Awakened to the Power Within

You remember Dorothy, don't you.

Swept up in a storm she didn't ask for. Dropped into a world she didn't recognize. Surrounded by noise and chaos and people telling her which way to go... spending the whole movie searching for somebody powerful enough to send her back home.

And at the very end, Glinda leans in close and says words that should have made Dorothy holler:

"You've always had the power, my dear. You've had it all along."

Chile, she had been wearing the answer on her feet the entire time. Through every trial, every witch, every dark forest and flying monkey — the power to go home was already on her. She just didn't know it yet.

And I wonder today... how many of us are Dorothy right now?

The Storm Didn't Break You. It Relocated You

Somewhere along the way, a storm came through your life. Maybe it wore the face of someone who was supposed to love you right but loved you wrong instead. Maybe it was years of shrinking yourself down so somebody else could feel big. Maybe it was so gradual, so slow and quiet that you didn't even notice you were disappearing until one day you looked in the mirror and didn't fully recognize the woman looking back.

You stopped wearing the colors you loved. You stopped calling the friends who knew the real you. You stopped saying what you actually thought because the cost had gotten too high.

And somewhere in all of that, you forgot about the slippers.

Not because they left. They never left. Because somebody convinced you they weren't yours to wear.

But God Kissed Your Forehead Before You Even Left the House

Here's what the enemy didn't count on.

Before you walked into any of it, before the storm, before the confusion, before any person got their hands on your confidence — God already marked you. He already kissed your forehead like Glinda kissed Dorothy's. He has already placed inside you everything you would need to find your way back to yourself.

Jeremiah 1:5 says He knew you before He formed you. Not after you got yourself together. Not after you figured it out. Before. He already saw the whole journey ...the hard parts and the beautiful parts and He put the slippers on your feet anyway.

That power they tried to take from you? It was God-given. And what God places on you, nobody can permanently remove. They can make you forget it's there. But forget is not the same as gone.

Three Clicks and a Decision

Dorothy didn't need a new pair of shoes. She needed to wake up to the ones she already had.

And that is exactly where you are standing today, sis.

You don't need a new identity. You need to come back to the one God gave you before anybody talked you out of it. You don't need somebody's permission to be whole. You don't need to wait until the hurt is completely gone or the answers are all clear or the road stops being uncertain.

You just need to click your heels. Make the decision. Come back home to yourself.

Home to your voice. Home to your worth. Home to the woman God spent time and intention creating bold, beautiful, purposed and fully loved.

The power was never out there. It has been within you the whole time.

Wake up, Dorothy.

Your slippers are still on.

"I knew you before I formed you in your mother's womb. Before you were born I set you apart."

Jeremiah 1:5

-Kashmire Kay, Shine Suga Shine