Our Annual Family Trip to Orlando

Hello everyone! We hope that you are having an amazing summer. Last month we had the opportunity to travel to Orlando, FL to celebrate Cree Victoria's 2nd birthday! Since I am pregnant with baby number 2, I just wasn't up to hosting a birthday party with a slew of children. So we decided as a family that we will do yearly vacations to celebrate the kids birthdays instead of having a party. Well, at least until they are old enough to say we want a party. So we took our parents, our daughter Brelyn, my best friend and Cree's Godmother Keri, her husband, and 7 year old son with us. We found a super deal on Spirit.com for $72 round trip! Now I know what you are thinking, Spirit Airlines is one of those budget airlines that charges you for everything. We've flown Spirit before so we knew what to expect. I told my Bestie Keri who never flew Spirit that when she gets on the plane "to sit down and don't ask for nothin" LOL!! I was joking but serious at the same time because they charge for drinks and snacks and there is no wifi. The flight from Atlanta to Orlando is a very short flight anyway so we already had breakfast at the airport. We made sure that we packed light and right so that our baggage fees would be at a minimum.

We stayed at the

Contentment

As far back as I can remember, I've always had a love for nice things. I don't know if it was the stories my father told us about his hot rod 55 Chevy he had in high school, dreaming about my uncle who lived in LA, or maybe the people my parents worked for that had big beautiful homes that we often visited. My parents worked hard to make sure my brother and I had nice things and a loving home. If there was something that my father wanted us to have that was really expensive, he would figure out a way to get it for a cheap price. My brother and I had nice motorcycles, cars, clothes and many other things. What people didn’t realize was there was a story behind the glory. Some of the fancy cars we had, we bought with a bad motor and my father would spend endless amounts of time showing us how to repair it. There were countless other times where our parents found a way to bless us with nice things along with spending time with us.

Our Love Story

We finally got a chance to sit down and record our love story for our YouTube Channel. You can find our channel - Shawn and Jennifer Spears on YouTube.com. Make sure you give us a thumbs up and subscribe. 

Wait on the Lord

As a child, I was always persistent. I was going to make something work whether it was the right thing for me to do or the wrong thing. My mother and father called me "hard headed." As I was observing my baby girl Cree the other day, I told my wife "this isn't good." She replied, "what isn't good?" I said Cree is hard headed and wants to things the way she wants to even if it hurts her, just like me. My wife replied, well lets pray that the Lord uses that persistence for his glory. My wife has a special gift of optimism....she is able to look at any situation and find the positive. I began to ponder and meditate on this because that bothered me to watch Cree continuously do things that would endanger or hurt her after being told no. My oldest daughter Tiara is a lot like me too. We both are determined to use our own strength to make something work because we don't want to be patient enough to wait on anybody including God.  

My Top 5 Life Lessons

Today is my 35th birthday! I remember when I was in my early 20's and I thought that 35 was old. Well I definitely don't agree with that anymore...I'm just getting started! I've made so many mistakes in my life and if I can help my younger sisters not go through the same things, then what I've been through wasn't in vain. I've gained so much wisdom the past 35 years so I want to share with you a few of my top life lessons.

1.) Don't follow your heart, follow the Holy Spirit.

The world would like you to believe that you should let your heart be your guide and that if you follow it, it will lead you to true happiness. This is not biblical! In fact, the bible says in Jeremiah 17:9 that the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick. As Christians, we should be led by the Holy Spirit. We should be using Him as our guide.

2.) Deliver yourself from people

You cannot please humans! Focus on pleasing God. If you are constantly worried about what people will say or think, then how can God effectively use you? You want to be in a position to say what the Lord leads you to say and move when the Lord tells you to move and not care about the opinions of people.

3.) Don't chase paper, chase purpose. 

When you go after opportunities only for the money, you lose sight of your purpose. I remember when I would have to decide between what job opportunity I wanted to go with and I would always select the job with the most money. Then when I got the job I would tag God's name to it claiming that he "blessed me with it" even though I didn't even consult Him on whether or not I should accept the job. Then months later, I'm miserable and out there looking for the next opportunity. I've learned that it's so important to understand your purpose and only accept opportunities that are aligned with your purpose. When we are chasing the things of God, everything that we need will be provided. Matthew 6:33 says, "seek ye first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added unto you."

4.) Don't lower your standards out of fear

Before I met Shawn, I remember meeting a guy who appeared to be Isaac but turned out to be Ishmael. He told me that I was going to end up a lonely old lady if I continued to practice abstinence. He told me that if I was lucky enough to find a man that would honor my purity, he would not be attractive. I let his comment go in one ear and out of the other. I was not about to lower my standards out of fear of being alone. I would rather be alone than disobey God because a man won't line up with my standards that lines up with the Word of God.

5.) Obey God the first time 

So many times in my life I've gone around the same mountain over and over again because I wasn't passing the test. I think about how much time I've wasted by being disobedient. I would do it my way and not listen to the voice of God and end up in a mess over and over again only to end up doing it His way in the end. So pass the test the first time and obey God in the beginning. It will save you from going through unnecessary heart break and hard time. A lot of times we put ourselves through hardship that the Lord never intended for us to go through because of our disobedience.

There are more life lessons that I would love to share with you so I will do a part II later this week.

Love you guys!

- Jennifer Spears

My Journey to Motherhood

It's been so long since I've written anything on our bog. This is actually my first blog post this year. I've been trying to write this blog for 2 weeks now. Since this blog is about my journey to motherhood, I must confess that motherhood keeps me super busy. I have my schedule, Shawn's schedule and although Cree is only 8 months old, she has a schedule too. I've also started another business last November, Spears Accounting Solutions and I now have 8 small businesses that I work with as their virtual accountant. If you have any accounting, payroll, or bookkeeping needs, contact me (shameless plug :-))

When I was little girl, I often dreamed of being a mother as I cared for my dolls. My normal was a mother and father married and raising their children so when I would dream of being a mother, that is how I pictured it to be for me.

Letting Go of the Past

I felt like a weight was lifted off my shoulders after I posted the blog that I just recently wrote titled “Break Every Chains.” It was something that I have wanted to share for quite some time. Not only because I knew there would be people who could relate to it and it could help, but it was therapeutic for me to stand in my own truth. In order to stand in my own truth, I have to talk about situations that involve other people because they are/were attached to my life. In doing that, I received some backlash from some people. There were a lot of missing parts to the stories that were not included in the last blog because I didn’t want to dwell heavily on the story because the sole purpose of the blog was to highlight how my life got off track from the moment I decided to start having sex and that generational curses are real. I used pieces of my story to show that. The blog was Not to place blame on anyone or slander anyone. I have forgiven myself for the part that I played in the decisions that I made and I have forgiven others. The same way I want God to forgive me for my wrong doings, is the same way that I have to forgive people who have wronged me. So all is forgiven.

After writing my last blog,