I am often asked about what I use on my skin so I thought I would do a blog post about it. Honestly, I’ve never had terrible skin but as I am getting older I am reminded of how important it is to take care of the skin underneath. I always want to wear makeup by choice but not because I have to… So I upped the ante and went from washing my face with water to using real products dedicated to the care of my skin. It's important to note that the products you use on your skin in the summer will likely be different in the winter. I use a cocktail of products so I’ll list them all below (Also, this is the order I use my products in).

Face wash: I use Cetaphil. I only wash my face once a day with soap. Typically at night in the shower and then in the morning I just wash it with warm water so as not to strip the skin.

Mist- Mario Badescu rosewater facial spray- (Daytime)I use this in the day as a moisturizer on wet skin.

Toner- Glow Hydrating face mist toner- (Evening) I use the toner at night in place of the Mario Badescu Rosewater facial spray.

Serum CLE serum- ( Daytime)This is packed with vitamin C and I love it. It gives the skin a nice dewy glow and its super light.

Kiehls Nighttime Recovery (Evening) I love this product because when I tell you a little goes a long way, that’s what I mean. This is a great wintertime product especially when the air is dry and it's colder. I sometimes feel like it may be a bit too oily for the summer. Especially for humid GA summers. If you decide to use it throughout the summer use it sparingly.

Eye Cream- Sesderma Eye contour cream- (Daytime) This product has vitamin C for your eyes and should be used as a set with the nighttime cream.

Sesderma Angioses- Under eye serum for dark circles- (Evening) I use an eye serum for the dark circles under my eyes. I’m going to be honest, I haven’t paid as much attention to whether or not it works but I do love the overall appearance of my skin lately. Additionally, wrinkles by the eyes are a place that our age tends to show up so I’m working hard to combat that.

Face lotion- CeraVe -I like this moisturizer because it's light but hydrating and its inexpensive at around $7 dollars.

I live my life on a budget so that I can do ALL the things, so my skincare can’t be too expensive. If you decide to try the products let me know how you like them.

If you remain unmarried past a certain point in your life there are two thoughts that I can guarantee that you have had. 1. I wish I was married by now. 2. I’m so glad I didn’t marry who I thought I was wanted to marry.

Although I do desire to be married, there are some relationships that I am glad didn’t make it down the aisle. That is the gift that time has given me: hindsight, evaluation and self-awareness. I do want to be married but to the right person and the right way. It can be hard to wait but I want remind you that there are some benefits to waiting.

In “The meaning of marriage” Author Timothy Keller says that the greatest number of marriages that end in divorce, as it relates to age, are those that happen before 18. However, marrying after 25 makes your chances of divorce relatively low. That’s great news, right? At least when you finally find the person yall have a better chance of staying married. You may be thinking “25 would have been fine,- I’m well over 25 now.” That may be true but technically there are still some benefits to waiting.

  Later in life, you are more likely to be grounded in who you are. By then you have had some losses and some lessons. Hopefully, you know what you want and don’t want and know what pitfalls to avoid. Time gives you the benefit of experience and hopefully, experience gives you wisdom and allows you to choose a good mate for marriage. 

Let’s be clear though, even when you finally get married there is always more work to do inside the marriage. I don’t think we ever finish growing. My mentor says some people do the work on the front end before marriage, some do it on the back end inside the marriage. Well for those of us doing the growing on the front end and hopefully marriage on the back end I want to encourage you to keep hope alive. Your day is still coming, your process just may look a little different.

Being last isn’t fun but at 33 it definitely allows you to learn from others’ mistakes. Time can be a burden or a luxury. It’s a burden if we only see time as punishment and not as preparation. It can be a luxury if we use it to our advantage and prepare while we wait. The benefit is not in waiting but in what we do with the time while we wait.

I’ve had so many people tell me that they don’t know how to hear God or how to follow him. So I thought I would share my personal experience of how I see and hear God in my own life.

At the end of the year, I participated in Pastor Michael Todd’s Crazy faith offering. You put your offering in church along with a note about what you’re having crazy faith for. One of the things that I wrote on there is that I wanted a house. Now to be clear, I have been “thinking” about buying one for years but for some reason, I just hadn’t pulled the trigger. Anyway, I wrote it on there and honestly forgot I wrote it. It wasn’t until recently during the pandemic that it came up and I started thinking about it again. 

I was praying to God telling him that I knew he was working in my life and that I didn’t want to miss him. Well, things started happening. I ended up with some extra money from helping out a family member. Then on my birthday, my mentor gifted me with free design hours to use on my house when I bought one (I had been talking to her about buying one for years but never did it). For some reason, this was the year she felt moved to give me a house-related gift. Then I realized a few days ago that because of the national forbearance put into place by the government due to COVID, I didn’t have to pay my student loans from March – October. However, I would still get credit toward my repayment plan. Are you kidding me? Here again, I have a few thousand dollars that I didn’t expect to have and I’m grateful. At this point, it became clear to me that God was giving me resources. He was setting me up to buy a home.

Now, why did I share that? So you would have a real-life example. Here are the takeaways from this story on how to follow/hear God practically (Of course it goes without saying that you should read your word).

1.     Pray. It seems simple, but pray about what is on your heart, but most importantly seek God to determine his will for you. Write those prayers down so you can visually see where God is moving.

2.     Watch to see where God is at work and join him. Evaluate where God is moving in your life. In this situation, I could see he was literally moving money. I had to look closer to see for what purpose ( the house). Whenever we get money that we didn’t expect, we should inquire of God to see what he would have us do with it.

3.     Look for the green lights. The green lights are the things that line up in the direction that we think God is moving in. Being gifted the design hours, + the money+ not having to pay my student loans. Things just kept lining up and nothing gave me pause. Thus, the green light to keep moving forward on the path that I’m on.

4.     Look for peace. New adventures with God shouldn’t give you anxiety when you know he is in it. What God is doing should stretch your faith, It shouldn’t stretch you. If you have no peace, you are either ahead of God when you need to walk in step beside him; you’re behind him and you need to catch up or you’re not with him at all.