Happy Easter/Ressurection

I wrote this piece on July 16, 2011.
My grandmother's house had just burned down on the 13th, my grandfather's 70th birthday.
I'm so grateful, I never thought this day would make it..... I havent stopped crying since I read it this morning.

I love the fact that I’m loved
But sometimes I hate the way He shows it
My best interest is always his priority
I often fight the urge to just roll with it
Some days breathing brings complications
Everyday routines can’t foresee
Washing clothes causes house fires
I still have to believe He knows what’s best for me
Even though my eyes can’t see
Past this moments pain or intensity
I still have to believe
My grandma said warriors pray for rain
When tomorrow feels hotter than today
And I can’t see my way out
Every dream I own is strapped to me in doubt
And I’m tired of trying to carry it all
I have to believe in mustard seeds
With unshakable faith that he’s heard my call
Daily I look for magic in simple deeds
Knowing that it has to be real
I pray to be content, though that’s rarely how I feel
And today I just want peace.
I want my bills to be paid
No stress about money
Grateful I’m not hungry
Laughing away the lonely
Doing what I love
Loving who I am
Living out my passions
Sharing my heart with the universe
Knowing that I’ve seen the worst
Because the best is yet to come
But takes his sweet time….
Time is so precious, so infinite
God is so magnificent
The mastermind behind all intricate
Details
He never fails
I still have to believe
Grace is out there and bigger than me
Unable to control it all on my own
Tired of fighting for power
Beat into submission
Praying for relief by the hour
Knowing that it’s coming
Just in due time
I listen to the lyrics
To rejuvenate my spirit
Knowing that better is almost here
Every tear
Every fear
For the past 4 years
Have brought me here
I was never promised
Pots of gold or even lucky charms
Like miracles, I just believe they exist
And on the days when I want to quit
I rush home to greet the sprinkler
Because the magic of rainbows appear
Just to remind me
Why I still believe in Him.
Grandma said warriors pray for rain
All rainbows have pots of gold
Appreciate its beauty
Let struggle bruise your soul
Stop trying to find the end
Just keep fighting


I'm still digging, still fighting and most importantly I'm still standing!
Grab your shovel... through the tears, I kept digging. I'm so grateful.

Stepping....

I can't walk on water, but I bet I can skip rocks.
I can swim between them, I can do anything but sink.

We must always remember that someone helps us along the way.
No journey is completed without assistance.
We love, we network, we win, we lose, cry, fight, dance all night.
None of those things are fun alone.
People need people to survive.
We have to interact with one another, we have to develop our trust muscles.
Knowing that God makes no mistakes, but we do.
Often times we are guilty of jumping the gun (I have).
Patience is the one thing, I've developed on this whole dream chasing project.
There isn't a doubt in my mind that I'm getting there.
Looking back at this time last year, I see so much progress.
I'm so grateful.
No turning around, just moving forward.
Knowing that we need people, hang around people with their own goals and dreams.
Make a circle of people who understand the work of a dream chaser.
People who celebrate you, comfort you, support you and most importantly believe in you.
No one needs a negative person barking in their ear all the time.
Be careful who you tell your dreams too.

If you can't change the people around you, CHANGE THE PEOPLE AROUND YOU!

Grab your shovel and keep on digging..... there will be some dookey, just throw it with dirt and keep going.

I absolutely love this!

When things go wrong as they sometimes will,
When the road you're trudging seems all uphill,
When funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh.
When care is pressing you down a bit.
Rest, if you must, but don't you quit.
Life is queer with its twists and turns
As every one of us sometimes learns.
And many a failure turns about
When he might have won had he stuck it out:
Don't give up though the pace seems slow -
You may succeed with another blow.
Success is failure turned inside out -
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt.
And you never can tell how close you are.
It may be near when it seems so far:
So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit
It's when things seem worst that you must not quit.


Grab your shovel and keep on digging!
I heard this on the radio the other day, Steve Harvey was reciting it.
I've looked for this for the past few days and couldn't find it.
I get an email from someone and half of this was their signature line.
I googled it and look what I found!!!!!
I'm so inspired.
God is so awesome.

I believe I see a diamond. I'm still digging.

Before the Breakthrough

The ironic thing about success is that as this photo shows, usually people give up just before the very point that were about to achieve a breakthrough.

Lets face it, trying to achieve a goal is hard work. You can strive and strive and strive and seem like you have just got nowhere. Feeling like giving up comes naturally and regularly. Sometimes when we are trying to achieve a goal it is so hard to stay focused and to hold on to the belief that some day we will actually get there.
I felt like giving up so many times.
I can remember working so hard towards numerous goals in my life, failing, getting up , failing, getting up, failing, getting up seemingly trapped in a cycle of non achieving. I felt like giving up more times than I could imagine.
Reading inspirational stories of those who overcame their own struggles to succeed, did not always help, as at times it just reminded me of how far I seemingly had to go before I could ever dream of such success.
What i learnt from failure
But then I learnt an important lesson through all my failures when attempting to launch my own business, make money online and secure full time work as a professional musician. I learnt that 99% of people who fail to achieve a goal, fail because they give up and not because they wouldn’t have made it had they stuck in there for a bit longer. It really is that simple. You see, when most people quit, the vast majority of the time they have absolutely valid reasons for doing so. Maybe they run out of money to continue with a business venture, maybe they physically do not have the time, or maybe they just cannot seem to make work what they are trying to achieve.
Quitting must of course seem like a viable option for us to believe it is the best solution.
However, it is their belief that giving up is the best thing for them to do, which takes them off the path of success they were on and leads them onto a different path of ‘failure.’
Sleeping lions
As a child I remember playing the game sleeping lions. This was a game we would play at a party and would work as follows. A group of children would be the Lions and their job would be to lie very still on the floor without moving. The other children would be the hunters whose job it was to make the Lions move. Now these hunters couldn’t touch the Lions, but could tell them jokes, stories or lies, or get very close to get the Lion to move.
Now, the trick to winning this game was to not move NO MATTER WHAT! Sometimes the hunters would develop elaborate ways to get the Lions to move, including going outside and ringing the doorbell and then telling the sleeping Lions that their parents had arrived to pick them up. Another trick was to ring the phone at the house of the party and tell the sleeping Lion that it was an emergency and they had to take the phone call immediately.
To an impressionable child, these tricks often worked more than once because at the time they seemed so believable.
The only way to truly win at the game Sleeping Lions was to ignore everything around you, no matter how feasible it seemed and keep ‘sleeping.’
As a child it seemed completely logical to stop ‘playing the game’ when somebody told you your parents were there to collect you but this was a lie! Some particularly cunning ‘hunters’ would tell the Lions, that they were no longer playing the game, that there really was an emergency and they should stop ‘sleeping’ immediately, as they were no longer trying to get them to lose, but alerting the Lions to a genuine emergency. This too was a lie!

Life can be a bit like the game Sleep Lions at times.

Just like the hunters in the game Sleeping Lions, there are all sorts of things in life that try and get us to quit. Constant failures, self doubts, negative feedback from others and so on.
At times the reasons that suggest that we should quit also seem so real and genuine but they too are lies that will fade with time. It often seems like giving up is the best and most sensible thing for us to do. This is exactly however when we must not give up.
For as soon as we do quit like the sleeping lion who believes the hunters story, we forfeit all chance of a victory.
In reality, the voice that was telling us to quit, or the circumstance that persuaded us to throw in the towel was counterfeit.
We did not realise, that had we waited for a short time and ridden out the doubt, then the negative voice telling us to quit would have faded into nothing. The finances we so desperately needed would have come to us unexpectedly, and the time we lacked would have been made available. Quitting at the point however meant we could never know this.
So if you are really struggling with achieving something in your life a breakthrough, know that you are at the point where you will begin to see some changes. Don’t give up, keep going, you honestly are closer than you think.
Hold on a little while longer and things will change. This is a promise- keep going.
Until next time
Damian

Im inspired

There is inside you
All of the potential
To be whatever you want to be;
All of the energy
To do whatever you want to do.
Imagine yourself as you would like to be,
Doing what you want to do,
And each day, take one step
Towards your dream.
And though at times it may seem too
difficult to continue,
Hold on to your dream.
One morning you will awake to find
That you are the person you dreamed of,
Doing what you wanted to do,
Simply because you had the courage
To believe in your potential
And to hold on to your dream.


Grab your shovel.... keep on diggin'

Love it.

The hardest thing to be is yourself, existing in a world of look alikes.

Someone will always be prettier.
They will always be smarter.

They will have more money in their checking account.

Their house will be bigger.
They will drive a better car.

Their children will do better in school.
And their husband will fix more things around the house.

So let it go,
and love you and your circumstances.

Think about it.

The prettiest woman in the world can have hell in her heart.
And the most highly favored
woman on your job may be unable to have children.

And the richest woman you know,
she's got the car, the house, the clothes....might be lonely.

And the word says if "If I have not Love, I am nothing."
So, again, love you.
Love who you are.

Be grateful and count your blessings.
Grab your shovel and keep on diggin!

Love it!

Be!

When your hands are empty, you are your most powerful.
If there is nothing in your hands, you are free to fight, pick up and work, with nothing to lose.
This poster reminds me of how I felt after parting ways with my former business partners.
I felt like I needed them, we didn't share the same vision, ethics or interests.
Looking back it was doomed from the start, the lack of communication, was the intro to the end.
The lack of honesty, comraderie, no scopes of expectations, no paper trails and the manipulation of words and integrity.

Know who you are, know who you are working with and most importantly know what you are working for. I can honestly say that God made all of this possible. I have a different perspective regarding business and relationships. Be liked, not tolerated. Be honest. Be fair. Trust God to lead you in all things and everything works out in the end. I still believe in diamonds and I know it's so close, I can see the glare!


Keep on diggin!

No looking back

This is the first set and I've learned so much from watching them over a million times.
But it's a step in the right direction, I kept digging and I'll continue!


Grab your shovel too, there is work to be done.
No looking back!

Watch me in action!

http://www.ehow.com/video_12260122_orange-cranberry-pound-cake-recipe.html

Passion

I think this chick is so powerful!
Dancing in the wind makes her happy.
Her passion is dancing and that is the highest praise ever!
Whatever you love, and you would do it for free is what you should be doing.
I love to cook, write, act and I make it a priority to do some of one daily if not all three,
I recently scored a column on Hellobeautiful.com.
Excited is an understatement!
God blesses me daily, I have to make sure I sieze every opportunity I'm awarded.
I'm making how to videos, I write the recipes and cook there.
All of my loves are combined into one element and I show my heart to world.
I love, I am loved, I am passionate, I am powerful and I am happy!

Pursue whatever you love and you will never work a day in your life.

Most importantly I'm grateful.

Keep on digging. It's there!

Aspire

Where there is no vision, the people perish....
—Proverbs 29:18 KJV

It is important to have dreams and visions for our lives. We atrophy without something to reach for. God has created us to have goals. We need to look beyond where we are.

Our dreams and visions are simply hope for a better tomorrow. When God plants a seed of something in our heart, at that point it is a possibility, but not a "positively". That seed must be cared for properly.

Quite often the Lord attempts to place something in our heart, and we fail to conceive that He really means what He is saying. We must remember that we cannot get pregnant with a dream or a vision unless we are able to conceive. Practically speaking, that refers to our thoughts.

We must believe a thing to be possible. We must be able to conceive it in our thoughts. If we do get past the conception, there is still the pregnancy to go through. There is much planning and preparation before the birth. Satan does everything he can to get us to abort our dreams and visions.

God has a vision for your life, and He desires to plant it in your heart. Don't have a "spiritual abortion." Give birth to all that God has placed within you.

"I will not give up the dreams and visions God has placed within my heart. I am determined to see them through to the end."

Grab your shovel and keep diggin!

The difference

I picked this photo because I absolutely adore Phylicia Rashad.
She has always been a positve staple in the black community.
Classy, dignified, well spoken and simply gorgeous!
She makes me so proud. I believe in people who hold themselves to a higher standard.
Phylicia Rashad has never changed her colors, she empowers black women.
She has remained one of the strong women of our culture.

Simply put:
Your belief makes the difference.
It's black or white. Hot or cold, no greys or lukewarms.
Either you believe you can and will or you don't.
No such thing as try.... either you do or do not and this can be used in any aspect of life.
There is enough negative energy passed around freely, pick the positive and pursue it.
Grab your shove and keep on digging.

Reciprocity....

No matter what I do, I can never repay God.
He has been so good to me.
But I can be a better servant/steward.
I need to commit to him more by serving him better.
How can we expect Him to bless us with bigger when aren't faithful with smaller?
How can we expect Him to move mountains, when we don't think he can/will?




I'm going to do a fast and I'll post it here to let you know what I'm giving up.
I need to detox, my heart, mind, body and spirit.....
The faith I have in the things I wish to attain, will require more of a commitment on my part.
I can work, work, work and have faith in that work, with a lack of communication/commitment to God. I am intelligent enough to know that I'm doing nothing on my own. I'm a vessel through who my creator speaks. I'm grateful he uses me in the manners He sees fit, I'm grateful I'm ok with who He has made me to be. Nothing like being comfortable in your own skin.

Let's use our gifts to bless others, expecting nothing in return.
The best way to get a blessing is to give one.
Trust God, know that He is, was, will be!
I'm pray that these blogs bless you(the readers) as it blesses me the writer.

Reciprocate, grab your shovel, keep digging!

Crossroads

I thought this was a great pic to post.
Yesterday I had a great conversation, dreams, goals, plans and ambition and so on.
We barely know each other but are both well aware there is alot we can learn from each other.
I think he's a great guy! In the midst, of one of my rants, he made this statement and I thought it was amazing!

Where preparation and opportunity meet= Success.

I never thought about this before, whatever the dream is that you are chasing you are in constant preparation for the "big break". We do all of this work, building skills, learning more information, practicing technique, fusing ideas together to make something new all in the name of preparation. All of the things that seem pointless and tedious are actually skill builders. We have to see a lesson all things and take something away from it, it's better if we take the good things and make it a blessing/lesson as a opposed to seeing it as a punishment or curse. Every setback is a setup for a comeback..... A comeback is an opportunity for which you are already prepared. God takes us through these trials building our faith, skill and knowledge for our purpose but for his Glory.

I was in church one Sunday and my pastor said. " The holes in the golf ball were but there to make the ball fly further faster" When the ball is whole with no blemishes, it only flys about 30 feet. But the dents in the ball make the ball fly further faster because the wind can carry it better..... The wind being faith, the dents and dings (trials) make you lighter and easier to carry, the hole at the end of the course is opportunity.... God is so awesome!!!!


Preparation and opportunity have said hello, I'm ready for them to get really acquainted.
I got a shovel, bucket and boots, I'm down here digging til I touch this diamond I dream of.
In the name of Jesus! AMEN.

turning can'ts to cans, dreams to plans......

I'm going to bottle this one up and sell it!
I thought this was a cool quote.
My eyes stay on the hunt for an inspirational saying!
It's all about changing your mindset!
No try's, not can'ts,
Speak everything as if it is already in progress.
I'm trying should be I'm doing.....
I can't should be I'm not going to today but.....
Can't is like a setup for failure, can't means you aren't willing to even try.
Nothing beats a failure, but a try!
When there is nothing to lose, you are your most powerful.
That's because both hands are free to move what's in the way, and grab what's needed.
Use them both, destiny is a puzzle and it requires shifting of several pieces and removal of extra pieces and the discomfort of squeezing yourself into a tighter space.
The word "no" has an effect on psyche that can cause some of us to give up/in.
No's are necessary, often times they give us insight to something that needs to be tweeked.
While we perfect our craft we will change 1000 times before we get to where we are satisfied with the end product. Everything will change about our product and that's growth. You can't be arrogant enough to think that it's perfect when you first start doing it!
With my BBQ sauce, the labels, the recipes, the names, have all changed..... I've now developed a product I'm more than pleased with..... These cant's have turned to cans then to jars..... I love the jars!
These dreams are planned too, I used to make backup's to the backups and now I just trust God to keep me in perfect peace, pray for understanding and guidance and comfort in not knowing what to expect with the certainty it all be ok!

Turning cant's into cans.... Dreams into plans!
Shovel in hand and still diggin!

The right way...

Faith and fear can not coexist.
I've never heard this until today.
It touched me too!
There has been an internal struggle within me battling this very thing.
I claim not to be perfect, but human.
Even though, I'm continuously digging, I struggle with the fear of inadequacy.
God has given me every tool, I need for battle and I still battle with the what ifs....
So today I read my favorite devotional, www.ft111.com and it SPOKE!

Small Straws in a Soft Wind by Marsha Burns:

Release yourself from the thoughts, worries, and concerns that keep you earthbound.  For, you must rise above all that keeps you from absolute faith in Me, says the Lord.  You cannot operate in the realm of faith and be in fear at the same time.  Pay attention to your thoughts and make the necessary adjustments to demonstrate faith.  2 Corinthians 10:5 casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.

I'm the main one talking about Trust God, Trust God, Have faith, Keep believing.
Yet this is an area I struggle in.
There is no doubt in my head my dreams will come true.
There is a worry there, though. I worry about my competance, my confidence, my ability.
I never doubt my love/passion/persistence in attaining the things I dream of.
So I have to remind myself, that no one does it like me.
No one can do it like me, and I've vowed to leave a mark on this world.
One recipe,one meal, one poem, one Tudi at at time....
Time is ok, it's necessary to continue development.
In due time, in due time, in due time.

Keep digging, working those faith in yourself muscles.... it's in there.