Graduation Dress

Hey everyone! Happy Tuesday. I hope everyone had a good Memorial Day, I was working :(
But it's okay I got to make up for it today by going shopping! Anyways this past Saturday I graduated high school! To be honest my favorite part of graduation was the dress I got to wear. I love this color blue! It's my favorite. I also loved the fit of the dress and the panels that lined it. The high neckline is my favorite (super classy). The dress was really simple so I added the statement necklace to make it pop. I paired it with nude wedges and straight hair!  Overall this dress was perfect. Sometimes simplicity is the best way to go. The key is not to take a simple dress and make it dramatic. Just go with other simple accessories that bring out the outfit a little more. The material, color fit, style, and length had me feeling elegant all day long. And it was originally $80 but on sale for $22!! Everyone loves a good sale!
      I hope you all have a great rest of your week!
               ~Love Sofia. 

Holy Spirit Power

             "But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you." Acts 1:8

    A few weeks ago my pastor did this really cool demonstration. He took a bottle of lotion and squeezed some out onto his skin. He then said "this is how some people live/view the Holy Spirit. They think it's just something that we put on and can easily take off. They allow the Holy Spirit to just gently brush them and not really take effect. The minute they leave church they think the Holy Spirit has left them and they go back to living according to the flesh and world." He then took the lotion and rubbed it into his skin. "Now this is how we should be receiving the Holy Ghost. Not as just a mere thing that comes upon you, but as The Spirit of God that fills you and gives you power and produces fruit in your life." This message really opened my eyes to how I used to view the Holy Spirit. I was squeezing on the lotion and not rubbing it in. Basically I was unaware of who the Holy Spirit truly is and what he does. But God began to deal with me and  open my heart to not just merely knowing about the Holy Spirit but to being filled, empowered, and overflowing with him. Being filled with the Holy Spirit and living in constant communion with him will change your life. The Holy Spirit will empower you, lead you, comfort you, pray through you, convict you, and speak things through you and to you. When we walk in the power of the Holy Ghost we are no longer operating in the natural but we are operating in the supernatural. So much power is manifested in the works of the Spirit. Healing, prophecy, miracles, breakthroughs. This Sunday at my church  a woman was brought back to life!! Literally! This isn't the work of man, these kind of things only happen with an out pour of the Spirit. These kind of things didn't just happen when Jesus was walking the earth. They happen now! That's why Jesus promised and gave the Holy Spirit. We have the same Spirit with us that enabled healing and was poured out on Jesus and the early church. It's amazing. Right before Jesus was lead into the desert to be tempted by the devil and go without food for forty days and forty nights the bible says he was "full of the Holy Spirit." (Luke 4:1). The Spirit enabled Jesus to fight temptation, hunger, and have victory over Satan. The Holy Spirit empowered Him. That truth remains the same today. The Holy Spirit empowers. So many people are playing patty cake with The Spirit. They don't realize the extreme power that is held in being filled with Him. The truth is it's time to stop playing patty cake and time to start seeking the face of God and asking for a hunger that can only be satisfied by the Spirit. Jesus told the disciples in the book of Acts that they "will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you." (Acts 1:8). Not just any kind of power, but the power to call things that are not as though they were (Romans 4:17), to shutdown the evil works of Satan, to bring healing, prophecy, deliverance, to produce fruit (Galatians 5:22), to edify oneself with speaking in tongues (1 Corinthians 14:4) , and the list goes on. The Holy Spirit is active. Jesus said "and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." (Acts 1:8) the Holy Spirit empowers us to preach the gospel. Life is all about glorifying God and sharing the love of Jesus Christ everywhere we go. The Holy Spirit enables us to go into the world and proclaim the glorious and life changing news of Jesus. How beautiful is that!? God cares so much about us that he gives us His Spirit to fill and dwell within us so that we don't have to walk in defeat but we can walk in victory and grace and lead others into that same truth. I am so thankful for these revelations that have taken place in my life. I pray that we stop neglecting the Holy Spirit in our churches and personal lives but that we realize the importance and power that comes from being filled with Him and fully embrace everything He has come to do in our lives. My encouragement to you is to pray for the Holy Spirit to fill you, lead you, and change your heart to walk in harmony with Him. I promise that when you start living attentive to and according to the Spirit your life will never be the same.

                             ~Sofia  

Outfit of the day.

 Happy Sunday everyone! And Happy Mother's Day to all of the wonderful mom's out there. I love you so much Mom! You're the absolute best. I love you more than you will ever know. 

I love today's outfit. I thought I would get a little dressed up for church today so I decided to wear heels. (I really suck at walking in heels and they hurt my feet so much so this was a BIG deal for me.) But the outfit turned out being really cute so it was worth it. My mom helped me pick out the shoes (she's the best). I love this top, it is really slimming and has polka dot print which is my favorite! And it was only $10 at Target! To be honest I have no idea where this skirt came from. My mom gave it to me one day and it was way to big and really long, so I decided to hem it and take it in on the sides to make it fit me. If you don't know how to sew, I suggest you learn, it's a powerful tool. :) I hope you guys enjoyed today's post as much as I do. Remember to love and honor all mom's! ~Love Sofia.
   

A Testimony of Power.

  Happy Monday! So I just have to share this 30 day testimony of my life that God has brought me through. It started on the night I went to Paula White's Unleashed conference (I blogged about it in an older post of course) In that post I talked about God putting me into a spiritual shift. Let me tell you, this spiritual shift was bigger than I was expecting. The next night after the Unleashed conference I watched the live stream of night number two. It was a  Bishop from Africa preaching and towards the end of his preaching he said something along the lines of "If you want to accept this I want you to pray three times a day 20 minutes each time for thirty days." I instantly new that God wanted me to do this. I was thinking "God how in the world am I going to do this, I am so busy." But I shut that out and said "I'm going to try because God is doing something in my spirit right now and I absolutely have to pray and I mean not just pray but storm heaven with prayer." So the next day I started praying three times a day 20 minutes each. God automatically started revealing things to me. I was praying in the middle of class and He lead me to opening my bible and He gave me the scripture How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace who bring good tidings,who proclaim salvation,
who say to Zion, “Your God reigns!” (Isaiah 52:7).  God told me right then and there "Sofia I have enabled you with beautiful feet to be a living testimony, to share with the world my love and greatness. You will bring healing to people through me. You will bring good news and proclaim my name to the world." Let me just tell you I started crying right there in my classroom. I was astounded. So as I continued in my prayer each day I found myself needing some direction on how to pray for certain things. So get this. I was sitting on my couch in the living room watching Celebration of Gospel on BET. Tasha Cobbs (one of the best Gospel singers of all time, that girl is anointed)  was singing Break Every Chain. So I was singing along and just loving it, and all of a sudden I heard "Go to the bookshelf." There are two bookshelf's  next to the TV in my house filled with books that my dad has collected over the years through his preaching and discipleship. I looked at that bookshelf and ran over to it. I began to look through, and the first one that popped out at me was Juanita Bynum's The Threshing Floor, How to Know Without a Doubt God Hears Your Every Prayer. Okay so I had just been praying about needing direction on prayer and now God has just lead me to this book all about prayer! Is God amazing or what!!!!??? So I began to read this book and study the Word of God and let me tell you I will never ever pray the same! God spoke to me through this book, taught me, showed me things. It's amazing. So I continued praying each day and one day I say "Lord I'm ready to go deeper. I don't really know what that fully means but I want to operate in the super natural. Whether it be speaking in tongues, prophesying, healing, all of it, whatever you want have your way." Then my amazing friend LaShonda invites me to her church and I got baptized in the Holy Spirit for that first time a.k.a I spoke in tongues!!! ( yes I already blogged about this). If your reading this you just need to take a minute and Praise God!!! I mean just look at what He is doing! I am so amazed that I'm being brought to tears as I'm  typing this. So after that I was pumped and excited but the enemy began to bring an attack of discouragement on me. I was being confused and brought down and dealing with nothing but straight flesh and emotion. I was so disappointed because I was feeling on fire and now this war was being waged on my mind. But let me tell you something the enemy can't win. The next Sunday I found myself being discouraged to go to church, but I went. I am so glad I did. The enemy was trying to get me to miss out on a Word straight from God, but like I said he can't win. I got that fresh Word and was filled with encouragement. Now, when I left church and went home to get ready for a life changing event that I didn't even know was going to happen, I began to battle with my emotions again. Here comes the enemy again! Attacking my mind and discouraging me. So I left my house with my best friends to go to a night of worship with Todd Galberth, Larue Howard, Pastor William Mcdowell and Tasha Cobbs in Orlando. Yes Tasha Cobbs! The Tasha Cobbs that was singing Break Every Chain and then God spoke to me and I received a book that will forever bless me. Keep in mind that my 30 days of prayer had just come to an end the night before. So we get to Deeper Fellowship Church and I'm like okay this is going to be awesome. I'm going to worship and see my favorite Gospel singer. I'm going to try as hard as I can to put into words what I experienced. I walked into the church thinking I was going to have a nice night of worship. I walked out of the church filled with the Holy Ghost and so covered in the presence of Jesus that even right now I am still feeling it. It was different than anything I've every experienced. Chains in my life were broken, the enemy was shut up so quickly. God poured His spirit out on me more than ever before I felt like I was on fire. Every inch of my body was completely praising and submitted to the Lord. Every fear was cast out, and right then and there my life was prophesied over. This 30 days of prayer wasn't for nothing. It wasn't just some "religious" thing. God was leading me and preparing me for this. He was preparing my heart to be filled with the Holy Ghost. He was preparing my mind to and eyes to see Him, to hear Him. He was preparing me to step into the supernatural. In the beginning I said that God spoke to me saying that He is going to use me to bring the good news and healing. I now believe this with every fiber of my being. God has called me so much higher and deeper than I have ever imagined. He has created within me a prayer warrior. He has birthed a spirit of healing in me. He has gifted me with the utterance of tongues and I only know that it doesn't stop here and He is going to continue to work miracles in me and through me. All of this hasn't just happened to just benefit myself, but to benefit those I come in contact with. I am blessed to be a blessing. For everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required; and to whom much has been committed, of him they will ask the more. (Luke 12:48). Another thing I want to mention is that in no way whatsoever am I bragging about myself. I am bragging about my awesome God and what He has done in my life and what He is going to do through me for others. It's not about me it's about Jesus and what He wants to do through me. He has the victory. The enemy has been defeated! It doesn't mean that there won't be hard times and attacks. The enemy is furious right now! But guess what my God is Greater so the enemy can stay mad and try and throw attacks of the mind and body but I have the resurrection power of Jesus Christ living inside of me so the enemy has NO authority over me and he's not going to come at me without getting attacked by the blood of Jesus. I am so grateful that I can have a blog to talk about this and share with all of you. My prayer for everyone who reads this is that God touches you. That He answers prayers that you have been putting forth for a long time. I'm here to testify to you that God is Healer, Redeemer, and He has something for your life. He desires to live within you, guide you, and fill you. All you have to do is let Him. Thank you Jesus. 

 Love you guys. ~Sofia

The only decent picture I got of Tasha Cobbs. You don't have time to be taking pictures when your under such a strong anointing. She was amazing. What God is doing through her is beyond words. 

Yes! Me and my favorite people. I love these girls so much. So glad I got to share this amazing night with them. And just look at the fashion in this picture....We're rocking it.
(Oh and thanks to LaShonda's wonderful sister for taking this awesome picture) 

Overflow of the Heart.

Happy Friday everyone!! I hope you all have had a good week so far. Besides being sick for a few days my week has been pretty good. One thing that has been on my mind recently are the matters of the heart. In my youth group bible study this morning we read this verse "For where your treasure is there your heart will be also." (Luke 12:34).  It stuck with me all day. I began to think about my heart and what it truly is consumed with and where it's leading me. Recently I've found myself trying to hold the overflow of my heart back. Why? God is doing something AMAZING in my life and for some reason I found myself worried that I wasn't ready. I really felt myself wrestling with the enemy and my flesh saying things like "Sofia you're not ready for this, you're not old enough, wise enough, you have no idea what your getting yourself into. Just stay in your comfort zone, your safe there."I begin to pray because I knew that there was no way that God was saying these things to me, but I just couldn't hear His voice in the situation. That's when I read this in the book I'm currently reading "God hasn't called you into His marvelous light just for you to sit there and gaze or to be afraid on this new level and run back into the comfort zone of the outer court. There's a divine purpose for you and grace to meet every need just beyond that door." (The Threshing Floor~Juanita Bynum). When I read this I was like, "Oh my gosh Jesus just spoke to me right in the middle of school out of nowhere I needed this so bad I might cry." God is so good. I've realized that He has transformed my heart, covered me in His grace, and because my treasure is Jesus my heart is with Him, and because my heart is with Him it overflows with His love and I can't hold it back! It's impossible. His work in my life and amazing love are to great of things for me to just let slide off my shoulder. As our hearts are filled with the Holy Spirit and love of Jesus, God begins to do a complete transformation and our lives begin to overflow with Him. The overflow of our hearts is something precious because when our hearts are overflowing with the love of Jesus we can touch others lives. I'm learning that as God takes me into this new season of life He isn't just blessing me but those around me. In this He has shown me once again that it's not all about me but about Him working through me to change lives, bring love and healing to the broken, and be a light in such a dark place. Take a minute to think about your heart and what you think it's consumed with. Are you giving it to Jesus or allowing other worldly things to consume it? Know that Jesus loves you so deeply and longs to bless you and use you as a vessel for His glory. In order for this to happen though you have to give Him your heart. Seek Him and when His love pours out on your heart and the Holy Spirit takes over don't hold back. Allow His love to run over from you into others. Leave your comfort zone and allow Jesus to take over, you will find yourself and others being blessed beyond measure. Love you guys and hope you all have a blessed weekend! Love Sofia.