The Blessed Woman Endeavor

By Tondeleya Allen

Everyday life presents many challenges for women. We are not alone though. Masterfully created, women were born to be a blessing, to be productive, and to walk with God. Yet, distractions, dangerous perceptions, and unhealthy relationships threaten to derail our ability to fully experience joyful living. No matter who you are, what you're facing or what disappointments lie in your past, God loves you and wants to be present in your life. His awesome love will guide us, strengthen us, and transform our hearts and enrich every area of our lives. The Lord truly knows what we endure. The responsibilities of womanhood, marriage, motherhood and careers can be a tremendous deal to balance. Trying to honor biblical virtues, while combating today's worldly standards, requires wisdom and strength from the Lord.

The author shares interesting insights, food-for-thought, and stories entitled:
• How I Ruined My Husband's Life
• Cheering the Soul
• Destroying the Fairytale
• Serenity and Success Team
• Ladies Love Yourselves
• I Am Enough

The Blessed Woman Endeavor was written for every beautiful Christian woman striving to live for the Lord. The book explores our strengths, our victories, and how we can run a race that's pleasing to the Lord. When we make time with the Lord a priority, His grace is sufficient enough to conquer any trials we face, while maintaining a positive, hopeful spirit.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tondeleya Allen
• Release date: Mar 20, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201896591

Tondeleya Allen

Quick note from Author: "I'm God's girl. The characters, events, and thoughts in my writing are not always squeaky clean because real, imperfect people, although striving, never are. I strive to tell honest stories about authentic people in the most genuine way possible. And despite messy bumps along the way, I love happy, uplifting endings." Recovering chocoholic, eternal optimist, and home-schooling mother of three beautiful daughters and one handsome son, Tondeleya Allen loves to inspire and motivate people, especially women, to be their best, to believe in themselves, and to live the dreams God has placed in their hearts, regardless of their current situation. She believes that marriages can be like a piece of heaven on earth, when we center them around Christ. She believes that women were made to manifest God's love in every area of their lives, making everything around them more beautiful. She believes that positive, affirming words are like liquid gold. When we use the power of our words, we can transform our lives and create a more beautiful world. She enjoys crafting stories, reading, baking, cooking, gardening, saving money, upcycling, making jewelry, sewing, anything creative, and spending time with her family.

Book preview

Introduction

No matter where you are in life or where you’re seated in the world, you should know that the Lord loves you. His love is greater than anything you can ever possess or attain in this life.  You are precious, beautiful and valued.  Your worth is grounded in a Savior who loves you enough that He sacrificed himself for you.  You’re the real VIP with the most blessed ticket.  So, don’t let Jesus pass you by.

People often say that there’s no book on how to raise a child, live life or deal with relationships. Well, every crucial answer you’ll ever need starts with God’s word. Knowing the Lord and cultivating a relationship with Jesus Christ will guide you, focus you and tell you exactly where to place your next step.  You are not alone.  And you know what? You don’t have to do it alone.

The Lord’s love and will for you, for all of His children, are poured out on the pages of the Bible. His heart lies open just for us. All the best God has to offer for your life lies in knowing the will He has for your life. Great advantages come with serving the Lord. The proper order of how life should flow can be discovered and explored in God’s word.  Loving us dearly and longing to guide us as any good Father, He didn’t send us here with no direction or without purpose.

The Lord’s word transforms and nothing can or should try to take its place. His word is amazing, alive and active. His word caresses and consoles. His word equips us with the adequate tools to make the best decisions right now.

I’ve made some poor choices but I’ve also learned so much through years of prayer, tears and testing. It’s important to realize that every move we make and everything that we do, we’re choosing life or death.

Whether I’m talking to you as my sister in Christ or speaking as you, my desire is to share my experiences and to let you know that you are not alone.  God can restore and make every crooked path straight. You can live a life with God in heart and circumvent some crucial missteps of my life. Pretend that you’re my best friend in the whole world and I just won millions in the lottery. Well, as my dearest friend you might hope that I’d be generous and share a little. Right?  Well, I’m actually sharing something much greater than money.  Just take what you can use and apply what’s helpful.

The fact is that, until Jesus came into my life, I didn’t know how to truly love or receive genuine love.  I can tell you that I spent a great deal of time thinking about myself and what was happening in my life.  Through my relationship with Christ, I more fully understand my role and responsibilities as a woman, wife, mother and friend.

I’ve been smart.  I’ve been ridiculed. I’ve been loved. The greatest I’ll ever be is a redeemed child of God.  I know that now.  So, no matter who walks out of my life or leaves my side, I will never leave the Lord.

I love the Lord with every breath He gives me.  He is more real to me than the things I can touch.  I’m not a perfect woman, but I strive to live a life that pleases Him.  Yes, I am flawed, but that won’t stop me from reaching higher.

My twenty plus years of marriage and mothering have brought a plethora of experiences.  There are days that flow effortlessly like Summer rays.  Then, there are days when the water rises high and the mud gets deep and every step up the mountain is against the gale winds. This is neither fiction nor a dream.  I’m in the trenches. The clearing seems a million hard miles away, but I know with Jesus holding me tight, I can make it.  I’m in God’s country, where only His grace can sustain me.  So, I get back up, straighten up, stay in the fight, grow wiser, become stronger, and strive to win this race.   Yes, all the challenges are real.  There are no time-outs.  No tag-team relief in sight.  Not a single actor is used.  Yes, I perform all my own stunts. This is The Blessed Woman Endeavor.

How I Ruined My Husband’s Life

Our great love affair had a very tumultuous start.  I was cute.  At least he thought I was and he loved me immediately. Keep in mind now, I didn’t necessarily deserve, nor could I fully appreciate his genuine affections.  Daily, he walked actual miles just to sit next to me on our living room sofa for hours. Years later, when I realized just how far he had trekked, through some unsafe terrain, sometimes leaving my house in the dark, I was overtaken with sadness.  I was also a little embarrassed.

I was young and naïve, spoiled and entitled, temperamental and unkind at times.  I was often like a beautiful day at sea that spawns a hurricane with no notice, offering no way of escape.

There was just something about the passion of his courting style that I liked and resisted all at once.  He wore his heart on his sleeve.  Sometimes, I found myself overwhelmed trying to emotionally keep up with his advances. I had never had someone be that into me and show it on a consistent basis.  In every way he could think of, he was trying to show me how much he cared, actually going the extra mile for me.  And I didn’t always deserve it.

The ups and downs of our relationship continued for a couple of years before he enlisted in the Navy. As I sat in German class looking up at the clock, realizing that his plane had just departed for the Great Lakes, it was as though my eyes and heart were more open than ever before. During his basic training, there were phone calls with big phone bills attached (that annoyed my mother) and almost too many letters to count.  I missed him – my dearest friend - so much that I could barely function. Not wanting to miss a single phone call from him, I waited constantly by the phone. I almost seemed paralyzed.

He asked me to marry him, my heart flipped and I happily said yes. Now, the day we actually married wasn’t supposed to be our big day and he, having more wisdom than I, actually knew that it shouldn’t be.  When he returned home after basic training, he assured me of his undying love, but thought we should wait awhile longer to get married.  Upon hearing this news, I cried, but he held strong.  He made a great deal of sense and I finally agreed.  Just to prove that his intentions were true, we took a trip to the courthouse to get a marriage license.  My mother drove us.  Now, enter two women clerks, one complaining to the other about her husband not answering her phone call.

When my fiancé firmly let them know that we were only there to get a marriage license, one of the clerks replied, Girl, you know he’s just gonna go over there and marry some Filipino woman. Then the insult was completed with "Chile, she [meaning me] don’t know the game...The judge is here today. Y’all go on up and get married." Both of us offended and taken aback (and me a little confused), took the elevator upstairs and did the only thing a seventeen and eighteen-year-old could do. We got married. Later, I realized that my fiancé had internally reasoned that we’d just go through with it so I could save face and just have the whole thing annulled later.  Well, later came and I told him that I didn’t think an annulment was a good idea.

This became the famous moment in Alfred Hitchcock movies when the camera dramatically pans in and gets real close and personal. This was the moment I went from being my husband’s safe, cherished place to a nightmare come true.  This was the moment when the soldier returns safely home only to find he has to fight one more senseless battle. This was the moment I went from being his beloved Rachel to his unloved Leah. Simple actions can have dire consequences. The decision to refuse his request for an annulment haunts me to this day.

When you’re a young adult trying to find your way in the world, there are all kinds of trouble to experience. You can legally bind yourself with ease to situations that you probably have no idea about the repercussions or long-term impact.  I was a child bride with very little understanding, knowledge, wisdom or experience.  I had no idea what was expected of me.  All I knew about marriage was that my parents’ marriage hadn’t lasted, the Lord was unhappy about adultery, and marriage was supposed to be forever.  Now, I wouldn’t personally allow a seventeen-year-old to drive across country alone, much less get married.

In one fell swoop I had created a monster.  My husband felt emotionally trapped. I had stolen his car, set fire to his collection of Michael Jackson memorabilia, trampled the prize-winning rosebush in his yard, and he was now bound and determined to wipe my city off the map.  There are times when you sow the wind and reap the whirlwind.  The damage was so extensive that the years to follow were like riding a roller coaster through a never-ending storm.

Now, I don’t walk around thinking that the rays of heaven shine only on me. While I definitely had some help getting into this arrangement, I am not without responsibility. Did I have a hand in my own misery?  Yes. I am responsible for my actions, my inaction, my words and times when my level of sympathy or understanding was insufficient.  I accept that my choices, whether made foolishly or maliciously, create new paths and new worlds for myself and others.  My inability to properly see and respond to my husband’s pain and give him the freedom to seek out his path, no matter how uncertain life would become for me, led to chaos for both of us.

Think of the happiest, over-the-top, can’t stop smiling moment of your life.  Now, flip that moment inside out to find a place where only sorrow, blame and distrust exist.  That moment is what it’s like when you’re in an unhappy marriage headed for total destruction, with no grip on an effective remedy and no wise counsel within a fifty-mile radius.

The message attached to this pain is clear. Respect a person’s yes. Even respect their no.  Respect their right to change their mind. Respect no even when you know it’s not fair. Pay close attention to any signs of pressure or resistance and be careful to not add another ounce.  None of us have the luxury of being or remaining oblivious to the true needs of our loved ones. Ignorance never shields us from the aftermath of reckless living and choices.  We must respond responsibly to the needs we see in others.  Anytime someone feels pressured into anything by your hand or unconsidered by your choices, you will pay the price.  The person who demands their own way suffers in the end.

Most people tend to believe that the smaller their demands, the lighter the pressure. I don’t even care if it’s an insignificant thing.  If I tell someone that my kids can’t have ice cream or can’t watch a certain movie, respect that. People will pressure you until you’re out on a limb or standing in the middle of the street at the busiest intersection. Then, you’ll be left there to rescue yourself from your predicament.

With wide-eyed youth on our side and just the wrong amount of unfounded optimism, we fumbled around in our foolishness, looking for answers to heal our wounds. At the most critical time, we both received the most damaging advice, from people we hoped knew a little more than us.

Then, in the critical foundation-building time, with no clear roadmap to show us how to properly navigate the union of marriage, we both set off on an adventure- a battle of wills. Carelessly, we meandered, mixing glorious days with ones of utter confusion.

Our love never faded, but life was laced with survival maneuvers and poor coping strategies. Any happiness that peeked through often rolled into misery. When he was happy, I wasn’t and vice versa. And so it went. Syncing up and staying together seemed like an impossibility. Torn between bliss and constantly rubbing each other raw, there was plenty of blame to toss around.  It would take