By: Ashley D. McGee

Greetings and blessings Southern Beauty family! I’d like to begin this blog by first apologizing for my absence. While facing the beginning of a new year, I also found myself facing more obstacles than I’d ever faced (at one time) in my entire life. It seemed as if the enemy was attacking me from every side and it was causing me to have difficulty maintaining stability and organization in my day-to-day activities. I was having more bad days than good, was crying more, was snapping at people more and my tolerance level was somewhere below -3.

One day, I looked up and I didn’t recognize myself in the mirror.

Who was this person who barely had the energy to get out of bed and make it too work? Who was this person who was losing hope in her deliverance from such trying times? And how could she continue to write spiritual pieces, trying her best to speak an uplifting word or two into the lives of others, while her own spirit so desperately needed to be cleansed? So, I took a little vacation from writing to y’all and decided clean house.

But I am happy to announce…I’M BACK!

My pastor often speaks of how there are so many different seasons in our life. I talked to a close friend of mine yesterday and she reminded me of how those seasons are coming whether we want them to or not, but it is our job to make the best of them because they are simply preparation for the next one. She told me how it important it is to keep your Faith strong and unwavering in unpleasant seasons because God is still working during those times, and if we are so busy complaining and whining and wallowing in our sorrows we might miss the blessing hidden amongst the pain and may have to wait until that season comes around again to receive that blessing.

I was definitely going through what my church family would call a “winter life season”. On the surface, things were rather unappealing. My leaves were almost gone and my foundation was too cold to produce any fruit, but underneath it all there was life; I was just too focused on my troubles to realize it. Then, something unexplainable happened. From out of nowhere, the strength, the help, the direction that had been trying so hard to break through finally overpowered my doubt and forced me to open my eyes.

I woke up one day the same woman I was before, but on a completely new path and walking in what almost felt like an entirely new body. It was sort of like that movie, Transformers. It was still me, but I’d been transformed. Better yet, I’d been conformed into the woman God really wanted me to be, and for the first time in my life I wasn’t afraid to make everything about my exterior reflect my interior.

The Bible says in Romans 12, verses 1 and 2:

     Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

The life of a true follower of Jesus Christ is filled with hardships, but do not let difficult seasons weaken your Faith. Though your winter may seem lifeless and unable to produce anything of great sustenance, that does not mean that all of the beauty of God is not still waiting to break through from underneath. 

Be Blessed.