New Year. What will you do with it?

So New Years Day is here....... and so many people are out making resolutions and aiming at things they want to do different in the New Year. I quite honestly, have never been a fan of resolutions. I feel like the excitement of the New Year and "the world" hyping  it up even more, causes people to think that change has to absolutely happen within the few days following New Years Day. I believe if you want to change something you can do it anytime you get ready. Some people have already had their New Years  in May or in August. Not that I am against New Years resolutions, I just feel it's so easy to get caught in the hoopla of it all, and not really embrace the fact that a change needs to take place. When you are truly sick of where u are at in your life and have a mindset that I can move forward from this place, You'll do it. You;; make the change.

One of my favorite scriptures is Philippians 1:6, "Being confident of this one thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ." This scripture encourages me greatly. It allows me to see that God knows the necessary work that needs to be done in me begins first with Jesus Christ and is an ongoing process throughout my journey of life. Many of us are trying to change behaviors or traits that have become habit without the help of Jesus Christ. Yes, you may last for awhile, but eventually that same behavior comes back and once again your faced with a decision to try and change it. There's no way "dirty hands can make something clean." So the first work begins with the transformation that Jesus brings when He changes our hearts. It's all a gradual process where he begins to strips things from us, relationships, sin, negative behaviors, and things that will hinder us in the future. 

So during this journey of being saved and attempting to live a pure and holy life after God, I have this confidence that God is continuing to perfect things in me. He is continuing to change things about my personality that aren't favorable. He's still working on the way that I treat people. He's still working on insecurities that need to be let go. He's still showing me that there is still a greater depth in Him that we have to reach. God is continuing to change the "ugly" parts of me,  that some of us try to deny. So writing a new years resolution is fine, if that's what you do, but know throughout this year of 2013, God gives you the opportunity day after day to ask  Him to change those things within us that we are not satisfied with. 

So in this NewYear I want you to be encouraged to do things not just differently but wholeheartedly. Allow God to make the change in your life. When you sit down actually ask Him what needs to be changed, what needs to be altered. Because at the end of the day He's the one molding you and shaping you. 

Mis-Handling You

Something that I encounter on a daily basis through interactions with women in personal/professional relationships and also with the work I do, is women who struggle with how they feel about themselves. Whether it has to relate to body image, relationship choices, lack of or need for attention, or feeling as if they matter or not, are daily struggles for several of them. Different women from different age groups (ALL) have had some kind of struggle in regards to self....Now this doesn't apply to all women across the globe.... but a great percentage have daily conflicts with how they feel about themselves.  It's an EPIDEMIC out here of women who truly do not know their worth and value in Christ and settle for less than what God truly intended for them. So if you can relate to this..... THIS IS FOR YOU! :)

Ephesians 2:10 tells us (in the NLT version) that we are God's masterpiece and that He created us ANEW in Christ Jesus to do the work He called us to do long ago. God covers in many scriptures what He thinks about you and how you are special and have such great treasure and value inside YOU.... But sometimes the hardest person to convince is OURSELVES. One major area I want to bring your focus into this week is in RELATIONSHIPS...... Women make the most careless decisions when it comes to the care of the heart. I heard a preacher say, "So many of us have laid down and allowed someone to do open heart surgery on us without any anethestic."(WOW!!)  How many times have you regretted making a decision to give someone a chance, or compromised your values and slept with someone because it may have promised a glimpse of a relationship, or allowed someone to treat you in such a disrespectful way??? And the aftermath of it was..... hurt.?????  It's called mishandling. When you neglect to give yourself the utmost care and concern, YOU are mishandling the precious gift that YOU are. God has entrusted our SOULS to us and many times we are careless with how we handle this GREAT RESPONSIBILITY. 

When you make decisions to remain in a relationship with a man who consistently tears you down emotionally, physically or  mentally, this is mishandling the potential of YOU. You are the person subjecting yourself to this injustice. When we make the decision to continually be with a man who is unfaithful and question yourself of what you have done wrong, that's mishandling YOU again! Now I am not saying it easy to get out of these situations..... I realize that the strength to leave sometimes seems impossible.. Even the thought of being alone to some is scary. But when you begin to recognize the greatness that you possess through a relationship with the FATHER, He makes it easy for you in time.  Yes things have happened in childhood were fathers are absent, you have been abused, you were told horrible things, witnessed horrible things and it leaves a HUGE IMPACT on you.... It really does..... But there comes a point where HEALING needs to take place so that you will no longer make decisions that could cause damaging effects to your purpose in God. I recognize the need for processing what has happened to us in our lives.... I wouldn't be a therapist if I didn't believe it.... But i think there comes a point where we have to say.... IS THIS ALL I AM WILLING TO OFFER MYSELF??? OR AM I WORTH MUCH MORE?? ... 

We as women have such a great capacity to feel and think so many things at one time...which is an overwhelming experience..... That's why we should not and cannot  follow our hearts or our emotions.... We follow HIM.... That line that says: "Follow your heart" is misleading and false. Yes we are human beings that have emotions, but we have control over these emotions. In Jeremiah 17:9, the bible tells the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can truly know it??  So we are not subject to how we feel, we are led by the SPIRIT! We follow HIM. 

So it is essential and absolutely necessary  to deal with the inner conflicts and issues we feel about SELF, so that we begin to handle self in the way God intended with the utmost care and love. Not only but also to focus on what God says about us so we can live in the abundance of not  just WHO we are..... but WHO He is... 

Affirmation of the Day: I am Important. I matter. I have something great to offer. I will not settle for less.

Don't Miss the Conference!!! Your blessing is HERE!!!

Broken But Restored Women's Conference is almost here!! I'm telling you, you don't want to miss out on this experience. If anybody knows the power that is ignited when women (and men :) join together to worships, its an AWE experience. So I am once again inviting all to come on Thursday and Friday of this week! We are so excited and anticipating how God is going to restore, change and revive us. It doesn't matter who you are, how your dressed or what you look like....... JUST COME..... You don't want to miss 1 word that could change the COURSE OF YOUR LIFE FOREVER!!  And if anybody knows Pastor Vera Shymoniak, you know that there is a WORD straight from the THRONE ROOM...

See you there, Be blessed and encouraged today! :) 

Who is Tonette........

So I am beginning a blog, something that has been resting on my heart for quite some time. Anyone that truly knows me, knows that I am not the most "Open" with sharing details of my life, but I feel some things that I have witnessed and walked through are a testimony and need to be shared to encourage others through this walk of life. So this is me, Tonette. Some know me as Minister Tonette, Sister Tonette, a soon to be licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, daughter of awesome parents and one of the most important to me an Intense Worshipper and Follower of Christ. I haven't always been this intense follower of Christ that I am today. God has done a complete transformation in my life. I've known God all my life, but at one point in time I became rebellious towards Him . At age 21 God touched my heart in such a way that I made the decision as he accepted me back to follow him and never look back. And I haven't. In this journey with God every step of the way He has challenged me, pushed me and encouraged me to recognize what He's placed inside of me. So through the journey of this blog my prayer is that through reading my posts and transparency with you, that you would be ENCOURAGED, EMPOWERED AND ENLIGHTENED to become the GREATEST person you can be in God. Let us sojourn together :)