Jesus and Ice Cream in a Coffee Mug

I've been trying to figure out how to blog again.

That's the weirdest thing for me to write. 

Figuring out how? No way. Words flow out of me, all the time, for no reason and every reason. There's nothing to figure out, it's just to do. 

But the doing is hard. 

It's hard because of time. It's hard because our bodies are limited. It's hard because our hearts get cluttered. It's hard because I have a lot of tasks to juggle. But it's important and it's what I'm called to, so I need to do it better. 

Monday night, the Lord infused me with his strength and diligence and I worked hard and went to bed early. I went to bed thinking, "I can't wait to get up in the morning and spend time with the Lord!" That's the best feeling. I pray that feeling comes more regularly. 

I feel it tonight - Saturday. I can't wait to get up in the morning and go worship the Lord with other believers! 

Thank God for expectation! Thank God that He humbles Himself to be with us.  

Tuesday morning I woke with expectation. I brewed coffee and opened my Bible and my notebook and I sat down excited to study.  I read from Matthew 19 about the complexity of what happens after salvation and after death.  

I drank coffee and painted my face and dressed well and felt like I had done it all to the glory of God.  That day at school, I worked hard.  I worked hard on students' assignments.  I worked hard on kids' hearts.  I worked hard to get adolescent writers to transform lists into poems.  

It was lovely.  It was exhausting.  I came home afterward with a PMS migraine and just watched Grey's Anatomy.  I put cookies and cream flavored Blue Bell ice cream into that morning's coffee mug and recorded a short video.  I remembered that my PaPa taught me to control my sweet tooth by eating ice cream out of a small mug.  I remembered that excellence in any area of work is all glory to God who strengthens us.  I smiled a lot.  

It's the little things, like coffee mugs of ice cream, that center us and point us back to the big things: God and His Kingdom and His will being done on earth through us.  How sweet it is!

Here's the link to the video I did that night. I exported it straight from Periscope. 

https://youtu.be/y4jp13zQWfw

Faith in the New Year

Habari Gani: Imani 

Lovely photo of a beauty of a baby girl from a lovely couple who inspire me. 

As we wrap up Kwanzaa and start the new year, we have to have imani- faith - that He who began a good work in us will complete it, that Yahweh's word never returns void but always accomplishes the purpose for which it was sent. 

As we approach our individual and collective work as humans, as Christians, as Black people, may we remember that without faith it is impossible to please God. Let us remember, also, that faith without works is dead. Let us show the world our faith by WHAT WE DO. And when the doing gets tough, let us KEEP THE FAITH. 

Are you ready? 

'Cause I'm super excited and ready! 

"We got it! [God's] got you. So we got it! Together we do!" - The Wiz (my remix)

Amen? So let it be. 

Some thoughts on Submission

Stay where God put you. Go where God sent you. Do what God asked you.

 

Including every boss who treats you wrong, and every coworker who talks behind your back, and every unfair category of evaluation. Including all racism and every time you take responsibility for something you didn't and would never do. 

Because the Lord wants us to have power over circumstances and demons and death and destruction and sin. He wants you to be the solution looking for the problem.  But you can't do that if you won't submit, stay in place, take a knee, FORFEIT A RIGHT. Let them talk about you. 

Be a David. Be a Joseph! Be an Abigail. Be a MARY. 

#GetAfterGrateful 12

When November started I was having internet connectivity issues so I didn't get to do the daily "I'm thankful for"s.

Today I'll start with being thankful for churches. Integrity's Voice of Victory Church where God is exalted, the enemy is defeated, and Jesus Christ is Lord! I'm blessed that they have supported constant increase in my prayer life. I'm blessed that I have seen the power and glory of the Lord at work with my own eyes and I am motivated to share it with those who have not yet seen and do not yet believe.  I also want to shoutout other Oklahoma-based churches making regional and nation-wide impacts that have greatly supported my life and walk: Life.Church (recently the Midwest City Campus, but also the main OKC and South campuses) and Frontline Church. Thank you for letting me sit and serve with you while I was learning to take my place in the Kingdom. I look forward to more and more shared experience in the future. 

Loving the Teacher Life

Every now and again I get a little emotional because I love my crazy, tragic, sometimes almost magic, awful beautiful life. 

We passed out report cards today and that always requires a bit of counseling on what we need to do better next week and next quarter. I pulled an all nighter Wednesday into Thursday preparing those grades. Even though I got 8 hours of sleep last night, my body is still catching up.  I've been nursing a headache since noon. 

Two of my little loves ask me every game day in class (and some days in between) if I'm coming to the game. Today I was honest with him. I said "I'm coming, but only because I know it makes y'all sad when I don't. I'd rather lay in bed and read a book." He said "Whatever Miss Hylton. You already know what it is." And then after a few beats: "Thank you." 

On Tuesday, one of the first students who impacted me at my current school transferred unexpectedly. I was looking forward to seeing him all the way through graduation. 

Tonight, our football team is wearing pink socks and gloves and carrying pink towels. Our coaches have on pink gloves and light reflector tape. This is our pink out football game for #breastcancerawareness . Our cheer, dance, and flag girls have pink socks and bows in their hair. We have a game like this for every sport. 

Langston University's band is here with us playing through our senior night. 

10 years ago I was getting my academic letter jacket with my mama, Grammy, and PaPa on a night really similar to this one. 

When our players ran in, the fans released pink balloons instead of the usual Falcon blue. 

So when the national anthem played, I looked around, and couldn't figure why there were tears in my eyes. Then I thought of Ann Michele. And couldn't say much but, "Thank you, Lord, for trusting me with all this." 

Truth. Beauty. Inspiration.

I'm a teacher and a writer/poet, but the newest love of my life is Younique cosmetics. 

I've always been into fashion, but have never liked how some people make it out to be only shallow and useless. What I've noticed about myself as I spend more time in the mirror is that I have developed a TRUE love for my own BEAUTY and I am INSPIRED to make myself better. I appreciate so many aspects of beauty, and I sometimes envy those of you who are barefaced and beautiful! But I no longer want to change myself into someone else. I only want to make myself the best I can be. 

The longer I work with this company, the more I love it. Not only will I never use another mascara, but I'm becoming increasingly loyal to using our products over any others. This is not just because of the makeup quality, but because of the company's commitment to supporting victims of domestic and sexual violence. The Younique Foundation provides resources and a yearly conference to aid in these beautiful women's healing process. Our mission is to uplift, empower, motivate all women, but especially those the enemy has attacked. 

A year ago I created an umbrella brand for all my endeavors. 

Truth - I do my best to live my life by the Truth, letting it change and shape me, letting it minister to people through my poems, leaning and trusting in the Word, the Christ. I also believe the truth is one of the only things that can uplift a woman who has been abused. 

Beauty - I honestly believe that submission to and understanding of the truth allows beauty to bloom where it was hidden. If we can believe in our beauty, it can empower us. 

Inspiration - And finally I know that we live by inspiration. If we can inspire a woman to be her best self, it will motivate her to keep going when the going is tough. 

I am so much a work in progress. But if ever the truth or the beauty the Lord has entrusted me with can uplift or inspire or empower someone and motivate them, then I will be eternally grateful and blessed. 

#TruthBeautyInspiration

Beauty Heals Broken Hearts

In my last post (skip the video and the book review) I talked about how God's desire is for us to behave in a way that attracts people to His goodness.  That should trump any beauty regiment or product sales.

On May 3, LifeChurch.tv did baptisms. I stood in the sanctuary and jumped and danced and lifted my arms in worship, and cried and cried and cried.  I had an ecclesiastical epiphany.  I knew on a deep level that everything in the world: every task, every product, every relationship is utterly meaningless until someone's life is changed in a way that leads them to the cross of Christ and the realization that those who find God find the life for which we were created.

"And the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace."

That afternoon, I posted this status to Facebook:

"I've never posted anything like this before. But it feels right, so I'm gonna go with that. 

My spirit just said "You are going to feel like your life is in shambles (with brief, sporadic spots of hope and peace) until you have allowed the Lord to create a full-time ministry through you."

So. There it is. Anyone who knows about ministry jobs, or who wants to pay my bills so I can quit my job, hit me up."

10 people were so gracious as to respond thoughtfully and compassionately.  The prayer team at LifeChurch gave me a ton of support.  I had two really meaningful and important conversations with women of God who I have always looked up to.

In six weeks, I have learned two indescribably important lessons:

1. God speaks clearly. Always. 
• Problems arise when we are not properly positioned to hear and understand what He is saying.  I was moved by God's love for us, by His investment in returning us to our place of ruling the earth as extensions of Him.  I was also overwhelmed and disappointed at school. I was in pain that I was trying to rationalize away.  I was guilty of not allowing Him to be my strength and my joy and my help. That last statement about ministry jobs was my flesh denying God's ability and willingness to redeem my current and past ministry roles and callings.  There's an old LifeChurch sermon about how when some people landscape, they do it slowly section-by-section. Others raze the whole property and start over from scratch.  You can guess which category I'm in.
2. You can often discern God's voice because He is telling you what you don't want to hear (but what lines up with His word and what is right). 
• At the beginning of last school year, the Lord provided me with Bible verses to guide me, as well as a prayer team that supported me and gave me words of wisdom.  A guiding scripture for my teaching career has always been "those the Lord calls he also equips." But I was not letting Him equip me. I was not utilizing prayers and the anointing, or group accountability to do the job the Lord had assigned me.  Some of the pain was to purify me and some was self-inflicted.  God did not want to abandon His process by validating my weakness and lack of trust.  I am a teacher.  At least for now. 

The Lord was very clear when He spoke to me. "...until you have allowed the Lord to create a full-time ministry through you."  What He did not say was "...until you quit teaching." What He did not say was "...until you work at a church or in the mission field." He told me to allow Him to lead and to allow Him to hold the paintbrush.

Teaching is a ministry, I just have to be willing to serve.

But I also was placed in the path of a servant who loves the Lord and wants to free His daughters from sexual abuse and slavery.  I was so inspired by his compassion and simplicity (sometimes it's simple - if not easy: find safe houses, rescue women and girls) and determination (to put a permanent end to sex trafficking worldwide).  His project, Broken Hearts, is in the very beginning stages, but he planted a seed in me and I know will continue to do so for others.

Through a conversation with my sweet friend Ericka, a makeup artist and manager for MAC, about her passion for the company's philanthropy, I was reminded about Younique's dedication to domestic violence awareness (DVA) and support for victims.  This is not my first time working for DVA.  For three years of college, my sorority made a large effort to promote awareness.

I also remembered that my friend Maria has transitioned her mission to save souls in Haiti to include helping Haitian women rise up from their discrimination and high rate of violent and sexual victimization and empower them to create better lives for themselves and their children.  Her Jasper House will open this year.

In the USA, Christians spend a lot of time talking about how women hurt themselves by the relationships they choose, clothes they wear, friends they model.  We talk about our petty and catty tendencies.  We talk about working versus nurturing our family and about church leadership or back-row seats.  But we ignore the enemy's darker and more violent attack on our femininity and our ability to see, embody, maintain, and exude the beauty God had in mind for us from the beginning.  We don't talk about violence and sexual assault.

And we definitely don't ask ourselves enough if we can help.

In September, it will be a year since I focused my creative energies around three words: Truth. Beauty. Inspiration. Through my recent revelations and the lens through which I now see so many things (advertising, pornography, the premature and exaggerated sexualization of young women), I will be narrowing that focus down even further.

The Truth is Yeshua, the Messiah, the Savior, the soon returning and reigning King. "Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to [humans] by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:12). He is also the Word, our logos - the reason we do anything (John 14).

Beauty is everywhere and IN EVERY ONE OF US, especially women of God.

We are called to use that beauty to Inspire others towards the greatness inside them, whether our husbands, our students, our best friends, our church family or the world.

I am working on a plan and system by which I dedicate my Younique sales, book sales, and performance payments first, to paying off my credit cards so that I can reallocate my salary toward an apartment and then house of my own so that I can be hospitable to others. Secondly, and more importantly, to donate and undergird the missions of Broken Hearts and the Jasper House.

Until (and even after) I have generated the funds to be able to allocate and reallocate them, my makeup photos will take on a more focused connection to the beauty in us already and the healing and empowerment God desires for us.

This post is plenty long enough, but there will be more and more and more on this topic in the future. Thank you to my Bold, Brave and Pretty sisters who helped me get here!

What can you do to help?
Buy makeup!
Buy my poetry book! Contact me for instructions.
Pray for me!

#TrueBeautyInspires