author-carrie-bovill

Cloudy With a Chance of Purpose

Fri, 30 Aug 2024 00:56:51 GMT

Finding Reason to Live!

Well, Friends, I am 33 as of the 26th, and I feel all kinds of feels this year! Last year, I left my fiance, moved home, lived in a hotel due to a flood, and struggled at work. I mean, so much was happening, and when my birthday came, I was over everything. My sister-in-law forced me to get dressed and made me go celebrate. This year felt different, and I feel like I am slowing, but surely, I am changing. I can also say that the depression I felt last year is not as prevalent today. 33 is a special number, and this year will be a year full of purpose.

I have learned that life has so many layers and that every chapter of adulthood pulls back another layer. Each layer brings its own joys and trails, making life so beautiful. I recognize that when walking with God in purpose, the different ev and flows of living become much easier. The things we focus on in life don't matter, but what matters is the pure love around us that carries us through life. That's it, friends. That is the lesson of the summer: life is beautiful when walking in the comfort of God, and I know for sure that I am loved and have everything I need. I don't know where my purpose will take me, but I'm sticking to this side of peace by following God.

Be Well and I will talk to you all soon!

Cloudy With a Chance of Popping Off!

Mon, 24 Jun 2024 19:51:17 GMT

Remember Who You Are During The Fight

Listening: Let Him In By: Maranda Curtis

Hello Friends! I hope you are well! Listen June has been a month-WHEW CHILDDDDD! It has felt so long and y'all I have been fighting for my life on the low. Alright, I am being a bit dramatic but this leads to my next statement. I said that I was going to talk about being in the safety of God this month but I am going to table that for a later time. This month I am going to talk about something that has drained me this month both emotionally, physically, and almost spiritually. Let's get into it y'all!

I am helping to plan my family reunion and it popped off on nowhere else other than Facebook. That dang Facebook I tell you the truth it is just bad! Long story short it was me vs. two of my cousins. One of them I barely know to be honest because she never really came around the family. The other is a cousin who has a moment in my book in which I gave her flowers as she was an intricate part of my life during my pre-teen and teenage years. I hold this cousin in high regard, she was one of my favorite cousins. However, we had a disagreement which led to the exchange of very hurtful voice recordings and we are no longer speaking. Let me say my dearest gentle readers WE WERE BOTH WRONG! I would say my grandma is turning in her grave but she is up there with Jesus chilling.

While I can acknowledge my wrong I can also say that after hearing the voicemail left on my phone I was extremely hurt. I was called a snake, arrogant, and was told all I will ever be is a crack baby and so much more was stated in my regard. Friends, I lost it and baby Carrie who was raised in the hood bubbled up in me I genuinely have not been that upset and ready to fight in a while. This also drained me greatly because it felt like so many losses. A relationship is broken, families are at odds, and the devil did exactly what he wanted to do; confuse! While I carried so many feelings concerning this situation I was sitting at my desk upset with no one but myself. I was battling with the statements that were said towards me wondering if they were true. I was battling with trying to live save and falling into anger instead of using wisdom. It was so much y'all I still hate it! However, my big cousin called me while I was sitting in all the feelings at my desk and said “Don’t sit in all that was said and recognize that none of that is true to who you are”. God used him to wink at me when I needed to give myself grace.

There are many times in life when we find ourselves in moments that are not the best situations for who we are trying to be especially when we are living for God. The devil hates it and he will do anything to pull you back to your past. He does not care if it’s your child, cousin, husband, wife, or friend he will use anything available to him. For example, using the fact that my mom smoked crack as an attack on my current identity could only be the devil because only the devil deals in the past. He has no access to our future which is why when we are out of the safety of God we find ourselves in cycles. You can identify the devil by cycles you consistently fall into and by those who deal with you based on your past and not by who you currently are and what you hope to be. The moral of this story is the devil knows exactly what you fell for before and he will do it over and over again until you remember who you are during the fight. There should be nothing that anyone can say to you to get you off your square because you are locked and loaded with what God says about you. It is good to remember that our fight is not with flesh and blood it is with spirits and darkness and sometimes that darkness is manifested in the ones we love. But guess what– it is still our responsibility to respond by being a representative of Christ first and making that flesh shut the heck up!

So my friends as we move through life let us remember that we are a child of God FIRST in every fight.

Be Well!

Carrie B.

Cloudy With a Chance of YES

Tue, 21 May 2024 00:11:56 GMT

Declare YES From A Hard Place!

Listening: Sound of Prayer (Yes Lord Praise Break) by Barbara Calloway

Hello friends! I hope you are well! I hurt my back recently so I can’t really get around good but other than that I am doing pretty well. Alright, let's get into it!

As most of you all know, I grew up in the church specifically Gospel Tabernacle Church Of God In Christ (COGIC). If you know anything about COGIC then you know the COGIC praises which is a song with lyrics that simply say “Yes Lord”. Recently, I was either walking or driving and I began to sing Yes Lord and declared a Yes Lord over my life. I wanted to talk about giving the Lord a yes this month because it will be the most important yes you will ever give. In life, we often answer yes or no to many things such as yes to the love of our life for our hand in marriage, yes to our dream job, and yes to our babies when they want to do something throughout life we are often offering up a yes. Some of those answers are hard and some of them are easy. Here is the thing we never really know with the yes we give those things if it will truly work out. We completely lean on faith when we say yes. So tell me why is it so hard for us to give God a true yes when we know God has a perfect track record and has never failed us?

Something that I am learning in this journey with Christ is that he is wise and tells us exactly what we need to do to live a stable life. All we have to do is trust him and within that trust at the foundation is YES LORD. The hardest part of that yes is allowing our perspectives of what our life is supposed to be and who we think we are supposed to be to die. For us to give true yes everything about our will MUST die; no ifs, ands or buts about it. My friends, that is why giving a true yes is SO HARD for me! Most times we think we are in control of our lives when we are not. If you aren’t saying yes to the Lord then who are you saying yes to? Here I will whisper this so I don’t hurt anybody; whisper “You are serving the one who HATES YOU, the one who is only here to steal, kill, and destroy you.”

God has a perfect track record and all he wants is a yes so he can get the glory out of your life. I know at times we have to declare a yes from a hard place but being outside the will of God is even harder. There is safety in the will of the Lord and next month I will go deeper into the safety of God's will! Until then…

Choose God and Be Well

Carrie B

Cloudy With a Chance of Fear

Sun, 21 Apr 2024 23:52:57 GMT

Don’t Miss Your Moment!

Listening: Starbucks playlist

What’s up y'all? I hope you all have been well as I have been pretty well myself. I have been navigating some life things but it’s all good in the neighborhood.

Alright, let's get into it. The past couple of weeks I have been in deep thought concerning my experience being an author. My mind has been racing concerning how I should proceed with marketing the book which also includes marketing myself. I have talked about this with my cousin Don, my brother Josh, and also my therapist. Each of them has given me different advice however, my therapist slapped me in the face with a harsh reality. That reality was that I was operating in fear which is something that God does not want for us.

Let me explain what this looks like for me. When I have a thought concerning a marketing plan my mind directly goes to “GIRL BYE; people are going to talk about you” or my shifts to “Girl that is not going to work” because those are the things that cross my mind I become paralyzed and I never move forward. Here is the thing friends, if I cancel out the idea before I even try I have to admit to myself that it’s a pretty nutty thing to do.

A while back I was talking to my Aunt Mary and she ended our conversation and said to me “ Carrie don’t miss the opportunity”. She never mentioned what opportunity she just made a blanket statement at the end of our conversation and chileeeee I am not trying to miss the moment while being held back by fear. Also, I had a similar experience that reminded me of this moment. Sit back let me explain.

Spring of 2013 I was running for Miss Morris College, something that I wanted to be ever since I attended the first coronation during my freshman year. Well, the time has come and I had been campaigning for weeks and it was finally time for the student body to vote. The day of voting I was standing in front of the student union and a group of guys were walking by as they had just finished eating lunch in the cafeteria. As I stood there I remember hearing a still voice saying “Tell them to go vote for you” I passed the voice thinking “nah I got this in the bag”, but also a bit scared to talk to them because I did not necessarily know them” and I let them keep on walking. The next day the result of the race came out and the Dean of Students hung the results up in one of the academic buildings and I lost Miss Morris College by seven votes. Guess what, that was about the number of guys that were in that group. That next day I cried so much but at the end of the day, it is something that I will never forget. I learned that when you want something great to happen in your life it doesn't just happen no matter who you are, no matter how popular you are YOU HAVE TO GO AFTER IT and it is impossible to do such a thing if you are paralyzed by fear. I call that experience my greatest failure and I believe God allowed me to have that experience for just a time as this.

Either we can live the life that God called us to have or we can surrender to fear and live an unfulfilled life. Pray for me as I figure this thing out and when you see me around cheer me on as I will not be operating as Carrie the shy little girl from Greenwood South Carolina but as a child of God who is just trying to live in her purpose. I will cheer you on as well!

Alight, I will talk to ya later! Be Well!

Carrie B

Cloudy With a Chance of Vanity

Wed, 21 Feb 2024 15:05:37 GMT

Only What You Do For Christ Will Last: February Blog

Listening: Tim Bowman Jr. Welcome to Faith City Album

“For all is vanity and a chasing after wind”

Ecclesiastes

Hello Friend! Happy Black History Month, Happy Valentine’s Day and all the things! I hope your month is going well thus far!

Let's get into it! Ok, so boom! I was recently reading Ecclesiastes and the word vanity was commonly used and repeated. As I continued to read, the more I wondered about the definition and why the writer kept using the word vanity. After I continued to read, the positioning of the word became more clear and I was able to understand the writer. In my head, I came to the conclusion that this particular book of wisdom was stating that we chase things that are empty and have no meaning. We should enjoy life, our families, friends, and work. Lastly, the only thing that matters when the great equalizer of death comes is if we are right with the Lord. My brother Josh always says that Ecclesiastes changed his life and once I was done studying the book, it made such an impact on me as well. Lean in, grab your cup of juice, and let's take this journey!

Just a bit of background: last year, I rededicated my life to Christ and also got baptized. I went through a life transition and y'all know when those things happen, we go crawling to Jesus. It’s like the cat and mouse game that us church kids play when we are living on the fence. However, this time it was different for me as I began to go to therapy. My therapist made one statement that shifted everything in me. I was going through the woes of my life and how I was upset with God; ya girl was having a good ol' pity party. As I continued to talk, my therapist said one thing to me and that was “girl, you don’t know God; you know church”. I paused, I looked up at her brown face and curly hair like mine and just stared at her. Then she had the nerve to put the cherry on top and followed up with “it is not that you are upset with him, it is the fact that you don’t know him and because you don’t know God, you are in an identity crisis. Girl, you don’t know yourself.” She told no lie so, I went on this quest to find Jesus for myself and to define who he is through my own experiences and encounters with him.

Here is a fun fact about me: I talk to myself a lot. It's a habit that I really enjoy. During my commute to work, I have many conversations with myself about all types of things and sometimes I act like I am being interviewed (only God can judge me, haha). Anyway, as I continued to have these silent conversations with myself while experiencing different churches and only listening to uplifting music, I was seeing a common theme. There is a moment happening within the body of Christ that is full of vanity. Some of the worship music is more geared to making us feel good about our futures more than worshiping God in Spirit and truth. What I mean by that is we aren't worshiping God for being God, we are worshiping God for what we want God to do in our lives. Then there is the phenomenon of shouting (dancing) to praise when praise happens with our mouth mostly, but most times we are praising due to a norm of our experiences with church. This is why we have social media pages like High Heels and Praise Breaks. Remember, I know church and not God and this is what God was showing me in my alone time. Furthermore, I was listening to someone pray and they prayed for things around health and their family members becoming 'saved' and after the prayer was done they went and fried a pork chop while gossiping on the phone. As I was noticing these things, I could not put into words what was wrong because I had not read Ecclesiastes yet. However, when I completed Ecclesiastes, it all made sense and changed my approach to God and to life.

I am not a preacher or a theologian, so you have been warned and you should also read the word of God on your own! Now that the disclaimer has been made, let me give you my summary of Ecclesiastes and I must admit, knowing what I am about to type, I am giggling. Are you ready? Here it is… GIRL, EVERYONE IS GOING TO DIE! It is pointless to judge people, it is pointless to work and never enjoy your life, chasing things that do not matter to God. It is all pointless because death is the great equalizer, and all of YOUR deeds will be brought into judgment. This brings back the examples of worship and prayer I spoke of earlier. God's biggest goal for us all is to live a life that is pleasing to him, that brings his glory and pleasure. It seems most times that we are so caught up in self and what we want that we formulate our worship and our praise to make us feel better and to position us for a bigger house or more followers, all while our souls are lost in the vanities of the world. This is why we pray empty prayers for our health while frying pork chops. This is why we can shout in church and gossip all day long. This is why we enter relationships knowing God said no. This is why I was in an identity crisis and did not even know it. I was chasing empty winds that lacked God and that were rooted in society's baseless ideologies and timelines.

I leave you with this: the Hebrew word for vanity is 'hevel', which could be defined as meaningless and or translated into "vapor" or "breath", which in the context of Ecclesiastes is the idea of something that is fleeting. Fleeting in itself means lasting for a very short time. Our time here on Earth isn't very long, so fill your time with the things that matter the most, with God at the head, to ensure you are not chasing things that are empty and pointless to your life. Within human reality, there is always a space of wanting more, but the danger of more is that after you get more, there is always more to get, and THAT is what Ecclesiastes is trying to push you away from. Sis, it is just easier doing life authentically with the Lord.

Alright, I will talk to you later! Be well!

Much Love Carrie B

Cloudy With A Chance of Carrie

Mon, 15 Jan 2024 05:43:43 GMT

How We Got Here: January Blog

Writing music: India Arie Acoustic Soul Album

Hello, my friends! First and foremost, WELCOME to In The Clouds with ME…CARRIE B! Thanks for going on this journey with me. Sitting here writing, I am incredibly excited to share a piece of me with you!

This first cloud piece will be a prelude to the rest of the year so we can get to know each other and so that you will understand more about our blog community. So, first and foremost, WAD UP? I hope you are well! Let's get into it!

Yall! Whew chileee! When I say it's been a journey to get here, GIRL, it has been a journey! If you have read my book [insert side eye if you have not], let me say I was 23,24,25 writing that piece, and I am now 32. That means I have done some more living, exploring, and learning. I have been to therapy, I have fallen in and out of love *whispers a couple of times*, I learned more about myself, I've gained lots of weight, and most of all–y'all, I found Jesus on a different level. Let's say we are about to go on a ride for sure! I hope you are as excited as I and I hope you are ready to have fun!

Now listen, In The Cloud With Carrie B will come out EVERY third Monday of each month. Set your alarm clocks! Set a reminder; do what you must to make you remember me. My writing style is conversational. It is my goal that each person feel as if I am speaking directly to them. I do not believe in vain work and do not want this space to feel forced and long-winded. I will remain conscious of length and only write what is authentic to each of my layers and where my heart is at the moment I am writing. I will also write what is placed on my heart by the good Lordt that I can share with you! All right, I will talk to you next month! Enjoy this MLK holiday, and I will hit you up in February. Until then…

Choose God and Be Well!

Carrie B