Last weekend I had the pleasure of attending the Purposefull Day Retreat with Full Collective. Full Collective is a community that helps to enrich the lives of women by equipping and encouraging them through workshops, retreats, bible studies, etc. They offered their last day retreat for 2019 and through an IG ad they found me, and I signed up.  The theme of this retreat was Purpose and it was so timely for how I’ve been feeling in my life.

I’ve been feeling stagnant in my life in so many areas of 2019: in my job, my finances, my dating life, my faith. I’ve definitely been comparing myself to other people that I see online or that I know. The thing about comparison is that you only ever see the positives, but not the negatives and it also seeks to eat away at the joy in your life. I have so much to be grateful for and even though I’m not where I want to be, I’m not where I used to be. Even more importantly I’m exactly where God wants me to be.  Here are just a few of the lessons I learned throughout the day:

1. To be more like Mary and less like Martha: One of the exercises that we completed was to outline our calendar to see where we are spending our time. My calendar was filled with work and Netflix. I realized that all the time I was to be spending with God, I was mindlessly filling with Netflix. I was reminded of the story in the Bible when Jesus came to visit Mary and Martha. Martha was running around getting the food together and doing a million things when she became annoyed because Mary was there at Jesus’ feet hanging on his every word. When Martha said something, Jesus said that she was worried about only one thing and it would not be taken away from her. I had become Mary. In this day and age, I filled all of my waking moments working or volunteering ,admirable activities, but was not creating the time to just sit and be still. So that’s what I did. I didn’t turn on the TV for the remainder of the weekend and it was hard, but it brought such peace and quiet to my weekend.
2. Don’t’ Give Those Around You Your Emotional Scraps: There was a panel discussion and Pastor Ashley Abercrombie made so many excellent points with one of them being are you giving everything else in your life your best except those who love you the most? Are you giving them emotional scraps? And this really hit home for me, because I might not be giving my loved one’s emotional scraps, but I have been giving myself emotional scraps. I have been exhausted and not allowing myself the proper channels to fully rest and rejuvenate. Because of this I was giving emotional scraps to every other part of my life, work, my blog, my health. I would challenge you to be more intentional with your days: what can I realistically accomplish today? What did I do for myself today?
3. When Your Dreams Do Not Align with Your Reality: I currently have two jobs and they are both heavily customer-serviced based. One of the many issues with working a customer-service job is that you tend to get treated like the help. It can become very degrading,demeaning,and difficult dealing with this on a day-to-day. One of the panelists, Danielle Alex is a personal chef and she was discussing how one particular person at her job treats her. But after some reflection she realized that her job as a chef is to literally serve and as a Christian we are called to serve. It convicted me because I realized that my jobs require me to serve not only the clients but my coworkers as well. And that when I am moved into a higher position, I will now have a better understanding of how not to treat those who work under me. Challenge: How can you reframe your mindset about a particular area of your life if it does not align with your dream?

I want to thank Pricelis the founder of Full Collective and Leslie Lissant for hosting this amazing event and for all their hard work. God met me exactly where I needed and I really do feel purpose-filled to continue going on!