Let Him Use You: Spoken Word Natasha Redford

Hello =)
I guess since the name of this blog is Natashathepoet I should have some poetry/spoken word right?
Here is a piece that I wrote about letting God use you. We talked about this at church. Our pastor said that we as Christians, are very quick to say that we believe that Christ died on the cross for us, and that he's real AND we believe in Him in general. However, when it comes to us being called to do something, or doing something, or simply believing in ourselves, we don't because we are afraid we cannot, or we feel like someone else is equipped to handle the job. This is a problem because if we believe the Most High, and the savior, the most perfect being, AND he lives in us, then why is it that we doubt what he can do in us and through us? Crazy huh? Well, we do it all the time and it's not right; God does not instill fear in us. Another reason why it's wrong is because if we are too afraid to do what God calls us to, then what would ever get done for the kingdom" Nothing! Everyone else would say someone better can do it and nothing would ever get done. God calls us to do certain things. He wouldn't do so if he knew you couldn't do it! So, let him use you. That's what this piece is on. I have been scared plenty of times when God has asked  me to do things, however, he has never forsaken me. Here's an example.

   I have been writing poetry since I was 14, never expecting it to go this far. When I first started writing, I wrote for myself when I was pissed off at the world, or when I felt sad or angry. I wrote other poems too, but that was mainly it.I felt God call me to start writing about him since, you know, he's the one who gave me the gift. So I thought "why not"? I believe the first poem I wrote about God was called "God is Your Father" which you can find in my book entitled "The Colors Of Life: A collection of poems" on Amazon ;) I shared it at this thing called coffeehouse, that my InterVarsity chapter does. (if you're wondering what that is, don't worry, that's a whole other post ;) ) It was my first time really sharing my poems publicly, and ever since then, it kind of sparked something in me.
   In the midst of writing my book, I became quite inspired to look at other spoken word artists share their work. An artist who goes by "theasiaproject" came and did some spoken word for our school. I was amazed by this statement more than any other words he spoke. "I'm so blessed because I get to travel the world and share my story!" I had an epiphany, I wanted to do that too. I sent a book long text message to my friend about how I wanted to do that but I was too scared. Not good enough. Not skilled enough. Others were better at it, like theasiaproject. Of course my friend encouraged me to believe differently. So I did. I prayed to God and told him that I wanted to do this spoken word thing. I wanted to be like theasiaproject and travel to other places and share my story. So I told God how scared I was, but promised him that if he gave me the opportunities, I would take them, and that would be his way of showing me if I was called to do it. Less than a minute after I said Amen (I swear this is no lie) a paper floated by me in a remote area. I flipped it over and it said: Open mic sign up sheet. I was like God, I didn't mean this soon, dang! but nonetheless, God definitely called me to it, because he has been blessing me with opportunity after opportunity.
Had I not let God use me, I wouldn't have gone to Belize to share "Good People" with students throughout the entire country. I wouldn't be writing a book for the youth right now, with my city's support, and I wouldn't have had a jam packed house full of people who wanted to by my book, and support my dream. If you allow God to use you however, it may not always be pretty. There have been times when I share the gospel, and people are rude, or just shut me down. However, I'm still living, and God has always taken care of me. I promise he will do the same for you.

Let Him use you,
what greater thing with your life can you do
that to let him use you

Love
Natasha

PS. If you would like me to do spoken word at your event, please email me at natashathepoet@yahoo.com

Double P.S. you are good enough.

We Used to be So Close!

We used to be sisters…

And now we don’t know the slightest thing about each other’s lives. Here’s why. I used to have this friend that was closer than my eyelid to my eyeball, closer than my fingers are to the keyboard right now, even closer to me than some of my family members that only live like 30 miles away. We were sisters close. We were friends for years, guys. But this friend and I drifted apart. It wasn’t because of time, and it wasn’t because of distance either. It was honestly because I couldn’t take it anymore! Allow me to elaborate.

So this friend and I went to high school together. We didn’t become good friends until junior year but once we did, we were nearly inseparable.  We would ride home together, have sleepovers, and  talk about all of life every single night on the phone for like 12 hours. Our friendship eventually blossomed to the point where we became best friends for years. Even when you lose most friends once everyone separates for college, we were still two peas in a pod. So what happened to our friendship? GUYS!!!! Now it’s not what you think, we didn’t get into a fight over a guy, because we have VERY different taste in guys, but it’s fair to say that guys are what ultimately ended our “genuine” friendship.

When you are friends with someone long enough, you care about their wellbeing, health, success, love life and all that good stuff; you genuinely want the best for them. In addition, you also accept the baggage that comes along with that person because nobody is perfect. So I started to notice very early on in our friendship that her baggage was men. It was like her demon. She is a beautiful girl: ideal hourglass figure, beautiful smile, medium skin complexion, nice hair, fashionable, and the list goes on. However she must not have seen all this in herself, or believed it because she would always go for the guys that didn’t deserve all that goodness. She would attract guys with her body, and her sheer tight clothes didn’t help. These guys were disrespectful, liars, dogs, sex hungry idiots, and those were the guys she would choose to give her attention to. Obviously, this became a little bit draining for me because being her best friend, she would tell me all about it, then want me to be happy for her. I couldn’t be, however, because she deserved so much better. A pattern started to form. She would talk to the disrespectful sex hungry dog, I would warn her not to, due to her rebellious spirit she would do it anyway, she would end up hurt, and she would cry back to me. This went on with guy after guy for year, after year, after year. It became emotionally draining to be her friend. To make matters worse, she would value the guys “friendship” over my own, by throwing me under the bus to them, when I would tell her she deserved better, believing their lies over my truth, and even expecting me to put up with their disrespect claiming “if your man were disrespectful, you would want me to still accept him”. No honey if mines was, he’d be gone!

Now I wasn’t the only friend she did this too, because this was a lifestyle, but being that I was the one she called on the most, I got the most emotionally draining shit from it. Now what finally was the last straw for me was an incident involving something quite different. She owed me some money, and on several occasions, I asked her for it, and she never gave me it, so I sold the item she owed me money for to someone else who was willing to give me the money for it. She was pissed and felt I did her so wrong. But that isn’t what made me mad. What made me mad was that she told me, that she told the guy whom she was talking to at the time, how wrong I did her, and his opinion of what I did. That’s when the friendship was over to me. I didn’t talk to her for a year, after talking to her several times a day after that. It wasn’t that sole incident that made me conclude that I no longer needed that energy in my life, it was the journey.

When you are going through something, your friends and family are supposed to be there to help push you through the hard times. However, you can push someone to a point where they honestly don’t care anymore. Unfortunately, that’s what happened with her and I. over the years, I prayed for her daily, nightly, hourly to change, but at that time, she wasn’t ready to change. I wanted something so badly for her that she didn’t want for herself. Her problems became my problems. Her actions hurt me and others on many occasions, and she showed no remorse. As a result, she drained every emotion out of me that could even fathom of caring for her friendship anymore. Honestly, afterwards I was more positive, energetic, and happier. I gained new friends that are beyond amazing to me and I’ve just been going up ever since.

Luckily for my former friend, she has changed her ways, and truly and fully accepted Jesus into her life. She no longer acts the way she used to, and no longer craves the attention from men the way she used to. She sings a different tune, and has allowed God to fill that void in her life. So we are friends now, right? No. We are cordial towards each other, but our friendship will never be what it used to be. Perhaps if we both wanted it to go back to the way things were bad enough, it would, but here’s why I think both of us were content with just moving on: Sometimes people are put in your life for a reason, season, or lifetime. She and I were put into each other’s life for a reason and a season. I believe I was put into her life to be the conscious she needed. To support her when she was in a hard time. Pretty much to be there for her and listen to her. I feel that she was put into my life to teach me many things

·         Many examples of red flags to look for when it comes to relationships with guys

·         Red flags to look for when you have a man hungry female friend

·         All women will put a man before you in one way or another

·         Friends ends with “ends” for a reason

·         You can’t change someone, they won’t change until they’re good and ready to

·         Nor should you desire better for them than they desire for themselves, or else they will resent you for it

·         Sometimes friendships need to end before the seed you planted will grow, and that’s ok.

So do I regret spending many years of my life being friends with this person for it to end with pain, disclosure, etc.? No, that’s because I learned A LOT about women, friendships, and life in general being her friend. If I had not, I wouldn’t be able to share this post with you.

Be at peace, and have a wonderful day.

Love,

Natasha

p.s. You are beautiful, lovely, and worthy of love 

NO INTERNET. NO PHONE. 5 HOURS. F M LLLLLLLL

Ok so I’m pissed off like no other right now. Guess why? Because I don’t have internet access right now. I won’t for the rest of the night, so the soonest I’ll have it is 12:30 a.m. tomorrow. For this past semester, and a little bit of last semester, God has forced me to stop relying on my phone because I used to have it glued to my hands, as most of us do today. My bible was on it, (my only one) all my poems, heck I even wrote half of my book on my phone. When I was in social situations, I would use my phone as my crutch so that I wouldn’t have to talk to people, and my friends called me out on it. Now that my iphone5 literally doesn’t have a screen, I can’t use it, and have been without a reliable phone for the past 3-4 months now. No Instagram, Facebook and twitter posts throughout the day, no easy YouTube access. Now I have to rush to the nearest computer or laptop to do those things. That’s what I was going to do tonight, along with my ONLINE homework, but now I’m not able to do that. I am beyond pissed, furious, and angry as hell’s flames are hot. So since God forced me to stop using my phone as a crutch, my emotions tonight show me that they may have moved onto the internet, but think about it. How would you respond if you couldn’t use the internet, or your cell phone for 5 hours? It doesn’t matter how much homework you had, who just uploaded the funniest YouTube video, or what person on Facebook just got engaged, you won’t know until tomorrow! Sounds almost unbearable doesn’t it?

So I’m thinking maybe God is trying to tell me something, because I’m honestly quite frustrated with him and life in general right now. My life pretty much depends on the internet. I have a ton of homework due tomorrow, all of which has to be done through the internet, the only way I can communicate with other human beings right now is through Facebook, and I was going to check my email for a possible spoken word opportunity. So pretty much all I can do is sit here and spend a shit load of time with myself, and God if I so choose. To be quite honest, that’s the last thing I want to do right now, but sometimes we busy our lives up so much, to the point where God gives us a friendly little push and FORCES us to take a break for our own good. I should be thanking God right now, for this “break” even though I have 2 million and 3 things to do, but instead I’m angry with him. Some thanks he gets huh? I’m trying to be as honest as possible, because a lot of us would be feeling the same way right now, if we were in my shoes. We busy ourselves up so much that we stress ourselves out, have anxiety and panic attacks, and make ourselves sick, when in the long run, that stuff won’t even matter because guess what? One day, you and I and everyone else around us is going to die. The only thing that will matter then is not Facebook, not YouTube, not even your friends, or their posts on Instagram. Finals won’t matter either. The only thing that will matter is your relationship with God, and his son. How much time have you spent with him today? More than you have on Instagram? More than you’ve spent studying for your finals? Scary thought huh? I can honestly say I haven’t spent much time with him, but now that I’ve cooled off, I’m about to go spend the next 5 hours with him. You should too.

Love,

Natasha

P.S. everyone has true beauty 

Oh heyyy

Hey there!

So I decided that I'm going to try this blogging thing again. The last time I attempted it was 2 years ago. I am doing this for me. Because I need to write to release, it's kind of my thing. People seem to like my writing so, I hope that you enjoy it too because that's what I'll be doing here. So sometimes as a poet, I like to get ideas out of my head that I can't do in just poetry form, and it's extremely frustrating. So during those times, I'll write here. Also whenever I feel like talking about life, and stuff involving my poetry.


Peace, and love,

Natasha

p.s. Remember God Loves you!