I created The 4F Club as a way to start recovering from trauma. Little did I know that God would redeem me shortly after that, and it would eventually turn into a Christian blog.

However, the name “The 4F Club” just does not sit well with my heart anymore. It could easily be taken the wrong way and turn people away before they even get started.

So goodbye, The 4F Club. You will not be missed, haha.

The blogs I wrote for The 4F Club will eventually be shared here once I get around to moving them all.

I think that is what I love most about having my own personal brand. I can do what feels right without remorse or fear of what other people may think. It also gives me a place to put things into perspective and turn some of my own chaos into clarity.

But I am not doing this only for personal gain.

I know there are other people in this world who have made a mess of things in their lives and are having a rough time trying to clean it all up. I hope my journey encourages you to find your own voice, start your own personal blogging adventure, or simply discover a few tips that can help you turn chaos into clarity.

If you need help getting started, please reach out to me at [email protected].

Right now, I am taking inventory of everything I have going on. I am looking at what is productive, what is not, what needs my attention, and what may need to go.

I am calling it my Life Inventory.

When it comes to productivity, I have to look at my priorities first:

God, my children, my boyfriend who will soon be my husband, work, and then my remaining friends and family.

Priority 1: God

With God as my number one priority, it becomes easier for me to make the decisions I need to make to ensure I am walking the narrow path instead of the wide one. Ultimately, my goal is to grow closer to Him.

I take this relationship very seriously, especially because of how much He has already revealed to me and allowed me to understand.

So, why remove The 4F Club?

Because I do not need a made-up name to speak my truth and spread the Gospel.

Priority 2: My Children

Right now, my children are priority number two.

At first, I did not understand how I could put my children, who cannot fend for themselves, in the second position. I thought they should at least be beside God in the number one spot.

Nope.

I cannot lead or parent my children correctly without God’s guidance. It takes the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to raise two girls who are 10 years apart.

I have not made it through the teenage years yet, and I am a freshly redeemed Christian.

Trust and believe me: God MUST come first.

This priority is also the one that hurts the most.

Shortly after being yanked up out of the grave, I was led to join Celebrate Recovery.

I am not an alcoholic, nor am I addicted to drugs. When I first started, I was trying to recover from trauma.

Trying to recover from trauma while parenting is no easy task, especially when that trauma comes from your own childhood. Childhood trauma directly affects how we parent, whether we realize it or not.

Little did I know that I would also need to learn how to become a better parent and stop a

cycle that I was quickly realizing was very real.

I have not attended any Celebrate Recovery group meetings yet. I am still working through how to share my testimony in front of others and overcome my fear of what people may think.

Instead, I participate in one-on-one sessions with a sponsor and accountability partner who have already completed the program. They also just happen to be my godmother and godfather.

In that way, I have been incredibly blessed.

In just the few short months that I have been in the program, everything has changed in such a positive way. It has also helped guide me throughout my spiritual journey.

However, some of you reading this may not have the same opportunities or support system that I do. If that is you, I invite you to reach out to me.

I am not a licensed therapist or an ordained pastor, but I would love to help you find resources that may support you through whatever you are facing.

One of those resources is a close colleague whom I would also call a friend, La Toyia, the Love Coach.

She is amazing. I have been blessed to assist her with her business, operating system, and marketing. However, I received so much more from her than compensation for my services.

She planted a seed during almost every conversation we had without even realizing it.

My children mean everything to me, but I could not parent them the way I need to without God, Celebrate Recovery, La Toyia the Love Coach, a few good books, and some holistic therapists along the way!

Priority 3: Boyfriend, Soon-to-Be Husband

This guy.

We are approaching 10 years together.

Yes, I know what you may be thinking. Why are we not married? And no, we are not automatically considered married.

We call each other husband and wife because we both know we are in this for life.

However, there have been moments when I questioned our relationship simply because he had not asked me to marry him.

But hey, that is okay. I cannot control his actions. I can only control mine.

Evidently, I could not control my mouth either, and my actions are partially responsible for delaying the marriage.

So yeah, my bad.

Normally, I would not place a regular boyfriend or close acquaintance at priority number three. Honestly, I am not sure where a boyfriend falls on the priority list outside of a long-term relationship.

I apologize for that lack of knowledge.

If you are reading this and now feel like I have let you down, please do not be dismayed for too long. Just skip to the next paragraph, lol.

As a matter of fact, here we are. The next paragraph.

If you are in a relationship, whether you are married or not, I HIGHLY recommend reading Two Becoming One.

Not one of the other books that may appear when you search for it. I mean the exact one I linked because I do not want you to stray from the book that has significantly changed our lives!

This book was given to me by my godfather. It was originally assigned to seminary students studying marriage counseling, but it can also help prepare you as a couple before marriage.

It really made me consider whether he was the right one for me and whether I was the right one for him.

It also helped us have some of the most serious conversations we have ever had without those conversations turning into a head-to-head, know-it-all battle.

This book may have even saved our relationship.

If you remember, at the beginning of this blog I listed my priorities as: “God, my children, my boyfriend who will soon be my husband, work, and then my remaining friends and family.”

I said “soon-to-be husband” because the moment we get married, he will become a priority above my children.

BOOM. The bomb drops.

I was not okay with this at first either.

However, I am now because I understand what it means. I will let you read the book to discover the rest because I do not want to accidentally share too much of its copyrighted content.

What I can say is this:

God has a plan, and His plan WORKS!

You just have to trust Him enough to experience it for yourself.

READ. THE. BOOK.

Priority 4: Work

This is probably where I struggle the most. It can also become confusing when paired with priority number one.

I own Business Master Suite, but I also work full-time as a W-2 employee for one of my clients so I can secure my personal bills first.

My company is debt-free.

However, I am not.

Sometimes, I make work a priority over everything else because I am trying so hard to pay off my debt.

I also realized through Celebrate Recovery that I was a workaholic.

Now, I am learning how not to be one.

If it were entirely up to me, I would quit everything, spend my time learning about God, sit here writing this blog, and do everything I could to help others overcome the things I have experienced.

However, what I want to do and what I need to do are two different things.

Debt is a struggle, and it is at the center of much of my chaos.

Life Inventory

My Life Inventory is how I plan to turn chaos into clarity.

I did not mention priority number five, which includes friends, family, and everything else. That is because, right now, as much as I would love to have more time for those things, I simply do not.

I am working so hard on priorities one through three that priority four is taking a back seat, and priority five is sitting on the spice rack. I sprinkle a little of it in whenever I can.

Now that I have laid out my priorities, I can begin focusing on my Life Inventory.

This is where the real action begins behind Chaos to Clarity.

Stay tuned for my next random blog as I start diving into my Life Inventory.