As i sit here in my newly designed work-space (with all the clutter and crap still on the floor because i got distracted in the middle of designing and organizing and started making stuff...the norm) i think about sometime last year when i reached out to a Jamaican entertainer who also owns a store in Kingston to see if she would be interested in carrying my line...she responded (which was nice since she doesn't know me) and her response gave me "life" as some people would say...i don't know that i would be here today in this moment in this work-space feeling as triumphant as i do, basking in the bliss of knowing i am investing in me if her answer had been any different.
The lord said ask and it shall be added unto you right??? YES, and that is why i am so glad i asked. You see, so many of us get to a place where we never dreamed we could reach, when no-one believed we could actually do it...and just as quickly as we get there we forget the journey, the shoulders we stood on and the many (well sometimes few) helping hands applauding us on the way there.
This is the thing...i was asking this store owner to carve out a little space in her place of business to showcase my products(probably a little display)...but what i had actually asked God for and been working towards was a BRAND...MY BRAND...with my name at the headline...do you see how this just got confusing?? Sometimes in a moment of doubt and desperation we forget GOD and how powerful he is...we forget that he is a big God. How rude was i to be asking for a little corner when God was getting ready to bless me in such a big way, when God was getting ready to give me a whole room( a whole warehouse, a whole building, a whole chain of stores...lol yes a girl can dream big when she serves a big God).
She was right to respond "how would that benefit me"? i needed to hear that(isn't rejection such a beautiful thing?)...because i am not going to 'end up" anywhere and life isn't going to just "happen" to me...my life is meant to be a series of ordered steps...not in some dusty corner of someone else's dream. So i needed to hear "NO" with just the right amount of arrogance to make me say to myself..."Leontre you know damn well your dream couldn't fit in that woman's 12' by 12' shop" so i thank God for always having my back and giving me the ability to do these amazing things with my hands, mind and voice and my parents for always believing in me and supporting me and my husband for humouring me and supporting me (even though i literally boxed up his stuff and kicked him out of our shared office in-order to transform it into my wonderful work-space lol).
Everyday I discover something new I can make or do and I get so excited that when I'm telling my husband about it I seem to talk for 3 hours before he gets a word in(as is the case most times anyway)...but I can't help it is just so amazing to be learning everyday and truly seeing that you are a little better at something than you were the day before.
The point of this whole thing is simple...DON'T UNDERESTIMATE YOURSELF OR GOD!!! He is not finished with us yet...we are all masterpieces in the making! the evidence is all around us. I see the doctors and lawyers on my timeline about to start living in their purpose after working so hard in school, my sistren who just released her hot first single and video to match and burning up the airwaves...another one over there touring Europe(an a mash it up)...i see you 'fly girl' country and state hopping now turned entrepreneur...i see my Japanese Jamaicans over there flying the black, green and gold proudly, i see you new mommies and daddies...i see you newly single women taking back your power and finding yourself all over, and you strong man picking up the pieces after losing love to death way to soon, the awesome teachers molding our children. Girl i see you over there still kicking cancer's butt...and that blessing of a man standing by her side I SEE YOU ALL AND YOU ARE AMAZING!