One of my passions has always been raising money for Alzheimer’s research. Not many people know this, but my mother Loretta, had Alzheimer’s for 10 long years. I watched my mom go through the various stages of Alzheimer’s while the disease slowly robbed my mother of her memories of her home and family and left just a mere shell of a woman until her eventual death last year.

Every year the Alzheimer’s Association holds the Longest Day during the summer solstice. This year the Longest Day will be held on Jun 21, 2015.

As women, we are no strangers to change.  Sometimes, it seems like our whole lives are centered around nothing but change.  When we are young, we face changes in ourselves as we learn about the meaning of hormones, we go off to school, get married, have kids, watch them grow, then guide them as they become adults too.  We face health changes, job changes, relationship changes, lifestyle changes, and loss of a loved one changes.  You would think that we would be experts at change considering all we deal with from the time we are old enough to know better until the time we finally rest.

"I know that this process of 'me changing my life' doesn't just end once I set fire to this list of things I hate about myself. Tonight isn't as much of a new beginning as it is a violent end and I know the real work hasn't even started yet."-Jennifer Elisabeth 

As an instructor who teaches critical thinking to many at-risk students, I often use this quote in my last week of class. Many of my classes are filled with women much like you and I. Strong women. Women who have overcome some type of adversity and are pushing forward in the effort to overcome their obstacles.

Each December I begin praying that God will give me insight for the New Year. December 29th I woke and the first word that popped in my head was "Change."  I pondered this word all day and began writing down all the things that came to mind when I said the word "change." God was most definitely preparing me for 2015.   Change is nothing new to me personally. I've learned to embrace and accept change to be BETTER and not bitter. However, this year as I mediated on 2015 I realized there were many things to come that I dreaded.

Hi! I am Dawn and a year or so ago God laid it on my heart to start an online ministry to support, love and help people. My life has been a crazy ride. I don't have a sob story from birth but I have a rough story or parents dying young, wrong decisions and having to learn from my mistakes. When God laid it on my heart I worked a full time job and had a few businesses on the side. I love Beachbody products, IT works products, Jordan Essential products and have always wanted to 'help the world' with what I find helps me.

Why would they do that? How could they do that to me? Don't they know how I feel? I matter too, right?

 

 

Why would I let what they did bother me? They didn't do it to me, they did it, it was their choice. Why are you letting their choices disrupt your heart? Of course you matter, only look inside for your self-confidence.

 

In a recent conversation I was talking to an amazing young woman and she was so distraught about everything people were doing and saying about and to her.

This is the hardest topic in my eyes that we face in our lives. It took me many many years to realize that forgiveness is the first step towards healing, I've heard that from many therapists, but never truly believed it until I experienced it. I would like to speak more about it, but I believe that this video says it better than anything I've ever found. I have held a lot against others, blamed my failures and my grudges that I hold on other people, but truly the only person to blame for a grudge is yourself.

I want to start off this post with my mother's post; 

   Here it is; Wow family, friends and prayer warriors- we have a team around Dee like no other! I sit here with tears of joy, grateful tears as I hang up the phone with Jim! Jim called this morning and said they took off her bandages and saw the healing was going amazing. All scabbing over the large incision. They may be able to release her today- so the 3-5 days in the hospital (soonest release was next Monday) changed to today.