Dead “Promise’s”
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So I bought a fish, his name was Promise... and he totally died in like 5 days. Lol.
His story is so good, though… might be a little lengthy in order to explain, but be sure to read this to the very end. It is for sure going to give you life.
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I am single. Yes, I’m single. Going to start at the punch so we can get to where this gets good. Many of you saw that I was engaged in July of 2017 & then never saw the day of walking down the isle.
That’s because it didn’t happen and there’s a great reason for that, but we’ll revisit it in a bit.
Thank you so much to those who were actually concerned about my emotional well-being vs just inquiring what happened to be nosey & satisfy your hunger for gossip. Yes, I had to say it…
Anyways, back to Promise.
When single, you better be sure to have a cat, a dog, a job, a dream, a bff and/or SOME-THING to keep your mind out of the gutter & busy at work.
My ideal plan was a puppy, but my wallet sometimes resists the call of God. Lol.
With that said, it suddenly dawned on me that a fish was a super cheap & easy-maintenance pet that would keep me occupied for the time being... or at least, so I thought! So... I set out to ask questions; Got a general knowledge of which fish are higher maintenance than others from friends, family & Siri... & then my bff and sister forever, Queenija and I, set the date to go get everything from the pet store.
The day we decided on, happened to be a Sunday after church and out of all the Sundays... it was the one where my brother & incredible preacher, Pastor Caleb, was telling us the story of Isaac & Rebekah.
(I know this blog might look lengthy, but stay with me!! I’m excited about this one.)
To sum it up, Isaac prayed for his wife, Rebekah (who was barren) to have a son... so the Lord answered his prayer and she got pregnant! All of a sudden, during this pregnancy, she experienced major complications in her womb & went to the Lord to ask “whyyyyy is this happening to me???”
The Lord told her, “You have TWO sons in your womb and they will become two nations, but from the beginning they will be rivals. Your oldest son will serve your youngest.”
Pastor Caleb’s message was all about encouraging those of us who have felt like the season they’ve been in was a “complication in the womb”. He was reminding us that we are (spiritually) pregnant - and not just pregnant with one baby or even a small baby, but indicating that the amount of pain as well as the length of time being pregnant in this season is a direct indicator of how much purpose is about to be birthed through us!!!!!!
Rebekah didn’t just have one, simple child. She was carrying two and they both would lead NATIONS.
Listen, I could totally end this story on that note, but trust me, I’m building up to something else!
I mean Pastor Caleb REALLY pulled out some amazing parts of this story & as I began to self-reflect, my mind shifted to what kind of fish I should go look for as I was still unsettled.
Lolol... yes, right in the middle of service. Weird, right??? Yeah I know. Lol. But in that moment, the Lord spoke to me & said, “It’s a Betta fish and you're to name him Promise.”
Now, y’all... I’m not that deep. Really, I look at others and I’m like... “Ok I need to press in a LOT more”. But I kid you not, I leaned over to Queen & told her that this is what the Lord said. “It’s a Betta fish and you're to name him, Promise.”
I digress these days when the Lord speaks because just like every other time, at the end of the story, you will see why He said what He said.
So service dismissed and we set out to find Promise. Of course the first store we went to was the closest one on the GPS to the church, but randomly, when we got there, we found out that it was going completely out of business. Not a fish or a flake to be found.
(Trust me, If you read this with spiritual ears, you’re going to get something. I’ll give you a hint in this first part…
Point #1 - Your promise is not going to be found where there’s convenience.)
So we head to the car, pretty annoyed… start pulling up the GPS’s asking Siri where to go next. You would know that 10,000 other pet stores pulled up in the area.
Well, smart me looks for a coupon and decides that we’ll go to whichever store has the best discount. LOL Don’t act like y’all ain’t did this. Haha
We see that there’s a Pet Supermarket about 20 mins away and buckle up to head over.
Well, when we got there, we saw tons of beautiful Betta fish! I mean gorgeous… large fins and coats of colors. However, knowing EXTREMELY little about Betta fish, we decide to bug one of the associates.
I speak up to ask her “Hey, we want to take a Betta home today, but we need literally everything. Can you please tell me what all I need to buy for this fish?”
(Point #2 - You need to KNOW in advance what you’re asking for.)
With hesitation on her face, she tells us “It is REALLY not a good idea for you to take a Betta today if you haven’t set up the tank yet. Like, please don’t do it.”
I looked up at her with so much concern because I had zero understanding why that is. Like it’s a fish… you put him in the bag, I take it home, set it up & toss him in, right???
(NO. Not at all… smh.)
So, she begins to tell us that we need to set up the tank first and prepare a place for him.
(Seriously, y’all this thing is gonna preach.)
She said, you need a tank, a filter, water conditioner, gravel, a hideaway so he can rest, a plant so he can hide away and food. She even told us about some treats that would help him live long as well as a leaf bed that would keep him happy considering that he would need to live by himself. She advised us to go set up the tank, let it run for 24-48 hours first and then come back and get him.
I looked at her and said, “Okay, point me to everything, but I ain’t trying to pay no more than 100 bucks.”
In the back of my mind though, I was fully disappointed in not taking him home that day… because I mean, why delay??? The Lord told me I had a Promise. Sound familiar?
(Point #3 - A promise is one thing, timing is another.)
Anyways, we shop the store, get everything the associate said to get and then Queen and I step away to re-discuss why we couldn’t take the Betta home right away. Honestly, we were getting mixed info from the associates and of course, we didn’t know any better… but we decided to take her advice cause she seemed to know what she was talking about.
(I’m going to insert this right here and y’all can thank me later -
YOU BETTER KNOW WHICH DIRECTION TO TAKE FOR YOURSELF. Don’t depend on others (and their prophetic-ish-ness) to tell you something that the Lord Himself needs to tell YOU. Period - Point - Blank.
Seriously, I learned this the hard way.)
Anyways, we left, set up the tank and I went back and got him 2 days later.
All was well for the first 2 days, but on the 3rd day we noticed Promise not eating. I wondered if it was because he didn’t like the food, but I got what she recommended, so… I went back to the store, spent more money and got different food, thinking all would be well.
Looked at him the next day; still wouldn’t eat. At this point now, I began to see white spots develop on him and he moved a little slower than how perky he was on the first day. I Google it and low and behold… he qualified for a fish sickness called ICH.
Now I’m frustrated because ICH comes from one of two things: stress or the water being too cold… but there was no reason he could be stressed cause all he did was sleep all day with worship music in the background.
So going back to Point #2 - you need to know everything before getting involved.
I had no clue that the water needed to be heated. Out of ALL the questions I asked her, she never mentioned a heater and I didn’t know any better. I had filled the tank with room temp tap water (conditioned it as well) and then put him in, but I assume he was maybe too cold to eat.
I read that Ich can be cured with heated water… so guess what guys… another 40 bucks gone to get the water-heater.
(Point #4 - Keeping a promise alive will cost you things that you must make sure you are prepared to pay.)
Long story short, I heated the water overnight and he seemed golden the next morning; much more active. It was a Sunday and I had to get to church. Fed him and ran out the door, hoping he would eat this time. Came back and he was gone to fishy heaven, y’all. Just like that.
The level of frustration that plagued me at first was so disrupting my peace, but when I look at his life and his story… Promise completely fulfilled his purpose by teaching us all how to deal with the promises we have yet to see.
I fully understand why the Lord told me to give him that name. If it was just for this blog alone, I am extremely grateful and I learned my lesson.
(I’m going to bring this on home so we can shout a little bit.)
My engagement proved to be an extremely rough season and left me with the idea of giving up on my dead promise. I mean really… I look at it now and the promise of a spouse is dead. Like Ezekiel and dry bones, dead. Lol. And most of me wants to keep it that way. Of course, I could have another… just like I could easily go buy another fish… but that’s not the point. The point is learn from this whole thing and hold on to the promised future.
We are all pregnant with a promise and just like Rebekah, we’ve been through the worst and back trying to get to it. I know it isn’t just me, but this last and even current season has been wayyy more than I bargained for. Just like all the extra stuff I found out late that I needed for my fish.
But the purpose of remaining pregnant so long is so that the baby can fully develop. The baby AND the parents, if you ask me.
My ex-fiancé was amazing, but not at all ready for me. In all honesty, I could have been much better prepared for him as well. (Going back to point #2, you better know what you’re getting into…)
Through pre-marital counseling… that was revealed to us and we decided to take the hard road of cutting each other loose in order to honor the individual preparation that the Lord wanted to complete.
What I’ve learned thus far…
Being single, though annoying some days if you let it be, is actually a truly beautiful thing because it deems you FREE to give birth to the fully baked promises that God has placed inside of you. I am such a better person as a result of this freedom.
One of the last points that Pastor Caleb preached stuck out to me and it was that we should be asking the Lord “What’s happening THROUGH me… not to me”.
When your spiritually pregnant season gets nearly unbearable, it’s important to remember that the Lord is trying to do something THROUGH you… never TO you. Rebekah, was a mother of NATIONS. Ask the Lord, what’s in your womb? What are you about to give birth to? The Bible doesn’t directly say it, but understanding what was there probably gave Rebekah the drive to press forth past the pain… and that’s what I’m hoping my story does for you.
God’s Word says that He promises to take care of us, not abandon us and give us the future we hope for. Jeremiah 29:11 MSG - So trust the process. Do what you can to prepare in every way and when you start feeling the pressure, just do your best to relax. The worst is just before the breakthrough.
I also said all of this to say that I don’t know if it’s a dream, a gift, a spouse, a job, a HEALING or something else that the Lord has PROMISED to you and you are still in the pregnancy stage, maybe even at the last step… hey, maybe you even feel like it's dead (!) but at the end of the day, you better believe that when the time is right, this promise will be WHOLE and YOURS. Shout in advance WITH me (!!!) because ALL His promises are YES and AMEN!!! - 2 Corinthians 1:20
So, just before we part, I speak to every promise that has died and declare now that YOU WILL LIVE AGAIN. I come against any frustration in the parent and rebuke the lies that the enemy has tried to tell. The purpose wrapped inside of your womb is the property of the Lord’s and He has the final say. I come against any attack in the body, in the mind and/or spirit that would try to frustrate you into abortion. The call of God is clear and with His help, so is the path. I pray that all who have been called to carry will not have hope deferred in seasons of seeming delay, but that we will hold tight to the future God has promised and do all that we need to prepare for when it comes. I speak life to the dead things and healing to the broken. May we trust in the Giver of life and the Healer of hearts. I even pray, God, that the person reading this right now will feel a sudden supernatural strength. The pregnancy process is hard, but the joy of the Lord is our strength and I declare that we will find our joy in knowing without a doubt that you ALWAYS keep Your promises. You have never let us down and You surely never will. So, God, we trust in You. I pray that obedience will be our portion and I even pray the the Holy Spirit will comfort us through recurring disappointment. Place a fresh fire and excitement inside our hearts for the coming days! We are honored to be a part of what You’re doing in the earth.
May this be the dawn of a new day. We love you with all of our hearts. Thank you for hearing our prayers. In Jesus name, Amen!
Listen. If you thought this blog was something,
do yourself a favor and go listen to Pastor Caleb's sermon! Seriously.
Love you guys SO MUCH! - Trinity.
P.S. If you wondered how I made it through this season, still worshipping and singing away like nothing else mattered... it is indeed because I realized: