My Name is Jali

I'm reading through the book of Ezekiel in 7 days, and of course I'm taking notes along the way. Here's what I'm discovering: Something that really kept my attention about Ezekiel was that he really lived out his message. He told the people what was coming to them as long as they continued to be disobedient. He prophesied about famine and captivity. To symbolize this, Ezekiel laid down, for 390 days, tied up, eating rationed food (Ezekiel 4). Dramatic? Yes! But was the point made? Definitely. God wasn't playing, and neither was Ezekiel! Then in chapter 24, Ezekiel's wife passed away, and he was ordered NOT to mourn her. She was described as the "delight" of his eyes. That means he loved him some her! But he couldn't show his grief. When I say I was blown away by his obedience, I was seriously like "Man. Could I do that?" I'm sure if the Lord wanted me to and helped me, I could. But, Lord, please don't make me! Anyway, I just f...

Well, well, well, We've come to the close of another year, and it went by quicker than a flash. Can I just say what a CRAZY year 2012 has been? And how AWESOME God has been during this year? Anybody who's spoken to me in the past couple weeks knows what I've been dealing with. I survived a fire in my apartment building, completed a half-marathon... and got a C in Statistics I. But, I can honestly say that I am so humbled by God's awesomeness and provision. It's funny how everybody says they have faith, but you never know how important that faith is until that's all you have. I'm not gonna lie, ever since the fire happened, my prayer life has SUCKED. It's so bad, and I am so ashamed because I know that this is the time God wants to speak to me more than ever, and I'm so aware that I am actively sabotaging my relationship with Him because I know He's about to do something crazy big, and He's done so much already. Yes, every day I thank Hi...

God has been working on me sooo much y'all! Lord knows, I love to be in charge. I pride myself on being the mother hen, the caretaker, the mentor, the big (little sis), the person everybody runs to for help or advice. It makes me feel needed an important, validates my suspicions that I matter to others. But Lord, Lord, Lord, these past 2 years!! So it was bad enough that I lost my grandfather just before starting graduate school and relinquished all control over my emotions and composure. Then I had to take an "Incomplete" for a class which I HATED because I have a SERIOUS problem with not getting things done on time. But thank God, I finished, and got that grade in by the next semester, and it was all good. THEN! I went home, and felt completely out of place with my family, which is the most foreign concept to me in the world. I felt replaced, discarded, unneeded, un-missed, and dismissed. It was real. Took the whole summer to accept that I was not in control ove...

Lord, I'm sorry. I'm sorry because I continue to let my feelings get in the way of my responsibility to worship You. I keep waking up late and using it as a reason not to have morning prayer. I keep finding things to do besides study my Bible like I used to. I am painfully aware of these shortcomings and yet I can't seem to make myself change. I know that I am taking You for granted, and it's killing me. I miss You. I miss talking to You and hearing Your voice. I know it breaks Your heart every time I ignore you, but I don't know what it is that continues to drive me. Oh, wait. Yes I do. It's my flesh. My body likes the extra 15 minutes of sleep, and it takes advantage when I don't set my alarm. I can't help but laugh at what I saw on TV last night and I didn't think enough to turn it off. Lord, I want You to know that I love you from the bottom of my heart. You are my Light, and the source of my strength. There is no one else who can heal me, ...

Well Blogger Fam, My month of separation has come to an end, and as of tomorrow, October 1, I will be resuming my activity on Facebook and Twitter. I know I didn't blog as much as I promised I would, but I hope the posts I did publish encouraged somebody. But, let's talk about what I learned this month... I learned that the Devil is not playing with me! He knew I wanted to spend more time in prayer and devotion to with God, and any obstacle that could be thrown in my way, sho nuff was! All of a sudden, I was sleepy all the time, eating more, praying less, and struggling to read my Bible. But thank God, He didn't give up on me! He helped me to study my Word even more, He kept calling me to pray, even when I was dead tired, and He reminded me of where my help comes from. So I'm grateful. I've also become more aware of how much of a living testimony my life already is, and the steps I need to take to go further. I've learned the difference between agreeing to...

This month, I've been doing some serious reading and contemplating on my life as a single woman of God. Now that I'm 23, I'm getting the comments. You know the ones... "Have you found a husband yet?" "It's about time for you to start settling down." and my favorite, "You ready to marry your preacher yet?"Also, I've been receiving the backwards-push to marriage from my grandmother who told me that if I marry a white man (because I'm out here in a predominantly Caucasoid environment), to 'make sure he voted for Obama'... but I digress... Anyway, I'm at the age where more and more of my friends are getting swept up into serious relationships and/or marriage, and I'm starting to contemplate my singleness. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm not at the front of any lines ready to break a face over a bouquet, but I'm starting to wonder about my life as a single woman and what it would be like to be married. On th...

So I read through the book of Revelation... and I came across the Revelation 12 woman. Here she was, pregnant with a child of destiny, and running from a Dragon. This thing wanted to kill her, her child, and the promise that came along with its birth. But, God had a plan of escape. The Dragon was cocky, see. Instead of snuffing out the life of the woman and the child while he was in her womb, he decided to wait until he was born and kill him personally. How arrogant! When the child was born, he was snatched up to God and his throne (Rev. 12:5). Then the woman was able to flee to a place of refuge in the wilderness that had been prepared for her. There was a war in heaven against the Dragon, and he was (of course) defeated. He tried to stop the woman from getting to her designated place, but failed. From then on, he determined to wage war against all of her other offspring, who are Believers and hold on to their testimony about Jesus Christ. Why is this story so powerful?? It lets us ...

Luke 15:11-32. Many of you know this story, but I'll refresh your memory if you don't remember. So there was a man who was pretty well off, and decided that his sons would inherit his wealth after he died. One of his sons decided that he did not want to stay and work in the family business; he wanted to go off and make his own mark on the world and see what life was all about. So, he got his father to give him his inheritance early so that he could find himself. He went out and lived a fast life, made fake friends who used him and his money, and when it was all gone, ended up alone and poor. The son felt guilty for a time and took some jobs that were beneath his original status, including working with pigs, who are among the filthiest animals in existence. Finally, he had enough and decided to return home. He didn't feel that he deserved to be restored to his original status, however. He would have been happy just to be a servant in his father's house, just as long as h...

"Amazing grace shall always be my song of praise, For it was grace that bought my liberty. I do not know just why He came to love me so. He looked beyond all my faults, and saw my need." - He Looked Beyond My Faults by Dottie Rambo So last month my cousins and I were at a choir rehearsal, preparing for a funeral, and one of my cousins got a little emotional during the song "Amazing Grace." As we walked her outside for some air, we overheard someone asking why she was crying. Her reply was "the Grace got to me." We laughed at her sarcasm, but as I reflect on the memory, I can't help but wonder about the Grace. Someone once explained the difference between grace and mercy to me. Apparently, mercy is when you didn't get the punishment that you did deserve, and grace is when you receive the blessings that you didn't deserve (or something like that, I'm paraphrasing). By that logic, you could say that grace is equivalent to favor. The s...

Happy September Everybody! Today is the day I decided to take a break from Facebook and Twitter for the next 30 days, just so I can eliminate my greatest distractions and focus on school. It dawned on me, however, that doing this can serve another purpose. When I think about all the time I spend conversing with friends on Twitter, and looking at videos and links on Facebook, I realize that MUCH of that time could be spent in my Word, and praying. See, I've decided to read the book of Revelations this month. All summer long I've been asking God to continue to reveal His plans for me and to bring me into a new understanding of Who He is and what He wants for me and from me. Of course, that means that the enemy is going to have a field day attempting to get me to lose focus. Staying off the two most addictive social networks I have is a good place to start. I'm excited to see what God shows me in this month, and I am excited to share it with you all! Keep me in your pray...

"You don't know my life!"  You can catch me throwing that phrase out at any given moment - laughing on the phone with my cousin, rolling my eyes at my closest friends who THINK they know EVERYTHING about me (okay, maybe they know slightly less than everything, but still...), or even to acquaintances who feel comfortable enough to joke around with me. My friends hate that phrase because it's meaning isn't very clear. They know my family, my likes, my dislikes, what church I go to, how long I've been saved, who I like (or used to like) who I don't like (because of what happened when I used to like them) and just how long it'll take for me to excuse myself in a huff because they've pushed all my buttons. What is it that they don't know? The thing is, the phrase makes perfect sense to me. As much as they know about me, and as much of an open book I am, I know that there are things going on in my every day life - natural and spiritual - tha...

 Hey Blogger Fam!! I've been in this game for a while and I thought I'd show off some of my favorite pieces from way back when... Don't worry I have new stuff coming soon, but a few of you haven't been around from the beginning so take a look! :)  My Name is Jali: The Dam : Well the dam finally broke Two weeks of confusion, irritation, physical and emotional pain, and anxiety finally got to me and the tears ca...   My Name is Jali: The Necessity of Love : For the past few months I have not had it in me to blog. The excuses are endless. My grandpa passed. I started grad school. I'm tired all...   My Name is Jali: Thought Vomits : The thing about me is that I always want to say something but when I open my mouth the right words never come out So every once in awhile I...   My Name is Jali: Turnaround : So I'm sitting in my parents' home in Brooklyn, and I just started to think about how far I've come in the last year. It's not hard ...

Just decided to review my notes from Facebook... this one was pretty interesting...  "I love the Lord, because he hath heard my voice and my supplications. Because he hath inclined his ear unto me, therefore will I call upon him as long as I live." - Psalm 116: 1-2      Somebody just asked me what my favorite book of the Bible was, and I said 2 Samuel, because I always loved King David as a role model. His story was one of the most transparent in the Bible, and we get to see so many sides to him. But something always remained constant... His faith. There was a reason he was a man after God's own heart. So lemme tell yall about King David!      He was a shepherd. He was a musician. He was a king. He was a player and a womanizer. He was a warrior. He played dirty sometimes. He was a servant. He loved the Lord with all his heart.      I always loved the story of King David because no matter how dire ...

Watch this amazing video about the perils of keeping silent when your brother or sister is dying a spiritual death. I love P4CM poets, and I will more than likely be sharing more with you. Don't let your fear of hurting someone's feelings get in the way of your telling them the truth to save them. Let's be real people!

"As the river chooses course, though the river's proud and strong, he will choose the smoothest course. That's why rivers live so long. They're steady, as the steady beating drum.... What I love most about rivers is you can't step in the same river twice. The water's always changing always flowing. But people I guess can't live like that. We all must pay the price. To be safe we lose our chance of ever knowing..." - Pocahontas , Just Around the Riverbend The thing about this song - besides the fact that it's in one of the GREATEST Disney movies in LIFE - is that it so eloquently describes both sides to the same entity. I have always loved water and the concept that it can vary from a faucet drop to an entire body of water. I have always loved the thought of rivers, though. I guess it's because they seem so sleek and elegant. Living in Brooklyn and so close to Manhattan, I have had the privilege of being within traveling distance of the East R...

When I think of loyalty, I automatically think of - and I'm ashamed to admit this - Basketball Wives! If any of you followed the latest season, you know about Jen and Evelyn's friendship falling apart, hence all the discussions about loyalty. In the midst of watching this train wreck of a show (I know what it is, but I can't help myself), I constantly found myself asking the screen what loyalty had to do with have of the issues within that friendship. Apparently, these women felt loyalty meant agreeing with one another on every point, and if they did disagree, they were not to vocalize this or they were deemed to be disloyal. Basically, Jen felt that Evelyn was going to get hurt by marrying another athlete, especially when she had been so hurt by her previous relationship that involved an athlete. Evelyn was upset that Jen shared this opinion with the public (hello, you're on TV!), and thus dissolved their friendship. In fact, she felt that Jen was so disloyal that it w...

Rhythm = music. Rhythm = life. Rhythm = me. I hear things in rhythm. If I need to remember something, I have to break it down into a pattern in my head. I tap my fingers to a slight beat when I'm thinking really hard about something. Even my walk has to be synchronized. How did I get this way? Well I grew up in the grand ole Church of God in Christ (COGIC) where music is a VERY important part of worship. On top of that, I was surrounded by family members who were musicians, including my own father. I had an ear, and talent for playing (piano, clarinet, trumpet), dancing, and singing but I just wasn't disciplined enough to sit down and learn formally. I would be good at it at first, but then get bored and be done with it. That might be changing soon, however (we'll see). The only thing I've technically had training and practice in throughout my life has been singing, and that's mostly because I had no choice but to sing in the choir since I could form words. The th...

This has been a hard week, one that I can say I have cried every day of so far. I have attended two funerals within the last 24 hours, and it is has been a physically and emotionally draining process. On top of that, I have been in the process of working things out with my family due to breakdowns in communication which caused a lot of emotions to run high and feelings to be hurt. On the one hand, I'm glad that a lot of things were able to be laid out on the table, but on the other hand, I feel like I just tipped over a vat of energy. What does this have to do with renewal? Well, the person who passed away and required two separate funerals was my jurisdictional bishop. As a result of his death, we now have to look to new leadership. And some of the communication mishaps in my family were my own fault because I failed to inform them on the changes in my life and personality. Granted, I wasn't really aware of the depth of these changes, but, nonetheless. The thing with enterin...

Okay. This may be the worst one for me to write, because I HATE change! I like my comfort zone. I want everybody in my life to get along (like I once believed they did, since they would pretend for my sake), and I do NOT like having to alter my own perceptions to fit a change that I did not bring about myself. I'm a control freak. I like to know what's happening next. I can be flexible, as long as I have some warning and time to brace myself. I have faith that all things will work together for my good, as long as I obey God and try my best to always do the right thing. My problem is that I want to know WHEN the good part is going to come, what form it will come in, and the signs I need to look out for as I wait for the good stuff to come. When I look back in hindsight, I realize that all of the changes that have happened previously were merely just steps in the shift my life was taking to prepare me for the things to come. For example: When I was a junior in college, I dec...

Today's theme is "faith." I couldn't wait for it!! There is so much to talk about, especially my own. I mean I can talk about salvation - I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, that He died on the cross to save me from my sins and that he rose again, I have accepted him into my heart and now that I am a believer I will have eternal life when I die - but I have tons of blog posts about that. How about faith in people? I have learned some VERY hard lessons on trusting people who weren't trustworthy. I have been lied to, lied on, betrayed, thrown under the bus, many things because I trusted the wrong person. But I haven't lost faith in humanity. I haven't lost faith that God created us all in His image and that there is still a part of all of us who want to do right by others. A lot of people seem to be ignoring that more and more these days, but I believe that it is still there. So how do you maintain your faith in humanity? By tapping into yours. When you th...

When I think of the word "physical" I think of a lot of things: a trip to the doctor, beauty, and lust. That last one might have been my downfall had I given in to it but thank God He kept me from making some big mistakes! All of the thoughts that came to my mind about the word "physical" had to do with the body. I believe that many of the mistakes people tend to make are because their bodies responded before their brains or their spirits. When you buy into the mentality that "keeping it real" is the same as acting on the first impulse you experience, you forgo an education on learning patience, discipline, and, quite frankly, the skill to make good decisions. When a person feels angry or disrespected or betrayed, that feeling becomes tangible and prompts your body to do something about it.Have you ever heard someone say they "blacked out" while they beat somebody down or cursed somebody out or slashed somebody's tires? That simply means th...

When I think of the word "connection," I automatically think of people and relationships. I am a believer that once you come into contact with someone, even if just for a second, you are connected to them within that time and space. If it's from the person you pass on the street every day on your way to work, or to your lifelong best friend, you have established some sort of a connection. I wouldn't dare begin to try to describe all of my relationships - that would fill up a book series. But I always think about the connections between the people I have met and find it so interesting. If you don't live in the city of New York, you may not understand the significance of reuniting with people you've been to elementary school with as you matriculate through school. Well, when New York city has hundreds of elementary, junior high, and high schools, it's very easy to believe that you will graduate each stage and never see these people again. What I found ou...

"Asians are smarter than everyone else." "All men cheat." "Women can't drive." We've all heard certain stereotypes in our lives, right? These things that seem to define us and others "informing" us of people who are from other cultures and ethnicities. Of course, we know logically that stereotypes don't apply to everyone, but we can't seem to help but accept them, right? When the only Vietnamese girl in a predominantly Black high school is the valedictorian at graduation, you can't help but shrug your shoulders as if to say "what did you expect?" Or when you agree to have an "open relationship" because you know that he won't be faithful to you, then he's not necessarily cheating on you, right? How about when you cut somebody off on a busy highway and feel a crazy sense of triumph because if your chauvinist best friend had been in the car he would have had to eat his words? Okay, okay I'm getting...

A house divided against itself cannot stand (Luke 11:17-24). When the Lord delivers you, it is up to you to make a choice. If you continue to straddle the fence, you'll fall back into the same traps, and maybe even some new ones. You can't leave your house empty and unguarded. Align yourself and your life with the Word. Don't let your house remain empty for the enemy to come in and mess it up. There's a big problem when the same person has to be delivered from the same thing over and over again. Eventually you need to take another step. It's not enough just to be free. That's your minimum. Salvation is the minimum. There are people who have been saved 20 years and never received the Holy Ghost. Saved 10 years and still dealing with the same temptation. The Holy Spirit serves as a liberator (2 Corinthians 3:17-18). He frees us from our sins and then He helps us in our weakness (Romans 8:26). He fills us (Ephesians 5:8). If you don't receive the Holy Spirit, y...

      For the past year or so, it has seemed like every part of my life has been in a state of transition - new school, new city, new apartment, multiple losses, and drastic changes in different relationships have all occurred within the last 12 months. The biggest and perhaps one of the most frustrating aspect of my life, though? MY HAIR!!      For those of you who have never had a relaxer put in their hair, let me tell you about "transitioning." A person who is transitioning is in the process of returning their hair to a natural state instead of continuing to straighten it with chemicals. The thing about a relaxer is that it is permanent, and once hair has been relaxed, it cannot return to its original state. Therefore, if someone wanted to go back to being "natural," which means leaving your hair in the same state as when it grows out of your head, that person has to let that hair grow out. To a person who has long, thick locks, this proce...

So I'm reading through the book of 2 Chronicles, and I came across a vaguely familiar passage. 2 Chr. 10: 3-18 I won't paste the whole thing, but the short version of it is that the people of Israel came to King Rehoboam (son of King Solomon and grandson of King David) and asked him not to work them as hard as his father had. Rehoboam was unsure of how to respond so he told them to come back to him in 3 days and he'll give them an answer. He went to his father's advisers first and they told him that if he lessened the people's workload, they would love and serve him. I guess that wasn't good enough for him (or his ego) because he decided to ask his childhood friends for advice. They told him to work the people even harder and to be even harsher on them than his father was. He took that advice and caused all of Israel to rebel against him. He tried to send an overseer to force them to work and they killed him. Rehoboam ended up running to Jerusalem to save hi...