So, I'm going through the throws of life right now as I plan this REAL Conference. The closer it gets the more I struggle. If it's not one thing it's another. Of course, that's what being REAL is all about: understanding your struggle and overcoming it.

Right now, I'm really struggling...struggling to understand my actions and desires weighted against what purpose God has for me. It's a daily press, I guess, but some days can be harder than others...and today is a harder day.

I'm at a point in life where I'd like things to come together. I'm almost 30, so the desire to be married and have kids is strong...very strong...almost consumingly so...and folks don't understand that, I guess. I don't understand it myself. I don't want to forfeit that...not now...I've got too much in store for me...

My eternal purpose trumps my temporary pleasure. I want to serve God wholly, but I keep failing Him miserably. I'm beginning to see myself as unworthy...as I know I am...of anything He could or would give me. And therein lies my struggle...I'm ashamed for feeling this way...

I'm working on it, though...trying to see what God sees in me...trying to find my worth. I know that I'm His child...I know that He's called me for a purpose...I know that He has big plans for me. However, there are times...like now...when I don't feel like it...when my love for a person seeming equates to heartache and grief...when all my deeds seem null and void...that I just want to throw in the proverbial towel. Bring on the chocolate...bring on the man...bring on the self-indulgence that pushes me away from my purpose...

I can't do that though... It's crunch time! It's time to tighten up. It's time to get my mind right. It's time to get things in order...it's time to get REAL! I'm in process. I know I have an expected end! I trust you all will pray with me in this process...

As you may know, I posted some crazily distorted pictures of me recently. I was having some fun with my friend's MacBook. Cooky...crazy...y'all know how I do! LOL!

Well, a friend of mine posted a comment that got me thinking. Her quote was, "Oh my goodness. All I can see is Jesus" and I responded saying something like "that's how you know I'm anointed...because through life's distortions, you still see Jesus"...and felt a "preach" in my spirit...LOL!

For real, though...it got me thinking...I've been through a lot. I've jacked myself up and distorted the plans God laid out for me time and time again. I am a mangled mess, disfigured by my actions and decisions that were contrary to my Heavenly Father. Even in my misgivings, even in my own mess, the darkness of my mistakes cannot cover the Light within me. As long as I'm pressing toward the mark, you can still see Jesus.

So here are my 3 points:

Discover your shortcomings: Recognize that you're not perfect and that you need to do better. Sometimes we lay blame for our misgivings on other people or compare ourselves to others. We can look really good when compared to others, but compared to Christ, we are no more than filthy rags. He's our standard...we are striving to be more like Him (or we should be, at least).

Develop your schedule: Now that you know you're not perfect, work on becoming perfected. If you have an issue with time, make it a point to get everywhere 15 minutes early. If you have an issue with money, write down everything you spend. If you have an issue with lying, tell the truth. Whatever your shortcoming, replace it with a positive action...put your faith to action. If you want to be better, you have to do better. I would also implore you at this point that if you haven't developed relationship with Jesus to do so now. Start reading His Word daily and talk with Him. It is only through relationship that you get to know Him more...and when you're weak, His strength is made perfect.

Deliver your soul: Of course Christ is the ultimate deliverer, but "faith without works is dead." As aforementioned, you have to put your faith to action...and when you do that, you'll see a change. That thing that had you shrowded in darkness will have to sluff off. Whatever was hiding your light under a bushel will have to leave. You will see yourself becoming better...you will experience the outward expression of your inward change. Your relationship with Christ...your faith...will grow in this process.

Even with all of your life's distortions, the light of Christ can shine through. If you feel like you're not good enough...if you feel like you're too far gone...if you feel that your time has passed...know this: whatever you've experienced is an opportunity to help somebody else. Christ can still shine through your sin, bad decisions, hurt, and any other "muddiness" in your life...as long as you stick with the plan: discover your shortcoming, develope your schedule, and deliver your soul. You can do it! You can make it! Then someone can say of you..."All I can see is Jesus"!

As most of you know, I'm planning the REAL Conference. It's basis is about becoming whole spiritually, financiall, emotionally, and physically. The purpose is to give you a practical means towards wholeness...something you can write down, something you can work on, something to which you can adhere when you don't feel like it.

I'm in the throws of this process...and feel like I'm being thrown, too! God help me...for real...and for REAL...cuz things are just out of control. For every triumph, there's disappointment. For every success, there's failure. For every push towards health, there's sickness. I mean, literally whole life has been placed on a rollercoaster...not a kiddie on like the Scooby Doo at King's Dominion...but like the Blast Coaster or Hypersonic...

I feel a bit rocked right now. God is with me in the process, I know, but right now it seems as if He thinks I can handle all of this all at once. "Maybe one at a time, Jesus, but not back to back," is what I told Him. I can't give you all the details, but let me give you an example.

For quite some time, I wasn't working. Even through my business, most of my work was "pro bono" per se. I knew I had an expected end, but in the process, I couldn't see it...but I knew it. I kept on praying...I kept on pushing...and God honored His word by taking care of me. I lacked for nothing during those months. I didn't have to ask anyone for money. I didn't have to sleep in my car. I didn't have to beg for food. Thank you, Jesus! I praise Your Name!

At the same time, I went through some physical issues as did my family. During a 2 week period, we faced stroke, a pinched nerve, the flu, hemorrhoids, a virus or 2, and a few other things...and by the way, most of those were mine. Not to mention the emotional angst of trying to take care of family while your ill. I was down for the count, literally...but not out!

I'm going through my own process...I'm becoming REAL. I'm struggling, though, because it's not easy...but in my struggle, I see God's faithfulness. I see His hand leading and guiding me. I see my weaknesses and His strength. His strength is perfect when our strength is gone...

Mine is gone, Lord. Show Yourself strong. Show folks what it means to be REAL...use me as your instrument...remove the idiosyncracies of Leesha that may hinder your work and shine through me. Let Your light radiate through me. Let Your love flow freely from me as it does from You. I thank you, Lord, for the process...for the struggle...so I can become REAL!

Every morning when I wake up, I try to do my devotions first thing (it doesn't always work out that way...but I do try). While I'm usually a KJV girl, born and bred, and quite frankly I understand it better, I've been reading the Message Bible lately. At first, I thought it was way too modern and may have lost some of the intricacies of the KJV. However, this morning during my devotions, the text was so plain and clear to me that it knocked me over the head! Maybe it's just me...but let me share this with you...

Galatians 5:16-26
16-18 My counsel is this: Live freely, animated and motivated by God's Spirit. Then you won't feed the compulsions of selfishness. For there is a root of sinful self-interest in us that is at odds with a free spirit, just as the free spirit is incompatible with selfishness. These two ways of life are antithetical, so that you cannot live at times one way and at times another way according to how you feel on any given day. Why don't you choose to be led by the Spirit and so escape the erratic compulsions of a law-dominated existence?

19-21 It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community. I could go on.

This isn't the first time I have warned you, you know. If you use your freedom this way, you will not inherit God's kingdom.

22-23 But what happens when we live God's way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely.

23-24 Legalism is helpless in bringing this about; it only gets in the way. Among those who belong to Christ, everything connected with getting our own way and mindlessly responding to what everyone else calls necessities is killed off for good—crucified.

25-26 Since this is the kind of life we have chosen, the life of the Spirit, let us make sure that we do not just hold it as an idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts, but work out its implications in every detail of our lives. That means we will not compare ourselves with each other as if one of us were better and another worse. We have far more interesting things to do with our lives. Each of us is an original.

This was just very real for me...not up for interpretation...not subject to much discussion...just plain...just frank...just "all up in your face". I have come to the conclusion that the Message Bible is gangsta...in a good way. Sometimes we get so snooty with our religion or relationship. Sometimes we like to be the ones hitting folks over the head with the word of God...literally. How about we let the Word of God speak for itself?

Yesterday I felt kind of strange. I thought it was a cold or some other weather related infirmity, but it was neither. I realized it was exactly 3 years from the date I was raped.

As I began to ponder life yet again, I had to praise God for how far He's brought me. I have my right mind. I am not suffering from emotional or physical angst. I'm whole in Him...

There are so many women who suffer because they don't want to tell anyone what may have happened to them...whether the perceived shame of telling or the thought of being revictimized can be too much to bear. I just want to encourage you to not only seek God but get help, too! The relief that will wash over you when you take hold of the fact that you're God's princess...his beautiful child upon whom he wants to dote...the love in which He wants to wrap you...it's awesome!

This is not just something trite for me to say...it took me a while to come to terms with it myself...I was a victim, but I won't let that hold me down...I've got to keep it moving. Somehow, God thought enough of me to know that I could handle it even when I thought I would lose my mind.

Trust that God can bring you through...and He will! He did it for me...I'm stronger...I'm wiser...I'm better...much better...I made it...

No poetic musings here...I had a big box in my trunk...so large it blocked my view. I was scared to look in it. Why? Because it held memories of my past and I didn't want to rehash anything. But to my surprise, I laughed and cried at the sight of it's contents...and when it was empty, I felt relieved.

I found things in there I thought were gone forever: pictures of my youth, my thesis from college, letters I had written yet never sent, and more. I found pictures of my ex-fiance'...though fine he was, I thank God for deliverance. I found yearbooks from almost every year at FBTA...14 years there you'd think I'd remember the people, huh? LOL!

Sidebar: to those 26 of us who graduated May 31, 1997 from FBTA, we really need to get together. I know I'm the one who usually organizes this, but I don't know where y'all are or what's up...so hit me up, ok!

Back to the box...in going through it, I realized I had nothing to worry about. I actually found out about a bank account I don't remember opening...definitely gotta check that out! I realized how far I have come in life. I realize how much further I have to go...

The spiritual revelation was that just because it's in a box doesn't mean it's supposed to stay there. Some things you keep. Some things you throw away. Some things need to be forgotten. Some things will be a welcome surprise. God used this box to show me something: it's time to clean house...empty that proverbial box in which you've just been stuffing things to go through later...it's now later...go through your stuff.

God wants some great things out of me, but I have to get rid of some junk that I keep taking with me...literally. As I'm purging outwardly, I'm also purging my inner man: letting go of sordid relationships, refocusing on God and His plan for my life, and getting to the core of me...I thank Him for this process...

He melts my heart like butter
Everytime He passes my way
The smile that emerges from me
No one else could place

His touch is gentle and sweet
I love it when He's near
I long to be in His embrace
So He can whisper in my ear...

"I love you, my princess"
Tears well up in my eyes
He holds me even closer
Love radiates undisguised

His public display of affection
Only makes me love Him more
I love Him so much, y'all
From my very core

Who is He? you ask
He's the one who makes me sing
He's the one who gives me peace
He is my everything...EVERYTHING

He's Jehovah God
And I love Him, y'all...

check out this and more from Leesha Hall on www.poetry.com

Just a random blog...I just ate a fermented orange. Mind you, I didn't know it was fermented when I put it in my mouth, but found out very quickly that it was.

Now, my deep saints may want to start praying right now. I did not quickly throw the orange in the trash pleading the blood of Jesus over the drops that befell my lips. On the contrary, I ate the orange slowly, ingesting all the juices that quarter of an orange could offer. And you know what? It was good!

Am I wrong for enjoying the orange? Just let me know...LOL! Pray for me in the process...thanx!

In the community in which my parents live, they are the head of the homeowners association. The cliff notes version of their rise to power (LOL) is that the former board was charging a whole lot of money and doing nothing. Since the new board has come along, the residents are saving money and they are seeing noticeable changes to the community. But not everyone likes these changes.

For example, the community is gated with not only 1 but 2 gates: an arm gate and a swing gate. At least every 3 days, the arm gate is broken by...whomever...tailgaters who clearly disregard the sign that says "no tailgating", folks who don't care about the gate, and people who don't pay attention. Is it too much to ask that you follow proceedure and be let in to the property? Use your key card or call whomever you are going to visit. It's not that difficult.

There are also violators of the bylaws that had been set for the community long before my parents got involved but never enforced. Now my parents and the board are trying to enforce the rules...and they're paying the price for it.

This morning, this fued between rouge residents and my folks went to another level. My father went outside to discover nails propped against all 4 tires of both cars. Had either of them backed up...well, you know what would've happened and could've happened. There are so many scenarios that could be played out...I don't even want to think about it. I just thank God that they found the nails in time.

This leads me to wonder, though, how people can be so cutthroat when the changes are for the better. Were you really that satisfied with the dilapidated condition of your community? Is getting by really THAT important to you? Help me understand...

I am slightly trippin' over here because I've been watching way too many cop shows. There are oh so many scenarios of people who didn't really mean to hurt folks - putting peanut butter near someone with a severe nut allergy, scaring someone with a weak heart, and other scenarios as such - that go the wrong way. (BTW, yes, I know I've been watching too much TV) Even still, something could've happened to my parents. He didn't know how their tires were. What if the tires decided to all give out on the highway?

Crazy stuff folks don't think about...and don't get me wrong, I don't really either...but now he's messin' with my parents... Heck no, buddy....no no...you don't mess with the Hall's...you don't know how we roll...

Ok, pray for me...cuz I'm 'bout to go straight...ummm...I don't know...I'm not gangsta or anything...I'm not even urban enough to say "gangsta" out loud...but I am highly perturbed at the moment...