Personal Mission Statement
My mission in life is to please God.
This mission drives me through each milestone of life, onward to the lifetime goal of hearing my God say, “well done, you have been a good and faithful servant”. My focus, direction, purpose, motivation, decisions, and every breath I take is for His purpose.
Many of my days are as I described above. Some are not, some days I struggle to hold on to joy and peace.
To fulfill this mission, I live by many principles. Below are the top five.
1 I recognize that I cannot please a God I do not know; I must understand His nature and His ways in order to acknowledge Him in all my ways and receive His direction for my life.
• I make it a point to rise up early and pray (talk) to God. Communication is essential for any relationship to be successful. Communication is two-way, after I talk to God; I listen to His voice by reading and meditating on His word to see in what way I am being instructed. Effective communication with God leads to better relationship with my husband, children and my neighbors (everyone else).

• Right communication and right relationship leads to right counsel in all decision-making processes. Marriage, Money, children, religion, investments, giving respect and etc…

2 I love God, people and myself. I recognize that God loves everyone. It can be challenging sometimes but I strive to love people as God loves me. God deals with me and my issues every day and does not love me any less when I do not do the things I should do. I am grateful. I show my gratefulness and love to God by not allowing expectations to prioritize love and acceptance. Men and women are allowed to be strong or weak, and accepted for who they are and what they believe. Children are loved enough to be tenderly coached into the right areas of decision-making. I do unto others as God does unto me, especially in the area of forgiveness.

3 I don’t walk like a hypocrite. I try to live what I believe concerning my Christian faith, perpetually. I don’t like words such as pretense, phony, counterfeit, masked, double-minded, or two-faced when describing character. The Christian believers are taught that God is Spirit, and we who worship Him must worship Him in truth. What is truth? His word is truth. Jesus is truth made flesh and who lived among us proving that we can live in this world and not be contaminated by corrupted thinking and living. The truth can also be defined as honesty, candor, integrity, loyalty and sincerity; all the moral adjectives wrapped up in our value system. I don’t set out to deceive people in relationship (lying, stealing, and cheating); I don’t deceive the government (tax cheating) and most of all I try to never walk in self-deception. Fooling myself into thanking that I am better than I actually am. I remain teachable while striving for perfection (maturity).

4 My word is my bond. When I give my word on something, it can be assured that I will do my best to keep my promise, if unable, integrity pushes me to say so. The nature of God is that He is not a man that He should tell a lie. If God said it, He is going to do it. I live so that others will say the same of me.

5 I strive to excel in all I do. Meeting the standard is the common expectation. I am taught that God will exceed, abundantly all we ask or think. God exceeds our expectations of Him. I try to put forth my best effort into every area, with my skills, talents and resources.

In 5 years if I continue the course I am currently traveling, I will have re-entered the job market and will be working in a field utilizing my people skills and talent for talking. I will have obtained my degree and will be looking forward to living large during retirement.

In 10 years continuing the same course, I will be living off the large investments I made when I re-entered the job market. I will continue life enjoying the outdoors, traveling to visit my children and grandchildren and finally getting that book started, I dreamed of leaving behind. In 20 years, I see continued joy as I embrace the latter days.

Number Eleven (11)

I really know my husband and I like him very much.

He is such a good person. Whenever he speaks on a subject, he causes something within me to rise. I don’t know if I am proud of him or impressed with him. I just like to hear him talk about things. He does not speak much and is pretty soft spoken, but when he speaks, his words are profound. I used to think it was just me infatuated with him, but my friends on occasion have commented the same thing about him.

I know my husband loves the Lord, he prays a lot. Sometimes when we are driving down the highway and he thinks I am asleep, I peak over at him and his mouth is moving and I can hear him praying. He even wakes me up in the middle of the night while talking in his sleep. I would strain sometimes to hear what he is saying, once I heard him say, “In the name of Jesus”, when he woke up I asked him who he was yelling at, but he just smiled like he didn’t have a clue what I was talking about. Practically every night, I see him in the living room with his laptop reading the bible, very loudly. He is from Mississippi. I think they were taught to read everything out loud. It can be annoying at times but, it doesn’t take away from how much I like him. I just look at him and think of him as a little boy in the classroom and laugh about it while exiting the room.

I like the fact that my husband is a hard worker. His work ethic is superb! He is never late for anything. I admire how discipline he is in managing time. I often wish I could do the same. This discipline follows him in every area of his life. The way he handles his job, working in the church, in the yard and his studies.

I used to get upset when we were raising our children. Nothing they did rattled his chain. He would always see the best in them. This is something I regret, I could not see. He poured and poured love into them and they always remember father’s day and his birthday with joy.

When my husband speaks of his childhood, you rarely hear anything negative. I know for a fact that he grew up poor, but he loved his grandfather, who raised him and always has a story to tell about what he said or what he did to favorably impact his life.

My husband is not very athletic, but he loves to maintain his lean physique. He runs every now and again, and is very discipline when it comes to eating. I often get on him about drinking more Pepsi than water, this usually leads us in a playful argument where he concludes, “I don’t drink alcohol, smoke cigarette or gamble, and can I at least have my Pepsi?” I usually laugh and come back with, “moderation is the key; now drink a glass of water!” Anytime our Pastor refers to him he calls him the “Pepsi” man.

I love the way his whole face lights up when he laughs. He has the whitest teeth. He laughs often and likes to tell jokes. I met him at the airport on the other day and when I greeted him I kindly informed him how easily it was to spot his bald head and all 52 teeth showing when he saw me. That look still gives me goose bumps after all these years of being married.

Number Eleven (11)

I don’t like my middle sister. I feel evil typing this on paper. I love her because she is my sister, but I don’t like being around her for long. These feelings originated in our childhood and grew deeper as the years passed.

As children, my sister would hit me when I didn’t do what she asked. She would insist I make her breakfast or sleep in her bed during the winter months so she could put her cold feet on me. She has always been selfish and would never call me by my right name. She would call me birdy, chicken head or something ugly. She would even do it in public. I hated when she and my brother started calling me the ugly duckling and telling me my mom brought home the wrong baby, because I didn’t look like them.

Since we have become adults, I have asked my sister on several occasions to call me by my first name. She always comes back like an immature child,” birdy, birdy, birdy, that is your name and that will always be your name.” I tried not to respond a couple of times, but it only caused her husband and others to laugh. I, at least, convinced her husband to stop calling me birdy.

My sister yells at the top of her lungs at her children whenever she disciplines them. I don’t like being in the same room, house, or state when she is talking to them. She even talks to our mother like a child.

She retired from the military with a master’s degree in computer and has an excellent supervisor position. I cannot understand how she can still be so immature. She earns a lot of money, but every time my mom needs something, she has to call me. Behavior such as this, cause me to dislike her character.

My sister is on her third marriage, her last husband put the divorce papers in the car under her seat and left. When I see the way she treats the people she should love. I don’t condone his behavior but I can understand the need to separate.

She says she loves God and teaches Sunday school. I have never attended a session where she was teaching. I have tried and tried to befriend her in a mature way, but she rejects anything I say and finds ways to belittle my efforts. Our older sister will visit my mom for only one day, just so she does not run into our middle sister.

I really love and care for my middle sister, I know that God loves her too, it is just better to pray for her and plan every visit carefully. I actually make a conscious decision every time I am around her to love unconditionally and not to judge. I may feel like never going into her space again, but I will not give in to those feelings, I will love and endure perpetually. This will please God.