Jennifer Hudson

I’ve been working on a few new designs lately…a T-Shirt for a local political organization, my twitter background & a few print pieces. I love visual and graphic design for just about anything. When we talk about events for the church or for the community, my marketing and advertising wheels start churning!

Even though I’m looking for a job right now doing what I know best, admin, or finance — my heart would be most complete working in the back of a sweaty print shop, designing business cards and such. Actually, lets step that up a notch…wedding invitations and such.

People ask me all the time, why don’t I pursue that as a career? *as the excuses begin to fly* — It’s my arch nemisis, alter ego, slightly O.C.D, people pleaser side that cringes at the thought of constant complaints and construction from the public. yikes. it’s there. It’s not just the miniscule issue of receiving ridicule, it’s my “never satisfied with less than the best” attitude, that tends to drive me to perfection.

So the Finance world was a fit for a while….until I found my creative free bird side was going crazy to CREATE!!!

Right now, I’m just having fun desiging my little ads and images, balancing our checkbook and discovering the in-between.

Shipwrecked, nearly dead, alone, floating on remnants of the boats carnage. It’s all that remains from the storms furry. Confused, thirsty and waterlogged, there is still something inside that remains in tact…Hope. Hope to survive, a belief that there must be a reason for you to still be alive. So you fight.

A few months ago, several NFL players went out on a seemingly normal boating trip. A storm rolled into the chilly Gulf waters and against all odds, caused their boat to capsize. The relentless waves were closing in on them and the story ended tragically with only ONE survivor. The media has reported that the three other very strong, enduring athletic men allegedly gave up the fight, was overcome by the hysteria related to hypothermia, took off their life-giving vests and simply “floated off.” Whatever the case, that truly happened with the three other NFL players who lost their life that day, I want to focus on an image that is forever burned in my memory.

It was all over the news that day, the videos of Nick Schuyler sitting on the bow of the boat, clinging to life. I keep seeing him out there all alone, curled up in the midst of the open sea…floating there, in his yellow jacket and life vest all alone, clinging…

Many give up and emotionally and physically cast off every shred of life giving hope and simply float off. I could go on for days on the SCORES of films out there, that we all rush out to experience where the “castaway” finds his way to a lonely island, remains there all by himself, and beyond all hope, returns home someday, now a man of fame, wealth, success and triumph. All because he Survived!

Success is an Island. It’s a very lonely island. It’s found by going from tragedy to triumph. It’s clinging to hope, passion and the enduring belief in the plans God has placed in your heart. Very few go there. Very few survive. But the few that do, have on thing in common…BELIEF.

No matter what tragedy or shipwreck you may be going through or may have gone though in the past…No matter if everyone or every voice around you is screaming for to give up…DON’T!

If you are still in the place where you are still floating alone, waiting, just frozen in the sea of time, lonely, confused over what lies ahead…CLING!! Cling to HOPE. Do not give up. Be warned that your next encounter may just be on an island, a new adventure, a new discovery that will require you to PRESS. (but we will talk about that one in the next journey!)

If you need a personal prayer or word of encouragement….email me – your friend who cares.

Sometimes, painting picture says a thousand words. Sometimes saying a thousand words can paint a picture. Today I’m painting my WORD-PICTURE through my favorite online word-cloud “toy” through wordle.net.

It’s super easy and so much fun! Most of all this word-picture can speak volumes about your life, your blog or just your random thoughts by producing this cool little “word cloud” image. Just go to wordle, type in your site, or any string of words that pop into your mind, and Voila! – your very own graphically designed word picture. Change the colors, the font, the layout – it’s all super easy!

Check it out for your self, I dare you! www.wordle.net

In the midst of all my new found change-revolution I have also made a commitment to put lets to prayers as mom says to walk by faith and not just “talk my faith.” I am launching a new business, with “No money down” – which is completely against everything logical and every normal grain possible. I’m doing this with everything I have within me so that I can teach others, just like myself how to build a business, enjoy the products for free, get out of debt, build lifetime relationships, drive a free car and earn a life changing income – with NO money UPFRONT. Everyone says it’s impossible. And they may be right, but I have one HUGE thing going for me right now: BELIEF. Nothing is stopping me from conquering our own big ugly walls.

I’ve been told that we can’t really start a business or ” do anything” until we get a business card. So we started looking for sites to purchase our card. With $16 in our banking account – that was a bit overwhelming! We found some cheap cards online for $39, some for $20, then some for free through vista print, paying just a few bucks for shipping…but I said, NO we are NOT even going to PAY $5.00! We are doing this God’s way…supernaturally…creating something out of nothing. So I used my design skills and my MacBook Pro and created our own business cards, used 3 sheets of card stock paper (we already had) – printed out our 30 new biz cards, and cut them all out by hand (and I actually had fun in the process). And when we need more…I’ll just print more. And if someone wants to bring me an excuse, like, Well, I don’t even have a computer or I don’t own a printer…then I’m going to say, sit down and listen up. USE WHAT YOU HAVE. Even if you have to write out your name & phone number on toilet paper roll that you snagged from the gas station (that’s if you don’t own toilet paper) — you’ll still be using your creative ability to promote your business and further more…people will remember you, the infamous toilet paper guy.

We will also sit down and talk about the notorious excuse of having too much pride. But I’ll save that for a later post…for when we are ready to start eating the big boy meat.

I know this all sounds really ridiculous…trust me, I’ve been rediculed! But i’m so ridiculously sold out for God and for change right now, it’s not even funny.

In a world of a failing economy, child killings, travesties and terrible sadness it seems that it’s harder than ever to find that inner strength to overcome road blocks, to overcome those ugly personal failures that have previously prevented us from achieving our true potential and truly rising to success. It’s all about the road blocks, the proverbial dams, the towering walls….so how can we do it, how can we move forward to overcome them, no, how can we CONQUER them?

In one word: Fail.

This week, I’ve been challenged with the theme of failure, through personal reflection, debates and discussions. I have been making plans and preparing to launch out into my fourth business (ok, 5th, if you count the “home baked goodies for school kids” biz I started for busy mom’s last year that cost me $8.00 & lasted about 4 hours). Anyway, this new venture this month has made me wake up and smell the not-so-rosy odor of all my past mistakes. And trust, it’s not a pleasant aroma.

Most of my “deep-thoughts-with-Jenn-Hudson” (insert the Jack Handy SNL from the 90’s flashback) begin piping into my brain each morning within the first 5 minutes of waking and continue mulling during my 20 minute shower prayer time. I began thinking back over all of my own personal “been there done that” moments of the past decade and each of the tried and failed opportunities which appeared to be a crystal clear river of success panned out to be more like a mine-field explosion of our personal finances.

The reality is that maybe it was actually a crystal river, or simply a sweet little brook that could have brought the proverbial stream of additional income, the stream of life giving success and dream realizations into our lives but something happened each time that has seemed to clog up the source.

It’s the same “dam wall” that we have been encountering our entire lives. (LOL – i.e. Vegas Vaction) The road blocks, have you, that my insides have been screaming over the past 3 weeks of it’s impending time to scale.

So today I humbly look back and I tear down my pride of saying, “well, I made a little money” or “Oh well, whatever.” No. I’m taking inventory. It’s a nasty ugly sight, but I’m going down to the mind field, (yes, mind) and I’m searching through the jungle of mistakes to find out in me, through my Savior Jesus Christ, who conquers all fear and doubt, what it is that keeps damming up my stream. It’s there. It’s the same thing. It’s in everyone. It’s in EVERY failure.

I realized like a movie trailer of conversations going off in my mind, how many people in my life that have shared their deepest most personal, deep down desire or dream for something big. The Dream that does not bring income into their life, but cost more MONEY than they have actually ever seen in their entire life. Dreams of building businesses, houses, ministries, dreams of changing entire cultural economies with humanitarian aid, dreams of traveling to destinations that they can’t even pronounce, dreams of reaching masses of people, millions of people with just ONE dream. As the deep-voice-over man in my head kept rehearsing the multiple people in my life who have shared their dreams, I realized that none of them have taken one step to actually step out and achieve that big dream. I actually don’t know any one in my life like Richard Branson, Bill Gates or Donald Trump.

Dad talked to me this week about failure and how strongly Thomas Edison believed in Failure, yes, Failure. And he also reached about it today in service. Here’s what Mr. Edison, save, the INVENTOR of the LIGHT BULB has to say about it…

Overcoming Failure:
I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward.

Friendship:
I have friends in overalls whose friendship I would not swap for the favor of the kings of the world.

Funny:
I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.

Overcoming Failure:
Many of life’s failures are men who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.

Perseverance, Persistence:
Nearly every man who develops an idea works at it up to the point where it looks impossible, and then gets discouraged. That’s not the place to become discouraged.

Funny:
Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.

Overcoming Failure:
Show me a thoroughly satisfied man, and I will show you a failure.

~~Edison’s words ring true today. If you knew you would have to try something TEN THOUSAND ways before making ten thousand dollars would you do it? Would you allow yourself to be susceptible to the 1st failure? the 2nd? the 42nd? the 700th? the 4,332nd? the 9,997th time? Easy to console people and say with a pat on the back, that even Edison thought 10,000 times of failure really meant success. But what did Job’s wife say about it? She said, it was too difficult a thing – just quit – we can’t take any more failure. Job could have quit in the bottom of the ninth, tired and fatigued only one hit under the opponent, but he remained in the game. He said I think I’ll go one more round.

If more people began speaking and acting like Edison than speaking and acting like Job’s wife, even if we didn’t know, or really see that thee could maybe, just possibly be a way that this person MIGHT succeed. When we lift our brother up and encourage them to keep on pressing up the wall, keep on clearing the debris and tearing down to PRESS, to FORGE to COURAGE their way to success…maybe, just possibly we could reach our dreams and change our life, maybe even our entire national economic situation!

Yes, I’m believing and speaking THAT big today. And I’m heading out there with a mind set to do it just ONE more time…getting ONE STEP closer to Edison’s big 10k.

(P.S. if you wanna go there with me, or if you simply need to hear someone like me, tell you personally, that you can do it, email me, and I will share my belief with you RIGHT NOW.)

A few weeks ago, I posted about the brick WALL in our life, the one we’ve talked about for years, the one our friends and our family talk about seeing in their life. Today, after a bit more revelation from the throne room with Jesus, and humor from the Holy Spirit, I’m realizing that the wall is more like a dam in our life. My posts lately have been pretty fleshy and deep. But here it is, all me….seeking for more of God in my life, helping me to conquer all my fears and tear down EVERYTHING that is standing in my way.

I follow several success websites, and subscribe to their email and feeds – one success guru with Nicheology, puts it this way: “kidnapped!” That’s when we make excuses for doing something we’ve never done before, when we let the fear of not being good enough or not having what it takes to make it “like the next guy.” We are as Paul Evan says, kidnapped, in our own untruths.

Today my Wall Theory was revolutionized with the reality that my “dry streams” are not simply because of a wall, but rather its what’s beyond that wall and it’s what that wall is actually made of that we really need to be looking at. As I mentioned in the earlier wall post, knowing our enemies, is truly the first way to defeat them…

More Flesh. My wall is mounded with fear, doubt, insecurity, LAZINESS, procrastination,

So, now (as I tweeted earlier today) Scaling the Dam Wall, Vegas Vacation style! http://tr.im/mUY0 – this Dam seems huge in my life, but I’m scaling it – www.jennblog.com

I heard this song at the Hillsong concert last night, and a friend shared this YouTube with me today. It’s definitely speaks my heart today:

Stepping out of my comfort zone…or let me say, mediocre zone, I’m going through a really huge personal change right now, and I’m truly beginning to feel passion for life like never before. I’m doing things I’ve never done…making up my mind in ways I never have. I have decided to live better, be better, look better and make better decisions for my life. In the process, I am conquering my biggest fears.

My passion for change has always been present, and I have set out to grow every day in my walk with Christ. But the past few weeks during our Wednesday night Youth prayer time, the Lord has been moving in my heart in incredible – mountainous – ways. Something reviving and new. Each week, each day He is taking me deeper and pulling me closer to His heart.

This past Wednesday particularly, one of the worship songs inspired me to pray for passion. I realized that my passion for the lost is so mediocre. If we were passionate for the lost, it would burn in our hearts, it would wake us up in the morning and it would stir us to step out!

~~

Last night at the Hillsong concert I had an epiphany, standing on the top row of the balcony looking out at 10,000 people crowded all around me. Those people out there could represent the number of jewels in my crown, they are my harvest field. They are the souls that I will have the privilege of not just impacting, but leading them to the Lord, changing their lives for eternity.
Can you IMAGINE!! — What kind of mother-load of a crown we will carry when we have THOUSANDS or MILLIONS of JEWELS plastered on top of our head? That is some major bling-bling people! (insert the Nancy Grace voice over).

Hands were lifted all over the place for salvation or to rededicate their life to the Lord. Amazing Night!

I really believe in my heart that something is happening on the inside of me – I can feel chaaaannnge a risin’ (insert the black preacher voice)! And it’s not scary – it’s weird, but not scary. Last week I was driving through our town right as a big storm was rolling in. The sky was turning a weird eeire purple grey and the wind was really kicking up it’s speed. As I drove down this hill, I started feel like everything inside of me was moving in slow motion, like something just went straight through me and I was suddenly keenly aware of EVERYTHING in my surroundings. I looked down and the hair on my arms were standing straight up. Just thinking about that moment gives me chills. Does this mean I’m the new Michael? uh. No. but I know it means something was ABOUT to happen. Lightening was about to strike.

Maybe It’s me counting down the days until I’m 30. I don’t know. But I am determined for a TOTAL LIFE CHANGE! Tonight we went walking, for our health and I feel like I can run a marathon! Its not just a new business…that’s just one tiny little spark of what I feel God doing in my heart. I want to be a “skinny-sold-out-sole-winner for Jesus!” LOL!

And I also know what else I am right now, “i’m sick.” I told Keith that statement tonight and he was like WHAT? Whatever! I said no, I’m serious, that’s how i “feel” on the inside, in the pit of my belly – you know like when you get to that point with the flu, or a stomach virus that you are SOO sick, you can’t stop vomiting and you feel so terrible you are at the end of your rope and you will do anything, ANYTHING anyone tells you to do, just to get better – even if it’s eating pickled pigs feet or something like that, you would DO it!!! You would do anything just to change your circumstances! We’ll I’m there…and I’m getting a fork in my hand and I’m saying “Grandma – bring on the pigs feet, cause I’m digging in!”

I hope your laughing right now, cause I’m being really craZy!! And I’m having so much fun, that I’m laughing too!

Maybe I’m just beginning to actually be who I am really meant to be! I’m no longer focusing on what I’m supposed to “do” in life, instead I am focusing more on who I am supposed to become through Christ Jesus. He tells me I am a conqueror. And today, finally, I Believe!

The past few years, Keith and I have prayed and often talked about “the proverbial brick wall” we often experience in our pursuit of happiness. Many times that brick wall prevents us from moving forward or often just stares down on us and intimidates the crap out of us, immobilizing us under the great shadow of doubt.
It is said that it is better to know who your enemies are, that way you can know who you are fighting. My biggest question lately is “What’s the deal with this brick wall we keep hitting?” I’m ready for it to come down. So today we have a new motto: Scale the Wall…

We are taking up our commission from the Lord, from his word, and from our passions and ‘conditioning’ every part of our life to prepare us for that wall to fall down.

if, then….It’s a conditional statement, often used based on “logical” outcomes or results. We use this type of “conditional formatting” in various communication platforms, like excel spreadsheets (my favorite)…”if cells in column ‘A’ equal a negative result; then return the cell as ‘0′…fun stuff like that!

Then we have the verbal truth statements or promises like “if you clean your room, you will get an allowance,” or “if you do your homework, you will pass the class” and an all to familiar one I’m still working on, “if you drive safely, you will receive a better insurance rate!”

But, the bible tells us one very valuable “if…then” conditional promise here:

IFs:
>Humble our ’self’
>Pray and Seek God’s Face
>turn from our ‘wicked’ ways

THEN’s:
>God will ‘hear’ us
>God will ‘forgive our sins’
>God will ‘heal our land’

TWO THINGS:
1. It’s Conditional! – one side is based on the other. we cannot expect results, if we are not willing to “pray” our part. Conditional, also speaks to me today that I need to be more “conditioned” as an athlete is for training, so I should be in my prayer life. I can’t expect to run a marathon, if I only train when I feel like it…and most days I don’t “feel” like training myself with anything much less prayer. (truth talk) – but the conditioning is necessary for the results!

2. It’s Logical! – it makes sense, simply taking time to pray (even if it seems hopeless). keep praying and remember it has a true value or result, it’s a promise from God’s word, so we can count on the conditional results “IF” we do our part!

Today, I am challenged to condition myself, my heart – my prayer life with this logical, faith-producing word to humble myself and PRAY…