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 if you listen to my podcast, my last podcast, I believe it was about my anniversary and how it almost didn't work because of our personalities and our lack of being able to bid for each other until something, you know, really significant happen in our lives, which changed us for the better.
Now, when I did that podcast, I actually did two podcasts and I couldn't understand why I did to and they were both about our anniversary, but one led more about the young lady.
She would love that I call her that because she is that told me he was going to be my husband and the other one was more of just the story, but they were both very mundane to me and listen to one and I was like, oh, that's horrible.
And I listened to the other I thought, oh, that's horrible, but I ended up releasing one anyhow.
So I really felt led to lean more into the second part of the same story. So, so what I kind of touched on but didn't really get into was what I was doing before I moved to Florida.
I lived in Missouri. I lived in Kansas City outside of Kansas City and I was the type of person almost all my life. I just never settled into any one thing.
I was finally at a place in my life where I was comfortable with a job. I have had so many jobs, you guys, and I actually envy people in a good way that work at one place and they tell you, oh, I've worked there for 25 years.
I'm about to retire. I've worked there for 3555 and I'm looking at them like what the hell the longest I've ever worked anywhere was in the military. And even then I was a part time soldier.
So, and I was in the military for 16 years, but still you're talking.
Well, for a while I did work full time.
AGR full time maybe for eight out of those eight to 10 out of those years, but anyhow, anyhow, anyhow.
I had written my books, right? And I was gaining a lot of popularity from my books and it was unwanted popularity. I didn't know what to do with it because I never asked for it.
And I was shying away from it, but at the same time I was living a life where I was able to go and do motivational speaking moments. I was the keynote speaker. I was invited here. I was invited there.
And each time I was invited, I would do the best I could, but my insights would be screaming at me.
Go sit down. Go sit down. This isn't for you. This isn't what you want. And there even been times I did a horrible job because I couldn't get out of my own head.
And I'll stand up there and I don't even know what I want to talk about because I've never been the type to write down or pray about or think about what I wanted to say until the last few years.
So I get up there very lost and I'd end up talking about the book more than whatever the situational occurrences. You know, maybe it's a conference for women who gave up their kids and instead of honing in on speaking positivity to them, I just tell my story and I'd be ready to go.
I hate it for people to kind of speak to me. I felt very in my own heart. I didn't want to be there because I felt like I was the worst person to be motivating anybody else.
But by chance, I was at an event and I met Paula, never seen her before. She never seen me.
Her niece seen me and was like, Oh my God, it's Sonia and she wanted to meet me. So Paula was like, Okay, I don't know her, but she brought her over to meet me.
Paula ended up buying one of my books. From there, I signed the book Paula finds me on social media and Paula is worse than me on social media.
All she posts is in her family prayer group. You don't see Paula posting millions of pictures and and on social media telling you about her whole day pictures of what she's eating the day what she's going through none of that she's worse than me.
But Paula found me on social media and she sent me an inbox message and asked me to lunch and I declined. I just told her my calendar was full and it pretty much was, you know, I did have a full time job on top of the book.
Signings on top of being a motivational speaker or keynote speaker or invited to be on the radio or whatever. And I had tweets still my youngest she was still living at home so my plate was full.
I had taken off. I hope I don't lose anybody but I had taken off three days for my full time job to move.
I lived in a beautiful condo a three story condo right next door to my favorite person in the world outside of my kids, my brother and I was renting the place and
I don't know I took three days because I had found a house and I wanted to move into this house and I applied for the house I got the house is a beautiful house.
It's just a beautiful house in a beautiful area. So I took off to pack up all my stuff and put it in storage. And once it was in storage, I went to my friend Paul's house and I was sleeping in on his couch I believe even though he had a spare bed room I preferred to sleep on the couch.
So I went out. Maybe tweet had the room I don't really remember but anyhow, when I went back to work, you know, I got a tap on my shoulder, and it was HR saying, Hey, come with us.
So there was a whole bunch of people walking so I get in line, you know, I'm walking with everybody else trying to see what they're going to introduce us.
They introduced our walking papers. They've released either 24 27 of us that day, painfully, because the company was losing money.
It was immediate. They allowed us to go back to our desk when we got there there were already boxes for us. So we packed up our boxes and I go to my car and I was thinking wow, I've never been fired in my life.
So a pack up and I'm driving in my phone rings and it's the people the realty company and they start off with we are so sorry.
I was like, okay, the area I was moving into you had to make a certain amount of money which I didn't know.
And I don't know if they didn't know or if they were oblivious to what I made but they said I made too much money. So I was not getting the house that I thought I was going to move into.
And if you're just patient with me there's there's an end to all this. So I had pulled over you know my my white Mazda tribute and I pull over and I'm like, are you serious they're like, oh, we're so sorry we're going to give you back all your money your deposit your your everything.
We are so sorry. So I'm just sitting there thinking what the heck. So I call the guy who owned the condo. I lived in now I'm sure he was fit to be tied with me because I've hardly ever paid my rent on time which makes no sense to me why I was so irresponsible with all the money I was making but I'm sure he was very happy to see me moving out and I called him to say hey listen.
The house I was going to move into fell through I need to stay in the condo and his exact words were to me. I'm sorry. I've already re rented the condo and the people are moving in on the first.
There's no coming back. So I'm thinking oh my God, I am living on my friend's couch. I have no home. I just lost this full time job which gave me the majority of my income. Jesus what now.
So I call my brother and I tell him what's going on and he's like well you know tweet could stay here. No problem. And I'm sitting there in a parking lot my phone rings. No joke is Paula this lady I don't know who I met one time she bought my book in person and who inbox me wants it's Paula.
I given her my phone number of messenger and she asked me do you think you can do lunch now.
And I just started laughing I was like well I guess so I don't have nothing else to do so we plan on meeting up the next day for lunch.
This is an important story you guys because it shows how being obedient can shift the trajectory of the rest of your life how listening and believing if you're a believer can make the rest of your life that much better.
So I met Paula for lunch the next day you know I didn't know her she had asked me while we spoke on the phone if I could bring her nine copies of both of my books.
Both she wanted nine sets she wanted to give them out she said she read my book and she was absolutely floored and how she thought that this was a story she wanted to share with her family.
So I brought the 18 books you know one of nine of each to her they ran a box and I met her in the parking lot first it was cold it was November hugged her up.
It was November the beginning of December but we go in and we sit down now mind you I don't know this lady and she doesn't really know me.
So I'm looking at her she's shaking a lot shaking her hands are shaking and and you know we ordered some drinks I think I ordered tea like always and she probably ordered a soda pop.
But she reaches in her person she pulls out this beautiful little bag and it's like one of those Asian bags that you buy little things in if you go overseas or something but I opened the bag and it's got a gorgeous necklace in it.
And she said I was led to give you this and I told her I can't take this you know I'm thinking I don't even know you woman but this is a beautiful necklace it was a gold necklace with diamonds on it so I went to slide it back to her and she said no God led me to give you that you're going to wear it on your wedding.
You know I'm the inside I'm laughing because I'm thinking yeah I just broke up with the dude I was dating about a month ago so wedding is not my future.
And it's what she said next that changed my life.
She said well.
Let me back up before I tell you what she said.
Before I got fired and everything I kept thinking I'm going to move I'm going to move from Kansas City I'm going to move to another state where I'm going to become stable and stay there and do something great.
I used to say that all the time but it was never the right time it was never the right time.
I know I've got this I've got this job I've got kids I've got I just couldn't see me really doing it it was just a pipe dream.
So now back to me and Paula.
She says to me.
It's time for you to leave.
I was like what.
She was like yes time for you to leave Missouri.
It's time for you to go and I'm looking at her and she said God said he cleared your plate you have no more excuses for saying.
I don't Facebook my thoughts my feelings my issues my circumstances at Facebook pictures sometimes of my grandkids me and my kids at the time.
Hardly ever even me on a date just simple stuff and always positivity always so nobody ever knows really what's going on in my life.
Very private very private.
So her saying that caused me to start crying because I had been telling people I was going to move.
But my plate was too full and those are my exact words.
And he did empty my plate.
I had no book signings coming up.
I had no speaking engagements coming up.
I just lost my job.
All my stuff was in storage.
My daughter was over my brother's house.
I'm sleeping on a friend's couch.
I had no home to move into.
I had nothing but time.
It was probably December once again when she said the date.
It was probably December once again when she said these words to me and I stopped being nervous sitting with her.
But I was like how do you know that and she said you know I struggle sometimes with telling people what the Holy Spirit is saying to me because they think I'm crazy or they dismiss it.
But he was on me so bad about talking to you.
I just had to tell you and let you do with it what you want.
I was so moved.
Now you guys I've never believed in prophecy.
I never believed in it.
I thought it was a hoax.
I used to hate seeing people run around church touching people and they're falling out everywhere.
Or you got a whole group of people speaking in tongues.
They used to throw me off because I thought I thought the Bible said if you speak in tongues there had to be an interpreter there but everybody's speaking in tongues and nobody's interpreting it.
I don't know what you're saying.
But anyway I never believed in prophecy until Paula.
There's no way in the world my brothers didn't even know I wanted to move.
The only person who knew so far that I had lost my job was one brother and it was just amazing what she said to me so much so I was gone by February.
I had been to Florida twice and just thought it was absolutely beautiful.
I love the trees and I thought you know what if I ever have an opportunity to move there I'm a move.
Well I knew somebody here who allowed me to come stay with them.
So I did.
That's a story in itself I'm not going to get into but I did and I stayed with them for just a couple of months and then I got my own place.
I got a nine to five.
I decided I did not want my books to be sold anymore so I pulled them off the shelves.
I just didn't feel like I was mentally ready.
It was too emotional for me.
I still hadn't healed myself to be out speaking to other people so I stopped speaking.
I stopped doing everything.
I stopped writing.
I stopped doing everything just threw myself into this nine to five.
Well.
I need Q.
And he asked me out on a date.
We have our first date.
April the 30th 2014.
Before Q.
The guy I was staying with.
We weren't really dating.
We were trying to see because he had liked me for so long and I just didn't feel him like that.
But I felt like Paula did tell me my husband was here.
I got to open my heart and my mind to the possibility just because I'm not feeling this guy like that doesn't mean this isn't who God has ordained for me.
So you know we tried to date or whatever and I just didn't like him that much.
But one day Paula calls me.
I never told anybody about this guy.
The only people who knew about me and this guy were one of my kids and his sister and his mother.
So Paula calls me one day and said are you dating somebody.
And I laughed and I said yeah kind of and she said OK well congratulations.
And so I told her just a little bit about him and we changed subjects and started talking about other things.
Now mind you.
I barely knew Paula still I met her.
I'm just going to stick with the beginning of December.
I had lunch with her.
I may maybe spoke to her once or twice again and I moved to Florida.
She became part of my my group.
I used to you know the newsletters and all that she became a big part of that and I used to have these conversations with everybody biweekly and she was part of that.
But nothing really personal to personal for her to know about this guy.
So anyway we just talk talk talk and in that conversation and that was that.
So when I moved out of this guy's house you know I wiped my hands of him.
He was exactly who I thought he was and he definitely was not sent to me.
And so I moved into the place I meet Q. He asked me out on the date I go on a date with him and we were together ever since April 30 2014.
We never separated from that time.
We became a couple around May and that was that September.
He threw me a surprise engagement party 2015.
We became engaged and the necklace Paula gave me.
I knew whatever I wore when we got married it was going to fit around that necklace.
She told me before I even came your husband is where God is going to send you.
And she also told me everything that I was supposed to do my purpose was here.
People started recognizing me asking me to come to speak you know little engagements here and there here and there and I would go and I would speak.
And I started writing a little bit again and I started doing things and I started growing in my job and elevating and just becoming this new creature this new creature.
Guys when I tell you doing that one little thing totally changed my life.
Let's put aside the necklace that I broke and broke down crying when it broke.
And I called Paula and I said oh my God the necklace broke I can't find anybody to fix it because it had all these little you know some necklaces if you bend them a certain way if they break.
I don't know how to explain it but I'm going to put a picture with this podcast of the kind of necklace it was and no jeweler could fix it and she told me calm down.
It's not even about the necklace where what you want to wear.
It was just about God letting you know what was in your future not about the necklace.
I still have the pieces of the necklace to this day.
Which was what 12 13 years ago 12 years ago.
So me making this move.
Was the biggest thing I've ever done in my life because it was bigger than meeting a husband.
It was finding my comfort.
It was moving away from what was expected of me from other people who didn't really know my struggles and moving into a space where God could talk to me and I could hear him clearly.
It was about releasing people from my life that were stagnating me.
And I was allowing it because I wanted to be stagnated and I was probably doing the same to them.
Talk about the same things the same people the same issues.
Nobody was speaking about growth and moving forward.
Here we all are 30 and 40 and 50 something year olds.
Still talking about the same foolishness every every time we got together.
There was no speaking about what are you going to do with your life.
You are at this point make a move make a decision.
There was none of that.
But I was able to move away from those just standing still in mud, water or quick saying conversations and moving to more powerful.
Godly conversations.
I was able to start having my I started having a monthly meeting with just women and those meetings were so powerful.
I mean they were absolutely powerful.
Now in the midst of this, I did stop doing a few things that I just didn't feel like I was ready for.
I stopped my motivational monthly newsletter, which was extremely powerful.
There was no reason for me to stop it other than selfishness.
I stopped speaking as I told you I had pulled my books off the shelves.
I wanted to concentrate on me and doing that I did.
I became a better person, I became a better family member, a better mother, mentally, a better woman all the way around and I felt bad for every guy I dated before I moved because I did this really good guys.
I just wasn't ready.
I had been through so much.
I didn't trust that people love me for me.
And so once a guy told me he loved me.
I would know that relationship is going to end so I just didn't feel like I deserved it.
I moved to Florida and learned my worth that I more than deserve love and not only that I learned to let my barriers down and allow people to come in and embrace me.
Giving up my son for adoption and the way my family treated me and the way I was talked about and discarded scarred me.
It scarred me and it made me feel like if your own family doesn't love you like this, why would people who barely know you or they're just meeting you at this part of your life?
Why would they love you?
But I found out why because I'm worth it.
I'm worth it.
Those untruths that people told about me do not define me.
I'm so much bigger than that.
The definition of me is what comes out of my kids mouths when they talk about me.
They're so proud that I'm their mom.
What my husband says about me, he is so proud, he cracks me up, somebody will give him a compliment about me and he'll say, yeah, I'm a lucky man.
And it's a running joke now, but I know he really feels it.
He really feels like he hit the jackpot.
When I know I hit the jackpot.
These kids I have, God just blessed me abundantly with.
Yeah, it was so much bigger than moving to Florida and finding my go ads.
It was finding Sonia.
She was lost.
She was sinking quickly.
It was the ability to re-release my books, which I just did like a month ago.
It was my ability to love myself and find my way and find my purpose.
This helping the homeless, the needy, the forgotten, the disenfranchised, the children, the elderly, all these people is my purpose.
Giving people a voice, being able to tell people, don't treat other people like this.
Give people the ability to apologize.
Don't turn your back on people so fast.
I know what it feels like.
And I'm here to tell you guys, when somebody has prophecy for you, don't close that door.
You run through it because me listening to that lady sitting across from me with the shaky hands has pushed me into my forever life.
Now, I am not sure if I've already said this part.
If I did, I'm just reiterating just so you can get the full effect.
When Paula called me and asked me, was I dating someone?
And I said, yeah.
And she said, congratulations.
That was it for that whole conversation.
Never asked me another question about that guy.
But when I first started dating Q, which nobody knew about once again, nobody knew I was dating Q.
We had not posted any pictures together or made it public or anything, but we had officiated the fact that we were in a committed relationship trying to see where it was going.
She calls me again.
I'm driving on my way to see him and she asked me, so I'm here.
You in another relationship?
And of course I paused and I asked her first, was she stalking me?
Then we laughed.
I said, well, actually I am in her exact words were, that's him.
That is going to be your husband.
That is who God purposed for you.
It is mind blowing what God will show some people when he knows you're not going to do right because I still hadn't made it to the point where I loved myself enough to think I deserve somebody to love me wholeheartedly.
But God knew.
He knew number one, I would listen to what she was saying and I would believe and it was the beginning of me.
It was almost the beginning.
It was a little bit before that of me starting to grow confidence and love for Sonia for self for me the way God intends for it to be.
He doesn't intend for you to put yourself down or to see yourself as less than or to let other people's words and actions hold you in a chokehold and you start believing the naysayers and the negativity about yourself.
That's not how your life is intended to be.
And if you have done something wrong, let's just say you have been on drugs or you were a thief or you were this or you were that.
Every person you meet has been something that they're not proud of or done something that they shouldn't have done.
Don't hold that against yourself.
You have the right to apologize and move on.
I've said that before.
You live your best life on purpose.
You live your best life on purpose and do not close the door to what God sends you.
Don't close that door.
The best thing I can say is he'll give you another opportunity because I'm sure Paula wasn't my first opportunity.
She just came stronger and harder and made me open my eyes and realize I have worth to somebody out there.
How many of you know the biblical story about Saul, later named Paul and Barnabas?
It was that interaction between Saul and Barnabas that pushed Saul, Paul into his forever happiness.
It was that friendship, that camaraderie, that connection that changed the trajectory of the rest of his life.
That's what you may be one person away from.
Me listening to Paula and taking what she said to heart changed the trajectory of the rest of my life.
Is there somebody that has said something to you, something you've seen of?
It doesn't even have to be a prophet.
It could be that one friend away.
It could be somebody already in your life, that one family member away, that one stranger away, that one boss away,
that one spouse words of encouragement away from pushing you into a better life.
I'm telling you sometimes all you got to do is step out of yourself and be willing, be willing and open to the positivity of another person.
Don't be closed minded.
It might be the difference between your tomorrow happiness and your tomorrow still wallowing in whatever you're wallowing in now.
All right, it is me.
It's your girl, Sonia McQueen with it's your mind, your body, your choice.
You can reach me at Sonia M at LeadbyMotivation.com or LeadbyMotivation07 at gmail.com.
Hit me up.
Let me know what your one thing is that changed the trajectory.
It changed the course.
It changed the direction of your life for the better.
Or let me know what you've done for somebody else.
And as always, if you want to receive our free newsletter, send me a message and it's as good as done.
Have a great day on purpose and do things in your life that are purposefully positive.