Category: Encountering New Experiences

I’m Alive… He Kept Me!

“Everything happens for a reason. Wait on God and trust in Him. He wants the best for us. He wants to take us from glory to glory, and from victory to victory.” 

― Germany Kent

So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God

Corinthians 10:31

What’s Important is the Journey

I went to the beach recently with my colleague, and as per usually some very peculiar thoughts came to mind. So we were going to Gloria’s Restaurant. The story of the restaurant, located in Port Royal, is very inspiring. Starting with its founder, Gloria Harris who started not with a building, a kitchen a roadside cart or even selling seafood, it has flourished into a beloved eatery for seafood lovers. What is inspiring in not so much the success but the transformation that this business has witnessed; from selling egg sandwiches to the local fishermen to woking on her craft as a chef selling at the airport and roadside to acquiring a building and another five years later in the act of realising her purpose and being a successful business woman. I am sure that there must have been challenges that were conquered by faith. As I looked at the rough sea, I thought about my own rough times – and naturally my fear of such waters because I cannot swim. I felt so blessed in that moment when I remember those rough times though and those who had been in that rocky boat with me…

God Has Got This…

I was coming from a place of darkness, real darkness. when the thought of leaving my house was so terrifying that I had panic attacks. When the thought of being genuinely happy filled me with great cynicism and anger. I was coming from a place where death seemed an attractive companion; because life was just too much and not enough; but God intervened. Do you know that the word Gloria derived from the latin word glōria(glory), and glory describes the manifestation of God’s presence. While initially it seemed for the second time in our attempt to take a trip as a department, we would be going nowhere, God intervened. When it seemed as if our experience was about to be dampened, God intervened. And what could have been a “flop”, became a resounding success of renewal of mind body and spirit.

I know for many persons it is really hard to come back from a dark place where it felt like live was passing you by. When your everyday mantra becomes, “I hate my life”. As I sat in the bus in the bus on the way to Gloria’s, I was grateful for Shelly’s “are you okay?” I was grateful I could say “yes” and truly mean it at that moment. Then I was grateful for one of the best friends I have ever had, Shalene, who stood, sat and shared one bed with me during one of the most frightening periods of my life, when death seemed much easier to attain than being happy. For Mrs. Grandison, who was my counsellor when I felt it was all hopeless and for being a mother when all that was required was for her to be my supervisor. I was really grateful for Antoinette, who accepted all of me and affectionately refers to me as a “likkle terrorist”. And as I sat at the table with everyone and listened to the conversations swirling around me, I was happy that by just being themselves, they each made me feel happy to be alive in that moment. God had surrounded me with people to remind me that in any situation already was way ahead of me and all of us.

More Than Food…

By the end of the meal we were full to bursting [some more than others], and while some had imbibed, we were good enough to go on the beach to walk off both food and liquor. However, a routine stroll on the beach ended up being an exhilarating moment of simply, laughing, jumping [some higher than others], posing, fellowship and discovering. We took off our shoes sunk our feet in the sand and just allowed ourselves to be in that moment. When we turned back to the bus to leave, a little bit of peace had been collected and a little bit more of our fears tossed into the waters, forgotten forever. It was one of the best outing I had been on.not because the food and setting were great, which they were! It was one of the best outing because of the company and because of the reminder that life really is worth living. The visit to Gloria’s had manifested God’s hope that His people “…shall rejoice in all the good that the Lord your God has given to you” (Deuteronomy 26:11)

  • Healing waters?
  • Looking for treasure?
  • How high can you go!
  • smile!
  • Good times
  • Assembled for round two on the beach

I Failed and It Felt Good!


victus inopia veni et vidi

I have been failing quite beautifully all my life, from I was really young. I failed to meet my mother’s expectation by being born with a bountiful head of hair. As a result she was bitterly disappointed when two years passed after my birth and she still did not have hair to comb. Granted she had prayed for a girl and her prayer granted. I suggested to her that maybe her prayer had been incomplete and she should have prayed for a girl with hair to comb! Sadly my hair has failed to transform from an ugly duckling to a beautiful swan as though I have more of it is has decided its destiny is to be eclectic and grows variety of girls that does not conform to my attempt to reign it in but goes which ever way it feels like. That sounds like someone I know. But was i a success for my mother? She thinks so, so it must be so, right?

Image result for failing

I have noticed that everyone, myself included, view failure as the worst thing that can happen to us. Funnily enough we take the failure of others as a sign of what not to do and a warning that if we do the same thing we will meet the same end. However, we fail at many things, everyday. But it is the “big” failures in our lives that causes the most distress. these “big failures” usually are the ones people can see and dissect as if they are doing brain surgery. thirty-five and not married, no car, no, house no idea of what you want to do with the rest of your life. You might as well call it a day, hibernate until your time. Or we can embrace failure!

why be anxious about failing? you will fail, it’s just a matter of time [you are welcome]. People may expect you to fail and then you become a riveting sideshow. while they are there watching and waiting for you to fail, show them what you can do and leave them with something to talk about. It may also be wise to fail in the eyes of others so you can find some measure of peace in not living up to anyone’s expectations. If we decide to see failure as a bad thing it will be a life long ball of chain that we lug along for the most uncomfortable ride of our lives! You know your limitations, whether you want to admit it or not, you also know what you can do, therefore you know when you are failing and what you can do to turn things around. However, failure is a success story when we embrace it with opening arms, as a true friend that will give you the kick start you need. It’s all about your mindset.

Image result for failure is good

“We made it?”


I look up to the sky
And now the world is mine
I’ve known it all my life
I made it, I made it!
I used to dream about, the life I’m living now
I know that there’s no doubt.
I made it, I made it!


Kevin Rudolf – I Made It 

Today I went to church after not having been there for two weeks! Yes this has been a recurring problem for me. However, I witnessed the induction of my former Principal as Chalice bearer after being given the Bishop’s licence! She had retired a couple of years ago from the school I teach at and I thought retirement meant taking things easy. After all she had accomplished so much and ended – some may say – at the pinnacle of her profession. Well apparently not for her! I was really happy for her because she was embarking on a new passion; a role I had never seen her in before and who knows maybe at one point she had never seen herself there either. But it is a role that affords her the opportunity to say, “I made it”.

Here are some questions for you today. How many of you can say right now, I’ve made it? I have done everything there is to do and I have everything I need to have and so that’s it. Well if we have achieved something we always wanted to achieve that’s great but do we remain satisfied with that?

For many, to “make it” means success but there are many persons who “make it” on a daily basis, but once the thrill of making it is over, they are left feeling empty and immediately have to set a new goal to capture that feeling again. It eventually becomes a cycle that may last their lifetime. So it begs the question: can we be satisfied with what we have already done. Will there always be a need to conquer new heights and reach just a little further or even charter a new course?

My answer is YES. It’s okay to reach the success you dreamed about yesterday today and look forward to a success you haven’t fully formed, but is in the process of being crafted in your minds eye. If you think about the fact that we do not die immediately after we achieve whatever we initially set out to achieve, then you will realise that wanting more and dreaming of more is not a bad thing. Once you have achieved it there is nothing else to fine tune, you cannot erase the experiences of that past and start all over to get the same goals. So it’s natural to want to achieve something else to jump over a new hurdle or break down even more barriers.

There are persons who have remained in the same job for many, many years and that’s a great accomplishment. However, that does not have to be the road we all travel. Change is constant and as we get older, we too change. When I was younger I wanted to be a nurse and so many other things. But the older I got, the more I realised what I like and what I don’t like and because of that my ambitions changed. For some person one passion can drive their entire life and for others there are many that they want to explore and neither avenue is more gratifying than the other. They both have their worth, because the person associated with each path follows their God given idiosyncrasies.

Success comes not only from being focused on one path your entire live but from knowing that you pursued that thing or those things that represent your passion or passions. Its better to have made it many times over than to have never made it at all

You make feel like taking a new course after finding success and that’s OKAY

No Limits…


The discontent that lies in the human condition is not satisfied simply by material things.

Derek Walcott

Too young or not too inexperienced or not…

Have you ever been told you are too young or too old? If you have then what was your response? Did you accept this reasoning as valid for your life and just went about your business? Well being told that you are too old or too young is one of the great tragedy of many persons we see around us. The tragedy is in the fact that we have been conditioned to think this is true.

We may hear many stories of persons who accomplished great things in the latter part of their lives or when they were ridiculously young. We have dutifully been impressed and categorise them as the real G.O.A.T. We feel good because we have heard their story but when we think about us being just as great, the safe line to use in our situation is, “it’s too late for me”. When I was younger, I boldly or foolishly suggested to my grandmother to divorce my grandfather. I was of the impression that she would be a lot happier without him. Instead of receiving a spirited lick from her, she instead said in the saddest and most regretful voice, “it’s too late”. with those words I felt the deeply held pain she had been careful never to show me and I wondered how much she must have suffered and was suffering because she felt her life was rooted with this man.

I have always been told I was a very precocious child and I know I was but that precociousness was well and truly beaten out of me. I was told I was ‘dry eye” facety ect. However, I realise that displaying those characteristics, was not a bad thing on their own, but they required proper guidance and nurturing. My grandparents were of the generation where “children should be seen and not heard” and so instead of being taught how to properly channel that precociousness, it was stamped out as a matter of course.

Nowhere in Between

I do not believe it is ever too late for doing what you want nor do I believe it’s ever too early. I believe that things happen and change is possible when it is the right time. if you have the physical and mental acuity then it can never be late. Often times we talk ourselves out of experiencing the best of ourselves, the best life we will ever have because we believe, or society has told us we are too early or too late. Therefore, we spend our lives in a kind of purgatory, never truly feeling as if we have arrived. We always feel as if we are perpetually in transit, never able to truly fit in anywhere. To accept that it’s too late or too early is to give up on yourself, your dreams and your happiness.

Fight Back

You fight back against the tide by being determined in the face of naysayers or challenges. when you accept that no one can determine your manufacture or expiration date but God, then you are already equipped to succeed at whatever you want to succeed at. However, the challenge lies in remaining motivated to do what you must to realise your potential at any age. Ignite your own flame if you have to and protect it from the ravages of doubt and fear.


Photo by Nick Demou from Pexels

“If the Brain is Damaged the Whole Body Suffers…”


Biology gives you a brain. Life turns it into a mind


― Jeffrey Eugenides

I’m not a medical doctor nor a medical student and the focus of this blog is not on giving insight on brain damage and its effects. However, I was recently confronted with the phrase above and I was intrigued by it. How can this apply to me and better yet, how does this apply to each of us and how we operate on a daily basis. The context I heard the phrase in had nothing to do with biology and everything to do with the mental state of individuals.

According to Science daily:
brain damage or brain injury is the destruction or degeneration of brain cells. It may not but can lead to long term impairment or disability, but depends on the location and extent of the damage. Another interesting thing is that the extent of the damage depends on the extent of the trauma experienced.

What impact do you have?

If we think about our own impact then we need to consider if we inadvertently bring trauma into the lives of others. Most persons would like to think that everyone they make contact with, are left with a positive impression and are impacted positively, but this is dependent on how damaged we are when we meet them and how much we have allowed traumas to control us.

With any relationship we bring our previous baggage along for the ride, whether we are fully aware of it or not. Not only do the meanings we create from our experiences shape who we are, they also impact those we choose to have relationships with. If we view our experiences as mostly negative, then we have shaped our lives and interactions to be mostly negative. It is true that our thoughts can limit how people see us and how we treat others. The result of which is that we end up leaving others with a piece of our trauma based on their interactions with us. We all have experienced loss, we all have faced challenges that have led us to question our choices and our purpose. However, how we choose to see these experiences will have a profound impact on our lives. Do we choose to see them as a gateway to something greater or a stone that blocks us from achieving the best of what is waiting for us.


Photo by PhotoMIX Ltd. from Pexels

Brain in Recovery

We all have traumas that we are in a constant state of recovery from them and recovery will take time. However, it is important to acknowledge those traumas so that we can deal with them. Reading a little more on the brain I learned that the brain is not static but has what is know as [brain plasticity] and has the ability to perform [functional recovery]. As a result we do not have to be limited to a bad experience but we can change and evolve for the better because of them. However, we have the power to determine if we ever recover. If we are unwilling to take the first step in doing so, then the change will not come. It therefore means that if we remain in our damaged state then it is because we have chosen to remain there. Being a positive influence is based on our ability to take the journey on the road to healing. Change your mind to change your condition.

The Thing about Scars and Beauty Marks…


Our wounds are often the openings into the best and most beautiful part of us.


 David Richo

I was watching an interview with American singer Ciara, where she was talking about her new single, “Beauty Marks”, from her most recent album by the same title. It got me to thinking about the concept behind the song, “taking all the scars from obstacles you faced in life and turning them into beauty marks”. That led to a trip down my childhood memory lane…

As a Jamaican girl raised by my great grandparents I know a thing or two or three about old age competition. If you do not know what this is, God bless you, I made it up! Old age competitions happened a lot when I was young, because when my great grandmother’s friends would come by, it became the olympic games of old age complaints. The competition started as soon as they arrived, even before they were settled properly, “Lawd dis arthritis come fi kill mi Ms. Joan…” and then the battle would ensue. For most of the time they spent talking, they would try to outdo each other with the various ailments – old and new – they had to contend with on an hourly basis, because they were getting older. While I was fascinated with the nature and frequency of the complaints, I always wondered why they spent so much time, in seeming bliss, talking about things that brought them so much pain and discomfort. I later learned a fascinating thing about ageing; older skin heals with less scarring!

Of wounds and scars

I realised years later that many of us seem to enjoy listing all our various complaints in life, whether physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, financial, social ect. We take it as a badge of honour to let the world know how much we have suffered or are suffering now. The wounds in life that seem ready to “kill us before time” have left many of us prepared to reopen them when convenient to show the world that we have suffered a lot. However, for those of us who do this, there is no way we can ever successfully achieve all that is waiting for us to achieve on the other side, when we dwell in our pain and suffering. We spend so much time nurturing the wounds we have gotten along the way that we can never properly heal and move on. We have become stuck because we do not want to forget nor do we want others to forget that we have suffered, especially those who have contributed to our suffering. So we baby the wounds that turn to scar and the bigger the better, especially when we want to elicit sympathy. That tiny paper cut become a chasm of the worst kind and in the process of building up those scars we swallow others along in our despair and self-righteous hurt.

We conveniently forget the word of God which says:


He heals the brokenhearted
And binds up their wounds [healing their pain and comforting their sorrow]

Psalms 147:3

And guess what, while we focus on the pain, possible joys slip by us away into the horizon, ready to be claimed by someone else who is paying attention to the right things.

The thing about Ciara’s life story thus far and many like her, is that she did not dwell in her place of brokenheartedness, and neither should we. I have learned that it is important to assess where you are coming from, in order to see how much you have progressed. But our weakness, limitations or brokenness do not have to be a crutch that we cling to for the rest of our lives. The great thing about live is that we do not have to stay in a position of brokenness and that is what many fail to realise or realise when it is too late. It’s okay to be thankful for those times you suffered, failed or fell flat on your face, because if that had not happened, you would not know how strong you are and you would not find yourself walking the road you were always meant to travel on. your limitations really do not define you, only if you allow it to do so.

Beauty Marks?


Many cultures around the world and throughout history have applied meanings to beauty marks. For the French it was mouches or “flies and for the English “plaisters” or patches; beauty marks were applied for the practical purpose of covering scars or blemishes. In Eastern cultures the positions of beauty marks on the face say something about your personality or fortune. Even William Shakespeare, the great English playwright made reference to it several times in his play, [Cymbeline]. Beauty marks and their meanings have always been a great point of interest in different cultures. For us today, here is another perspective on beauty marks that has nothing to do with aesthetic beauty and everything to do with embracing our worst experiences.

When Scars become beauty marks:

  1. When you begin to be thankful for those challenges and see how they have made you a better person, that is when the scars become beauty marks.
  2. It is when you can look back at those times and while choking up a bit, feel a sense of peace and contentment with what had been, and where you are now, then those scars a no longer ugly in need of concealment; but beauty marks that can proudly be claimed as a part of what has gone into making you who you are today, from who you were yesterday.


Scars are not signs of weakness, they are signs of survival and endurance


― Rodney A. Winters

The older you get the less time you have to dwell on your pain -literally. And so I go back to the bit of information I gave at the beginning. With age scars become less obvious, because while we know they are their somehow the event that caused them in the first place lose their power to control us. I realized that my great grandmother’s friends weren’t necessarily dwelling in their pain but they were also saying, “hey look at me going out and having a good time but I am aware that I’m not as young as I used to be. But I know I’m still alive because I feel the pain”. At the end of the numerous ailments, they would hiss their teeth saying, ” only God knows” or ” God a God”. In other words, “Thank God for His mercy, in spite of it all…”

You Could Suffer…You Could Suffer A Whole Lot…

I recently looked up the meaning of happiness on google and this was the result


Happiness is a sense of well-being, joy, or contentment. When people are successful, or safe, or lucky, they feel happiness. 

Googlehttps://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/happiness

The part that really got me was the section that suggests that happiness is experienced when people are successful. Because I have seen and heard instances where many successful people are never truly happy. So is a person’s happiness based on success? And I think more important to this discussion is a definition for success. We have always spoken about success but not what it means to be successful. It maybe that our perception of success is skewed. By that I mean that the success we pursue may not be the success we need.

Success 101

Can we be successful with just having no stress in our lives? With just waking up in the morning and knowing that we will do what we love? By this I mean what we really want to do not what we have told ourselves that we have to, because it seems someone else’s agenda is being served by us being their. That is not really what is meant. Are you a success if you, “march to the beat of your own drum no matter where it takes you and how far? Or, are you a success when you have ticked all the boxes that you have been given to work in? When you finally receive the promotion or prize you’ve been waiting for your whole life, then are you a success? May it is because today you did not have that chocolate – right Byfield- or that one thing that can totally derail your efforts in reaching a goal you have set?


There is perhaps nothing worse than reaching the top of the ladder and discovering that you’re on the wrong wall.


Joseph Campbell

Or is there something else?



Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves

Philippians 2:3

I am sure many of us do not think enough about spiritual success. What is spiritual success you my ask. Well, it is something that we need to consider. Spiritual success means leaning on God because of our limitations. It is realising that we constantly need to check in with our spiritual source of strength when all else fails. Being aware of who we are – not as a cliche – and being brave enough to step out in faith. Step out and away from the things that undermine true joy and happiness. There is always that small voice inside that we often ignore; then later when things go wrong we wonder why we never paid attention to that voice. Often times we choose to ignore the plans God for us because they do not align with what we want for ourselves or what others want for us. We may choose to pay attention to what everyone around us says but not to the voice that urges us in the opposite direction.

This is when we suffer. We suffer mentally, physically, spiritually and emotionally. The best thing to do, may be to question the type of success you are willing to live with and which you can live without. To be successful beyond the material is to rely completely on God for the answers that we need. To wait patiently for the things that we need and to be hopeful that all we need will be supplied when we need it. A person can be successful at making a lot of money, but if it produces only negative results, what is the purpose? Is he or she a success? And, does this lead to happiness? These are all things we must grapple with but if you do so from a space of spirituality, the answers may be easier to digest!