Note to self:

I don't like to be mean to myself, because I am on my own team- that one person I should be able to rely on. However, right now I have a public service announcement for my damn self :

Like seriously

Just :

If thats too hard to do, then when I feel the urge/ need to say something I should rather:

Preferably water

Or else next time, my mouth will get me into a situation

The bottom line is 

 Proverbs 17:28 says:

Even dunces who keep quiet are thought to be wise;
    as long as they keep their mouths shut, they’re smart.

James 1:19

My dear brothers and sisters, pay attention to what I say. Everyone should be quick to listen. But they should be slow to speak.

Proverbs 10:8

The wise in heart accept commands,but a chattering fool comes to ruin.

Proverbs 13:3

He who guards his mouth preserves his life,
But he who opens wide his lips shall have destruction.

My prayers are Job 6: 24

“Teach me, and I will be quiet"

and 

1 Thessalonians 4:11-12

and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.

The Art of Listening

Use your ears for listening. They are not there for decorations!


Quoting John Maxwell "If you talk good, chances are you don't listen too well."

Proverbs 15:14

The (discerning) mind  of one who has understanding seeks knowledge,
 but the mouths of fools feed on folly (foolishness).

So..

Then ask God for wisdom regarding what you have heard and how to deal with the situation. 

A.W. Tozer: "Among the gifts of the Spirit scarcely one is of greater practical usefulness than the gift of discernment. This gift should be highly valued and frankly sought as being almost indispensable in these critical times. This gift will enable us to distinguish the chaff from the wheat and to divide the manifestations of the flesh from the operations of the Spirit."

Isa 11:2-3 (NIV) The Spirit of the Lord will rest upon him--the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of power, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord--and he will delight in the fear of the Lord. He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears with his ears.

1 Sam 16:7 (NIV) "...Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart."

Floundering

"Floundering: Struggle mentally; show or feel great confusion"

Over dinner with my boss and colleagues the other night, being the dumbest youngest in the group, all the all the attention was on me and my crazy radical ideas.

I let loose on my ideals on relationships, future aspirations and everything in between.

Shining and feeling like a million bucks

I got schooled by those who have been on that path, long before I was an idea.

I'll share some of what I said on various topics:

Marriage

I did not enjoy the story but I liked the characters. I feel that Hollyweird and the whole world fail to grasp and portray the role of a black, successful and single woman. Why does it seem like she never gets it all???

There always has to be a compromise of some sort... I digress

I shared with colleagues that as much as I want to get married someday, its not now. I don't have enough money, I don't have my Masters degree and above all- I dont like the connotations of the word "submit". I feel like its in the neighbourhood of the word "slave". Lord knows this. I have told Him this. 

At that my mentor, a highly educated colleague who has 3 children, a Masters (was doing her PHD but realised all the jobs she would be offered with a PHD would be academic and stopped) and married for over 20 years, told me that I dont have to look at it from that perspective. Submit basically means being nice to your husband and treating him with respect. Its basically doing everything that you can to make him happy. She got married at 21. She was looking for someone to be her best friend, share bills with and just do life together. They went to court, signed on the dotted lines and the rest is history.

I can only trust and respect someone who is respectable. Even King Solomon wants to know where to find those dudes in Proverbs 20:6, he asks:

Many a man proclaims his own loving-kindness and goodness, but a faithful man who can find?

Career

As I mentioned, my boss was at the table so when I raised talks of doing my Masters degree full time at Harvard. He shook his head. Like I mentioned in my previous post, I am working my dream job- I never in my wildest dreams thought at 25 I would be involved in work I am about to get involved in, having access to the type of people even LindkedIn can't connect you with. Its just by divine appointment. 

My mentor asked me what I wanted to study. I told her "political sciences", and she laughed. I wide eyed told her "I want to help people", at which she then responded "do you want power or to help people?". The kind of work we do does and really will change many people's lives. I was stumped. 

Let me think about it..

She went on to draw the parallel between my relationship and career- I don't want to commit to anything or anyone. Which is true. I am a commitment phobe. I am committed to Jesus- isn't that enough? I guess it should filter down to the rest of my life. I need to commit to keeping healthy, for the bulk of my life I have had struggles with weight. I am now happy with my body, regardless of the shape or size. Its the vehicle that I use to fulfill my destiny and purpose God has called me for. I can improve it though! Take it from a Toyota to a Bugatti... and be like:

I am thinking of trying out the Insanity Workout.. It needs 60 days of commitment. 

BUT

                                       Yes I can!

Again, I digress.

At the table was an old wise man who has seen the world, has 3 sons and he said "when you know who are, you won't have so many of these problems." "You wont care what people think and when you meet a man who knows who he is, he wont feel threatened by what you do". He also told me that people go and get Masters degrees so they can do they job I am already doing right now. He even offered to take me to Cambridge to visit Harvard and MIT,but just to tour the campus.

At the end of the night I felt like:

My mentor said "You are floundering. You want to be in politics, to help people, to have power, to be in business, to work in Africa, to do Masters full time at Harvard. Girl, you are so confused". She also asked "what is so great about single that you can't have or do within a relationship?" If I want to go to the club- I can go with this man. I said "I dont have the money to get married", she countered "you can make the money together." I was out of comebacks!

I am floundering. I am working my way out of the confusion with the Holy Spirit, the Helper. He has helped me tremendously over these past few weeks. 

I am smack bam in the middle of Proverbs 19:21

Many plans are in a man’s mind, but it is the Lord’s purpose for him that will stand.

As you can see, I had many plans in my heart! So many they made my head spin. However God's will will prevail above my little plans. In brief, my plans were:

Work in a law firm for about 2 years post admission.

Apply to do my first  Masters at University of London in African Politics, for a year to improve my under-grad University results.

Apply to Harvard Kennedy School of Government or MIT for the Masters in Public Policy for 2 years.

Get a job at Mckinsey in New York  through the recruiters.

Come back to Africa, the Mckinsey office in Johannesburg or Lagos.

Find a way to get into mining, etc.

God has now:

Given me the job in mining,etc.

Without all those other things I planned to do. I haven't changed up to walk along Him in this new lane, I'm still looking at my plans saying "Hey God, I think we're meant to be going this way." Pointing back. God is like "No, child. Its my way." 

Where I want to be

To the day!!!

So I work from home. That is a post for another day.

Anyway, afternoons can be real slow, especially in this African heat and humidity- can it just rain already???!!!

I was talking to someone with a cute voice on the phone, very work related,  and decided to Google him.

You would have done the same thing

Anyway, I found his profile on Facebook! He's ok, not as good looking as the voice. Plus there is a baby there, so moving right along. I am not thirsty, but I am curious. #Allowme

Then I saw my first ex-boyfriend was online. Note- I say my first ex-boyfriend, not my first boyfriend. There is obviously a story to tell there, see the end here . I gather that he is engaged, or getting engaged and it seems to me that he is having a baby by someone else in all this. I am not surprised one bit, I prayed for that girl. Well both those girls.

I decided to send him a congratulatory message. Which actually should be a more like "You ready?? Good luck!!" message. But that is none of my business. I have a super cute profile picture looking happy, all swirled up with my Arab boo!

I decided to scroll down my profile to see what other random ridiculousness I was involved with, then I saw my post from 13 March 2013.

I had won tickets to see Dr John Maxwell at Emperor's Palace in a newspaper competition- shout out to the Gupta's!! It was the New Age newspaper :)

The relevance of this day is it was the first time I met one of the sponsors who is now my boss. It is also exactly 3 months to the day of my resignation. I resigned on 13 June 2013. I was so excited about Dr Maxwell, yet with hindsight I should have been more excited about my future!!

God has a sense of humour! This is not the first time He's done this to me by the way.  The first time it was with my university degree! I graduated on 11 April 2011, but due to some financial reasons, I could not get my degree. Fast forward to 2013 when its time for my admission as an attorney, funds came through and I went to pick up my degree on 11 April 2013. 2 years to the date of my graduation.

He is an amazing God. He remembers dates. I love that about Him. Nothing is too insignificant for Him to keep note of. He knows the things that make me smile and feel special, cherished and loved. Such wonderful fulfillment of Psalm 139.

He Perceives

Cutter of hair and Quitter of jobs

Apparently I was brave to do this.

I however don't think I was brave. I just trusted God. I trusted that:

Psalm 91: 7

A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you.

and Psalm 91:11-12

For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways; they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.

These scriptures, the entire book of Joshua and Job 40-42 are a few of the verses that got me through when I made the decision to resign from the only job I had known for 3 years.

I decided that I wanna do as Tamar would say:

Its about time!

It was time to get my dreams and get my break towards entrepreneurship and politics. It was time to trust.

Ever quit a job without having another job lined up?????? Huh???

Its not easy. I did however believe it was something God was leading me to do. I handed in my resignation on 13 June 2013 and was almost going crazy.

I lived on Psalms 37:23

The steps of a righteous man are ordered by the Lord.

And Psalm 25:3(a)

No one who hopes in you will ever be put to shame

Fortunately my family, friends and church groups were so supportive. It is so important to serve at church people, it was one of the activities that kept me sane for about 7 months of the year- but that's a post for another day. They were all like

I applied around like crazy! If it said "law", I was hitting that 'send' button. Coming to think of it, even if it didn't say 'law' I was hitting that button. I sent my CV to London, various places in America- I was willing to be an Executive Assistant to the Human Resources Director at the George Soros Foundation in Washington, still waiting for that response. Oh, as for South Africa, I sent my resume EVERYWHERE! No, seriously. I did. At some point I was looking up "paid missionary jobs" and I knew I hit rock bottom.

My flesh was like:::::

My faith was like "repeat Jeremiah 29:11:

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Sometimes God gives you the wisdom to ask someone else! I asked an HR Guru who's work I came across on my favourite blog. His advice to me was to work on my networking skills since I didn't have the most skills and experience. I got on my LinkedIn page and started making those connections.

I was meeting more people, becoming less anxious but still quite desperate as my notice period days were ticking away. I did not want to stop the timer, but I didn't know where I would be when time ran out.

This story is not in the right order of events, but like I said in my initial blog post "its messy" over here.

To make the long story longer, God orchestrated it such that I would meet my professional Boaz!

" A man of great wealth" (Ruth 2:1) who has "let me go to the field, and glean among the ears of grain after him in whose sight I shall find favor."

God has been so faithful to His word-

Psalm 5:12

For You, O Lord, will bless the righteous; With favor You will surround him as with a shield.

He gave me such favour with this man, who did not know me from a mop! He has redeemed my ambitions as Ruth was redeemed by Boaz. (Ruth 4)

THE BIG CHOP

To commemorate this new job and season in my life- which I will discuss in detail in another post, I decided to cut my hair. I decided to chop my hair on 31 August 2013 as I said goodbye to the old!!!!!!!!!

Im on the left

That's the kind of hair I was chopping. Very good, beautiful, healthy thick locks I had kept for 6 years! (I was trimming and cutting them occasionally)

When I walked into that salon and told the dresser what I wanted to do, this one girl was like

But anyway, Ill share proper pics in another post. Please note the future blogs I have discussed here.

The result were quite satisfactory, even if I say so me-self!

I have too many black ensembles

Basically, all this is to say Romans 12:3

For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith.

Don't think of yourself too lowly either! You have been given faith to do whatever God has placed in your heart. Whether its leaving a job, or chopping your hair off, He is a God of all things. He cares about the mundane.

Its also a fulfillment of Romans 8:28

"We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God: those who are called according to His purpose."

What now?

What is THIS blog about? With everyone and their grandpa being a blogger, surely by now someone has captured your thoughts! Is there anything new in this world? It is after all  2013, everything has been seen or done in some shape or form.

Well the wonderful thing about this blog is that its all about nothing! Nothing in the sense that it does not relate to one genre. Its actually about everything. Literally everything. This means its messy. Really messy.