Tiffany Brown

Smokey Mountain Terror event in Kingsport, Tennessee

My friend and I made a trip from West Virginia to Kingsport, Tennessee for the Smokey Mountain Terror convention. We drove down on Friday, Spent at least 5 hours at the event and then came back to the hotel after stopping to get something for dinner. We are scheduled to come back home tomorrow, Sunday afternoon.

I had a blast and I’m am still in 7th heaven. I got to meet Sasha Roiz, Bree Turner and Silas Weir Mitchel from Grimm, but I was only able to get a picture and autograph from Sasha.

Me with Sasha Roiz and the picture I had him autograph

The empty booths where Sasha, Silas and Bree were but at lunch

I couldn’t help myself but I took a picture in front of Sasha’s booth

I didn’t get to talk to Erick Roberts officially but he walked past my friend and me while we were near one of the vendors. I made eye contact with him and smiled and he tapped me on my shoulder as he walked by. 😁

My friend got to meet and talk to Mark Dacascos from the Double Dragon movie, The Crow TV series and several martial arts movies. He was really nice

I snuck a picture of Corey Feldman while he was signing autographs

From Pitiful to Powerful | a devotional

Back in June, I submitted the following devotional for a writing challenge for Compel Training. They were going to pick around 40 some devotionals to include in a book that will be published by Proverbs 31 Ministries. However, I was recently informed that my devotional wasn’t one of the selected winners. The writing challenge was a lot of fun. I stepped out of my comfort zone a little & it was great practice for me. So, since it wasn’t chosen, I decided that I will publish it on my blog in hopes that whoever needs to read it, will perhaps see it one day.

“How could I be so stupid?”

“I can’t believe I did this again.”

“I’ll never change.”

“I can’t do anything right.”

One negative thought led to another and before I knew it, the enemy had turned my guilt over one mistake I made into a full-blown pity party. I felt hopeless & defeated.

I grabbed my prayer journal and scribbled the following words, “You know that I feel unworthy, defeated and hopeless right now. I’ve been wandering the same desert and circling the same mountain for years and I’m tired. It’s wearing me out. I’ve let the enemy defeat me in this area too many times and I’m sick of it. I am your child and have been bought with a price. In your son there is victory to defeat the enemy.”

Seeing those words written down on paper lifted my burden. It didn’t help my current situation, but it did help to dig me out of the pit that I had somehow gotten myself into so that I could calm down, release my worries to God in prayer and get His perspective on the situation.

The bible tells us in 2 Corinthians 10:5, NIV that “we demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” That means that:

We are never unworthy, because Jesus bought us with a price. (Romans 5:8)

We are never defeated, because we have the victory to defeat the enemy. (1 Corinthians 15:57)

We are never helpless, because we have the help of the Holy Spirit. (John 14:26)

And, we are never without hope, because our hope is in Jesus. (Romans 15:13)

What are some ways that we can practically take every thought captive to make it obedient to Christ? Here are things that have helped me.

The first thing I like to do is I get honest with myself and God by making a list of the lies that I am currently believing. After I make the list, I go through them one by one and repent to God for agreeing with those lies.

Once I’ve repented to God for accepting & agreeing with the lies, I search the scriptures for what His word says about my identity in Christ & the victory that we have in Him to defeat the enemy.

Lastly, I love speaking scriptures out loud. Hearing the words of the Bible come out of my own mouth has really helped me to internalize the truth, especially when I can personalize them and put myself into the scripture.

For example, “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for you, Tiffany, who is in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the Law of the Spirit of life set you free…” Romans 8:1-2

So, the next time you find yourself spiraling into a pit of despair or hopelessness, I hope you will take the time to capture those thoughts & replace them with the truth of God’s word.

Father, thank you for your word and the power of the holy spirit living inside of me to help defeat the lies of the enemy. When my thoughts start spiraling out of control and take me to places that I don’t want to go, please help me to take a pause and redirect them back to you. Remind me that anything that does not line up with your word is from the enemy and that I need to resist it and replace it with your truth, so that it won’t take root in my heart. In Jesus name, Amen.

The Lord Does Provide!

The following is a devotional is a contest entry I entered for Compel Training. The topic was on stress, worry and trusting God in the hard places of life. There were over 600 entries and only 40 were chosen. I wasn’t picked, but I really enjoyed the process and got some good feedback from a few close friends and family members. So, I wanted to share it here on my blog and hopefully encourage someone else who may be worried and praying about something. Keep praying. Keep asking. I’ve heard it said that God is no respecter of persons. What he does for one, He can do for another. 🙂

Anxiety took over my mind as a pile of bills sat before me and I wondered how I was going to pay them. I was living paycheck to paycheck and struggling to make ends meet. Not only that but my car was due for maintenance and I needed to pay my taxes and renew my registration.

Normally in the past when I was in a financial bind, I could call on my grandmother and she would usually lend me a hand. To which I am very grateful and blessed to have someone like that in my life. But I was in a season where God was trying to teach me to rely on him as my source and not my family.

So, I prayed over my bills and specifically asked God to either increase my income or to send money another way. I released the situation into God’s hands, trusting that He would provide.

During this time, I stayed faithful in paying my tithes. I could have easily quit doing that and used the money towards my debts or my car, but I didn’t. This is where my true test of faith was coming into action.

About a month later, God answered my prayer. Not only with enough money to take care of my bills and car, but also in the specific way I asked. I found out that I would be getting a bonus and pay increase at work. Then, unexpectedly, I got a $100 refund on a security deposit from my phone company. Praise God!

This situation of trusting God was a huge leap of faith and it got me thinking of the story of Abraham and Isaac. Abraham was asked to sacrifice his promised son Isaac, and without question or hesitation, Abraham took his son to be sacrificed. When God saw his obedience, he stopped him from sacrificing his son, and provided a ram instead. Abraham called the place Jehovah-Jireh, “the lord will provide” (Genesis 22:14)

One thing I’ve learned in my 30-year journey with God is that He can’t use what we don’t release to him. We can either pray & release our concerns to God trusting that he knows best. Or we can cling onto them with clinched fists trying to solve them on our own thinking we know better.

Letting go is hard, but if we truly know the one whom we are releasing our concerns to then it makes loosening our grip easier. Abraham trusted God because he knew him as faithful. However, if we don’t believe that God is faithful to keep His promises, then we will struggle to be obedient when we are asked to do that which we think we cannot.

In order to build that trust, we must spend time getting to know Him better and learning about His character. Then once we’ve found him faithful in one area of our lives, we know that he will be faithful in other areas as well.

Are You Following God’s GPS?

The following devotion is a submission that I sent to Compel Training a couple months ago during their annual devotional writing contest. I had never written a devotional before and I had just joined the website. The week after I joined they had a live training with tips for writing devotionals. So, after watching it, I decided to give it a try. I shared it with several people after sending it and got some positive feedback. However, I received an email this morning letting me know that my submission was not chosen this year, which I am OK with. Like I previously mentioned, I had never written a devotion before, but wanted to give it a try. There is always next year and, in the meantime, I can’t use this time to practice writing more and hopefully have a few more that I can submit next year.

I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my loving eye on you.
Psalm 32:8 NIV

If I’m being honest, I’m directionally challenged. I’m not the best at giving directions and I often need to refer to the GPS on my phone to find out where I’m going, However, on the rare occasion that I’m not paying attention or I’m distracted while driving, I still end up getting lost. Which happened to me several years ago.

I was looking for a park that is located several miles away from my house. I tried following the signs but somehow missed the one I needed and took a wrong turn. I ended up on this long and windy road with lots of twists, turns, curves, and no place to pull over.

I stopped once to let someone pass me, but I didn’t check the location on my phone and ended up going even farther than I had intended.

I started freaking out because the road I was on took me several miles from where I wanted to be. I tried calming myself down and stayed on the main road. It wasn’t much longer that it led me to a familiar place, and I was finally able to turn myself around and go back home.

Once I realized where I was I started laughing and, in that moment, I could almost hear the lord whispering “this is what happens when you don’t use the resources available to you or you trust your own instincts to lead the way. When that happens, you miss the signs in front of you and end up way off course.”

I love today’s verse in Psalm 32:8 that says, “I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my loving eye on you.”

The bible is often quoted as being “Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth”. And much like a physical map that helps us to know where we are going and how the get there, the bible is our spiritual map to get us from our point of salvation to becoming more like Jesus and be his physical representation while here on earth.

The bible also keeps us from stumbling over roadblocks and safe on the straight and narrow path. But if we don’t make use of the resources readily available to us, like prayer and bible study, we won’t know which way we should be going or if the path we are on will lead us in the wrong direction.

Unfortunately, I don’t always make use of those resources and end up on the wrong road several miles from where I want to be. All because I decided to go my own way.

But no matter how far you or I get off course, we can always pray out to God and through his holy spirit, he is more than willing and able to reroute us back to where we need to be. All we need to do is trust that his ways are far better than ours.

Stranger Things planner theme

Since Stranger Things five releases next week, I went with a planner theme this week instead of next week, since it’s also thanksgiving. I’m also rewatching the whole series before the release of the new season. So any week works for the stickers. Which are from Amazon, btw.

Planner is from sterling ink