Weeping Tree

*Flashback Friday*

Around this time last year, I was being introduced to new capacities for writing about my thoughts and feelings. About a year or two prior to that (around the time when I created Candle Lit Poetry), I had a conversation with a friend about entering into a poetry contest and we started generally talking about writing. I remember telling her, “I’m not that good at writing poetry 😅” and she plainly affirmed me saying, “you’re good at writing poetry. “ I had wholeheartedly believed and accepted that writing very short poems and haikus was where my poetry writing ability peaked, because “maybe I was created to write stories instead. “

In being more intentional about my writing and growth in multiple areas of my life, I’m recognizing that God is always stretching me beyond what I presume my capabilities are and that there is also no right way to create/become.

During that time, I felt the urge to start revisiting some of my old short phrases, written in my teens,and felt this craving to create new thoughts, to express myself in new ways. I didn’t know what inspired me, nor what to say yet, I just knew I wanted to express myself.

Everyone’s creating experience is unique, but I started to wake up at 4am and words that seemed to fit soo well together, would flood my mind. The first time I experienced that is when God gave me my poem “Refuge”. I don’t remember if I prayed about wanting to write more poems or not but He answered my desire anyway. Plus, if I ever do feel that I want to write a poem about a subject I now ask, and God gives me some. (Lol even if it comes out as something I felt like would not come from God I’m reminded that God is Sovereign and has no limits. He gives freely to we who ask😅)

Reflection exposed my limited perception of God and His ability to create through me, while making me acknowledge that He’s continuously molding me into all that He already knows I am.

At times I’ve suffered with intrusive comparative thoughts like, “no one is writing about the things I write about. Maybe people don’t want to read about my thoughts because they’re too different from other people thoughts.” But He is teaching me to let go of ‘perfection’ when operating in His gifts. Someone told me,“your gifts might not look like everyone else’s because there are people who specifically need yours.” and that stuck with me.

Why should I limit myself to my own ideas of perfection when God gave me creativity so that I can be free?

Embracing What Is

Just a few years ago, I decided that I wanted to pursue a master’s degree and licensure in Elementary Education, and by God's grace, it has finally become the proper time when the opportunity has freely presented itself to me. I've officially restarted my college journey. I feel aligned, hopeful and truthfully, a little afraid of not knowing the full outcome of my journey because God only shared snippets of it before, and never the full picture.

Five years has passed since the end of my undergraduate journey, and I feel like a beginner again. I turned 28 years old just a day after my first class session of my graduate degree and honestly, as I look around, nothing in my life looks quite the way I imagined it would by now.

In processing how unexpectedly my life seems to be unfolding, God said to my spirit," Let go of what 'should be' and embrace what is." This perspective has freed me from unnecessary strain in my mind, body, heart and spirit. It's allowed me to embrace 'release' and to allow God to be God to me. Moreover, He has promised me many things that are already beginning to come to pass.

In light of all this, I recently birthed my poem titled, “Free”.

“I clung tightly to a loose edge of the rope in my hot air balloon.

I climbed higher and higher up the height of a typhoon of mysterious and all-consuming love.

A serene breeze blew warm across my cheeks.

I dangled gleefully at the edge of high hopes,

and there is where, I discovered, lie the freedom in being free.

I smiled.

Maybe the world saw me from there;

A twinkling gleaming light.

From where I sat, I saw the earth so vast and so beautiful,

deep enough for free flight.

On the edge of the basket, I sat,

on the rim of my hot air balloon.

Gravity pushed down around me but a flaming fire blazed hot above me,

making sure I wouldn't collapse.”

-Fatimah Simmons, “Free”

“I clung tightly to a loose edge of a rope in my hot air balloon.”

is delineation of the excited and adventurous energy bubbling within me about my future and the paths that God has strategically painted just for me. "Free" is a metaphor for the trust I have in God, (as my hot air balloon) and His Spirit (The Fire) to safely and successfully carry me through my journeys while allowing me the pleasure of exploring and enjoying the experiences that he gifts me with.

As I embark on each new journey as a somewhat experienced beginner, I'm reminded that many of their aspects will require me to lean on others and allow them to assist me in my journey while simultaneously assisting others in their journey. He has consistently reiterated this idea of collaboration to me. In my daily experiences, I witness many opportunities to advocate for and practice collaboration with others in order to make situations run smoothly. I also recognize that people/situations that are meant to journey with me will remain while others, which are not meant to, will be removed - and to accept knowing this with thanksgiving. (Drawing out the idea of "letting go of what 'should be' and embracing what is.")

God further explained to me that there is significance in "joining differing parts and measuring how well they work together in order to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes." (This was a random definition that I was given that I believe relates to the idea of practicing collaboration while letting go of some things and embracing what stays.)

Needless to say, my mind and heart are continuously being renewed as an eager student of God. I don't know what the near or distant future holds, but He called my life good and beautiful, so I believe Him.

"He has made everything beautiful In it's time. He had also set eternity in the human heart. Yet, no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end."

Ecclesiastes 3:11 (NIV)

Peace & Love ❤️

Free 🎈