not to love her. She decided I was to be a part of her life and I got put into the BFF club! God knew I needed someone to teach me how to be transparent and he placed the most transparent person there is in my life.

Having great friends in my life has always been a challenge for me. Girl drama was very real going through school and I have to say as an adult the drama makes me miss high school. I went through different phases in school until I figured out that just being myself was perfectly fine. If people didn’t like it… well then you’re missing out! The more people shunned me, the deeper in hiding I went and I am perfectly content with being a loner…. well at least I thought so. And God showed me different.

When us women ban together and act like we all are on the same team, the enemy starts to shed a little tear, and it infuriates him. The enemy waits for us to get alone and he starts to whisper in our ear and the longer we listen the more we believe what he says. She’s not your friend, she talks behind your back, what will they think of me, they think I’m fat, why can’t I be more like her… It will eat you alive and I have fallen victim to it. Then my heart opened up for Jesus to come right on in and WOW! Just wow!…

I often hear people say that Christians have it easy. I had it easier when I wasn’t one. A very wise man once told me that we perceive the devil the wrong way. We think hell is this fiery pit but, in all reality, hell is the opposite of Heaven. The opposite of everything is nothing. Hell is nothing and I’ve lived a good portion of my life being nothing. At one point in my life, my depression was so bad that the hardest choice I made was picking something on Netflix. The enemy held me down in bed so I wouldn’t be out there shining the light of Jesus. Well guess what, here I am. I’m showing you my light.

There is no way I could have gotten here without God or without my friends. My favorite BFF needs me just as much as I need her, she has my back whenever I need her and she tells me on a daily basis how ridiculous I am. Even when I tell her not to call me, she calls me. When I tell her I don’t need anyone, she says to me, “No ma’am!” Things come out of her mouth that are sometimes hard to take but truthful. God also knew that she also needed me because she’s ridiculous too!

Luke 6:31 tells us, “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” I fail at this every day and every day I strive to do the best I can to show the love of Jesus. It’s hard sometimes but the Lord always blesses me when I succeed. You know why? Because once I get past the lies of the enemy, I make a new friend. That’s so much better than having an enemy. When we befriend the people, we think don’t like us or we think that we don’t like them, we kick the devil in his fat stupid head. Guess what, #lovewins

It’s so hard for people to be nice sometimes. The Jesus in me gets tested on a daily basis but I now make it a point to bring a smile to a face that seems sad. The proof is in the pudding folks, try it and see for yourself. Take a moment to just be nice to a complete stranger and just watch what God will do. The person behind you at the drive through, buy their meal. The person in line counting change to buy some milk, swipe your card. A lady sitting on a bench with a defeated look on her face, give her a simple gift. Watch what God will do! I learned that from my friend.

The first time I’d ever met my friend, she was barefooted dancing on a chair… at Church… I instantly liked her. She had this mean mug look about her and you instantly knew back in the day she was the girl you wanted to have as a friend and not as an enemy. But right past that mean mug was something even more scary. It was truth… and I didn’t know it at the time but she was going to be the one that poured a lot truth into me. Pretty sure she realizes now that she bit off more than she could chew with me, but don’t worry because now I’m her favorite!

Showing people my heart was the scariest thing in the world for me to do. My way of hiding my feelings is to be funny because I don’t want to bring you down. You don’t want to hear my sob story. Then my favorite BFF came along and she listened to my sob story. When I was done crying… she looked at me in my face and spoke truth into my soul. She was raw & real and it hurt but I needed to hear it. That was the moment I started to love her willingly. Up until that point, it was pretty touch & go. Now I strive to be just like her when I grow up. The thing I love the most about her is everyday she tells me, “I don’t know why I’m friends with you.” Then I hold her accountable by reminding her that she totally asked for it.

As I stated before, making friends was never my strong suit. Once I had more than two or three I started to panic because I was afraid I couldn’t keep up. I’ve come to know that just because you don’t see someone all the time doesn’t mean they don’t love you. And it also doesn’t mean you don’t love them. Now I cherish every moment I get to spend with these women God has blessed me with. Pretty soon, I will get the chance to see all of them at one time and we will be serving the Lord which will make it even better.

Often, I wonder was it really all worth it? So many years, so many opportunities just passed by me. Too scared to take them.. The more I write the more I realize that if I never went through struggles then there’d be nothing to write about and testify that God is very much real and he saved my life. He saved my life by putting women in my life that are hold me up when I want to just fall.

Proverbs 19:20 tells us, “Listen to advice and accept discipline, and at the end you will be counted among the wise.”

Once, I referred to some of my friends as “professional Christ followers”. Those are people I consider the wise ones. They know the Bible, they know how to pray, they know how to pray out loud, they throw their hands up in the air. Then the more I got to know them, the more I realized we were all amateurs! We were all struggling in all areas spiritually and I was now becoming apart of an Army that was going to stomp on the devils head. Man, oh man are we showing him who’s boss!

#Iloveyoumore #3333 #Godissogoodyall #justsayJesus