Good morning. Good afternoon and good evening everybody. It's your girl Sonya McQueen with it's your life. What are you doing with it?
So today y'all, I want to come to you and speak about grace. I
Want to talk to you about giving grace
The same way you want people to give you grace to forgive others
From whatever
Whatever they've done
Intentionally or not. So first I'm gonna talk to you about what I
See grace as and then I'm gonna look it up
While I'm speaking to you I look it up online on Google and see what they say grace is but for me
I believe when you extend grace to somebody
It's giving somebody a
thumbs up a
forgiveness
That's okay
That doesn't deserve it
it's that person that really hurt you and
Doesn't understand that they hurt you. They'll never apologize
But you still give them grace and you still forgive them and
Some of you might be like, okay, that's crazy. I'll never do that. I said the same thing
But the grace really even though you're extending it to them. It's the same as forgiveness
Everybody doesn't really deserve your forgiveness, right?
but you deserve
To release people from your mind and that anger so that you can grow and prosper
I'ma tell y'all something
Forgiveness was the hardest thing for me
You wrong me want shame on you for the rest of your life, right?
I was not a forgiving person at all and I equate that or I believe that was because I
Grew up with so much disdain
you know just people doing wrong and
Acting like it never happened so when it happened to me
there was no way I was gonna sweep it under the rug or keep smiling and moving and and
and working with you and and you know hanging with you and
Was just not gonna do it. You wrong me shame on you and get lost
I'm done with you
But the moment I realized
Why I had to forgive people who wronged me why it was a must to forgive them my whole life changed
My whole life changed
Guys don't understand when you harbor and hold
unforgiveness
It eats at you
It eats at you it eats at your life it eats at your happiness it eats at your the way you think move feel
But when you release that person and say I forgive you and I've said it before and I know you've heard it from other people
Forgiveness doesn't mean oh now now we can vibe again now you can be in my life again
No, you forgive some people and just let them go
Like a bird you just let them fly away. I
See grace is the same. I see grace as telling somebody who doesn't deserve it. I
Hope you're blessed. I
Hope and pray that things go well for you. I
Pray that God gives you grace
Even though you don't deserve it
Even though you didn't ask for it, I'm gonna ask that you get grace I
Put grace and mercy almost together now
I'm gonna look up grace because my definition might be wrong, but this is another one of those podcasts
I don't quite clearly understand why I'm doing it. It was heavy on me and I woke up with this on my mind and
Then I listened to my Bible and it was in there and so I thought you know what I gotta follow the rules
So I'm
Defining grace is actually I'm being and it says
simple elegance note note
In Christian belief the free and unmerited favor of God as
manifested in the salvation of
sinners in the bestowal of blessings, so I think I'm on the right path
We're all sinners and we're all giving grace, right? I
Don't know if we can give grace to each other
But I know we can forgive people who don't ask for forgiveness
Maybe maybe only God gives grace and we forgive. I don't know
I don't know and I will ask somebody the answer to that but grace is the word that's heavy on my mind
Giving favor to those who don't deserve it is on my mind
You know, maybe it has something to do with the road. I'm going down now. I feel like I'm not doing enough
Heavenly I feel like there is something else I'm supposed to be doing and maybe that's tied into this word
Do you ever dream or think of a word and you don't know why?
Or dream of numbers and you don't know why there's this thing called dream moves
That sometimes I'll go and look up my dreams and they're so on point
I didn't look up grace though, but I'm gonna look it up
But I do want to ask you all and maybe the word isn't grace. Maybe it's forgiveness
Extend some whatever it is. I'm gonna stick with grace right now
Extend some grace and favor to somebody they might not deserve it, but
You know, we don't deserve everything we get God gives me so much grace I
Bump my head. I fall off the wagon all the time
All the time put me in a car put me in traffic in Miami
Everything goes out the window
all that
Singing Christian music and and dancing like David and having a good time in my life
All goes out the window when I'm driving in Miami
I'm giving the evil look
I'm honking. I am so tempted to follow people, but they shoot you here
And nobody's trying to fight they shoot you here. And why am I trying to fight because somebody cut me off in traffic?
I'm gonna offer them the grace
You know what? You don't know me personally. You just drive crazy. You might not even be from here
This place is a melting pot. You don't know the driving rules everywhere else
So I'm gonna extend this grace to you
Even though you didn't ask for it. You probably don't deserve it. I'm gonna just move into this other way
That family member
Yeah, I'm gonna put grace and forgiveness hand-in-hand and
I'll probably have to do a part two to this one too because I might be misunderstanding what was being downloaded into me, but
That family member who?
Just this treated you so wrong and they make no qualms about it
Extend that grace to them
Pray for them pray for the best for them
And in your heart forgive them
Even though they didn't ask for it because once again, it's for you that forgiveness is for you the graces for them
The grace is you asking God to bless them
Anyhow
The forgiveness is for you to say, you know what I release you and everything you've done wrong from my mind my heart my soul
You're released I
Think I get it y'all
Give that grace and
Pray that God blesses that person in spite of themselves
But you forgive for you
So many people really don't deserve
Your prayers or
Do that?
Maybe we don't deserve so many people's prayers, but we get them anyway, right? They still pray for us. I
Told you guys sometime this week maybe or last week or maybe it's coming. I don't know about
How when I was at my lowest point of my life I
Didn't believe I deserved the love of my friends and I just wanted to push them all away and it worked
It worked and
Maybe they forgave me
But I don't believe I got any grace I
I got it from God though, but I don't believe I got it from them because they were angry with me
For pushing them away. They were angry with me in the midst of my
self pity of my sorrow and my brokenness
And
Much later they forgave me the relationships were never the same and never will be the same they forgave me
But it was so different right it was so different of course sometimes you just can't go back to the way things were
But you can be forgiven and move forward
Forgiveness doesn't mean inclusion. It just means you're released
from my heart from my brokenness
Because
You don't own a part of me
You don't deserve
to
resonate
In my negative feelings and my negative thoughts and hold me prisoner
to hurt and pain I
Deserve happiness I deserve to smile I deserve to move freely
So you're released now. I'm gonna tell you guys honestly I watched I
Watched the show called court camp if you've never watched it
It's people in court and the crazy things they do sometimes to escape or you know
Somebody sitting in court and a family member jumps over the the little thing and comes and starts welling on a beat in a man
And you know the deputies and everybody the court people the bailiffs or whatever they're called jump in and it's just craziness
That happens in court
But I was watching one the other day in this guy
Had killed this man's son
No reason he didn't know him just in cold blood killed him and
The guy he was a Muslim. I believe I'm not sure but he got up on the stand
And he told the young man I forgive you I
Forgive you and I love you with God's love
And he said God had already known my son was coming home at the age of 22 and who am I to question God?
I am just grateful for the time I had with him. I forgive you and I will pray for you and I was crying
But I thought at the end when that ended I looked at my husband and said
There's no way I will forgive somebody for killing my child
But that was beautiful. I
Told my husband every day I would be putting money on books
Telling people you give this person the worst time in prison they could possibly have
Every day I want you to do something to him and here's another hundred dollars on your books
I would live in my car. I said to ensure
Well, I wasn't talking to my husband then but I would live in my car to ensure that person got what I thought
They deserved no grace no mercy no forgiveness
Would that really happen you guys I don't know and I'm just grateful I'm not in a place to know
And I know too many people who had a child killed
Personally people I call friends and associate. I know five of them
Who've had a child killed and I know two people
who've had a sibling disappear
murdered and
They have no resolution
Seven people that's seven too many
Now the two I know what what's on their mind their loved one
One of them the they've never found their their brother ever found their brother
My friend Janice to this day they have no idea what happened to her brother decades ago
My other friend they found his remains in a storage locker
Of course, they had to do DNA testing because you're talking years later. He was found in a storage locker
But they don't know who killed and then the other five
You know you have some people in prison
Who killed their their child or haven't been caught yet out of the five to they have no idea who killed their child?
I
Cannot imagine that kind of pain. I don't want to imagine that kind of pain, but let's just
For the sake of this podcast pretend I was living that
Could I forgive could I say the words I forgive that person?
To release it for me, so I don't carry that. I don't know
But I applaud people who can't I
Think that that is
knowing and loving God to the utmost I
Love the Lord and every day I try to know him a little bit more
But I don't know if he's instilled it in me to be that strong yet
But then again, I didn't think I'd be strong enough to forgive other people who hurt me the way I have
But then again, I didn't know I'd be strong enough to ask for people to forgive me for my transgressions
But then again, I didn't know I
Would be in the position I am in now to tell other people to forgive others I
Don't underestimate
My growth my strength my power and what's been embedded in me. I
Don't underestimate where I was 10 years ago y'all
I'm gonna go back to
2012 that's the day I decided to change my life
And started this path I'm on here in 2023
2013 is
The year I moved
2014 was the day I became a new new new creature because I was saved at 14 and
Then I asked for forgiveness again at 2010
And then yet again I asked the Lord to save me once again in 2014 and I haven't had to ask again I
Had to grow up
Had to be a more mature person had to be a better friend a better
girlfriend a
Better mother a better grandmother a
Better person and I had to ask Christ to do it
And he has not failed me so forgiveness was on the radar
Not only asking for forgiving it and
Some people I sent messages to some people I call some people I just did it for my heart and
And note down and did it
It wasn't to them because some people don't even know they didn't they need it
Like when I told you the young lady who I lived with
In in Texas who begged me and begged me and begged me for years to come be with her and
I finally did and ended up homeless
Ended up giving up my child for adoption. I
hated her I
Blamed her for everything
Not knowing it was my fault
It was my fault
Wasn't her fault. Nobody put a gun in my head and said move
And then when I got there nobody said even though she said what she said you have rights I
Could have done so much more
But I felt more compelled it brought me so much more
It took guilt away from me
to blame her
But in
2013-2014 I forgave her and she didn't even know that I didn't she didn't even know there was beef I
Was like, how'd you know we we were beef? We've had you not know we were beefing and we haven't spoken in years
Decades and we were best friends, but she was oblivious to it
And here I am every day carrying this anger in my heart. I
Tell you guys I promise you I used to think man. I'm just gonna fly out there and find her
I just got to release some of this anger and it wasn't gonna be verbally. That's how angry. I was all the time
Every time somebody read my book and brought her up I would be angry all over again
Just holding this anger and hatred in my heart for somebody who was oblivious to it all
So sometimes you got to just kneel down and say I forgive you and keep it moving
Because they don't even know you're not forgiving
Sometimes you just got to extend that grace and ask God God, I know they don't really deserve it, but please bless that purse
Please release them from whatever's holding them
In Jesus's name
All right you guys
It's something else when I wake up with something on my mind and I don't quite understand it
But the more I spoke the more I understood it. Maybe this podcast today is for me
Maybe it's for me. I
Think I've released everybody. I think I've prayed for
Other people, but I haven't and there are a couple of people I've forgiven
But I didn't ask for them to have grace and mercy and as soon as I fit in this
It will be done. You guys have a great day on purpose. You know how to find me
Sonia M at lead by motivation calm or led by motivation 07 at gmail.com
Have a great day on purpose. Oh