#thinkingthroughpink

⭐️ Life Update (kinda long) ⭐️ I’ve been officially flying high in the friendly skies for the BEST airline since October 2021!! God has been faithfully blessing me on my Delta journey since I applied in July 2019 🙌🏾

Not many people know the WHOLE story! All the joy from extreme highs and the depression that came from the extreme lows of 2020! I’m beyond grateful for my life and health and promising career! I went through a longer than normal process to get into my passport plum to be able to ✈️ the world!

⭐️ Abridged version ⭐️ My process started with my application for Delta’s “historic” Class of 2020 in July 2019 with my application, next candidate assessment, then a recorded video interview, live internet interview and finally I received an invite to the final F2F (Face to Face) group interview in December 2019 that resulted in my CJO (conditional job offer) on the spot! 🙌🏾 By Christmas 2019 I received my training class date and starting prepping for my journey to begin the first week of March 2020!

On March 2nd, started with my “I” classmates and we were set to graduate 6 weeks later in April 2020. But then the COVID-19 pandemic happened and the world stopped and masked and quarantined globally! And after 3 weeks of rigorous training we were sent home because the pandemic - suspended for 18 months - without any notice it was over and no restart date in site! It was devastating after all the hard work we put in and the jobs we left to go back home without our wings and it wasn’t anything we could do about it 😢😩 But in true form and following it’s core values Delta brought us back and I started with “C” class 2021 in the beginning of September 2021 and after starting over for 6 MORE long, rigorous, stressful, challenging, but rewarding weeks I EARNED MY WINGS and became a certified flight attendant for Delta airlines. God did it!!!

I never knew what the future would hold when I applied for this dream job…career with Delta. But God!! I was able to met my forever friends/fam in 🔺 and I’m traveling the country and soon the world every week! In a year like NO OTHER! I MADE IT 🙌🏾 I’m still surviving and thriving and racking up air miles, pictures, magnets, hotel points, souvenirs, new experiences and memories while I travel to sometimes anywhere between 1-3 cities a day, multiple states weekly and I’m loving it!! It’s tiring but worth it! I’m losing my pandemic pounds from all the walking and hustling with my luggage through airports! I’m able to stay in some really nice hotels on my layovers and I’m meeting interesting customers and a good amount of fun coworkers. I’m a wiser traveler and still learning my best practices for working an energy draining job where you spend most of the time in the skies! I’m stronger mentally than I was in April 2020 and I’m happier because I’m living the life I dreamed of for the greater part of two years!

⭐️ Summing it up⭐️ Just look at me now! It’s 2022!! I’m just two days shy of 4 months “on the line” and enjoying racking up thousands of sky miles, flew SO many states, 2 countries, touched down in over 22+ airports, in over 22+ cities, and one continent! Sometimes I fly from one time zone to another and have to remind myself where I am…what state did I wake up to and where will I sleep at night. I spend way more time in hotels then in own my bed. But I’m enjoying it! So here’s to flying MANY more cities, states, countries and continents in ‘22 and beyond!!

Thank you God for this opportunity!! And Jesus please continue to cover and keep me as I travel, work, play and experience new things all over the world ✈️❤️💜

5 YEARS LATER… & Happy 5th Birthday Thinking Through Pink!!

**Song lyrics from “He Turned It” from the album Greater Than (Live) by Tye Tribbett**

“Yes there were time in my life when I thought I would NEVER make it

I almost went down

I was out for the count

I was through.

But it was then when i thought it would END that I stood again

What hell meant for evil

God turned it around for my good

The devil thought he had me

Thought that my life was over

He thought by now I’d give up

He thought I had no more

But that’s when SOMEONE 

GREATER

Stepped in my situation

My morning has now begun…

HE TURNED IT!!

Sometimes I look back and I don’t know how in the world I made it

All of those nights I would cry my heart SO filled with pain

WORRY consumed me 

My whole life revolved around FEAR and STRESS

I was tired and weak

I could not compete anymore…

The devil thought he had me

Thought that my life was over

He thought by now I’d give up He thought I had no more

But that’s when SOMEONE

GREATER

Stepped in my situation

My morning has now begun…

HE TURNED IT!!

He turned my mourning into dancing!!

He turned my sorrows into JOY!!

HE TURNED IT!!!!!

*insert PRAISE break: clapping, dancing, shouting*

HALLELUJAH!!!!! I mean REALLY this song says it all!! I wanted to make a really poignant/reflective post to celebrate this milestone, but this song was the first one on my “God Revolution ‘17 Spotify playlist this morning. It has been on repeat for hours now. I feel the urge in my spirit that I NEED to share it because it’s been on repeat since around 9am. I woke up a few times earlier this AM looking at my cell phone clock counting down the hours and minutes to 9:08am (that’s the time I was diagnosed in March 2012). I really didn’t sleep well last night thinking back to this day to 5 years ago. Back to those emotions, that sorrow, the worry, the heartache every time I had to call my family members and extended family (close friends) to tell them I had cancer. It was one of the worst days of my 27 years of life…right up there with the day my Daddy passed away in 2003.

I know I woke up from a few weird dreams, you know the ones that seem too real, but you know you’re dreaming. When you’re in the dream you can remember seeing faces, places, and things…and when you wake up you forget them all. 

After a while, I texted one of my bffs because she was in one of them…although I don’t really recall what the dreams were about I do know in one we were going on a trip to the beach with my family. I think my subconscious knows I’m craving a beach vacay!!

Anyway… we exchanged texts off and on this morning from 8:51am to around 10am. What started off as small talk about her being in my dreams, lottery winning, being rich, and the small amount of snow we received in middle/southern Maryland from “storm Stella” turned into her encouraging and lifting my spirits. I’ve been thinking about health and employment stuff a lot lately and it’s been making me anxious. I don’t want to go into all of that right now, but one of things I will share from our exchange I feel I should share because she really spoke to my situation…

“…what a testimony u have though. God has provided and carried u THIS long. a few more weeks is not going to kill your soul…u could have given up a long time ago but you kept going. u kept getting up. u kept praying. u kept going to treatment. u kept going to work. u kept trying so He will keep u. your blood flows w the tears of your ancestors…this ain’t (ish) compared to your testimony.”

Can she get an AMEN!! I needed that TODAYYY okayyy!!

She may not know how much that really meant to me, she REALLY encouraged my soul!! Tears welled up in my eyes as I said thank you God!! And thank you angle “angel” E!! :-D Reminds me of this scripture an awesome scripture in Thessalonians and I’ll share two bible translations>> 

1 Thessalonians 5:11 (ESV) “Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing”

1 Thessalonians 5:11 (NKJV) “Therefore comfort each other and edify one another, just as you also are doing”

I’ve been told my journey, testimony, story is an encouragement but truthfully (sometimes) the encourager needs to be encouraged. And that encouragement fills the spirit and soul to keep on pushing…keep on fighting…keep on encouraging!

So… 5 years after diagnosis…I AM STILL HERE!! Cancer FREE!! I may have scars, gained weight, lost some parts/things/people along the way… but my life was changed for the BETTER 5 YEARS AGO TODAY!! God did it!! To God be the GLORY!!

Here’s to another Cancer-versary my dear Jessica!! And Happy 5th Birthday to my blog “Thinking Through Pink”!! Please go back and read my archives and check out my FIRST blogs which were birthed from my diagnosis on March 15, 2012. I am thankful and grateful to my support system #TeamJessica for EVERYTHING!! WE MADE IT!! I have an awesome testimony and complete J-O-Y over this situation!!

J - esus

O - ver

Y - ears

(Just made that up…hahaha)

Love you all so much!! Thank you for your prayers, love, support, and staying on this journey with me!!

<3,

Jessi

“My Journey is the Reward”