My journey of being brave started the day I was born but my real Brave Started in 2010 that’s when I became a BRAVE GIRL and joined a club of other girls doing brave things….

This journey the last 4 years have been the most painful in my life and sometimes you have to lose it all so you can really learn who you are and become that person…

During that time I learned that although I was often and still remain alone almost 50 percent of my time, that you must learn to be alone with yourself, but while your alone, you speak kindly to yourself, love yourself, forgive yourself and free your heart of anger and resentment. Forgive those who have wronged you even though they have no idea.
Let go of the past and enjoy today…
No looking back and dwelling on yesterday …

Be Brave enough to move forward and block out the negative and put in the the good stuff.
Be Brave even if you feel alone… Your not Brave Alone …. God is right beside you, He goes before you and leads you …. Be brave enough to face hard things and do it without dread…

Go be brave …. Go live this life …

Go rebuild what was torn down…
I am a brave girl and that’s what I am gonna do!!!!

💗 Doris Lynn Humplik

Hope Not Wasted ❤️

No One is Brave Alone- Annie Downs
#letsallbebrave

Check out this book
Let’s all be Brave – Annie Downs

Can you hear me now? Did I lose you? Ugh did my call drop?

That’s sometimes what it feels like when one minute your friends are right there and everything is going great and then all of a sudden they are gone from the other end of the line.

Disconnected; they are gone and the other end of the line is silent.
Maybe your driving along on the road of life and you hit a dead spot…
You know there was a dip in the road or maybe you hit a pothole and lost control of the wheel and slid off in a ditch…
That’s my story and it seems I lost my signal and got disconnected and actually a few I just hit the ignore button on my phone and tried to pull my own self up out of the ditch.

The point of this whole little post this morning is that we need each other and we need connections that last throughout the journey of our lives. The ones that if you disconnect with its you get a signal back they pick up with you right where you left off.
They are the folks that no matter how far in the ditch you fall down, they are there to reconnect and restart the conversation again.

5 years ago I disconnected my journey from many people and only connected through face-book, it was a slow disconnect but a disconnect that I needed and maybe we all needed.
My fall into the ditch was one that was no doubt the best thing and the worst that could have happened to me.
I began 2013 with a slow reconnect to my long time friends.
I have always made friends very easy and connections with others comes easy with my personality and life experiences.

For the last three years I have connected with a man who is no doubt the best friend I have ever had in my life, my husband Paul. The deepest, most trusting, authentic, accepting and healing relationship in this earth thar I have had since I was born. ( Jesus & I are closer)
We have a unique friendship and marriage. What we say on a regular basis is all we need is each other, as long as we have God and each other then we are good.
I am thinking that we are protecting ourselves from others when we say that, because truly we were meant to live our lives not on a island of two.

The last three days have been very strange for me, I have been teary eyed and sad.
I spend my days connecting with God, Paul, Facebook, blogs, Instagram, Spotify and YouTube, and a occasional clerk at a store. I have traveled & moved so many times since 2011 that I have not allowed connections to be built, or deep connections with other women.
I am a girl and I need other girls to grow in my life, that’s how we thrive in life.
Friendships are very important and I have basically sucked at it for a few years.

Can you hear me now, is this phone on and Can we Talk?
I went through a very very hard season in my life at 40 years old and I am ready for the next season to be filled with lots of folks surrounding Paul and I.

He and I have not had great relationships before us and we are solid as the Rock we built our relationship on, but we do need to connect to others, even if we lie to ourselves and say we don’t and that we are enough for each other.
God made men to build men up and women to encourage other women.

Last night I cried because I didn’t know what was wrong with me and my darling husband comes over to me trying to say the right words to me. I was tearing up when I said I didn’t like the way I was feeling and I was scared because I did not want to fall into depression again.
Oh a real fear that happens to someone who was once hopeless …
I told him I feel like I am alone to much and it’s taking a toll on me, he said a few things, trying to figure out who I could connect with. I said I got this, it’s me that’s not connecting!

We all need connections, not just Facebook but face to face. We need to reconnect with each other in real life. Find those with the same visions, dreams, loves and desires as you and grow together, learn from each other and encourage each other.
When we know better then we try to do better and I am realizing that I gotta get out of this isolation that I keep myself in …

Can you hear me now? Is this thing on? Did I lose you?

Who needs you? Who can you connect to today?

We need each other and we must connect face to face !

As iron sharpens iron,
so one person sharpens another.
Proverbs 27:17

My whole life I have walked in defense, it comes from how my life began and it’s continued throughout my whole life. It’s something that I am aware of but often just do it without realizing it.

Last night it was a simple conversation between my husband and I that really drew attention to this issue, that I am very aware of and despise.
My need to defend myself… An exhausting and confusing struggle for me.

Paul comes out of the bathroom and says well “ Doris you didn’t do your job”. He’s said in a joking manner. The TV was on in the living room.
I was not watching tv in the living room so here goes my defense.
Without thinking I am tossed into a defensive and anxiety filled feeling inside because I actually was in there and turned off lights and he was still in the room, so I left the room and never thought another thing about it.

He jokingly says “ You didn’t do your job” I go into a defensive mode that he gets on a regular basis and I hate it. Last night he walks over to me after my little speech that I go into about how I turned off the lights and he turned off the tv I thought and blah blah. He gently grabs my face and says “ Doris how long have we been together and have I ever once put you down or criticized you? I reply with a No! I say Paul 40 plus years of needing to defend cannot be erased in 3 years. He says to me with his hands on my face, he loves me and basically that there’s nothing that I do wrong. I say “but it’s my job to take care of our home and all that goes with it”.
Paul smiles his big smile and looks at me and says “ Your only Job is to Love me”. Paul that’s just so easy to do “I got that one”.

This morning I am reminded of the defensive life I have lived and how exhausting it has been to be me. Living in defense of my own self. My every action, choice, thought or deed.

Yet when I need to defend myself I won’t. Big things in my life I don’t defend or think I deserve to be defended.
Somehow with Paul I defend the small things.

In my life I am always working hard to do the right thing, say the right thing, follow all the rules in life and that sometimes leaves me a little bit uptight in moments because I am trying to not offend and to basically be perfect and of course I completely fail at that.

In the last 5 years of my life has been a pulling away from any form of pain and that includes close relationships because when you lose everything and everyone it seems letting others in can be pretty frightening.

My relationship with Paul has been very different because with him I just trust him and I know he has nothing but pure love for me. He never expects me to do a thing but love him. That is very easy to do because he is so loving and affectionate to me, even when affection is not a comfortable thing for me. That’s another story for another day.

It’s funny when you surrender you life to God he always continues working in you if you allow him to.
I want to get this layer of defensiveness off of me. I am grateful that God brought me someone I trust to help me pull back the layers of life that has held me down and soon I will be free to fly without the chains of defensiveness.

I can’t imagine how far I will fly without my holding my own self back.

What’s holding you back from flying?

What old thing do you wrestle with that you need to unchain yourself from?

Fly free !!! I am going to let go of “Living in Defense”….

What a relief that will be …

With all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love Ephesians 4:2 ESV

This morning as I was studying Acts 4:32-37 for my heArt Worship…
Acts is written to teach us how to practice Christianity under the power of the Holy Spirit, it gives us examples of how to live together in meaningful Christian fellowship and sharing freely with one another.
A Song comes to mind that we would sing as apart “ The Walk to Emmaus” it’s a movement of a body of believers from all denominations , I was involved with a few years back. It is the body working unified and a few of the words are :

🎶“We are one in the Spirit
We are one in the Lord… 
We are one in the Spirit … We are one in the Lord
And we pray that all unity may one day be restored…
And they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love
Yes, they’ll know we are Christians by our love” ❤️

I learned unity and true Agape Love in the Emmaus Community, so as I was studying this morning I was reminded of friendship, teamwork, different gifts we all have and then using them to help each other. Some have the gift of encouragement, teaching, helps, giving, preaching, creating art that inspires, writing words, showing mercy and compassion. What ever our gifts are we are called to Share them!!
Which leads me to the next Song and get ready for this one because it’s from my time as a stay at home mom with two small children and it’s 1992-1993 and the singer is our favorite purple guy Barney!! He’s teaching the kids to share and he sings …
“ Your Friends are my friends & My friends are your friends
The more we share together the happier we will be”
So here in Acts 4:32-37 Doris version 🙋
As Christians we have everything in common … We are one heart and one soul and everything we possess was to be shared with others who had need…
We have everything in common and let’s all use it!
The Grace was upon them to do so… If you need to sell stuff to help someone just do it. Give if you have it!
Most important is that we have the Power to give witness to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. So we are called to share with each other …

This is something that God gave me to teach,write and speak in 2003 and it was simply this: Make a friend … Be a friend … Lead your friend to Jesus…
They will know we are Christians by our love for each other💗

The day Little Hope was born was September 8, 2007 in Elkton, Maryland @ approx 10:30 pm. It was 1 ½ hours before my 39th birthday.
My first grandchild was born his name is Jaxen. Hope had always been in my life but that day it was the first day I recognized a sign of Hope… It was earlier in the year that my oldest daughter texted me and let me know I was going to have a grandchild. I instantly felt he would be a bridge to a relationship with his mom that had not gone very well…
So the text message was the Hope I was thankful for this chance again to try and repair this mother-daughter relationship.

I was in the middle of a battle with depression, failing marriage, my other children were in the midst of the teenage years and I was in a place of hopelessness and here comes this new life, new chance at building a relationship with my oldest daughter that was beyond us. We spend a great time that next 7 months getting ready for Jaxen’s arrival.

She called me on the 7th and said that the doctor said come on… So I purchased a one way ticket to Delaware and the next day I arrived.
We shopped all day and that night we tried some things I read on the Internet to get the ball rolling. One of them worked or by coincidence it worked, her water broke. Off we went mom, dad and Ya Ya. I was on one side and dad on the other trying to get him here as fast as we could we pushed as hard as his mom did but he ended up coming via c-section. Secretly I wanted him to wait till my birthday.
He needed his own day 09-08-07 his special day.

Ya Ya would spend the whole next day and night with him and mom at the hospital. Ya Ya would be what he would call me.
We decided I would be Ya Ya after trying to find something different and my daughter said how about a name from the language of one of your mission trips and so we looked at two of the languages Swahli from the area in Africa that I had visited and it was “bi bi or Nyanja” and my last name was Beebe so we decided no to that one. The other was Hindu from India the last mission trip I went on but I knew that would not work- Hindu for for grandmother was “dadi” then add Ma and you have what sounds like daddyma and no to that!
We decided with my personality the Ya Ya grandmother in Greek. Ya Ya fit me perfect !!!

So 7 years ago today my little Jaxen was born and although I don’t see him much and the way the twists and turns of life and relationships often go the distance is more than just the 1400 miles between us…
I will always be connected in my heart to him and through my prayers because he was my 39th birthday present just as I was my very own grandmother’s birthday present that’s where my name Doris comes from.

Sometimes life is difficult and things don’t always turn out the way you wished and hoped but on days like today I remember that no matter what happens in life that a little part of me still lives on in him. I am proud of the little boy that he is and there’s no doubt that his parents will do a great job in raising him into a fine man.
I wished I could see his little face and have him ask me a million questions because our last visit was last year and boy he can talk and he can also drive, because I was driving him and his lil sister Penny to McDonald’s and he was saying “Ya Ya” that’s not how you get there and my mom does not drive home this way and I said well Jaxen you’re the first 5 year old to have his drivers license that I know. Miss that little guy!

Happy Birthday to Jaxen Christopher who is 7 years old today. I saw him on the day he was born and wish I could see him today but no matter the distance or time between us he’s in my heart❤️and my prayers.

Happy Birthday my little Hope💙
Love you,

Ya Ya

It was 4/11/2011 I was in Canyon Lake, Texas and it was my fifth month of trying to figure out what road I was suppose to be on after making a few wrong turns.
It had been so dark on the road and I found myself lost, alone and very weary. There were moments that there were lights that shined bright enough to see down the road a little ways and this was one of those days where I could see the road ahead.

I was sitting outside and for the first time in a long time I could write again in a journal. It was page after page about Hope. It was truth, it was prophetic and I was very excited to write words again that were not filled with tears but filled with Hope.
As I wrote page after page on Hope and what Hope means I got to one page and I have no idea but I wrote the words “Hope Deferred”.
I wrote nothing else on that page flipped the page and kept writing.
I had no idea what that meant or why I wrote it.

This time in my life was the worst and the best time all combined into one. I was basically homeless and 42 years old and right where God would have me be because He was about to give me a gift and lessons that you can only receive on the wrong road.
Lose all hope and at the same time I fought as hard as I could to keep hope. I was desperate to get in my feet and desperate to not give up my life and not end it. I was so broken and only Jesus could put me back together again, trust me I worked many years trying to repair the damage done to me and by me, now with out total dependance on God I would surely die.

So a month later I am cat sitting for friends in Austin and I am spending most of my time for 10 days creating a scrapbook for my daughter for her graduation because I have little money, but I still have scrapbooking stuff and I could give her what I have to give at the moment. (This still makes me cry so hard, the greatest time in her life and I am broken and broke) Back to the story… I was alone with my friends cats, creating a scrapbook, talking on Facebook and alone. I felt like I wanted to go to church and I found one near and I went. Pulled up filled with anxiety and I walked up to the door and turned around went down the stairs and headed back towards the car, then wrestled with myself and the Holy Spirit about walking into a small church and having to talk to people. Anyway the Holy Spirit won! I went in and the pastor started preaching and I felt like I was on a Touched by an Angel episode and Roma Downy was about to walk up with Tess.
The Pastor said the word Hope Deferred and began speaking my word that just a month earlier I left blank in my journal. I had the journal with me so I wrote in the back the date 5/22/2011 I jotted my notes, wrote the story to my Facebook friends like I always did and still do and went on with my journey.

It was not until yesterday morning when I was in my quiet time preparing to do my next Art bible Journal page thar God placed on my heart Hope Defereed.
So the last two days I have written just in this subject and even had to run to Michaels for one special sticker.. This scripture is one of those that is more than a one day writing it’s maybe more …

I just wanted to tell this little story and say that if your needed a good word on Hope and how not to lose Hope it’s on it’s way and I am truly excited to actually be sitting at Jesus feet, listening, writing and creating in order to share a message of Hope.

Please don’t lose hope…
Please don’t give up…
Fight fight fight ….
I did and after so many years battling depression, oppression, guilt, shame, regret and anger at life’s injustice I can tell you that there’s Hope after it’s been Defereed … I know you want relief right now from the pain but just wait !!! It’s coming but you have to not stop fighting …
Hope does not come easy sometimes you just have to really look hard to find it …..

It’s there if you seek I promise you that !!!!