My Denial…My Blessing

This morning (Wednesday November 5^th 2014), the Holy Spirit had me repeat to myself this statement “God is going to blow your mind.” As I tossed and turned half asleep in my bed, I kept repeating the phrase over and over again.

Lets back track to some background information. This academic year, I was barely given any financial aid because according to the receptionist at the financial aid office, I’ve reached the limit I could be offered for student loans. So I haven’t been able to pay my tuition for this Fall semester. This has been my battle with the Lord way before the semester even began. Bottom line is “Jennifer, do you trust me enough to know I’m bigger than all your problems?” says God. Prior to this, I had had a dream in which God basically showed me that my trust in Him was not total. So I said ok God I want to trust you completely so help me do so. Haha! I pictured him with a sinister side lip grin on His faces saying “okay, if you say so” lol. So I began this journey of radical faith in Christ. At the same time, my academic advisors were and are still being jerks to me about helping me graduate in May 2015. School was sucking for me this semester. Satan was hitting me real hard with doubt and fear and thoughts of failure and all sorts of stuff. So I found myself in a fetal position before the Lord all the time crying and telling Him, Lord I trust you despite the look of things. I trust you. I trust you. I trust you. So during my worship session on the day that I wrote the blog post titled “Everything Else Can Wait” I said Lord, I give this situation over to you and until you tell me what to do, I won’t make any move. I will wait on you. A couple days later, I got antsy and began to think about applying to Sallie Mae and even private loans (the devil is a LIAR!) lol. But I felt deep within my spirit that God didn’t want me to do that so I stopped that whole process and kept praying and trusting and reading and waiting and guarding my heart from Satan.

[Fast forward to Wednesday, November 5^th 2014]

Earlier on during the week, God had laid on my heart to go speak to my financial aid advisor. So I just walked in this morning and the receptionist asked for my information and asked why I wanted to see the advisor. She pulled up my account and then proceeded to tell me why I wasn’t able to get more financial aid and that she recommends I take out private loans, blah blah blah. A year ago, I would have been satisfied with that info and just walk away. But I felt deep within my spirit to politely say thank you BUT I still need to see my advisor. She was able to get me an appointment with the advisor immediately. Now my balance left to pay for this semester was $3095 (including late payment fee) which would also be the same amount I would owe next semester. This balance placed a hold on my account meaning until I paid that money off, I could not register for classes, I could not request an official transcript, and certainly could not apply to graduate. Every important privilege was withheld from me due to this balance. Within 2 minutes of sitting with my advisor, he was able to reduce my balance to $1575. Bless God! And then he told me the next step was to let my mother apply for the Parent PLUS Loan which will have two outcomes:

One: Get approved and pay for the $1575 with that loan which my mother had to pay back. [This same amount will also be paid for the spring semester and summer school will have to be paid out of pocket]

Two: Get denied and then get more financial aid meaning….DENIAL IS GOOD, WHAT?!?!? [PRAISE BREAK FOR DAYS] So my mum went ahead and applied for it. Lo and behold, she got denied. I have never been so excited about a denial before lol. I sent an email to the advisor and told him my mom got denied and as he told me, it would take a day or two before he can see it in the system. He emailed me back immediately and in his own exact words he said, “I actually see that the plus denial is already up online (this is a first, I have never seen it processed this quickly)”  God is too faithful. My mind is absolutely blown away! So now here’s what happens; I get additional financial aid for EACH SEMESTER! Enough to get refund checks with which I can save to pay for summer school! And will have some extra left from both semesters so hello summer shopping lol jk jk! Oh and even more interesting, the next day Thursday November 6^th, registration for classes opens for the next semester. Talk about God’s timing!

My testimony is not in the fact that my account got paid in excess but rather lies in me passing my test of faith. I am glad to say, I passed the test!! Hurray! Le struggle was real folks. So now I’m at a point where I’m going with Gods flow. I’m trusting Him to fix my school schedules. When He tells me to move, then I move. I don’t do anything without seeking his direction. Choosing classes, planning my schedule, when I will graduate, its all in His hands for I know He has not brought me this far just to leave me. So the journey continues. My encouragement to you all is to keep the faith. It is hard as heck – I’m not gonna lie to y’all – but there’s a reward after you pass. “Without faith, it is IMPOSSIBLE to please God…” [Hebrews 6:11] Stay tuned for Part II. Be blessed and encouraged folks and remember, the devil is a deceitful conniving LIAR!! Guard your heart against him.

XOXO,
Jennifer Darlington

Miscellaneous 

* I own an accessories shop online. Visit and shop.

www.etsy.com/shop/JDarlingCreations

*I will be at University of Virginia (UVA) on Saturday November 15th 2014 as a designer in their annual Fashion for a cause Fashion Show which starts at 7pm at the Main Street Arena. 

*I will be a designer for GMU Red Alert: HIV/AIDS Awareness Fashion Show on Friday, November 21st 2014. I will be vending from 6:30pm till 8pm when the show starts. I will be offering discounts based on HIV/AIDS trivia so come filled up with knowledge about the disease.

*I will be at UMCP Annual Fall Ball on Saturday, November 22nd 2014 as a designer in their infused fashion show. It starts at 7pm.

IG: @jdarlingcreations

Faceboook: www.facebook.com/JDarlingCreations

* My personal IG & Twitter: @jay_lington

Everything Else Can Wait

“Give me You, everything else can wait” is the first sentence to a song by Shana Wilson called Give Me You. The first time I heard this song was at a Tye Tribbett concert 2 years ago right before his new album Greater Than was released. The host church sang this song for worship and I immediately fell in love with it because I’m all about slow solemn worship songs. The song has been on my heart this whole week so this morning I went into worship with this song just telling God what I truly want. All I want and need is Him and that he should give me Him and let everything wait. So basically in his discretion whatever that needs to wait in my life He should make wait BUT giving me Him needs no wait because I WANT HIM. I DESIRE HIM. I THIRST AND I HUNGER FOR HIM. Then He began to drop things in my heart.

1. Telling Him to let everything wait meant that I was telling God I trust in your timing and so whenever you’re ready to give me other things, I’ll be ready but right now let me be so focused on you that I won’t worry about other things. [Matthew 6:33] says “but seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and all these things will be given to you” and when you read the verses before 33 you’ll find out that “all these things” was referring to food, water, clothing, shelter so basically things we need in life. And since the abundance of these will cause us to lose focus on Him, He gives us just enough and in His time, causes us to have in abundance in order to bless others.

2. It also meant that everything I’m going through right now He sees fit for my growth. So that test I’m going through right now or that situation which I don’t understand right now, he deems it timely in my life. And so I realized that He’s trying to do something in me right now so instead of fighting with God about it, I rather chose to trust Him and say God I surrender to You and I know You know what You’re doing and so I hope to pass the test and gain the character growth You’re trying to achieve in me.

3. Thirdly, He took my mind back to a verse I proclaim to be my favorite scripture in the entire Bible; [Psalm 37:4] “Delight yourself in the Lord and He shall grant you the desires of your heart”. This serves as a referral for me to God when I have a desire. I always tell Him God I delight myself in you always and you said you shall grant me the desires of my heart. Now a friend of mine in my band gave an insight on that scripture that astounded me due to its truth and depth. He said as you delight yourself in the Lord, He becomes what your heart truly desires and so basically you’re asking God to give you Him when you ask him to give you your hearts desire [insert praise break emoji here lol]. That spoke so much to me and I realized how true that is, at least for my life.

So I challenge you today to go before God with this prayer and see the realizations you make. Maybe you’re confused as to why you’re in your current situation. Ask God to give you Him and let everything else wait and see if that situation is trying to show you what you need to wait on. God is for you and so know that everything He does is perfect. It might not be good TO you but its good FOR you. Stay blessed and encouraged. His love for you is absolutely relentless!

Here’s a link to the song if you want to listen to it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uC0UHJagWNE

XOXO,

Jennifer Darlington

Miscellaneous 

* I own an accessories shop online. Visit and shop.

www.etsy.com/shop/JDarlingCreations

*I will be a designer for GMU Red Alert: HIV/AIDS Awareness Fashion Show on Friday, November 21st. I will be vending from 5:30pm till 7pm when the show starts. I will be offering discounts based on HIV/AIDS trivia so come filled up with knowledge about the disease.

IG: @jdarlingcreations

Faceboook: www.facebook.com/JDarlingCreations

* My personal IG & Twitter: @jay_lington

What God Originates, He Orchestrates

 When the idea of me having a fashion show as a designer came about, I completely rejected it. My boyfriend made that suggestion and I replied quiet rudely “No. I don’t think I’m ready”. And by that answer I meant, I don’t have money to buy all I need, where will it be held at, its too much to do and I’m already taking 17 credits in school as a biochemistry major. I simply cannot do it. A couple weeks later, I found myself sitting in Human Anatomy lecture 9 am in the morning and all I could think about was having a fashion show and imagining how I see everything happening. It wasn’t until then that I realized it was an idea coming from God because I literally could not stop thinking about it. The confirmation and encouragement to go ahead with the idea came one Wednesday evening at bible studies when we had a guest speaker talk with us and at the end of the night she prayed and asked who needed prayer. I said I did because debts were high and income was low so I needed prayers. After she prayed for me, she asked “what business idea has God placed on your heart?” Bare in mind this lady knew me from nowhere so she had no idea I had a small business on my own. I told her about it and she encouraged me and said to not focus on my resources; what I have and don’t have. If God has said it, just do it. So I called up some friends in faith and we all began to pray and plan for my fashion show. Long story short, God provided all my resources and more. Through the help of some church members and friends who acted as sponsors, I was able to get everything ready for my show and the event was a huge success.

Now let me explain to you all what I mean by my show was a success because looking at the photos that were taken, one can tell there were a whole bunch of empty seats. I had about 20-30 people show up and my stage curtain was only leaning by faith lol the least push and it would come crumbling down. But my success and pride that I have for my show was in the fact that I learned to OBEY God. Obedience to God is a very important trait to have as a Christian because it shows how much you really trust God. Do you trust Him enough to know that He is God and even though things look nowhere near possible, He will make a way? Bible says to be obedient is better than sacrifice [1 Samuel 15:22]. Second reason is that I DIDN’T COMPROMISE MY IDENTITY AS A CHRISTIAN. Now when we all hear the words fashion show, we automatically categorize it as something of the world so secular music, skimpy clothes, etc., so there was a whole debate and skepticism from people about whether to allow me to hold the event in my church sanctuary or its reception hall. So I told God, I don’t only want to show myself to the world as just a designer but a Christian designer and I wanted that to reflect in every part of my show. So coming up with a playlist of hype music for models to walk to was very difficult. Then God reminded me that he has given me a music genius for a boyfriend so why not have him create some beats from garage band and that’s exactly what we did. We also began the entire show with a prayer, which felt so great to do! At the end of the show, my uncle said to me “wow Jennifer, I never knew you would be bold enough to do something like this” and he was absolutely right! I shocked my own self at how bold I had become knowing very well how much of a “chicken” I was. But in Christ alone do I find my boldness and strength. One lady came up to me and expressed how amazed and happy she was that I did not compromise my identity as a Christian and how much she loved that we began with a prayer. I found so much joy and encouragement in what she told me and I was so thankful to God for the outcome of my fashion show.

Also, with this little that God gave me, I believe I have been faithful and “who ever is faithful with little will also be faithful with much…” [Luke 16:10] and so I believe God was actually preparing me for the greater works He has in store for me. What the Lord originates, He orchestrates so do not worry about the how and do not think about the resources you think you don’t have because God has already given us everything we need to do what He needs us to do at a particular time. If you feel God is asking you to do something or tugging at your heart to initiate something, just exercise obedience for He will show you how to get there. Stay blessed and encouraged!

Here’s a link to view pictures of my fashion show:

https://www.facebook.com/Jay.Blaze.Darlington/media_set?set=a.10153236810133569.1073741827.802923568&type=3

XOXO

Jennifer Darlington

Miscellaneous 

* I own an accessories shop online. Visit and shop.

www.etsy.com/shop/JDarlingCreations

IG: @jdarlingcreations

Faceboook: www.facebook.com/JDarlingCreations

* My personal IG & Twitter: @jay_lington

Where Feet May Fail

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“You call me out upon the waters, the great unknown where feet may fail. And there I find you in the mystery in oceans deep, my faith will stand”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This is the beginning to Oceans a song by Hillsong, which speaks so much depth. As Christians, we’ve been called to live a life that will have us in oceans deep where our feet alone will completely fail. But we have another pair of feet that will never ever fail us. FAITH! We can stand and walk on the ocean with faith. Matthew 14:25-33 tells the story of Jesus beckoning Peter to come out towards him on the water. As Peter stepped on the ocean and had his eyes fixed on Jesus, he walked without sinking. As soon as he looked and saw how the water was rushing around him and realized he was actually walking on water, he began to sink. Whenever we have our focus locked on Christ, our worries and troubles of this life will not subdue us. The water will be turbulent but we will still be walking. Our focus on Jesus exercises our faith because we choose to believe in the unseen Jesus rather than the trouble we are dealing with. The moment we focus on our circumstances, we begin to panic and that leads to sinking. Then we try to fix things on our own which ends up draining us, making our feet wobbly and depleting our faith.

The latter part of the song says “Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders, let me walk upon the waters wherever you would call me. Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander and my faith will be made stronger in the presence of my savior”

As you continue to keep your eyes on Christ, your faith is being made stronger and you move towards the deeper parts of the ocean without realizing it. So next time when God calls you over in 2000ft deep, you will just go because your trust in Him has no boundaries! I understand the difficulty in trusting God when there are no signs of victory around. I understand because I’m the queen of worrying…or I used to be. But I also know that I ought to cast all my cares on Him because He cares [1 peter 5:7] and that worrying is not going to be of any benefit to me [Matthew 6:25-32] so really, my only option is to focus on Christ and that’s what iChoose! And to be honest, you realize how light and peaceful that feels. It doesn’t mean you pretend your troubles aren’t there, you just choose to focus your attention wisely. So I encourage you all today to stand and walk with your second pair of feet and see what the Lord accomplishes in your life. You will be blown away. That’s the kind of God He is. The mind-blowing God! Stay blessed!

XOXO

Jennifer Darlington

Miscellaneous 

* I own an accessories shop online. Visit and shop.

www.etsy.com/shop/JDarlingCreations

  

IG: @jdarlingcreations

Faceboook: www.facebook.com/JDarlingCreations
Twitter: @J_D_Creations

* My personal IG & Twitter: @jay_lington

Outside Of Outside The Box

We all know very well the scripture in which Paul refers to God as “the God who is able to do exceedingly and abundantly more than we can ever ask or imagine” Ephesians 3:20. But do we really see God that way and if we do, does our faith see him that way also? I’m the type of person who likes to think way ahead of myself. Whenever I pray to God in regards to something, I always think about how God is going to answer; “OMG He’s gonna do this and make this that way and this way. It’s going to be super cool” but then God is like “What? You think this shabby way is cool? Come on Jennifer, that’s so lame”. So while I’m here thinking my way of expecting God to come through for me is genius, He’s like nah child your mind can never fathom my ways. We often hear people telling us to think outside the box when we’re doing something or going into a new venture. Well for my God, He thinks outside of outside the box. 

While I was pondering over this, God took me to 1 kings 18:20-40. The Israelites had an interesting relationship with God. One minute they’re in love with Him, the next minute they’re lifting up the name of an idol. So Elijah, Gods prophet at the time came up to king Ahab and was basically like you Israelites have been at this for too long so lets settle it now. Your prophets should set up an altar and offer a burnt offering to your god Baal and let your god be the one to set the fire on the altar. And I will do the same and call on Yaweh who answereth by fire, then we will know who the real God is. 
I would like to point out a few things here:

1.     There were 450 prophets of Baal but there was only 1 prophet of God, Elijah.

2.     The prophets of Baal called upon him from morning till evening, hobbling around, dancing, slashing and cutting themselves to bleeding point and yet, no answer. Elijah literally took less than a minute and God responded.

Now the whole purpose of this “competition” was for their gods to send fire down and burn the offering. Just that! Baal flaked! BUT OUR GOD didn’t only show up, He SHOWED OUT! He burned the offering, burned the wood (which was completely wet by the way. We all know wet wood will never light up), he dried up all the water in the trench, burned the stones and burned the soil also! Immediately, the Israelites declared that God is indeed Yaweh. 

So if you are expecting God to do something in your life, please take the limitations off Him. I’ve learned to let God be Him and not try to limit Him with my thinking. He’s blown my mind so many times that I know better now. Its my prayer and desire that whoever reads this will learn to trust and believe that God will show out in their lives. Never give up praying and never give up hope in Him because He’s working something for you. God bless you and remember, He loves you so so much!

XOXO

Jennifer Darlington

Miscellaneous 
* I own an accessories shop online. Visit and shop.
www.etsy.com/shop/JDarlingCreations

IG: @jdarlingcreations
Faceboook: www.facebook.com/JDarlingCreations

* My personal IG & Twitter: @jay_lington

Welcome.Akwaaba.Bienvenu

Hello everyone! My name is Jennifer Annor (Jennifer Darlington when i wrote this post) and this is my first post on my first and only blog. I'm really excited about this. The reason for this first post is to shed light on why i'm making this blog and what i intend to gain out of it.

The idea first came to me this tuesday (September 16th 2014) while i was writing down some thoughts in one of the computer labs at school. I attend George Mason University by the way. I'm in my final year of pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry. 
Sometime last week, a drastic change happened in my life which caused me to be more in love with God than i've ever been. I think i'm obsessed with Him and i LOVE IT! Since then, I've been literally thirsting and starving for more of Him and less of me. He drops things in my heart that blow my mind and while i was writing down one of them, i thought, why don't i start a blog? And here i am, listening to the voice inside my head and heart.

My goal is to share what God shares with me and leads me to share. I am in no way a bible school student, neither am i a pastor or anything like that. I'm simply a young woman who adores God so much and wants to share with everyone some knowledge He gives me. This will also be for my own benefit because i can always re-read what i post so i won't forget the message myself.

I'm not the best writer i know. I've never liked english classes for the sole purpose of essays and paper writing thats why i took the scientific route in school lol. In conclusion, i want everyone who reads this to enjoy it, be inspired by it and be drawn to God most importantly. Thank you and God bless you all for the support!


XOXO
Jennifer Darlington


Miscellaneous 
* I own an accessories shop online. Visit and shop.
www.etsy.com/shop/JDarlingCreations

IG: @jdarlingcreations
Faceboook: www.facebook.com/JDarlingCreations

* My personal IG & Twitter: @jay_lington

About Me

I am a young woman currently pursuing a Bachelor of Science degree in Biochemistry and hope to become a pharmacist. As a saved christian, my desire and passion to live hard for God drives my life. I strive to show Him through my daily life and so i do as he leads me. My calling as a child of God is music and i am highly passionate about it hence, the very interesting faces i make when singing. I am a complete worshipper who desires to get lost in Gods glory and presence daily. My goal for this blog is to spread the love of Christ that i experience in my own personal life and in that of others. I am in no way a perfect human being but simply trying to be obedient to my creator and lover of my soul. 

I am married to an amazing gentleman i've known for a loooong time and its been an amazing journey so far. I strongly believe he's Gods best for me and i'm excited to do life and ministry side by side with him. 

Also, i own a small business called J~Darling Creations where i design female and male accessories with mostly but not limited to West African wax prints. Find the link to my online store on the tab above labeled "Store". 

I hope to interact will all who read my blog and also share their thoughts.

XOXO,

Jennifer Darlington