Don’t let your past define you, destroy you, or defeat you. Let it strengthen you.  - Unknown

What represents you right now? Is it your past hurts, your failures, your mistakes, your fears? Do you go around showing you have clearly been hurt? Do you make sure everyone knows you’re bitter and angry? Please don’t settle into that path. It won’t propel you into your purpose. It keeps you stuck in the hurt zone. We begin to hold on to the victim mentality a little bit longer than we should. Yes you were a victim. Yes you were wronged. Yes you made mistakes. Yes you failed at it. But now turn the situation around and see the other angle. You survived that! You came out of it! You are alive and have the chance to move onward and upward. You have gone from victim to victor! They couldn’t keep you down. They couldn’t shut you out. That is what should define who you are or are becoming.

Hold on to the goal of that bright future. I know it sounds hard because it really hurts right now. It makes you so angry. But that won’t get you anywhere but down. There is a lot of potential in you. You were born for a reason. Now don’t just stand there holding on to that hurt. Let’s go! I once felt stuck in my pain. It was all I wanted to talk about. I must have told the same stories a million times to anyone who would listen. It was all I could think about. I was going around like a mop. Dragging all the dirt with me. This was not healthy. I had become my hurtful situation and nothing more. Where was the hope for the future? Instead I felt everything sucked. What was the point of a future? This is when I had to cue the broom to get me up off of my butt. This couldn’t be my life. This couldn’t be what defined me from that point on.

I started telling myself two things. It’s time to GLOW and GROW.

It’s time to glow meaning doing something outwardly that makes you feel pretty. Whether its working out or getting your hair done or trying a new body scrub to literally glow. Haha! It’s also time to grow. Growing in learning more about yourself or whatever it is you are interested in. Could be gardening, knitting, computer coding, drawing, whatever it is that gets you excited. This pushes you towards your purpose and gives you joy. 

The combination of Growing and Glowing gives you a confidence in yourself, hope for the future, joy in your purpose and love in your life. Soon, this becomes the new you. The ideas and plans God lays on your heart begin to manifest and grow. This is the future I want you to grasp and hold on to because you deserve it. This is the future that God has in mind for you. The one where you follow the path he laid out for you. That’s the good he has for you. Because not only are you stronger and wiser, gone is the anger and bitterness that was weighing you down. You are officially the 2.0 version. We are not focusing on how it hurt us. We are focusing on how we conquered it. You have become a new warrior.