#82 S4 EP 2: Lynita Blackwell's Epiphany: From Work Burnout to Purposeful Living through Faith and Grace

Hello, hello, welcome back to God's diamonds in the rough. Amen, we are ready to do it again. We hope all is well, amen, where you are. We want to thank you so much for joining us one more time. Amen. Today we have a treat for everyone, but first, y'all know what we got to do. We got to pray first, got to pray. So, father, we thank you so much for this day. We thank you, god, for our last night's sleep and our early rise this morning. Father, right now, we speak to every diamond that is here, god, that you would have your way. We pray that you would speak in such a way that we cannot miss what you have to say to us. Father, we bless your name and we say thank you. We pray this prayer in the mighty name of Jesus Christ. We do pray Amen, amen and amen. Y'all don't hear Michael, amen, he'll be in the next episode, that's all right, but I have somebody here with me today and her name is Lanita Blackwell. Amen, and she is going to say hello.

Good morning and hello.

All right, she's excited, we're excited, amen, everybody's excited. We hope you're excited where you are, amen. So we are today's topic. We're going to be talking about stress and overworking and just really digging into what the Lord has for us, because we all know that when we hang in with the Lord, he can change it up and switch it up whenever he get ready. Come on, somebody. That is the truth yeah so. Ms Blackwell, tell us about yourself a little bit.

Absolutely so. I am very blessed to be here. I have had a wonderful life Beautiful parents, love and community, great teachers, mentors and coaches and they taught me to perform, to exceed and excel in God. I am a fifth generation PK. I am a preacher, my husband's a preacher, and so God has been in my life all the way around, and you can see his work manifest right. What I did not learn until later in life, though, was that the people who are mentoring and developing us excuse me they are doing what they know, which is to work hard, and I tell people don't work hard, work in love, and the difference is that, working hard, there is tenseness, there is stress, there is anxiety, there's depression, there's pain in hard right I mean even hearing that word you kind of tense up, whereas when you are working in love, that takes you beyond the place of tiredness, that makes you know that you're in purpose and you are aligned with the calling that God has placed upon your life. And it took me a while to understand that, and it did not happen until I was literally at the peak of what I was doing. At that time, I had a media company, I had a publishing company, my law firm and accounting firm, or a First Lady of a Church, mom to a daughter, daughter to a aging parents, and one day my body just stopped responding to my commands, literally. My daughter came home and she found me passed out from exhaustion in the middle of the floor and she was only six years old, and she went and got a blanket and put it over me and kissed me on my forehead and put a pillow under my head and she said goodnight, mommy. And I didn't have the strength to get up to put my child to bed. And that's when I knew that something had to give, I had to change, and so that meant that I was going to have to stop the way that I connected to and understood what God was saying to me, and we were going to have to redo our relationship.

All right, wow. So mine said definitely had a lot to do with have the change.

Absolutely, absolutely. And I tell you I was. I was stressed out and did not recognize it as stress, because I thought that stress meant that things were going wrong and you were pushing through. I didn't understand that stress could be induced by things that are positive. I mean, I listed all the things that I had going, plus my community work, and I thought that if I was involved in things that were good and that were prosperous to the people, to the community, that that would take me through. But that's not the case, and what I learned is that I was working to be perfect. But if you look at the definition of perfect, it is living up to a standard. And then that challenges you to ask the question well, who set that standard? Because you did, and if you had asked God what your standard was supposed to be, you wouldn't be all stressed out with your hair breaking off, your skin breaking down and your nails splitting in half All those things that happened to me. And so I took two years to figure out what was going on. And what God said is I want you to work in excellence. And I asked what does that mean? And it means you work toward a standard that you set, and you're going to set it with me, jesus, you better talk about it, yeah. And so that standard now is going to change as you elevate and grow and go through life, and so your level of excellence will look different here in your 40s than it did in your 20s, and it's surely going to look different when you're in your 60s. So it's a sliding scale and there is grace in that sliding scale, depending on what's going on in your life.

Mm. Yeah, she is y'all. Okay, diamonds, now, you heard it now, because she, she, she's just speaking truth and you know, I would gather, with everything that you said, that's how you kind of collected this new thought minister. Yeah, that's how that came about, right.

That is exactly how that came about, and people ask me a lot of times like do you have a church or are you like ministering in a traditional sense? And I tell them no. And the reason I tell them no is because when I went through seminary and I got my doctorate and spirituality, it was for me and not even selfish me. It was so that I could clean up what was going on within me and reestablish my connection with Holy Father, so that I could then go out and be a living example of what a life full of peace, joy and fulfillment could look like, without all of the stress and the anxiety and, a lot of times, the depression that comes from that. Yeah, but it has to start first with it.

That's right. I hope that y'all hear her heart. Amen, because I can hear it coming from a genuine place. And you know you're here. Don't just be here to be here. Take this word, for you know, as the Lord speaking through her. This is absolutely true, because I experienced the same thing before. It just kind of got to the point because my hair was breaking off. My hair was breaking off and you know, I just and I was going and going, and going and going, but I realized after a while I really wasn't getting anywhere. I was doing all of these things, but I had to stop at one point and ask God, is this what you want me to do? And you know that's. What we all have to realize is that when we're in relationship with the Lord, you know it ain't real. It's not about what they expect of you, it's what he wants to do through you. Keyword is through. Yes and we have to be available. We got to put our agenda to the side and be available to be used by him and for him, because we're created for that.

You want to speak to anything.

Add anything to that.

Amen, that's what I got to add to. That is amen.

Amen, so will you keep on going forward? Can you talk about the five step formula to ultimate successful life?

Absolutely. Yes, I can. So the five step formula is going to look different for everybody. I got to say that at the top because some people are going to take what I say and they're going to write down every word, and that's beautiful, but then they're going to try to emulate what examples are and I'm really pushing y'all to go into prayer and meditation, turn that plate over and do some fasting so God can talk to you about what it's going to look like in your life, because that's what this is, your life, okay. So the first thing is we have to get to a place when we are focused on people and not paper. Now, what does that mean? Yes, yeah, so you felt that you felt what I'm going to tell you about this Absolutely right. So we sometimes are so focused on the process, the procedure, that we forget that the whole plate of us getting up every day and serving and God's kingdom is to be a blessing, to share the gospel. But we are caught up in checking these boxes and saying, okay, I say good morning to you, check. Okay, I took care of you in some way, shape or form. If it's on the job, check, but did you take the time to really hear the question that was asked of you, not the words, but the, the vibrational intention, the, the calling that was upon that moment, because every day that we are out here interacting with people, there is a lesson, there's a blessing, there's an opportunity for us in that moment. And even when it's challenged no, especially when there's challenge that challenge is an opportunity. I tell people all the time that we've heard the term every cloud has a silver lining. Well, what if you are the silver lining to that cloud, that that opportunity was just for you, and if you don't get the lesson right here, you can't get the blessing, and so God is going to bring that situation right back to you in some way, shape or form. The only thing that's going to be different are the names of the people and the circumstances. That's me. So we have to, yeah, so we have to focus on the people and not the process. That's right, the process, okay. The second thing is we got to do and we don't like to hear this, but this is for real we got to leave it all on the field. We got to leave it all on the field. Now I would tell people and a lot of times the ladies get angry at me, but, sisters, hear what I'm saying. A lot of times we look at the men and we see the opportunities that they have and how they're able to put things behind them and we get frustrated and angry. Don't get mad. Emulate that. Watch, watch this, watch this. Now men, they get angry, they get in a fight. It might turn into frist of, but after it's done they move on. And that is the case in jobs, that is the case in relationships, that is the case in how they deal with themselves. But women, a lot of times we have a tendency to hold onto things and then it manifests within us as illness. And when I say us, I am including myself in that, because all of that stress and that anxiety and depression that I was experiencing when I was quote unquote at the top of my game Jesus, that manifests that in my body as fibroids and endometriosis. And I got to stage four before I was properly diagnosed and I had a series I didn't say one, a series of progressively brutal surgeries before my body was able to recalibrate, heal and be the vessel that's needed for me to interact on this plane and God's kingdom. Now, that's not to say that the guys don't get sick, because of course they do. I'm saying the way that we deal with it is different, and so it is important for us to own our thoughts, our feelings, not allow us to gaslight ourselves and say, well, I shouldn't be mad. No, own your anger if you're frustrated. Anger is a righteous emotion. Every time you see it in the Bible, it was a push to the precipice of what God had for us to do. But every prophet and that is without exception, god flipped the table. Moses got mad. Every prophet in the Bible. Whatever there is anger, there is going to be a transformation. Own your anger. Let God transform you in the situation. Let Him show up. Let Him show up. It's a thing I know. Right, you got to do it on your own Girl you're preaching.

Go on, go on and get it. Mm-mm, mm-mm, go on. Yeah, you said go on. Ok, go on, go on ahead.

The third thing we got to do is we got to unstretch ourselves. Then that is hard for us Particularly. This is male, female, anybody in God's kingdom, anybody trying to do something good in the world, because we think that if we are doing it in God's name, that he will reward us being tired. He will reward us being stressed out, he will reward us being broke. He will reward us in every way when we forget and neglect our family relationships and obligations. That is all wrong, that is out of order, that is disorder.

Mm-mm.

Because God is orderly and the first thing that he did was he loved Girl.

I just want to before you go to the fourth one. I just have to say everything that you're talking about right now the Spirit spoke through me on yesterday. We had two services and everything that you're saying it's like a repeat in my ear that the Spirit spoke through Lord, have mercy, go on, go on, go on here, go on here, go on here. I'm trying not to get happy up in here. You're hurting me.

You're getting happy again because I'm telling you. All of these things that I'm talking about are things that I had to work through. These are things that I'm just preaching at. These are things that I experienced, absolutely. Excuse me. I was president of three organizations at the same time, with a small child, and my mother had just recovered from brain surgery and my husband was with us and my husband was passing the church that was two hours away and I was managing my own law firm. That is disorder. That is disorder. As soon as my mom went down, I should have resigned from those organizations, because my family needed me. Instead, I was working nonstop, and so there were days I would wake up in five and I wasn't going to bed until two o'clock in the morning, jesus, and so it is no wonder that my body then put, yeah, shut down, and I collapsed Absolutely, and I would love to tell you that that was the okay, I'm going to get it together, and but this is a godly broadcast and I believe in being honest and transparent.

Be honest, be honest.

I knew something had to change when my daughter found me. I did not know what and I did not know how, and so it was not until a couple of years later I was diagnosed with the endometriosis and was going through the surgeries that I asked God how, and he told me that I would need external help, people who were trained to help me to get my life together. And then he directed me to it. Now I'm saying this this way so you understand that when we ask God with a true heart for Right Right Because because before I was trying to take God and hit him in my plan Okay, somebody Then there had to be a change in mindset, there had to be a change in attitude, there had to be a change in my spiritual well being for him to say, now you have to come into my place and said, yes, total, complete surrender. And so I started working with a performance coach who is also my spiritual mother, rowena Silvera Beck, and she had me right now, everything that I was involved in and I passed in that. Seven pages, single space. Jesus, wow, seven pages Seven pages, but let me tell you that that is not unusual for people who are in service in the kingdom, male or female, because let me just drop this on you you're going to fall out. Come on, every role, responsibility, duty that we have is more than just that role. They have sub-roads. For instance, if you are a parent, you're not just a parent. You are transportation to a school, you are the grocery provider, you are the person that makes sure that everybody is clean from head to toe every day. You are the person who is doing laundry or making sure it gets done. You are the person maintaining the house. When the system breaks down, you're calling repair people or you're doing it yourself. I already made five roles and responsibilities and we have not even touched you. All who have children who are in multiple activities that are outside of the school day Football, track, soccer, basketball, anything you buying uniforms, you're taking to and from practices and actual performances or games. That is part of your role. Your mom or dad role goes from being one to being 12, 15.

I get it, I get it. I get it. Sis, I definitely get exactly what you're saying. I said all the time I don't know how in the world I do everything that I do. At the end of the day, I have to say it's God, it's God to be. I understand that slowing down process because I was just going and going and going and going and going and God just showed me, really showed me this week, just to say this big aha moment you got to include your family somewhere, yes, somewhere. You got to. Everything else is more important than them.

Yes.

And that is the truth. And I was going to say that's not just the family in your house, that's like your sisters and your brothers and your aunties and your. You know what I mean. People outside of your immediate home need your attention too. They need you to be there, not for a moment, but really be there. You know what I mean. Because for me, it got to the point where one of my sisters I would say one of my sisters got to the point where she just addressed me just as pastor. It's like I'm still your sister. You know what I mean. And people can get into this place where they decided, okay, well, this is the only place I see them, so this is who they are and that's it. But I'm more than that. You know what I mean. It's like I'm still Catherine before I became a pastor. Yes, and so this is what I say, and I'm big on time. I've learned over the years it's more than just doing the work. We got to spend time with the people that we care about. Even in the church, you got to spend time. So you don't just expect me to be that and that's it, because I'm more than that.

Yes, that's exactly right. Oh my goodness. Yes, yes, yes. So what's the next step? You're going to be the leader of number four, realizing you're more than just that. Now it's time to scale down, to get to the heart of it. So I had a seven pages single space and Rev Ram said you got to cut that down to two, two, wow. And I was like how am I going to do that? Because, remember, everything I was involved with was, I thought, purpose driven, because it was positive. They are not synonymous. Something can be positive and good, but it is not only is it not aligned with your purpose, but it is getting in the way of Wow. And you know that when you're not moving forward, you cannot be in the same place in 2023 as you were a year ago, in 2022. If you are, it is time to make an assessment of everything that you are involved in, and you might have to come out of everything so that you can properly assess exactly what it was that was keeping you in this holding pen.

And oh man. So it's like kind of like a um a cell, like you put yourself in prison and you got the key. Oh yes.

Oh yeah, it's too much terminology. Past the captain.

Oh man, that's mind blowing, because we always, you know, because I'm doing all of these things and they're all good things that, hey, this is pleasing to God. And again it comes back to is this what God called me to do? Because every good thing ain't for me to do? That's right.

Every good thing is not for you to do.

Self inflict, a self inflicted prison and you got the key. Jesus, call somebody. I don't want to talk about it. Oh man, I'm telling you, don't he do it? The Lord knows how to just kind of just give you a picture. I love a visual image. Show me a visual image of what you're saying and it's like I can't miss it. Ain't no excuse, I can't miss it.

No, no, you can't, you really really can't, yeah. But yeah, most of us do at least one point in the wrong. I mean I did.

Yeah, that's right. Tell us about the next step, okay.

That's right and the way that you do that. Once you strip down everything so that you can take a proper and complete assessment, let's talk about how to do that. So the first thing is we have to implement a strategy, and that strategy starts with prayer. This is not the prayer where you are talking to God and telling Him all the stuff that you want. This is the time where you would see big nun, early in the morning and quiet. She was not talking, she was listening.

Yeah, yeah, we have a problem with that.

We do Hold on to how to be quiet, just listen. Yeah, but you know what that is a problem with our society in general, particularly in the West. We are taught that we always have to have an answer and to be at the ready, and so it greatly diminishes our opportunities for not just listening but comprehension and understanding. And so we have to rewire our brains, which then allows us to have a better relationship with God, because most of us are taught how to talk, how to pray. We know the Lord's prayer, but do we know how to, once we've said that, to be quiet and listen to what God has to say? Or I'm going to challenge you with this what if you listened first and then prayed?

Right, yeah, I mean, it's really, it becomes, it's a. It's not only as a mindset, but it's a intentional choice. Yes, we get so far ahead of ourselves and ahead of God that we can't do it. It's like just slow down. If we slow down, yes, like you said, just simply slow down, we can do that.

We just slow down.

We can do exactly what you just said Listen and pray, yes, and either way, we can do that. We just have to slow down and see I'm teaching, I go through. It's called learning and living true. That's where I messed up in the beginning learning and living true. And we go book by book and verse by verse, and we just I slow down and read every single word in every single verse and then we just all I've done is slow down and it just it has opened up the door to so much understanding in regard to context, situation, what's going on at the time, so we got a proper view of what's going on. It changes everything when we just simply slow down, slow down. Yes, god, time is in him, yes, time is in him, and if we make like you said, we can do so much and get nothing done.

Oh, we can get this. You can teach the whole world. That you can teach the whole world.

Absolutely, we can do. We can be doing all of this stuff and get nothing done because we weren't there in the moment. We were just doing it, checking it off. As you've already said, we got to slow down and just simply, what am I doing? Hold on, what am I doing?

Yes.

That is such a profound sound. So simple, but it's so profound. It is a profound thing.

Yes.

Listening, Even in marriage. Listening to how we're handling money, because our bank account will talk to us. Come on somebody. Hallelujah. I mean slowing down and listening to our children versus ready to discipline them instead of listening to the why. Yes, and that's what I love about Jesus is because he listens to our why. And if we listen to his why by reading his word and taking his time, I don't believe that we will have as many problems and broken hearts, broken relationships, as we have If we just slow down.

And that's the truth. That's absolutely the truth.

Slow it down.

Yes.

So that assessment yes.

Do you have an assessment?

like on your website or something or in your book, or you want to talk about your books a little bit before we get ready to wind up.

I would love to, and yes, so my book is actually the blueprint or cheat sheet that some people have called it how to build this model life full of peace, joy and fulfillment. Because I tell people all the time you are not throwing away the life that you've built. I'm not telling you that you can't be successful. Make money serving organizations, be loving with your family. You need to do all of those things. That is a way to show people what God can and will do with your life when you turn it on over to him. What I'm saying is that it must be done in love if you don't want to be passed out in the middle of the floor, exhausted and I have talked to too many professionals who are Christians where it might not have been passed out in the middle of the floor, but it was high blood pressure and stroke, it was anxiety and depression or substance abuse with alcoholism and or drugs. So this manifests in some way, shape or form, and so my process is prayer and meditation, breathing silence, living your flow, so that you can live this awesome life where you allow your intuitive intelligence or the Holy Spirit to talk to you and you listen, regardless as to what is in front of you and when you do that, you're able to be a better service provider, a better person who is providing service to your clients, a better spouse, parent and child. But it does require you to create a process, a system for yourself. But those are the ways that I do it and I talk about it in my book Live Life on Fire the Ultimate God, full of peace, joy and fulfillment, which is available on Amazon, but I would love for you to come and get it from my website, which is my name, lanitamichaelblackwellcom, and it's available in hardback, paperback, audible, as well as ender.

Awesome. I saw the titles and I said, oh man. I said that's, that's gonna be good. I said that's gonna be a good, good book. I said I'm gonna do what I can do to get it. What about the? You got a couple of others, but one that stood out to me is knock down set street.

Yes, so that was my last book and it's Face it, speak it, forgive it, release it. And that book is truly the coming into the wake up call that I went through owning what was going on in front of me, not pretending like it didn't bother me, allowing those emotions to cycle through and release, and showing people how to do it for themselves. And I, in all my books, I use examples from real life, so that y'all know that I'm not just talking about something from the mount and expecting you to just like put it all out there.

That's right, that's right, I get it. You know. I know I'm the same way. I'm the same exact way. I can't tell you about nothing I never been through. How am I gonna tell you? I can make all kinds of examples. I don't want to, but if I can use my life as a testimony, because I've been tested in that area, I can use that test as a testimony. Why can't you take it? You know what I mean? Kind of like the whole essence of try, the spirit by the spirit. You know spirit ain't telling us nothing for nothing. He has a reason and a purpose for it. He tells us something quietly, privately. He always confirms what he says in another way, always. And so if I'm telling you something, then my story ought to confirm what I'm telling you to be true.

I mean.

Yeah, I love it. I love it. So we down in the last minutes. So what I'm gonna ask you to do is give a final word to our diamonds, because we refer to our listeners as diamonds. Give a final word to our diamonds and Close out with prayer behind the word.

Every day of your life is for purpose, and when we take the turn to live it that way, we are not just a blessing to ourselves, but we're blessing to anybody who sees us. Think of it as the glass full we can pour when we are full, but when we are empty, we have nothing. I am challenging you to always think, work and speak from a full glass, from the full heart, one that honors your peace, your joy, your fulfillment. And now let's go on to prayer. Lord, we are so grateful for this moment, right here, right now, for the diamonds, for our pastor partner was been so Wonderful in providing this platform for us to come together. You have said, when two or more gathered in that name this year, you be, and we know that. You are here right now, and so we ask that you bless every listener, every person who has spoken, every word that was spoken in this beautiful, wonderful space to be a blessing to those who have heard it, those who will implement it and those who share it. We ask for covering and blessing for every house that is represented. We ask for blessing and coverings on all the health wellness that we release the stress, we release anxiety, we release depression, we release Addiction, we really everything that is not consistent with the purpose that you have placed on our life, which is to be love, to be in love and to share the good news that Jesus saves. We are grateful Lord, we are thankful Lord, and we much are empowered and Thanksgiving. This we say in Jesus name.

Hey man, whoo Mmm, that was good Hallelujah. Come on somebody. We so appreciate your presence, madam.

Thank you so much for having me, I so appreciate you.

Yes, ma'am, so don't go anywhere. I'm gonna talk to you a little bit afterward, but to our diamonds, you've heard it a man, this young lady, has certainly blessed our souls. Don't miss it, don't ignore it, because it was for you. A man, receive something you might not have received at all, but there was something there for you. God drew you here. You didn't draw yourself. You're here, whether you're here to try to figure out what this show is all about. All of that, however, you got here. The Lord brought you here and there was something for you. Don't just take it and throw the whole tub away along with the baby. You take what was yours and you hold on to it and Hide it in your heart as the word tells us, and go forth in his name and, as my husband always says, y'all know what he always says Remember that you are our diamond in the rough. We'll see y'all next week and y'all have a blessed and blessed Day and week. A man, a man.