It has been a long time coming and I am so excited to be back in a place where blogging is something that I feel led to do and have been RELEASED to do in this season. So, I think that it is only fair that we deal with what I’ve encountered on my time away and what I have learned during this time!
While I am always down with learning a good lesson, I sometimes don’t appreciate the way that they come at me. Because I’m not sure how they do yall, but they be out here manhandling me sometimes lol. I remember being young and being told to be careful about what I said I needed to work on because there would be times where the price of that lesson would be one that I would not like the cost attached. A lesson that I don’t think I’ll ever ask for again is patience, but that’s a different story for a different time! The lesson in this season was one that I could appreciate, and it not only applied to my life with Taylor’s World, but it was one that applied to my personal life as well.
It’s been over a year since I wrote a blog or even felt compelled to write. It wasn’t as if my life didn’t have anything going on, because trust me I was BUSY!! But I had so many other things to focus on that not being able to give 100% wasn’t in the cards and I’m not one to half do it, so it was more beneficial to just sit it out until I felt or was told otherwise.
I held my last conference in 2018. I was excited about what I felt God was doing but to tell the truth, that conference ran me raggedy. I was proud of what was accomplished, but I was so tired. Have you ever had God position the right people around you, but you don’t know how to properly utilize them and FULLY access the talents they have? Well, this is what happened to me. I mean had the tools but didn’t know what I was surrounded by. As I look back at it now, it makes me cringe 😬, but I am grateful that they have helped navigate through this season and have loved me even when it may have looked like I forgot the vision. 💜
Let’s get back to the craziness of my life and the lesson.
After the conference, about three months later, I found out I was pregnant. Talk about conflicted!!! Because here I was, yet again, unmarried and pregnant. I just KNEW Jesus and nem were up there looking at me like I was a fool. What people didn’t really know was that I was struggling with so many feelings not just about carrying another child out of wedlock but carrying a child and I felt inadequate as a Mother because in my mind God had taken my child from me once and I felt it was because I did something wrong and wasn’t fit to be her Mother. Now, in hindsight I realize that wasn’t the case, but it was the reality at the time that I was sitting in. I was trying to keep a healthy womb for the child I was carrying while having a broken heart for the one that I lost and that was the hardest thing in my pregnancy. I honestly didn’t know if it was possible to be happy for the child, I was carrying without feeling like I was replacing Taylor. And if you’ve never been in a place like this, please understand that it is a LOW place to be and can drain you mentally, test your faith, and cause your mind to go everywhere. 😫 😫 😫 😫
Fast forward to after having the baby and not really knowing how to balance a nonprofit, work, a family, and friends. Things suffered as I tried to prioritize, and I began to operate in what I now know was survival mode. I was operating off fumes most days. This pregnancy was completely different from Taylor’s and I didn’t have the energy to try to focus on a lot of things because I was dealing with all of my own emotions while trying to look happy and gathered on the outside. I learned how to keep up the smile and just push my emotions down. My main goal was to keep a happy and healthy growing place for my unborn and on June 21, 2019 at 5:37am, I delivered a healthy baby girl. My biggest fear would be that my heart didn’t have the room to mourn and miss one child while loving a new child. God showed me that both were possible and would give me moments where I could see Taylor in Kensleigh and those moments brighten up my life and flood my heart. This lesson was one about grace that I didn’t even know I needed to learn. Because this wasn’t about God giving grace to me, which he definitely did and continues to do. But this lesson was one where I had to learn to give grace to myself and learn that it was okay to grieve and love simultaneously. It was then that I realized that once I dealt with me and started forgiving me and truly healing me, I began to hear clearer and started learning to prioritize and tap back into my life and those around me. I don’t always hit the mark, but it’s something that I’m learning daily.
So exactly what did this newfound grace teach and release me to do, you say?
It’s important to know that often times lessons are tied to obedience and obedience is tied to your willingness to trust something that you may not understand (we can also call that faith). So in this season, I had to learn how to give myself grace and see what others saw in me. Because if I’m being real, I didn’t really know why God entrusted me with another kid and this vision…because I felt very underqualified. I mean questioning it EVERY DAYYYYY. So, during this quarantine, I decided that it was time to get back to me. Get back to the healthier me and see exactly what was in me and what God was trying to pull out of me. I started looking over Taylor’s World things. I started to remember the initial vision. I started to write what I saw.
Because Habakkuk 2:2 says we should “write the vision and make it plain.” But verse 3 is JUST as important (it will tie this entire blog together lol). It says that the vision is for an appointed time. It won’t lie, it sees the end. Although it may be delayed, wait until it comes to pass. I paraphrased, but you get it. So, remember how I said God gave me a team, but I didn’t properly use them? Well, I started talking to them and telling them what I saw and what I wanted to do. As always, they fully supported me, but things were different this time. I was more specific in my needs, I was more deliberate in the things I told them I wanted and needed from them. So, though I introduced Taylor’s World over 5 years ago, this time is different. I still feel underqualified, don’t get me wrong lol. They have helped me think things through, point me in the right direction for resources, and give me honest feedback. They each have talents and gifts that I need but couldn’t tap in to 5 years ago. Jamell today is not the same person who started Taylor’s World in 2016.
The lessons that I learned in this season deal with grace and waiting until you are released. Often times we get upset when things aren’t going how we think they should go. We compare ourselves to those around us and their success and want ours to mirror theirs. But that is impossible. We can’t mirror their success because we don’t often see what happened to get them there. We have to learn to give ourselves grace and allow ourselves the time to develop, stretch, and mature enough so that we can handle that success and the work that comes with maintaining it. Remember that the vision is for an appointed time, and until that time comes and you keep doing the work to get it right, remember…There is GRACE for that…
