It’s a song by one of my favorite bands, Pocket Full of Rocks, which says these powerful words:

To make you famous, I’d lift my voice and sing,
To make you famous I’d do anything.
To make you famous, it is my sacrifice,
To make you famous, I’m laying down down my life

I’m compelled with more than just the enchanting melody of a song, it’s the words that captivate my thoughts and motivate my heart. Keith loves to listen to jazz – and I get that. I even like “some” of it. But I’m not really a huge fan of jazz. {roll the critics here} My issue with jazz is that it’s missing the one powerful, dare I say ‘most’ powerful instrument of all – the VOICE!

The voice is more than just a way of communicating. It’s an instrument, a tool that can be many things. A compass, a rudder, a lover, a fighter. The bible says it has power – over Life, and Death. The powerful voice, an intricate organ in the body, is one of the most difficult muscles one could ever train.

When we sing songs, my heart determined long ago, that the words that I would sing MUST exemplify the life that I live. Not only do I strive to live that but I teach and train others to live that way as well. I believe true worshipers must become truth-vocalist. When we sing, “All to Jesus, I surrender, All to Him I freely give.” I wonder, “Do we really?” Well my hearts desire is to please the Father, with the truth, and if we are not surrendering all, we should not be saying it or singing it lightly, until we are truthfully meaning it.

This song, “To Make You Famous” – is a voice of truth that beckons from my heart.

It’s a little girl, in a great big world.

Living out a dream –

of Love and Happiness

lots of people all around

loving with words and compliments

One special Christmas, when we all listened

to the story of a baby

and His mother Mary

How they traveled very far to a star

Then my baby brother cried.

That’s the moment I realized, I realized

That Jesus is alive

Not just a baby in a manger

More than a story to entertain me

A picture of heaven,

born as baby, just like me.

A candle carousel flickered the fans

Christmas flannels and braided curls

A song on the piano,

the warm lights and nice smells

But now there is more to tell.

It’s not just a perfect moment

It’s a life of love,

a never ending promise

of protection and purpose

a best friend forever.

That’s the moment I realized, I realized

That Jesus is alive

He came to save me and make me

a new creation

He came to me,

to set me Free, for His eternity

O how he came to me and set me free

Now my souls alive

because that baby from the story

was more than once upon a time

and now my souls alive

because the baby named Jesus

—he died for me.

written by Jennifer L Hudson, Oct. 2009

Last week when I was researching Faith, for my ladies meeting bible study, I discovered a word that will forever change my thinking about Faith.¬†¬† In Hebrews 11, our “hall of faith” chapter – it talks about all the men of faith in the word who lived their life with the greatest faith man has ever seen.¬† Abraham, Isaac, Jacob did magnificent things by faith. Even Enoch was taken to heaven in a chariot, a product of his faith. Yet, in Hebrews 11:39, it says, “none of them received what had been promised.” But their faith was not in vain! They did not die empty handed, not having received their blessings…instead, what they toiled for is waiting for us, their heirs, to posess. “So that only together, with us would they be made perfect.” We not only have an ownership in the fruits of their faith-labor, but we have responsibility over them! We have a responsibility as heirs to Abraham to walk in these blessings daily….for the perfection of their faith, and ours.

I see it like the ultimate inheritance….one that is out there just sitting in some courts lock box, unknown to us, until one day that box is opened revealing ownership to a wealthy estate. The day the letter is read and the keys to the property are handed to us, is not the day we become the owner – the property is already ours, sitting there in that little dark vault, with our name on it, claiming our inheritance.

When I read Hebrews 11, my heart just leaped with this new understanding. Just because I can look around at my life right now and pin point my obvious situation, does not mean that “someday” hasn’t arrived yet. I’m rejoicing today, that despite my sometimes hopeless situation, bills to pay, car repairs, the groceries to purchase, fighting the flu and every other issue in life…MY name is written in the pages of time as an heir to a promise, an heir to Abraham’s blessings.

Claiming “yes, Abraham’s blessings are mine” sent chills through the air in my home and gave me a new freedom, a new way to worship God, for my inheritance and my blessings!

Has it really been two and a half months since my last posting!¬† Wow.¬† While I’ve still been “mostly” faithful to journal with my beloved paper and pen, [a pilot precise V5 roller ball extra fine blue or black] I felt the need today to come catch up my blog thoughts and maybe add a few notes of inspiration.

Last month, August 20th or so – Keith and I moved into our new home in Montgomery, AL.¬† We’ve scaled the wall and eaten pigs feet (no, not literally), we have been more than conquerors because Jesus has been our lighthouse, our navigator, our ultra GPS – our “God Positioning System” if you would…it’s been a crazy off roading experince that ultimately began just over 2 years ago.¬† In August of 2007, Keith and I sat at a table of decision, he pulled out the giant Sam’s – sized bottle of olive oil, and began to pray and anoint our finances and everything in our home.¬† Every door post, every piece of furniture, every photo, everything seemingly got covered!¬† I was cleaning up grease for weeks!! (just kidding)¬† That night, that prayer moment with my husband began us on a 2 year journey that we will remember for the rest of our life.¬† It was really the beginning of a slow death to ourselves, as Paul puts it.¬† And it all began one night applying the anointing oil in our life.

Anointing. It’s often a forsaken prayer model, but even our Savior, just before his death on the cross took the time to allow himself to be anointed by a woman at Bethany, in one of the most beautiful, heartfelt, touching scenes of his ministry.¬† (Cece Winans describes it best in her song, Alabaster Box)¬† There is power when we apply the oil in our life, and utilize the act of anointing. ¬† It’s not an instantly physical or mystical thing that takes place, like Lucy Pevensie’s bottle of healing oil in Narnia.¬† No, it’s a spiritual power that comes from doing something in the physical and receiving it in the spiritual.

When we pray, we can trust, with confidence that God will answer our hearts cry, he says “Ask and Ye shall receive.”¬† But, he follows in Matthew to say, “whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.” The key condition there is “Believing!”¬† Many of Gods directives are conditional.¬† “Seek and ye shall find.”¬† The condition of seeking is needed in order to establish the finding.¬† Praying without believing is like playing ping pong by your self.¬† It just won’t work.¬† You need to have someone on the other side of the table volleying the ball back to you.¬† You can stand there all day long hitting a ball in an empty room hoping it somehow will make it’s way back to you, but it simply never will.¬† Empty prayers are those that are prayed without a right relationship with God.¬† “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you WILL be saved.”¬† You will have a team mate, a ping-pong buddy for life!¬† LOL.

The bible says in James 2:17, “Faith without works is dead.”¬† The anointing is part of utilizing the “actions” represented through the life and ministry of Jesus Christ, just like water baptism, communion or laying on of hands.¬† Let me take this a bit further and say, these symbols don’t have to just be used in the four walls of a church building (come on somebody!), remember WE are the church…we are the body of Christ.¬† The body is NOT the building.¬† And the most sacred representation (Eph. 5) of Christs love-relationship to his church “the body,”¬† is marriage — and the love of a husband for his wife.¬† When husbands and wives come together in loving unity, praying together, taking communion together (yes, at home, not at church), anointing each other, “washing with the word” – we are, to put it plainly, kicking the devils butt!¬† He HATES for marriages to succeed.¬† That’s why our divorce rate is through the roof, because the enemy knows if he can destroy marriages, he is destroying the very sacred representation of Christ’s love for his Church.

Ladies, your husband is under attack with temptation, frustration and fatigue, because the enemy has an all out assignment to destroy Christ, and everything that represents him.¬† If he tears the husband away from the family, it’s like tearing Christ away from the Church…and God grieves.

So don’t just pray for your spouse.¬† Believe for him.¬† Don’t just believe for him…work for him, helping him, with acts of service, remembering always, you are representing the church, “as she pours her love for the Master, from her box of Alaster!”

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: