Hello family, Happy New Year. It's 2024, a new beginning to look forward to. I hope your 2023 was amazing, but last year was one of the most challenging years that I have experienced in a long time. My daughter was battling cancer, I was helping her with the children, helping my mother, caring for two clients, writing a book, starting an e-business, and I turned 60. On November 8, 2023, a major shift happened that put time in proper perspective for me. I was fired from my job with a client I had served for 5 years, and my e-business 8-week intensive class ended on the same day.

​

Before that day, I can honestly say that I was trying my best just to hold on. I was serving eight people simultaneously, while physical and emotional exhaustion was trying to overtake me. When I wokeup on November 8th, I noticed two things: one, that I could breathe, and the other, that my time was back in my control. I was no longer trying to be everything to everybody, and I could just be.

In the beginning money was my first concern, but as the days went by purpose became my biggest concern. When I prayed about my dilemma three weeks prior to leaving my fulltime job, I heard, "Rest."

For the remainder of 2023; I served my children, my one part-time client, and mostly myself. Little did I know that rest would come in two phases; physical and mental. My body responded to the rest break immediately, within a few weeks, but my mind needed more time to get over the mental fatigue of overseeing and organizing, trying to hold it all together. In the midst of the mental fatigue there was also a mental attack that I had to combat. It didn't surprise me because I understand that with every changing season (in the natural and the spiritual realm) there is always a storm that comes. It does not come to do harm, but to shift the atmosphere.

As I write this blog on January 1, 2024, I have a clarity and an excitement that I have not had in a long time. I had been trying to figure my way forward to prepare for this new year, but today God revealed that I am not just in a new year, but I am in a new season. A growth season. I am learning a new business, at the same time, I am learning a new client, learning a new way to publish my books, learning where to best give my time and attention, while learning how to become the best version of me. This is my new normal, and I am so blessed that the loss did not rob me of what I needed, rather it repositioned me for the freedom to change seasons. I cannot change what happened, but I am so grateful that with God's help I will grow from it.

My advice to anyone facing a changing season is: "Don't despise the closed doors. If they were supposed to remain open, God would not have allowed them to close. He allowed them to close for you, not against you." I found this to be true as I cried through terrified tears, and God comforted me early one morning, "I am the God that goes before you. I have sent you a new client so that you would not be without any income. And I have given you a new business."

Those words gave me hope and direction. And they reminded me that nothing happens without God's permission or without His assistance. I hope these words give you the same encouragement. Be blessed, be safe, and be fruitful in this amazing New Year.