Jeremiah 29:11
Hello Women of Faith!!
Tiffany here from Striving For Excellence, and I’d like to be the first to welcome you to my online store, Striving For Excellence!!!
Woman of Faith, I just wanted to let you know that you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you, Philippians 4:13. When you serve and put your faith and trust in the Almighty God you don’t even need magic! This is what being a believer is all about! Just like we believe that God the Father rose Jesus, God the Son from the dead by His Spirit, let us use that same faith to believe that God knows us, sees us, hears us, and knows the best for us! Let’s believe that God is who He say’s He is!
Talk to the Father in prayer and tell him what’s on your mind and what’s in your heart. Ask God what He wants you to do with the life that He’s given to you. Ask Him what your purposes is and how you can use it to better serve Him and others. Ask God to help you to be on the same accord as Him. When you abide in Him and He abides in you, your desires become Gods desires and you can ask Him anything and it will be done onto you, John 15:7.
And then seal that prayer in Jesus name!
Now as believers we’ve all heard the saying that “God has an interesting sense of humor”! And let me be one of the first to tell you that that is completely true! Never say never! Each of us are living testimonies of Jeremiah 29:11, “God knows the plans that He has for each of us; plans not to harms us, but to give us hope and a future”.
The very thing(s) that you believed you could never do, you are doing by the grace of God! For the past few years when I pray, I’ve added this simple prayer into my prayer life:
God, please bless me to do the things I never thought possible. Things that have not even entered my mind or my heart. And bless me to do the things I could never do in my own strength, but Yours.
My entire life, with the exception of the last three months, the idea of owning my own business seemed so impossible and down right intimidating! Even as I’m writing this, I still don’t know all that there is to know about launching and owning your own business. People have always told me, since childhood that there is nothing like being in business for yourself, but I had no idea where start or what to do!
What I did know is that for the last several years I’d been working too hard! Don’t get me wrong, I love my job. It allows me to see and experience the world. It’s in someways, when everything goes right, it’s almost like a prepaid vacation. I’m taking free flights around the world, four and sometimes 5 star hotels with round trip ground transportation all include. It really is a pretty good set up.
I don’t mean to brag nor to insinuate that my job is better than anybody else’s that’s not what I intend to say, but on a good day the hardest thing I and my other crew members have to do is pour Diet Cokes with extra ice. (Have you ever had do poor a Diet Coke with extra ice? For those of you who don’t know it’s no easy task!)
My only complaint about my job is because of the pandemic and other company related politics I cannot control, I have to commute to a completely different state and city from where I live just to start my job. And when I say “commute” I don’t mean driving, no I have to fly from PHX to ORD on STANDBY. By the way, for those of you who don’t know, most flights are nearly ALWAYS oversold, so standby can be EXTREMELY stressful! Because of this I’m away from home even more than before!
September 30th, 2020 me and so many thousands of flight attendants were furloughed as a result of the pandemic from “The worlds largest airline”. For many, this was a huge hardship and a time of uncertainty. For me, I can honestly say that the 5 months of no work was very humbling. As a result of being a hard worker and somewhat of an “over achiever” I did receive five months of “furlough pay” that was almost equivalent to my salary. Thankfully, I wasn’t in a position where I had to go and get another job during that time.
It was during this time where God really opened my eyes and spoke to my heart. It was during this time I really heard the voice of God clearly. It was God who brought to the surface that I’m working too hard to where I don’t have enough time for Him and I don’t even have enough time for myself.
I began to realize that I want balance. I want to work but I also want time for the things that truly matter. I don’t want to live where I’m constantly chasing after money regardless if my company is just recklessly handing it away!
I also came to terms with the fact that I want working to be optional! I don’t intend to retire anytime soon but I just wanna be faithful with my income and I want to use it to do good and I want it be in a position to where I can work and have time to do other things than serving coke 38,000 miles in the air.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s actually a fun and very rewarding job but when you add on other things such as commuting state to state, sleeping at airports to save on hotel expenses, and being away from family and friends for extended periods of time ALL the time definitely takes a toll on you especially when there’s no balance.
For years I thought about going to back to school to become a nail technician and somehow from that start my own business, but God had another plan!
It first started with my Youtube channel. I started my YouTube channel during my furlough time in 2020 and at first I wanted to use this platform to talk about books and do book reviews! I never could find any book clubs that were interested in the same books as myself and nobody in my life was interested in discussing or reading books. But again, God had another plan!
The YouTube channel that I intended to be a channel of book reviews became a ministry for promoting and studying scripture and having a deeper understanding of who God is and who we are and Him.
Now, at the time of writing this I only have 80 subscribers and I’m still working hard to become 1% better with every upload. It comes with time, devotion, and consistency. Not to mention, everyone has to start at the bottom and build their way up. The important thing is that you start.
We don’t know ALL the plans that God has for us, but we do know that His plans for us is to give us hope and a future.
What I’m saying is that it is the mercy, grace, and favor of God that has sustained me and brought me to where I am today. It’s “Lord I don’t know how to do this on my own or where and how to start, but I trust You”. It’s by faith that I am where I am today, not magic.
It’s by faith that you are where you are today.
I pray that this ministry and my encouraging t-shirts will be a blessing to you all. Thank you for your support and joining me on this new journey in my life.
Tiffany
