Intimately Worded with Michelle

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Culinary Skills & Dilemmas

When I have no solace, a lot to think over and no one to share my thoughts with I cook. I love the art and the science in preparing a meal. I love the creativity it takes to create a new recipe…the imagination of different flavors and spices. Trying to measure and enhance one product  to mesh with another. I enjoy the soothing methods slicing vegetables brings. I love the colors of bell peppers, the promise of just enough heat of habanero peppers and I love the earthiness of mushrooms. Today I am preparing a new dish, a signature recipe in every aspect: Salmon Braise, perhaps. I like that. As I am cutting, and preparing all ingredients to go into the crock pot I think, I pray. I listen for confirmation, affirmation of my thinking process. Oh how I miss the days of having someone listening to me, hearing my heart without cutting me off, nor interrupting me nor misconstruing my words. I continue cutting. This meal is supposed to be for me, the Little Ones do not care too much for mushrooms and okra. I think I have prepared enough for the neighborhood.

My dilemmas: Church & Internship and other stuff

My length of unemployment boggles my mind. It still hurts. I feel so unbalanced and insecure. I have worked since I was 15 years old. Its wonderful being available to the children, driving them to school and helping with homework. It is completely alien to me not being able to provide from my own work. I do not know how to be…but I am learning. I am learning that this phase of my life is so much bigger than not having a 9 to 5 or an office job.

Church vs my prayer life! Someone told me that the length of my unemployment might have a lot to do with my prayer life. (I have to bite my tongue a lot!) This statement pissed me off until I realized my relationship with God is intimate and no one gets to decide if I am close to Him or not based upon my employment status. (The preparation of cooking gives me time to evaluate and rid myself of others’ toxic conversation.) My spiritual growth is becoming greater but my spiritual connect with fellow believers has become stagnant. This concerns me. I believe in going to Church although I do not believe in the strictness and mandatory that religiosity pushes.

Teaching this Identity Workshop series will be a huge undertaking for me. I am in awe of how I got to this point in my life. This concept is not mine alone. If it were up to me, I would be behind the scenes somewhere. I consider myself more of a support person not a leader. I think I help leaders be better. I am a bossy supporter! 🙂

Internship! Internship! Both placements are awesome and could take my counseling career to great horizons. What is amazing to me is that internships are coming left and right but no job offers. Confuses me so; boggles my mind. You would think God’s priority would be opening doors of job opportunities first.

This Soul reveal has been on my heart for awhile: I attended several training classes this past week. My counseling journey can be quite heavy. Confidentiality is a huge piece of counseling, the heart of it. This journey is going to be more difficult than I thought and what I presumed. One class educated us on the effects of child sexual abuse, the tragedy of what happens to the victim from onset to the cycles of their adulthood. Heart wrenching. The documentary included a 60-year-old beautiful woman; she had the bluest eyes and the whitest hair. (I still see her face.)  One particular night she described how terrified she was at a young age. Her father was in her room and they both heard her mother’s footsteps approaching. Her father stopped. She held her breathe knowing that it would all stop now…then the return of exact devastation as they heard her mother’s footsteps retreat upstairs. She knew her mother would not save her. He knew that they all knew, He would not stop. She stated he abused her from the age of 2 to 17. Oh how I felt her terror. I wanted to protect her then and at present. She is 60 years old and the fear that came over her as she told her story saddens me deeply.  It is a heavy but necessary training course. The permission of hurt that mother allowed, it stops my heart. We can prevent child abuse. Although my heart ached for all their stories and my soul is tattered, I will continue to volunteer as a Guardian ad Litem. I do not see myself removing this type of servitude from my journey.

Do your best to stop taking ownership of the hurt people cause you. It is not your fault. I believe we all have good hearts and the Life stuff happens. However, taking ownership of what others intentionally do to us manifests into cancerous emotional scars. It multiplies. Yes, get to the root, do the necessary work to heal but stop blaming yourself. Getting hurt is not a responsibility, stop owning it.

What I gained this past week, the good things, the revelations are: the beauty in pushing forward, the hope in seeing tomorrow and the requirement necessary to focus on the love received. You will make it. Our humanness, that spiritual part of us promises that we will overcome. Sometimes the unintentional hurt pulls our heartstrings the worse. Allow God to work His way… you have to release it, all of it.  It is not your fault.  Tomorrows are worth the fight. {Psalms 91:1}

Me intimately worded,

A.Michelle

11 responses to “Culinary Skills & Dilemmas”

  1. I absolutely love your honesty! I too love to cook and bake when I need to “mull” things over. Unfortunately my kids are all out of the house and if I cooked and baked as often as I need to mull things over my husband and I would be round as barrels (or should I say rounder than we are?).
    I think it sounds like you are in a waiting season. Sometimes I think we are in those seasons so we can fully experience what God has for us to do. It is hard not to be impatient. It is hard to be totally dependent on Him when you have always provided for yourself. It is hard to “bite your tongue” when others comment, evaluate and judge your waiting season. Take heart….God is using that time to sharpen, train and prepare you for something He has for you to do for His glory!
    You are such a blessing to so many. Do not lose sight of that fact.
    I am confident that “He who began a good work in you, will carry it on to completion.” Philippians 1:6

    Liked by 1 person

    • I am going to say this, “I love love love you!” You are completely awesome. I thank God for His direction and connection to you. You are right, thank you! Your words are nuggets of wisdom to me and are always on point. I appreciate your honesty and your confidence in me. #happytears God’s grace, Faye!

      Liked by 1 person

  2. Love the transitions of stages you were in, cooking, emotions to church…they all tie into our Life stuff…shaping and molding us into what we will become…{KTH}
    #keeppraying
    #keepcooking
    #keeploving
    #justkeep

    Liked by 1 person

  3. Michelle:
    Wow, when you say ‘intimate’ you MEAN ‘intimate.’
    Much respect to you for that honesty.

    I can relate to so much of what you have said here. But girl I had to slam on the breaks when you said that someone questioned your prayer life relative to your employment status.
    It was probably wise of your to bite your tongue but I just don’t think I could have.
    Don’t get me wrong, I might talk a lot of crap on blogs and other outlets, but, by nature, I am very much an introvert. That said, this introvert would have had to come out the box and basically ask them something along the same lines that you concluded; specifically, “What makes you think that you have the right to insert your beliefs and opinions into my personal relationship with God?”

    Frankly, I think that God is always rooting for us–He has our back; if we believe anything to the contrary then that’s our own faulty thinking. Good thing you didn’t subscribe to that person’s opinions.

    And YAAASSS, like you, I always spend a lot of time reflecting when I cook. Sometimes, i make a concerted effort to send loving thoughts into the food that I am preparing.

    Coincidentally, I am no longer employed (Left a crazy job in 2015…long story) in the traditional sense; that’s if you don’t count being a full time mother to an 11 year old and continuing to advise my adult son who is now 22. Frankly, I don’t see how anyone could discount that. I believe that motherhood is one of the most important jobs that one can have. Think about it…we are charged with loving, cradling, caring for, guiding, educating and encouraging a human being. We are the FIRST teachers! We are LIFELONG teachers! That’s serious business; its too bad that our society does not truly value motherhood– or children to be honest. Of course, if you are Black our society places you on the bottom in the BACK!
    Chile, let me get off my soapbox!

    Anyway, I see now that ours is a valuable connection. I am glad it happened 🙂

    Oh and I read your comment on my blog about your eldest! What a phenomenal story and a phenomenal GUY! Girl, I can’t tell you how many times I have had to stand up for my baby boy! But when you said that your Mama was like, “you better go before I do.” I HOLLERED! It reminded me so much of something my Mom would have said. She was CRAZY about my son. He took it really hard when she passed. To be clear, that sistah did NOT play. She attended hard knock academy and would get you right real quick! LOL!!! In these cases, I always went the intellectual route but by time I was finished they felt like I had taken it to the streets! LOL!!!
    No worries, I will respond in more detail in comments on that post.

    Also, even though I go by Lady G on the Social media scene, please feel free to call me Gwin.
    You are a treasure! Glad we ‘met.’

    Liked by 1 person

    • You Gwin are awesome!! Thank you for your words of wisdom. I use to mean as a rattlesnake…that kind of mean where the tongue lashing kept me from having friends. I’m still direct just with less cuss words. Jesus has pruned and pricked. He fights where I no longer have to. (The person was/is a mentor and older.) As my daughter says, “Momma you the only one wo goes back and forth with God.” LOL…I’m just making sure we understand each other. My oldest loved is grandmother as well. We all took her death so hard…never saw her sick, never…7 children. Our mothers!!
      Glad we met too!!

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      • Thank you love.
        We are all works in progress. I need to cut back on my cuss words—that takes some doing! LOL!!!
        Ever hear the saying, “Out of the mouth of Babes?” Your baby told you the truth 🌹

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      • It really does. Traffic gets me every time. #FrickandFrack Not cuss words but the trick for me is using words with the same letter…”For all the grass that is green” and “For all the joy in Jesus” …My Mom never cussed. Gwin, she spelled her words..
        “d-a-m-n, if I have to say such a word.” I’m like but you didn’t. You didn’t say the word, Momma. Funny to me!

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      • LOL! Great idea to use the same letter….Eva cussed. LOL!!
        Now you’re gonna love this, Mama used to call any two simple minded people “Frick and Frack!” She’d say, “Oh Lord…here come Frick and Frack!”

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