Tag: food

Image

$5 in My Pocket… Lemons at My Door

Posted in faith, food, God, health, inspiration, love, moneyTagged , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

I didn’t need a miracle with flashing lights. I didn’t need a breakthrough big enough for everybody else to recognize. Honestly, I just needed my mind to slow down. Because lately, it’s been doing that thing—running numbers, replaying conversations, trying to solve tomorrow before today even finishes. Not because anything is completely falling apart, but because enough has shifted that my spirit knows to pay attention. And if I’m honest, I was thinking a little too much.

So I tried to interrupt myself. Not with prayer this time. Not with a deep scripture study. Just something simple. I had seen a sermon about decluttering—move five things in five minutes. Nothing deep. Nothing dramatic. Just… move something. So I did. One thing, then another. By the time I got to the fifth thing, I reached into the pocket of a dress I hadn’t worn in at least a year—and there it was. Five dollars.

Now let’s be clear. Five dollars is not going to change anybody’s financial situation, but it changed my moment. Because it made me smile. And in a season where your mind is trying to run ahead of you, sometimes a smile is the interruption you didn’t know you needed. I didn’t think much more about it. I just tucked the moment away and kept moving.

On the way to church, I started going through my wallet. Receipts everywhere. Old ones, faded ones, the kind you keep just in case but never actually need. So I started sorting through them, one by one, making sure there wasn’t anything important I needed to hold on to. And that’s when I saw it—another five dollars. Then another. And then another. Three crisp five-dollar bills sitting where receipts should have been.

Now wait, because this is where my spirit leaned in—not my logic, my spirit. Because four five-dollar bills is still just twenty dollars, and twenty dollars, in the grand scheme of real-life responsibilities, is not fixing anything major. But something in me knew this wasn’t about fixing. This was about finding. God wasn’t solving my situation in that moment; He was steadying my heart in it. He was saying, without saying a word, “You don’t have to carry this the way you are carrying it.” And I sat there in that car, holding those little bills like they were something bigger than money, because they were. They were peace. All magnified by the number 5 being the number of grace denoting God’s unmerited favor

Church was good. I smiled through it—not because everything was handled, but because I felt handled. And when I got home, I thought the moment was over.

I got home, and there it was—a simple bag at my door. Inside were lemons. Not one or two, but five bags—bright, yellow, beautiful lemons. Thirty of them. I stood there looking at them like, “Okay Lord… now this feels personal.” Because you’ve heard the saying, “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade,” but this didn’t feel like life. Life gives lemons with pressure. Life gives lemons and expects you to figure it out. This felt like God.

And while I was trying to figure out what to do with so many lemons, I started giving them away. Nobody knew I had them. Nobody asked for them. I just… started gifting. If you showed up at the door, you left with some. LOL.  And somewhere in that simple act, it settled in my spirit that maybe everything God places in your hands isn’t meant to stay there. Some things show up not just as provision, but as permission—to bless, to share, to lighten someone else’s day without needing a reason or an announcement.

Because He didn’t wait until I had everything figured out. He met me while I was trying not to spiral, while I was moving five small things, while I was clearing out what I didn’t need, while I was doing the little bit I could control. He didn’t flood me with answers. He didn’t overwhelm me with provision. He didn’t drop a solution big enough to remove every question. He just… found me.

He found me in a dress pocket I forgot about, in a wallet I almost ignored, in a moment where I chose not to overthink. And then He made me laugh, because who sends somebody thirty lemons unless they are trying to say something?

“Your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.” — Matthew 6:8

So no, it wasn’t about twenty dollars, and it wasn’t about lemons. It was about being reminded that I am not navigating this season by myself. That even when my thoughts start running ahead of me, God is already present where I’m trying to get to. And sometimes, He doesn’t calm your life all at once. He just leaves little confirmations along the way so your soul can rest while you walk it out.

So if your mind has been busy lately, if you’ve been trying not to worry but still feeling it creep in, if you’re doing the best you can with what’s in front of you—pay attention to the small things, the found things, the unexpected things, the things that make you smile before you can explain them. Because God doesn’t always show up loud. Sometimes, He shows up in fives.

Gently reminded that God meets you in the middle, not just at the outcome.

Love,
Chelle
DefyGravityWithoutWings.com

Image

When Praise Cost You A Toe ( and a Little Pride)

Posted in cancer, faith, God, inspiration, love, money, relationships, selfhelp, UncategorizedTagged , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

This morning was supposed to be simple.

Just me, a broom, and some soft worship music. Nothing dramatic. Nothing deep. Just cleaning the house and minding my business.

But somewhere between sweeping one corner and turning toward the next…
that broom turned into a rhythm.

And that rhythm turned into a sway.
And that sway turned into a little two-step.

Now listen… I have not truly praise danced since my early 30s. And even then, let’s be honest, even then,I was in the back of the sanctuary respectfully copying the professionals 😌

But this morning?
Oh, I was feeling it.
Clumsy? Yes.
Anointed? Also yes.

And for a moment, it felt free.
Like I could just stay right there…
moving, praising, forgetting everything else.

And that’s where it shifted.

Because instead of staying in the praise,
my mind wandered into the problems I was trying to outdance.

Like Peter stepping out on the water in Matthew 14:29–30. As long as his eyes were on Jesus, he was good. But the moment he looked at the wind? He started sinking.

Well…The moment I stopped focusing on the praise and started focusing on everything else… I didn’t sink.

I stubbed my pinky toe.

And not just a polite little tap either. No ma’am. The kind that makes you see your whole life flash before your eyes.

Which then threw me off balance…
which then reminded my knee about that old meniscus injury from my 30s…

So now I’m in the middle of my living room,
half praising, half limping, trying to decide if I need prayer or an ice pack.

But here’s the thing Even through the pain, my thoughts got corrected. Because I realized:

Praising your way through something will cost you if you stop mid-praise to pick your problems back up.

You can’t hold both.
Not well anyway.

And right there—in between the limp and the laughter— I had to laugh at myself. Because I know I looked like something.

Just me… off beat… off balance…
still trying to be faithful in the middle of it.
And while nobody else saw it…

God did. And I believe He smiled. Because it wasn’t perfect. But it was real.

And if you needed this today…

Go ahead and praise anyway.
Even if it’s off rhythm.
Even if it’s in your kitchen.
Even if it turns into a wobble instead of a dance. Just… keep your eyes in the right place.

And if you do happen to stumble? Laugh, reset, and keep moving. Because the goal was never perfection.

It was presence.

Love, Chelle
defygravitywithoutwings.com 💛

Image

They Grow While You’re Gone

Posted in cancer, faith, God, inspiration, love, relationships, UncategorizedTagged , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment


It’s 5:30 a.m.
I’m sipping my coffee, staring out the window into the darkness… somehow convinced I can see trouble in my garden from 100 feet away.

Don’t judge me… but I really considered stepping out there in my robe in 35 degrees to go check on my plant babies.

And somewhere between that first sip and the silence… I caught myself.

This isn’t about seeds.

This is about how easily my mind will grab hold of something—anything—and worry it to death.

Work stress that doesn’t clock out when I do.
Money questions that don’t always have quick answers.
A newborn I just prayed over in the hospital,
with whispers of concern about her ability to thrive.
Friends walking through the slow, sacred heartbreak of losing their parents…
and me carrying pieces of that with them.

All real things. All things that matter. All things experienced before.
And yet…

Look how quickly my heart starts hovering over them, like it’s my job to make sure everything turns out alright. Like if I think about it enough, check it enough, replay it enough…

I can help God along.

But I can’t.

Because even when I am doing the work of God, it is still God who is working.
I am not the outcome.
I am not the fixer.
I am not the one holding it all together.

I am just… hands in the soil.
Faithful to plant.
Faithful to water.
Faithful to show up.

But the growing?
The healing?
The sustaining?

That was never mine.

And if I’m not careful, I will let the weight of what I care about pull me out of the very places God is calling me to be present.

Sitting here with my coffee, trying to manage what He already has in His hands…
while He’s already prepared a seat for me somewhere else today.

There is a time to plant.
A time to water.
And then… a time to trust.
Not anxious trust.
Not hovering trust.
Real trust.

The kind that finishes the coffee,
gets dressed, and walks into the day
without carrying what God never assigned me to hold.

So I’m going where I’m supposed to be.
And I’m leaving the garden…
and everything it represents…
right where it is.

Because what God has already taken responsibility for does not need my worry added to it.

Even the good things don’t get to compete
with obedience.

“To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.”
— Ecclesiastes 3:1

Love, Chelle

DefyGravityWithoutWings.com

Image

Pig Foot Mary: The Woman Who Pushed Her Future Down the Street

Posted in Black History Month, faith, food, God, inspiration, money, relationships, UncategorizedTagged , , , , , , , Leave a comment


Before food trucks.  Before catering contracts.
Before pop-up kitchens. There was a formerly enslaved Black woman  pushing a baby carriage filled with pickled pig’s feet.

Her name was Lillian Harris Dean. History remembers her as Pig Foot Mary. And what some would have called scraps, she called strategy.

Born in Mississippi around 1870. She migrated north during the Great Migration era. She was reported a woman of large stature (striking fear in even some men).

THE BABY CARRIAGE BEGINNING

After emancipation, economic opportunity for Black women was painfully narrow. Formal loans were not available. Property ownership was rare. Protection under the law was inconsistent at best.

So Mary did what resilient women have always done. She looked at what she had.
She cooked pig’s feet — inexpensive cuts that working people could afford — and loaded them into a baby carriage. That’s  right no baby, just a baby carriage purchased with two of the five dollars she arrived with and a tin pot she brought with her.

Then she walked the streets of Washington, D.C., selling directly to laborers, porters, and government workers who had migrated from the South but desperate for a taste of home cooking lacking in the industrial north.

No storefront. No investors. No safety net.
Just legs, grit, and a carriage. That carriage gave her mobility. Mobility gave her customers. Customers gave her capital.
Capital gave her options. Consistency built reputation. Reputation built revenue.

From those early street sales, though unable to read, she negotiated contracts with suppliers, opened restaurants, operated boarding houses, acquired property, and became one of the wealthiest Black women in New York City  during her time. She later married a prominent black lawyer she had hired to keep her financial empire safe.

Later in life, she faced legal troubles that interrupted her business, a common vulnerability for Black entrepreneurs in that era. When her power and influence started to invade beyond the black community and into  white upper Manhattan,  a racist court system convicted her of running a disorderly house.    After her release from prison, she retired to California.

She did not inherit influence. She built it.
She did not wait for approval. She moved.

Pig Foot Mary represents a pattern we see over and over in Black history:
Innovation born from restriction.
Mobility created from limitation.
Enterprise rising from overlooked ingredients.

She took something humble and made it sustaining.

“She considers a field and buys it; out of her earnings she plants a vineyard.” — Proverbs 31:16

Mary did not own fields at first. She owned a route. But the principle is the same.
Use what you have. Work what you have.
Move what you have.

CARRY THIS WITH YOU
You may be waiting for a storefront when all you have is a carriage. Push anyway.

You may be waiting for funding when all you have is a recipe. Cook anyway.

You may be waiting for someone to validate the vision. Walk anyway.

BREADCRUMB

Sometimes the business plan is wrapped in something people underestimate. And sometimes the thing you’re pushing… is actually pushing you into destiny.

We see you, Lillian Harris Dean for turning a baby carriage into a business model. We see you for feeding working hands and building wealth from what others discarded.

Bread Crumbs — for those coming after us.
Victorious without reward. Still here.

Image

Reframing The Heart

Posted in cancer, faith, food, God, inspiration, love, relationships, selfhelp, UncategorizedTagged , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Somewhere along the way, many of us learned a quiet lie —
not from God, but from human interpretation.

We learned it from what was modeled, praised, or rewarded.
From homes, churches, systems, and relationships that mistook endurance for faithfulness and exhaustion for virtue.


Most people were doing the best they could with what they knew — but they were still human.
And without realizing it, we carried those lessons into our understanding of God.

I know this because I have done it myself.

I confused being loved with doing to be loved.
I mixed up belief with performance.
And I carried that misunderstanding into my faith and called it obedience.

But that is not God’s heart.

God does not delight in depletion.
He delights in wholeness.

Jesus did not invite people to follow Him so they could replace Him.
He did not ask them to become saviors, fixers, or endless wells.
He asked them to come — as they were — and to unlearn what fear had taught them about love.

Scripture never praises burnout.
It praises obedience rooted in love, not fear.
It honors service that flows from being seen — not from trying to be noticed.

When Jesus said, “Come to Me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest,”
He was not offering a reward for those who gave the most.
He was correcting what people had been taught about God.

If your kindness comes from feeling unseen,
if your faith feels like constant output,
if your love has slowly turned into self-erasure —
that may be something you learned, but it is not something God requires.

God does not need you emptied to be faithful.
He desires you rooted, restored, and whole.

Being needed is not the same as being loved.
And God’s love has never required you to disappear.

God, help me separate Your voice from the voices that shaped me.
Heal what I learned in survival mode.
Teach me Your heart — not a human version of it.

Love, Chelle
DefyGravityWithoutWings.com

Image

Powder, Not Prison (and Apparently Winter Storms Have Names Now)

Posted in faith, food, God, inspiration, love, relationships, UncategorizedTagged , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

So here’s something I learned this week:
winter storms have names.
I was today-years-old when I found out they name winter storms the same way they name summer hurricanes. And wouldn’t you know it—the one that iced me into my house and blocked me from my greenhouse was named Fern.
Fern.
A plant name.
A green thing.
A symbol of life.
Make it make sense.
Winter Storm Fern didn’t just bring cold—she brought audacity. It was so cold one day that my front door wouldn’t even open. Not stuck—sealed. As if the house itself said, “Nope. You live here now.”
When the door finally did open the next day, I stepped outside and immediately thought,
“Oh. I was happier not knowing.”
That kind of cold doesn’t invite you out.
It humbles you back inside.
Now here we are again. More snow coming Saturday—and again on Wednesday. But this time, they’re calling for powder, not ice.
And apparently, there’s a difference.
Ice traps you.
Powder covers you.
Ice shuts doors.
Powder rests gently on what’s still alive underneath.
Some seasons don’t stop growth—they insulate it.
Under the white blanket, the soil is still breathing. Roots haven’t resigned. Seeds aren’t panicking. They know winter may come labeled and official, but it never gets the final word.
“Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines… yet I will rejoice in the Lord.”
— Habakkuk 3:17–18
Faith isn’t pretending winter isn’t winter.
It’s recognizing the difference between what freezes you and what simply passes through.
Winter Storm Fern may have sealed my door for a day.
She may have iced the path to the greenhouse.
But she didn’t cancel the harvest.
Dead and dormant are not the same.
Covered and defeated are not synonyms.
Spring is not offended by powder.
And I’ve learned not to argue with doors God temporarily keeps shut.

Love, Chelle

Image

When the Tool Ate the Manuscript (and Almost My Heart)

Posted in cancer, cancer, chemotherapy, christmas, faith, food, God, health, inspiration, love, money, relationships, selfhelp, UncategorizedTagged , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Let me tell you what almost took me out.

For weeks—WEEKS—I have been doing the holy, unglamorous work of editing and reorganizing a soon-to-be book.
Moving chapters.
Fixing commas that think they run things.
Re-threading stories.
Listening for where God was nudging—and where I was just rambling.

This was faithful work. Quiet work.
The kind nobody claps for.

And then…
The tool I use to assist and “catch mistakes” decided to eat my manuscript.

Not nibble.
Not misplace a paragraph.
Eat it.

I have survived cancer, grief, caregiving, deadlines, and ice storms—but watching weeks of careful labor vanish off a screen?
That will make your chest tighten and your salvation flicker for a hot second.

I sat there spiraling:
Did I just lose half a book?
Am I behind now?
Did I just waste weeks of my life arguing with chapter headings?

Cue the dramatic sigh.
Cue me talking to my laptop like it had personally betrayed the family.

And then—grace, wearing sneakers—slid in sideways and whispered:

Your work is not gone.
You are not behind.
We did not lose half a book.

Because real work doesn’t live only in files.
It lives in muscle memory, lived experience, and a heart that’s been steeped in the message.

And Scripture backs this up.

“So I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten…”
— Joel 2:25

God restores years, not just results.
Restoration doesn’t always look like retrieval.
What God restores often comes back stronger.

So breathe.
Roll your shoulders.
Open a new document.

The words still know how to find you.
And the story is very much alive.

Love, Chelle
defygravitywithoutwings.com

Image

The Woman At The Table

Posted in cancer, cancer, chemotherapy, christmas, faith, food, God, health, inspiration, love, money, relationships, selfhelp, UncategorizedTagged , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Sometimes I miss the house in the middle of the corn fields with no indoor plumbing.
The pot-belly stove that decided when we were warm enough.
The way night fell heavy and close, and everyone settled where they could—sharing rooms, beds, blankets, breath.

I say my room, but that’s a loose word.
Privacy was a luxury we didn’t own.
Still, there was one place that felt like mine:
the narrow view through the keyhole.

Almost every night, after the fires were dampened and the house full of children finally stilled, I would watch my grandmother at her writing table. Her hands folded. Her Bible open. A pen moving slowly, deliberately.

Women of the Bible were her favorite.
Deborah. Ruth. Esther. Mary.
Women who listened closely and lived bravely.

She wrote sermons—real ones. Thoughtful. Scripturally sound. Insightful in ways people did not expect from a woman in those days. Especially a woman who cleaned other people’s houses for a living.

But it was her prayer ritual that marked me.

She prayed in whispers—not because God was quiet, but because love was.
She didn’t want to wake a house full of children.
Except, apparently, the little girl at the keyhole.

I couldn’t hear the words.
But I could see her face.

Sometimes she smiled.
Sometimes she laughed—like she and God shared a private joke.
Sometimes she cried. The kind of crying that doesn’t fall apart, just falls down.

And as I watched—hidden, still, unnoticed—I was learning.
Learning how faith looks when no one is applauding.
Learning that prayer does not need volume to have weight.
Learning that God listens closely to whispers.

When she finished praying, she always reached for the same thing.

A small plastic bread loaf.
One of those coin banks from organizations that fed “poor kids in Africa.”

She would slip a coin inside.
Sometimes a dollar.
Hard-earned. Scrubbed-for. Long-hours-standing money.

Money from a woman the world might have called poor—
but who never believed she was exempt from generosity.

I didn’t understand it then.
But I do now.

That table was a pulpit.
That whispering was power.
That plastic loaf was faith that refused to shrink.
And that keyhole?
It was my first seminary.

And that little girl at the keyhole?
She’s still watching.
Still learning how to pray without performing.
Still believing a few faithful offerings can touch a wide world.

“She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue.” — Proverbs 31:26
“Your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.” — Matthew 6:6

Some of the strongest sermons are whispered after bedtime, preached without microphones, and learned by children watching through keyholes.

Love, Chelle



Image

Stone Soup For A Restless World

Posted in faith, food, God, health, inspiration, love, relationships, selfhelp, UncategorizedTagged , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

(Inspired by the traditional folktale “Stone Soup”)
There is an old folktale—often called Stone Soup—with roots in European oral tradition, passed from voice to voice long before it ever lived on a printed page. No single author can claim it, because it belongs to the people. To grandmothers. To kitchens. To cold evenings and tired hearts.
My grandma told me this story when I was a child.
In it, strangers arrive in a village with nothing but a pot, water, and a stone. The villagers insist they have nothing to give. Nothing extra. Nothing to spare. But as the pot begins to simmer, curiosity loosens fists. A carrot appears. Then an onion. A potato. A handful of herbs. What begins as nothing becomes a feast—not because of the stone, but because everyone adds what they already had.
“All the believers were together and had everything in common.”
— Acts 2:44
What my grandmother made sure I understood wasn’t cleverness or trickery.
It was this: waste nothing, because even the smallest thing can become enough.
That lesson followed me into adulthood and straight into my freezer.
I freeze the little bits.
The half cup of vegetables left after dinner.
The last spoonful of beans.
The scraps that don’t look like a meal on their own.
And on nights like this—when the world feels heavy, when the news is loud, when unrest simmers hotter than any stove—I pull out those frozen fragments. I drop my own version of a stone into broth. I add spices. I stir. And somehow, once again, there is soup.
Scripture reminds us that when we bring what we have—no matter how small—God knows how to make it enough.
“Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others.”
— 1 Peter 4:10
Nothing fancy.
Nothing wasteful.
Nothing done alone.
Wouldn’t it be lovely—
in a world so divided, so guarded, so afraid of scarcity—
if we could remember how to do this together?
Not fix everything.
Not agree on everything.
Just show up with what we have.
A carrot. A story. A pot. A willingness.
Stone Soup reminds us that abundance doesn’t start with excess.
It starts with shared heat.
With open hands.
With the quiet decision to believe that together is still possible.
Tonight, I’ll keep stirring.
And I’ll keep believing.
Love, Chelle
DefyGravityWithoutWings.com

Image

Don’t Miss The Baby Turnip

Posted in cancer, cancer, faith, food, God, health, inspiration, love, relationships, selfhelp, UncategorizedTagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment


I couldn’t sleep, again, so I tuned into one of my favorite comfort-watch movies, Last Holiday (2006), starring Queen Latifah.

I’ve watched it more times than I’ll ever confess, but there is one scene I always slow down for.
It’s the kitchen scene. My favorite one.


When Chef Didier looks at Georgia and gently compares her to the baby turnip — the smallest one in the bin, often overlooked, passed by for something bigger or flashier… yet the most tender, the most flavorful, the one a true chef treasures.


That scene gets me every time.
Because the baby turnip isn’t flawed.
It isn’t unfinished.
It isn’t lacking.
It’s just quiet.
And early.
And easy to miss if you’re in a hurry.


And if I’m being honest — part of why that scene hits so hard is because I’ve felt like that turnip.
Overlooked. Passed by. Sitting there thinking, “Excuse me… I am organic, well-seasoned, and emotionally available.”
But folks keep grabbing the big, loud potatoes.

Meanwhile, God is in the kitchen like a five-star chef saying,
“Leave her. She’s tender. She’s not for everybody. And I don’t rush good ingredients.”


Whew.


That’s the holy pause in the story. Not the luxury. Not the bold declarations. But the moment when someone truly sees her.


And isn’t that what so many of us long for?
We grow underground — faithful, steady, consistent — while the world keeps reaching for whatever looks impressive on the surface. We’re not trying to be flashy. We’re just trying to be faithful.


Still, being overlooked can sting.
Especially when you know you’ve been planted, watered, and patient.


But the baby turnip reminds me of this truth: being passed over by people does not mean being passed by God.
God delights in roots.
He honors slow growth.
He protects what is tender until the right time and the right hands arrive.


Sometimes you’re not hidden because you’re insignificant.
You’re hidden because you’re delicate.
Because you’re reserved.
Because you’re meant for a table that understands flavor.


So yes — I may be under a blanket right now pretending I’m Queen Latifah — but I’m also believing, learning, and internalizing this:
I don’t need to audition for worth.
I don’t need to shout to be seen.
I don’t need to rush my growth just because someone else is loud.
If I’m being missed right now, maybe it’s because I’m being saved.
And when it’s my turn?
They’ll wish they hadn’t rushed past the produce section.


Lord, when I feel unseen, remind me that You see fully. Teach me to trust Your timing, even when I feel overlooked. Help me grow deep roots instead of loud leaves,and rest in the truth that being missed by people does not mean being missed by You.


Amen.
Love, Chelle