Marc Riboud, 1967

The heat has certainly brought peace within me, and somehow wisdom.  I gained wisdom on how to handle situations and relationships.  Wisdom that lead me to make certain choices.   Again I had to let go of some things but this time around it was more about how I was defined.  I walked away from roles that served their purpose and started to feel a push towards a new role, a new platform.  The preparation phase is coming to end.  No longer waiting in the wings watching everyone else.  It is due time… almost curtain time.

In the course of being tested,  my perspective changed.  I started see the reason for certain trials.  The hidden lessons in the struggle. I was also moved to make Him more known.  Well, not so literal as in creating gospel plays or writing sermons, but I  started to write my personal testimony.. hence the blog.  I had also ended this personal narrative I has started two years ago that dealt with my past and my journey to purpose.  I worked on it every now and then but just recently decided to end the story.  It was kind of crazy because I had no plans of ending it.  I thought it was just going to be an ongoing project, but one day I sat down to write, read over my last entry and wrote the ending.  Maybe me looking to the past was done.  A finished project.

So going back to making Him more known.  I have come to understand how I want to be seen as an artist.  The works I would like to produce.  The works will be universal.  Relationships.  Awakening.  A healing.  Art that heals. Before, when I was living in NY, I did whatever, not having any discretion on the projects I chose.  I saw it all as a means to end.  I had to try out for whatever in order to be seen then eventually make a name for myself.  Thank God I haven’t gotten my big break yet because without undergoing this process… a long refining process… I would have made some huge mistakes and misrepresented myself.  I would have messed up.  If I had gained the whole world to see me and was caught up in myself, and only my desires, the very platform I created would have crumbled underneath me and I would have been further into the pit of defeat and misery.

Yet, He molded me.  He refined those gifts within me.  He knocked me down a couple of notches.   It was hard.  There were moments when I wanted to take the easy way out.  Get a job that paid way more and was closer to home or catch a plane to wherever to end this whole lesson… but something within me always called me back to the heat. It was needed.

It’s funny throughout this process God presented me with projects that focused on the self and projects that focused on the spirit.  This past year I fully accepted the projects of the spirit, which was the whole point in the first place.