"I can do all things through CHRIST who strengthens me!" ..so run!!

Hello friend,

This is a letter to you. Yes, you. I want to remind you that you can do everything you want. Maybe someone, something, somewhere in the past told you that you couldn't and you started believing it. I did. Well friend, they lied to you! The devil is a liar! (John 8:44)

A true friend will always tell you the truth out of love. One of my biggest desires is to see all my friends fulfill the dreams God gave them long ago. Why? Simply because someone did it for me a long time ago and my life has been forever changed!

Maybe you're a student with a full load, a stay-at-home mom caring for your family, a working woman learning the ropes, a successful career focused chick, a young girl lost & searching for the right purpose, a hard working mom or a single mom just trying to do it all. The truth is, I have all of these ladies in my life and I LOVE it!!!

Here's a brief list of some of my friends:

• SHE lay her career down to raise her baby & help her husband with his business.
• SHE followed her husband across the ocean to be closer to him as he serves our country.
• SHE just had her second baby and loves them dearly but can't wait to get back to work.
• SHE had her third baby and stepped back into a busy career caring for others.
• SHE is a full time Doctorate student, employee & encourager...all while taking the bus!
• SHE is a busy ER nurse and uses her testimony to witness to many.
• SHE is a single mom working a demanding career and raising her kids alone.
• SHE is lost and searching but determined to stay connected with healthy women.
• SHE left to Africa to become a missionary in her 40s.
• SHE refused to let her addiction overtake her & now coaches young women.
• SHE dedicates her life to loving the homeless and marginalized.
• SHE refuses to let the past keep her chained & chooses freedom on a daily basis.
• SHE refuses to be broken and continues to search for purpose and calling.
• SHE works full time, takes care of her family and is determined to make a difference.  
• SHE is single but does not worry and focuses on her purpose & career. 
• SHE homeschools and sets her family up for a win while leading other moms to health.
• SHE refuses to let cancer define her life even in the midst of chemotherapy.
• SHE runs the good race! (1 Corin 9:24)

Maybe you see yourself in this list or in several of these women. Congratulations my friend, you are doing it all through CHRIST who strengthens you. The lie from the past has no hold on you. The truth is friend, you can do what you choose to do. The question is, are YOU choosing to do it? 

I would love to challenge you. The question does not rest on your "capacity" but on your focus and determination to just DO IT. Is something holding you back from just going for it? Is it fear of failure? If you at least give it a shot then you stand a chance!

The difference between what I could have become and what I am was all weaved through choices. I grew up in East Los Angeles, child of immigrant parents, abused and with addictive tendencies. I had to set my focal point high and run! There were no mentors, coaches or leaders that took me under their wing but I knew there was a need for them and that one day I would bridge that gap.

So today, when you see me busy with a full time ministry, a mom of triplets, a wife, a friend, a student, a mentor and a pretty darn good cook....don't compare, don't judge and don't suppose that it's a front. I am no better than you, I don't have a larger "capacity" (whatever that's suppose to mean), I didn't have more means than you, it's not a facade. All I did friend, was choose to believe the word of God and not the enemy that I could do it all and I ran! You can too! Your "all" may look different than mine and at the end of the day, only you and God can judge what lane you choose. So look up my friend AND RUN!!!

One last piece of advise that I'll share that a wise person once told me.... "you can do it all but that doesn't mean you have to do it all....right now." ....Of course the latina comes out of me wanting to ask... "Right now, right now? or just right now." (this is only funny if you know George Lopez or any members of my Cervantes family!) and there you have it, another little crazy side of me!

See you on the journey!

****THANK YOU to all my beautiful friends represented in this post. your example and friendship fuels my soul! I live vicariously through the stay-at-home mom, the single girl searching for purpose and the women in the midst of the battle but choosing to fight the good fight! My life is full because of you!*****

THE WALK HOME...

Again, I was cleaning out closets when I ran across a photo album of the year I studied in Spain. Here I found silly pictures and started leafing through the pages of my past. So lost, alone and unaware. Then I found it! The HOST! Yes, the very host (holy bread) blessed in church to eat as a reminder of His death!! Oh the story!!! Tears filled my eyes and I cried for that girl!!!

While living in Granada in my late teens early 20’s I had been very lost and….searching. I found myself in a world with others on the same journey. I did things teens sometimes do and in positions I stumbled upon. One night, after an evening at some bars, we ended up at a Moroccan Tea shop which are so very popular in Spain. A few hours of chai tea and smoking hash I started a quiet, lovely and picturesque walk to my house. I was blessed to be living with a host family that had a picturesque home right next to The Alahambra and all it’s little shops and old churches. On my walk home I became increasingly paranoid and couldn’t think straight. I quickened my pace and thought about how much this street looked like a back lot of a studio. That it was too picturesque and too perfect. I just knew it had to be a set up by the government. I was so busy convincing myself that I was being watch that I barely noticed it!

A host. Yes, a host…the big white round one with the cross imprinted on it! Yes, the one a priest blesses as Christ’s body for us to share… there on the floor, at 2am, in the dark, in Spain, on the street! What? Surely this was part of the plot I was being set up for right? Paranoia grew. Surely I was hallucinating this! I was too high.  Mental note: No more tea and hash for me. So, I kept walking but was getting closer to it and yet it didn’t disappear. Ah, a brilliant thought! It wasn’t there was it? No, it couldn’t be! A plan: I’ll step on it and prove to myself that it’s an illusion! So I walked and tried not to look at it and stepped on it and took another step….I heard it! A very clear and audible crunching sound!!! What??? I pivoted around and stared at it….now behind me….cracked, with a clear shoe mark on it. Broken into two pieces………

I fell to my knee’s, tears fell down my face, and here….it was my turn to break in two!!! Who was I? Lost, in a foreign world, unaware of what my current actions would do in my life so many years later. I refused to believe in this host, on the floor, so I challenged it’s existence. Yet, it still lay there, no broken because of me! He loved me!!! Even if I refused to believe in his existence and chose to challenge it by stepping on it….it remained! I sat there crying and picked it up and ran home! Woke up my roommate to tell him about it…..though not a believer he was clearly moved and at first light….he went to church with me and we sat there quietly.

I’d like to tell you my life changed immediately and I never did anything wrong again! I’d like to tell you that….but it did take me a little longer however, that was the day “that I first believed.”

Here I am 13 years later. On my living room floor, with 3 year old triplets running around and asking me what this white broken thing was. The mercy, grace….how do I explain that to them? “Mami what’s that?”…..all I could mutter… “A present from God.”

Now I see how so many times I stepped on a gift, questioned its validity, ignored it’s existence, challenged it’s truth and yet it remained. Broken and stepped upon yet the pure value untouched. Such a testimony to my life….and to yours!

Scripture to lean on:

Mark 5: 24-34

John 4

John 9:1-20