LIFE ISN'T BED OF ROSES

For somebody going through tough times, for somebody struggling just to keep your head above water, you're trying but things don't seem to be quite working out the way you planned. You thought you'd be in a different place at this season in your life. But you're still suffering. You have no say-so in what happens to you. But you have a say-so in what you do about it. You have a determining voice into where your life can go. See life is 10% what happens to you, it's 90% what you do about it. You get a setback, you get thrown off course, you lost your mama, that's dirt. But show me something that has grown into something beautiful that didn't have no dirt on it. You need dirt on you to develop.

Because dirt ain't just dirt, dirt is fertilizer, dirt is nutrient, dirt gives you the strength for your seed to push through. You gotta have dirt on you to push through something. Everything that you see that's beautiful starts out as a seed. but that seed got to get dirt on it. You've got to have dirt on you to grow into what life got for you. The only thing I want from you is to every single day when uncertainty creeps in, I need you to get up and I need you to go heavy on it. In the midst of opposition, in the midst of challenges, in the midst of adversity, when you taste a little bit of blood, and something happens that you didn't expect to happen, I need you to go heavy on it. You gotta be willing to go after your stuff, you gotta be willing to go after whatever has got your name on it. Sometimes you gotta fight your way over, sometimes you gotta fight your way through, sometimes you gotta look in the mirror say, "Listen I ain't got nobody else to encourage us right now, it's just me and you. But I'm telling you, you're the head and not the tail. And I'm fighting for me, or my house, or my children, or my brothers, or my sisters, or my husband, or my vision, or my dream, I'm gonna stand right here. And I ain't giving up my children, I'm not giving up my money, no, I'm standing." You can't keep quitting your whole life, you can't keep backing up, and you can't keep fainting, taking two steps forward and three steps back. After a while, there ought to be something in our lives that we stand through. Sicknesses that you stood through, struggles that you stood through, weaknesses that you stood through, crises that you stood through, pressures that you stood through. That is where character is developed, that's what defines our destiny, when you are in the middle of transition.