werollwithgod

[werollwithgod]

[werollwithgod]

[werollwithgod]

[werollwithgod]

[werollwithgod]

"MS. NIKKI, I WOULD LIKE YOU TO MEET MY HUSBAND"

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That was from my new baby sister last night! Honestly, God showed up along with her husband!!! He first freaked me out when he repeated verbatim what I had just said to my new manager a few minutes prior: "WE DO THE UTMOST BEST OF OUR ABILITIES." Then he asked me, "Ms. Nikki, do you and your husband go through ups and downs?" Wow, I showed him the last text message I sent to my husband:

“Sticking with u, my boo, no matter THE UPS AND DOWNS (Wink! Wink!)."

Then, they started talking about how he tries to control her and wanted to know her whereabouts at every moment. I screamed because that was precisely the appointment with God I was having a few minutes before they came when I shared how I would want to do the same with my husband:

“… but more in the sense of what we mean by "trust." This goes beyond simply presuming that the other is not lying or cheating. Such basic trust recognizes GOD'S LIGHT SHINING BEYOND THE DARKNESS… This trust enables a relationship to be free. It means we do not have to control the other person, to follow their every step lest they escape our grip. Love trusts, it sets free, IT DOES NOT TRY TO CONTROL (Wink! Wink!) …

…This means that love bears every trial with a positive attitude. It stands firm in hostile surroundings. This "endurance" involves not only the ability to tolerate certain aggravations (or like I put it, putting up with some things we may not like), but something greater: A CONSTANT READINESS TO CONFRONT ANY CHALLENGE. IT'S A LOVE THAT NEVER GIVES UP, EVEN IN THE DARKEST HOUR. It shows a certain dogged heroism, a power to resist every negative current, AN IRREPRESSIBLE COMMITMENT TO GOODNESS." – The Joy of Love by Pope Francis

God revealed His Presence with them and their marriage and confirmed that He was with me and my hubby wubba, too. It's been tough with my hubby in Nigeria and with me in the US, but I meant that text to my hubby that I'm sticking with him no matter what we go through.

Especially after your girl was in a tough situation one night, and I had turned off my phone for only nine minutes so someone would stop calling me. Can you guys believe within those nine minutes, my husband woke up in the middle of the night in Nigeria to call me? When I had turned the phone back on, my daughter Julie called me from New York, "Mommy, what's going on? Daddy is trying to reach you." Hubs insisted that I give him the person's phone number and immediately called and texted him to stay away from me. When I told my husband about it a few days later, he said, "When I married you, it was my job to protect you." I said, "Boo, even in your sleep, you're protecting me." (HUGE SMILE)

As I always write, our families (significant relationships) are essential to God! Let's keep going the extra mile in love, patience, faithfulness, forgiveness, and gentleness, all for his glory! NOBODY GETS IT RIGHT ALL THE TIME!!!When it gets hard, God will strengthen us to continue loving others like He loves us. Amen!

#god #love #faith #trending #jesus #allah #hope #forgive #happy #kim kardashian #tutorial #rejected #rihanna #respect #rap #training #relationships #rambles #woman #truth #love never gives up #amor #alcoholic #anxiety #awesome #addictions

[werollwithgod]

[werollwithgod]

“WHAT WAS THE GOD WINK OF THE DAY?”

That was the question from my nephew, Duro, when I asked him to have an appointment with God with me this morning. So, my God winks are when everything lines up enormously too perfectly to be considered an ordinary coincidence. They are God’s sweet way of revealing His invisible Presence that is always with us. Here’s how God orchestrated one recently in the middle of the night when I couldn’t sleep, and He showed up to comfort me:

“Our job is to reach people before they get to prison. We must teach them everything you taught me, like being wise and getting closer to God.” That was me chatting with my brother, Kevin, about how my daughter, Julie, is about her mission from God, sitting with lawyers and developing strategies to get people out of prison. “Our mission from God, K, is to see that they never have to meet with Julie or those lawyers and never go to prison in the first place, starting in our homes.”

Fast forward to me having that sleepless night; I’m going through the Dr. Wayne Dyer podcasts just searching for some message from God through him, and of all the messages there, I listened to him talking to a correctional officer with this advice:

“Why not make the shift, Milo, to get yourself to a place working with people to avoid them ever having to get in that place in the first place? In other words, working with disenchanted youth. Working with disadvantaged youth. Working with drug places. Get yourself a degree in something or the training you need so that every time you reach one of those teenagers…you say that this is one less person who is going to be in that position.”

And there you have it, another one of my God winks where everything lines up a little bit too perfectly to say it was just a coincidence. For my conversation with Kevin to show up OUT OF THE HUNDREDS OF PODCASTS was not only God confirming what I discussed with Kevin, but it was also all planted by God to comfort your girl here as she continues her superhero role on behalf of her family (I WILL SWALLOW A BOMB FOR THEM!) with God letting her know that she is not fighting alone and that He is with her ALWAYS - in every conversation and even when she has her difficult nights and cannot sleep. See the love of God, guys? This message from Mufti Menk made me cry yesterday:

"So, Allah (God) says when I love you, I will let some things go wrong so you can come to me (me that night running to God!!!). When things go wrong in your life, brothers and sisters, it's because Allah wants to bring you closer to Him. Not because He wants to chase you away. So bear patience. Patience is part of the remembrance of Allah…When Allah loves a slave, a worshipper, He sends tests in that direction so that this worshipper can become softened and closer to Allah. When your problem, difficulty, and hardship bring you closer to Allah, it is a gift of Allah. But when your ease sends you further from Allah, it was the punishment."

Don't run from your problems, difficulties, and hardships, my peeps; let's use all these tests as gifts to get closer to God! Honestly, I felt so defeated that night that I didn't even eat dinner. Still, after this God wink, your girl rose up like a soldier the next day, ready to continue fighting - IF MY GOD IS WITH ME, WHOM THEN SHALL I FEAR?

#god #love #faith #trending #jesus #allah #hope #forgive #happy #kim kardashian #family #fun #fat #free #football #film #funny #fashion #food #fanart #furry #ad #alcoholic #amor #awesome #anxiety #addictions #animals #advertising #black and white

[werollwithgod]

My Lord and my God. Amen 🙏

[werollwithgod]

[werollwithgod]

So I’ve been enjoying the Disney vs. DeSantis memes as much as anyone, but like. I do feel like a lot of people who had normal childhoods are missing some context to all this.

I was raised in the Bible Belt in a fairly fundie environment. My parents were reasonably cool about some things, compared to the rest of my family, but they certainly had their issues. But they did let me watch Disney movies, which turned out to be a point of major contention between them and my other relatives.

See, I think some people think this weird fight between Disney and fundies is new. It is very not new. I know that Disney’s attempts at inclusion in their media have been the source of a lot of mockery, but what a lot of people don’t understand is that as far as actual company policy goes, Disney has actually been an industry leader for queer rights. They’ve had policies assuring equal healthcare and partner benefits for queer employees since the early 90s.

I’m not sure how many people reading this right now remember the early 90s, but that was very much not industry standard. It was a big deal when Disney announced that non-married queer partners would be getting the same benefits as the married heterosexual ones.

Like — it went further than just saying that any unmarried partners would be eligible for spousal benefits. It straight-up said that non-same-sex partners would still need to be married to receive spousal benefits, but because same-sex partners couldn’t do that, proof that they lived together as an established couple would be enough.

In other words, it put long-term same-sex partners on a higher level than opposite-sex partners who just weren’t married yet. It put them on the exact same level as heterosexual married partners.

They weren’t the first company ever to do this, but they were super early. And they were certainly the first mainstream “family-friendly” company to do it.

Conservatives lost their damn minds.

Protests, boycotts, sermons, the whole nine yards. I can’t tell you how many books about the evils of Disney my grandmother tried to get my parents to read when I was a kid.

When we later moved to Florida, I realized just how many queer people work at Disney — because historically speaking, it’s been a company that has guaranteed them safety, non-discrimination, and equal rights. That’s when I became aware of their unofficial “Gay Days” and how Christians would show up from all over the country to protest them every year. Apparently my grandmother had been upset about these days for years, but my parents had just kind of ignored her.

Out of curiosity, I ended up reading one of the books my grandmother kept leaving at our house. And friends — it’s amazing how similar that (terrible, poorly written) rhetoric was to what people are saying these days. Disney hires gay pedophiles who want to abuse your children. Disney is trying to normalize Satanism in our beautiful, Christian America. 

Just tons of conspiracy theories in there that ranged from “a few bad things happened that weren’t actually Disney’s fault, but they did happen” to “Pocahontas is an evil movie, not because it distorts history and misrepresents indigenous life, but because it might teach children respect for nature. Which, as we all know, would cause them all to become Wiccans who believe in climate change.”

Like — please, take it from someone who knows. This weird fight between fundies and Disney is not new. This is not Disney’s first (gay) rodeo. These people have always believed that Disney is full of evil gays who are trying to groom and sexually abuse children.

The main difference now is that these beliefs are becoming mainstream. It’s not just conservative pastors who are talking about this. It’s not just church groups showing up to boycott Gay Day. Disney is starting to (reluctantly) say the quiet part out loud, and so are the Republicans. Disney is publicly supporting queer rights and announcing company-supported queer events and the Republican Party is publicly calling them pedophiles and enacting politically driven revenge.

This is important, because while this fight has always been important in the history of queer rights, it is now being magnified. The precedent that a fight like this could set is staggering. For better or for worse, we live in a corporation-driven country. I don’t like it any more than you do, and I’m not about to defend most of Disney’s business practices. But we do live in a nation where rights are largely tied to corporate approval, and the fact that we might be entering an age where even the most powerful corporations in the country are being banned from speaking out in favor of rights for marginalized people… that’s genuinely scary.

Like… I’ll just ask you this. Where do you think we’d be now, in 2023, if Disney had been prevented from promising its employees equal benefits in 1994? That was almost thirty years ago, and look how far things have come. When I looked up news articles for this post from that era, even then journalists, activists, and fundie church leaders were all talking about how a company of Disney’s prominence throwing their weight behind this movement could lead to the normalization of equal protections in this country.

The idea of it scared and thrilled people in equal parts even then. It still scares and thrills them now.

I keep seeing people say “I need them both to lose!” and I get it, I do. Disney has for sure done a lot of shit over the years. But I am begging you as a queer exvangelical to understand that no. You need Disney to win. You need Disney to wipe the fucking floor with these people.

Right now, this isn’t just a fight between a giant corporation and Ron DeSantis. This is a fight about the right of corporations to support marginalized groups. It’s a fight that ensures that companies like Disney still can offer benefits that a discriminatory government does not provide. It ensures that businesses much smaller than Disney can support activism.

Hell, it ensures that you can support activism.

The fight between weird Christian conspiracy theorists and Disney is not new, because the fight to prevent any tiny victory for marginalized groups is not new. The fight against the normalization of othered groups is not new.

That’s what they’re most afraid of. That each incremental victory will start to make marginalized groups feel safer, that each incremental victory will start to turn the tide of public opinion, that each incremental victory will eventually lead to sweeping law reform.

They’re afraid that they won’t be able to legally discriminate against us anymore.

So guys! Please. This fight, while hilarious, is also so fucking important. I am begging you to understand how old this fight is. These people always play the long game. They did it with Roe and they’re doing it with Disney.

We have! To keep! Pushing back!

[werollwithgod]

I understand how propagating fear about immigrants and refugees, spreading hate about others, and threatening violence against our enemies can all be used as powerful political strategies. But make no mistake about it, as a Christian, these concepts are heretical and go against the basic teachings of Jesus.

[werollwithgod]

God doesn’t shout

At some point we all had to raise our voices in order to be listened to by someone else. God often talks to us, as the Bible says “Your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” Whenever you turn to the right hand Or whenever you turn to the left.”  (Isaiah 30:21) and “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.” (John 10:27).

Unlike us God never raises His voice in order to get someone’s attention and that’s kind of a problem because at every moment of our lives there’s someone or something trying to get our attention and they’re very loud.

So let’s take some time away from all of our distractions in order to listen to what God has to say to us.

[werollwithgod]

[werollwithgod]

BTS album says 'Face yourself'

The psychologist Carl Jung advises us to integrate our Shadow (that means accept our parts that we hate about ourselves)

The Bible tells us to 'crucify your flesh' and 'carry your cross'

Kierkegaard postulates that there are 3 stages of man: the aesthetic man being the lowest, then the ethical man and lastly the religious man.

I encourage you to face yourself and learn how strong you really are. You can overcome the world and embrace your character fully.

You have no idea how much you will grow. I am starting to find out what it can do for me🌸🌱

[werollwithgod]

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[werollwithgod]