The Faithful Father

Hello my brothers and sisters in Christ! Welcome back to another episode of the Redeemed and Rooted Podcast! Today is one of those impromptu episodes, I had something on my heart and wanted to share. I wanted to share where I have been and how faithful the Father truly has been to me in this season. I want this episode to work as a staple to renew your faith in any situation you are in. Nothing is ever easy, if it was everyone would be doing it. But following Christ has been my greatest decision, even when I backslide. Let this episode encourage you to keep a track record with God, hold yourself to His Word. Remember, Hebrews 13:8 "Jesus Christ is the same as yesterday, today and forever"

God Bless!

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Hello, my brothers and sisters in Christ. Welcome back to another episode. Um, I know that it has been a very, very long time, and that just comes from the many different stages of life that took place after the very last episode. So we're just gonna play a little bit of catch up and give you an update on where things have been and what has changed and why the Lord is still good. So without further ado, let's get started. Um, so last time we talked, I talked about the comparison crutch and how things were transpiring. And the original goal was to continue to record, study, push out episodes, and go a little bit further than what we had been doing in the past. But the Lord was faithful, and this episode is called The Faithful Father. So, long story short, about two and a half years ago, I was living in a three-bedroom, two-car garage um townhome with my son and my cousin. And eventually, rent was getting higher than what it really needed to be in this economy. And I had a dream that I asked my parents if I could come back home for two years and save to eventually move out. And it worked out in my favor because right around that time I took a pay cut and a position change and the income that I was making to sustain the lifestyle that I was living had been decreased. And so I was able to move back home with my mom and my dad and my son. And excuse me, that was literally the hardest thing just because I went from having my own place, my own space. My son had his own room. Um, we went to sharing a room together, and sharing a room with a now six-year-old is like running a daycare center. There were toys everywhere, we were sharing a closet, it became very overwhelming. And I will admit, uh, I got really lazy in um saving just because I was comfortable and I kind of forgot about the dream that I had. And so fast forward, the two-year mark was approaching, and my dad, as a correcting father and a loving father, he had to remind me, like, you are better than what you've been doing and where you have been. And so I was just like, I don't know how I'm going to be able to get another place with the income that I'm making. I would have to go back to working two jobs and doing all of these things I didn't want to do. And it was a lot of I don't want to, I don't want to, I don't want to. And it became a point where the Lord is just like, I will do this, but you need to do your part. I will take care of you, but you have to do your part. And so as the time approached, I did go back to working two jobs, but the schedule was not hard. It wasn't what it used to be. It's a previous job I had before, so I didn't have to overwhelm myself and overload myself with long hours. And I started building my savings account to prepare to move. And then there was a time where I was speaking to my pastors. I don't even know what's going on and how I was nervous about moving because I one had never lived alone. Um, the very first time I had my apartment, I was married. Uh, we had two places together, and then my next place was with my cousin. So I've never actually lived by myself with my son. And I don't know if that's what was scaring me or the fear of just walking out on faith and knowing that the Lord is going to take care of it. And so I was talking to my pastors, and one, we talked about a sacrificial seed. You know, I do my tithes, but a sacrificial seed, and I'm like boohoo crying at this point because all I had in my savings account at the time was $400. And I remember reaching out to my friend and telling her, like, that's all I have. Like, all of the bills are paid. And she just reminded me, like, it's a sacrificial seed. You're going to fight with your flesh to make that sacrifice. And I kid you not, y'all. I cried and cried and gave the money. And a lot of people that are carnal may not understand, like, you gave $400. Like, why? Um, and it was just a sign of my obedience to trust that it would be replenished again or something would be preserved in my future. After I made that particular um seed, I would say within the next two or three weeks, my account was an overflow of the money that was needed for the apartment. Um and even more. And so I was like, okay, I can start looking for apartments. Um, I started looking for apartments. And when I was going through my divorce at the very beginning, I remember looking at a place and loving it, but not trusting if I could afford it by myself. And so I went and I looked at apartments again. This time I took my son with me, and we toured places, and he fell in love with the same place that I fell in love with. And so nothing was really like going to compare to that place. And I literally just stepped out on faith. I applied for it, I paid the fees, and I said, Lord, if you want me to have it, you will you will allow me to get approved for the floor plan that I want and the space that I want and the budget that we have. And I say we because I'm not moving without him. And literally, I always joke about the three-day mark. We every time I'm reading the Bible, I see something in threes of we're just in three days, you know, he rose. And I always think about the past testimonies I've shared with y'all. It's normally after three days. And so literally, I kid you not, I started the application on Friday, but I didn't finish. I finished on Saturday. So Saturday, Sunday, Monday, three days. By Monday, I was approved for my apartment with the desired move-in date that I needed. And I was like, okay, that's step one. And so when I talk about the faithful father, what we have to remember is that the Lord's track record is clean and perfect. There's never been a time where he does not show up for somebody in the time that we need it or when we when it's time for it to happen. And as I remember telling you guys before, I was reading the book of Psalm, and Psalm 102 goes along the lines of You, Lord, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you remain, and they will grow old like a garment, like a cloak, you will fold them up, and they will be changed. But you are the same, and your years will not fail. And when I read that, I think back to the scripture I'm always telling you guys, Jesus Christ is the same as yesterday, today, I'm in forever. What we fail to realize is that we may change daily, we can change hourly, but the Lord will always remain the same. And I started keeping a log of his track record with me. I'm keeping a track record, one to remind myself of all of the victories. Sometimes all you need is a victory to remind yourself of where you've been, what he's done, how he did it, um, and also to renew your faith because I I kid you not, the idea of moving was mortifying. I was just like, I don't know how I'm going to do this. I'm a single mom. Um, and the only income is mine. The only income I have is what's in my pockets. And I had posted when we moved, but I waited, excuse me, several weeks before I posted. And it the caption was the Lord was faithful because he kept his promise to me. Um, and that promise was not to leave or forsake me. And it can be a scary thing as a single person, um, but also a single mom. But the only thing I kept keeping in in the back of my head is that my son will have his own room, which he had been asking for. My child kept saying, Mom, I'm ready for our own place again. I want my own room. And I was like, Oh, it's coming, it's coming, it's coming. But I didn't want to tell him like when it was coming because I didn't even know when it was coming. And within a matter of, I would say a month, I was approved. I was packing, and it didn't stop, it didn't stop there. I had a moving plan. I was like, I'm gonna rent the U-Haul. I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do that, and we'll be in on this day. It'll be great. And so I happened to become really good friends with one of the track moms, my sister and I. And she was like, Oh, like my nephew and his friend, I can see if they'll help you move versus me having to hire movers. I was like, Okay, cool. And so the day comes where like it's time to move. And she's like, I'm so sorry. Like, my nephew can still come, but his friend's not able to come. And I'm like, Okay, how am I gonna lift this dresser, um, this bed, like all of these things. And she happened to get in contact with the youth pastor. The youth pastor came right after service and helped me move. And what was starting to happen is that I was seeing people show up for me before I even had a chance to ask, because all I mentioned was that I was moving and I was about to look for movers, and she offered her nephew and his friend. And then my sister, her dad was coming into town and she was letting him know that on this day I'll be at Eurasia's so we can do this. And he's like, so all of us can. He offered to come and help and you know, help put my curtains up and all those things, and we didn't get to because the rods were too short, but it was just the fact that people were showing up for me before I even had a chance to ask for the support. I wasn't afraid to ask for help. It was just I was gonna do it on my own time. And I kid you not, so many people came to help me within my family. My brother mounted my TV, and I'm trying not to get emotional, but I'm very used to just doing things. And I was telling my sister that I was gonna have to wait to purchase um my son's comforter set or something. And before we got off the phone, she was like, Hey, I ordered this, and I just burst into tears. And it's not that, you know, that's her nephew. Cool. We buy stuff for our kids all the time, and I buy stuff for my nephews all the time, but it was just one of those things where I'm already like nervous about making this huge jump in my life, and people were coming in to help before I could even ask for help, and that was just like the icing on the cake. And if you are a single mom or a single parent in general, you know how monumental it is when someone considers your child, when someone steps in without you having to ask and they take a load off your plate, and that's where it stemmed from. Just taking one thing off my list, so I didn't have to worry about it. Um, then it came down to making a registry. I had gotten rid of everything when I moved, and when my cousin moved into her place, she took, you know, the kitchen stuff because it was hers and I had the furniture. And I'm like, oh my gosh, like I don't have any kitchen appliances. I don't have this, I don't have that. And I'm like, dang, it's gonna be an empty house. Um, and I let one of the other track parents know that I wasn't gonna be there because I was in the process of moving, and she's like, Oh, let me see your registry. And I'm like, Oh no, it's okay. And she's like, Let me see the registry. And I was like, Okay. So I gave her my registry and she sends funds, and it pretty much filled my kitchen with all of the appliances I needed to cook and clean. And it was just everything was falling into place, but it took two and a half years to get there, and I wrote it down in in God's track record. I have a little record of everything that he's done, or everything he may have promised me, or things that I am desiring, and seeing it come to pass pretty much. And I started writing all of these things down on August 28th of 2025, and we're in 2026, and I just started writing down certain things like having my own place, the date that I wrote it, the date that I got it, um, becoming more financially disciplined and learning how to save. Like right now, I well, not right now, but I had written have my car paid off. I had 12 grand left on my car. We are now in 2026 and I have $7,000 left on my car. And I'm always like telling my mom or my sisters, like, I just need a divine deposit, a divine donation because I want to pay off my car. But I realized I just started putting in more than the the normal just to get that balance down because I want to pay my car off. I want to own it and not have to worry about it. But the biggest thing outside of the apartment and the promise to take care of it, because now we're here, we are two months into our place, and I'm super grateful. Um, it's the exact floor plan that I wanted on the second floor. My son has his own room, I have my own room. There's an office space. Everything I could have desired for my very first apartment by myself happened. And it was hard because I kept saying I couldn't do it. I can't do it. And it's because I was looking at my current circumstances versus looking at my father in heaven, who I know is going to take care of me. And it really, it was really hard to do, but I'm happy that I did it when I did it, because if not, I don't think I would have the place that I have right now. Um, and the reason why I haven't been recording, y'all, is because track season took over my life. As you guys know, I coach my son um and his team for track with my brother, and um my son does long and mid-distance, and I became his coach. And last year, the way AAU works is that the year that your the age that your child is turning that year is the age group that they will be in. So my son started track at the age of five, but when he started, because he was turning six that year, they had him in the group um with eight and under, but most of the people he was running with was seven and eight-year-olds, and he was five. And he was coming home with little ribbons, not any medals, and I know that it probably discouraged him. And so what I started doing was I started doing 5K's with him and training him to do longer distances. And I remember I wrote down on August 28th, 2025, um, my son will have a successful track season, and I left it at that. I didn't go back and look at it, I just left it at that. We did a couple of 5K's, and right before the season kicked off, I um had one of my other athletes pace him for the 5k. And that way my time would not affect his time because I'm slower than him. And the season starts and we go in full-fledged, like full on ahead. And the very first track meet was rough. His shoe came off right when the race started, and he spent majority of his time trying to catch up. So we burned out more energy than we should have. And then the second track meet, he was getting discouraged because he overheard um his dad and I say that he might come in third, and he didn't come in third, so he got discouraged, slowed down, cried, and said his foot was hurting, just gave me a whole bunch of shenanigans. And so I was getting discouraged as well because I'm like, dang, like his first two track meets have not been like the best. Like, but I get it, we're getting back in the groove of things, it's fine. And as the season continued, and my son ran his races, he placed in almost every single meet that he was doing, and he started filling up medals on the wall. And I know it's not about the medals, but what it was for me was seeing his hard work pay off. And y'all, we made it all the way to regionals this year. If he placed at regionals, we would be going to Junior Olympics in Iowa. And as a mother, that made me proud because I spent time with you getting you here. My brother was helping. Um, my brother is one of like those main coaches. He does all the stretches, calls out the drills, like he is the foundation when it starts, and then the athletes separate into their groups, and so then they spend that time with me or him or one of the other coaches. And so it was very nice to see the work pay off, the medals on his wall. And we get all the way to regionals, and I mean, I I witnessed household history because mommy never went to regionals. Um, mommy ran middle school track. Um, but I watched my son run across the finish line and I said, wow, I spoke a word over his track season. I wrote it down plain and simple that we were gonna have a successful track season. And he did. We went all the way to regionals. Um, we did not place for junior Olympics. Uh, we were disqualified due to um him stepping off the track. But that's a lesson that we can fix. It's not like he beat somebody up on the track or anything, he just stepped off trying to go around. And I was like, I'm okay with that. You did your best. You had a great season, and it was it was beautiful to see that I had written it down, I made it plain, and I saw it happen in real time from 2025 to 2026. And right now he is the youngest um running the race that he runs with a group of seven and eight-year-olds because he's not seven, um, he's six, and everybody was rooting for him, and I'm super proud of my child. He did great, and so what I'm witnessing right now is that everything I've written down is starting to come to pass, and there is a time and a place for everything, there is an appointed time for every single thing in our life. And I spent two and a half years in my parents' house. Um, and it was a lot. It and I'm not saying living there was hard. What was hard was going from one stage of my life and being humbled and being put back down to where I had to depend on someone else and depend on the Lord. And excuse me, the other thing is that when that happens, it's what you do in that time, your heart posture. How are you serving him? How are you preparing your life? And there are so many other things that I've written down, but I'm not gonna say them out loud until they've come to pass. But I'm I'm happy that I wrote them down because I go and I put date ranges. I put date ranges on when it happened or what happened. So for example, um literally on March 19th, I said, today I toured two apartments on your appointed time, Lorda unit at such and such apartment will be available for me. And I wrote down the the floor plan. And within three days, it was approved, and I received my keys in May. Um, there are so many different things that I've written down, and I believe I mentioned this in earlier episodes where I was going to school and I was kicked out of school because I wasn't doing my assignments, and that was just it was during COVID, and people were passing away. Um, my marriage was on the fritz at the time, and I was postpartum. Everything was just falling apart, and so I did not finish school, and I happened to have the opportunity to go back, so that's another thing. The Lord was faithful in that aspect. I am officially back in school, pursuing a degree I actually want to do, and I'm doing better than I was before him. And I feel like right now I've received the opportunity to get a second chance in the areas of my life that I messed up in. So, school, um, my apartment and living beyond my means, and all of these things, and I'm very grateful that the Lord is faithful and He does not go back on His word. He's not a man that shall not lie. And I'm I'm grateful for that because there are times where I will get frustrated about other things, and I'm just like, I don't know how this is going to happen. Or I start losing hope in him taking care of that. And I'm sure majority of us feel that way when it's like we're fighting day in, day out for the longest time. Uh, I've gone over a span of several years talking about my life, my testimony, and my divorce and how long it took. It took, I would say, three or four years to finally be officially divorced. And I I fought that for a very long time, not because the experience of doing it was so long, but hanging on to that ounce of faith that it was going to be fixed and eventually having to receive the directive to let it go. Once I let it go and I filed everything went through, that was that. And so now we're moving into seven years of separation, seven years of growing and doing things with the Lord rather than against him. There's no greater feeling. And so when you're sitting in a position where you're stressed out, you're constantly battling something, and the enemy is attempting to have a field day with you, you have to remind yourself that one, the Lord is faithful, he will not leave you nor forsake you. And anything that he has for you will be for you. It will be for you no matter how you swing it, no matter who tries to come in between it, it's going to be yours. If y'all remember, Daniel in the lion's den, he sent up a prayer and his angel came down and said, We received it, but we had to fight. Like there was a there was a battle for it. So think of it that way. When you say a prayer and it hasn't come to pass yet, think about your assigned guardian angel is fighting for your prayer to be answered. All of the principalities that are trying to get in the way, fighting for what is yours. And you having that renewed faith and reminding yourself, the Lord is not a liar, He will never lie to me. Um, Jesus would not forsake me. Jesus moves on our behalf as well. And so as many times as it can get hard and we're looking around like nothing good is coming out of this, we have to remind ourselves that what you see doesn't cancel out what God said. And I've said that before, and that's a correction for me to check my own heart posture because there are some things that I'm like, yeah, I just don't see it happening. But that's the problem. I'm trying to look at the physical and not the spiritual. Um, so what you see doesn't cancel out what he said. If you know that you are a daughter or a son of the king, and you know that he has never left you, he's never abandoned you, then you know for a fact that he's going to deliver on his time and not your time. I know normally in my episodes, I give a bunch of scriptures and we go deep, but I wanted to just take this time to one check in, um, but record and give you guys an update on where life has been and how faithful the Lord has been with me and how it can happen for you as well. The biggest thing and the biggest lesson I can tell you is one, you can't do anything without him. Lean into him, read his word, be patient, and watch it all fall into place for you. Now, I don't know when the next episode will come. Um, like I said, I went back to school, but I woke up this morning and I was like, I have something to say. So I wanted to um record and just get it out there before I forgot. Um, I will try and do uh bi-weekly if that works. I know most of y'all reach out to me, like, where's the episodes? So the goal is to try and push them out bi-weekly, and I'm going to add it to my calendar, of course, between my readings and my studying to record, give y'all updates, give you more testimonies. Um, it's nice to have a more recent one versus going over the old things that have happened. So I'm happy about that, but I'm also glad to be back. May the Lord bless you and keep you. And I know that today is Tuesday. Yeah, I'm recording now. So yeah, Tuesday. Um, have a great week. Be safe. Remember, I love you. God loves you, and God bless.