Absolute TRANSFORMATION.........MANE......

Mama Lion Is Dead.

I have an announcement to make.

Mama Lion is dead.

And before somebody sends me a text asking if I'm okay—

Yes.

Actually, I think for the first time in a very long time, I am becoming okay.

Not because everything is okay.

It's not.

Let's be very fucking clear about that.

I have experienced enough death in the last few years to know the difference between something being okay and God keeping me while absolutely nothing around me feels okay.

And in the last nine months?

My God.

So much has died that didn't have a funeral.

My son died.

Parts of my marriage died.

Relationships died.

Expectations died.

Versions of me died.

Things I believed about people died.

Things I believed about myself died.

The future I had already pictured died.

And damn near every morning since Jaxon went to Heaven, I have opened my eyes and had to meet another version of Shantrael.

Who the hell are you today?

Because I don't know her.

Yesterday took something else.

Last week revealed something else.

Somebody I thought would show up didn't.

Something I thought would last ended.

Something I thought was true wasn't.

Something I thought I had to fight for, God told me to release.

And somewhere in all of that loss, Mama Lion was born.

She didn't come because I wanted to be hard.

She came because I was hurt.

There is a difference.

She came because after you lose enough, you start guarding what is left.

She came because I was tired of being surprised by pain.

She came because people weren't showing up.

She came because things were being taken away faster than I could process losing them.

She came because I am a mother.

And mothers protect.

So I showed my teeth.

I established boundaries.

I guarded the door.

I watched people.

I watched intentions.

I watched behavior.

I listened differently.

I stopped giving everybody the benefit of the doubt when the evidence was sitting right in my damn face.

And some of that was necessary.

But then God checked me.

Because there is a problem with always being Mama Lion:

A lion who believes something is always coming for her cannot rest.

Read that again.

You cannot simultaneously be prepared to attack everything and surrendered to God.

You cannot tell God, “Fight my battles,” while standing in front of Him with your sword drawn saying, “Don't worry, I got this one.”

No.

Either I trust Him or I don't.

“The LORD will fight for you, and you shall hold your peace.”— Exodus 14:14

Hold your peace.

Whew.

Not defend your peace.

Not explain your peace.

Not prove why you deserve peace.

Not fight everybody who disturbs your peace.

Hold it.

And I realized:

Mama Lion has been standing guard so long that Shantrael hasn't been able to sleep.

And God said:

Enough.

I Don't Need Another Strong Woman

Please don't tell me how strong I am.

I know.

Life has provided enough evidence.

I buried Darren.

I buried Jaxon.

I mothered medically complex children.

I learned languages I never asked to speak—hospitals, diagnoses, medications, machines, therapies, grief.

I advocated.

I worked.

I built.

I founded.

I loved.

I married.

I mothered.

I fought.

I prayed.

I questioned God.

I got angry with God.

And I kept talking to God.

I survived things that should have taken the language out of my mouth.

Actually—

some of it did.

I literally lost my voice.

Maybe that was part of the revelation too.

Because when you can't talk, you have to listen.

And I heard Him.

Not thunder.

Not some dramatic burning-bush moment.

Just truth.

Shantrael, you don't have to be her anymore.

And I knew exactly who He meant.

Mama Lion.

-*+/e Was Never Supposed to Become My Identity

For fourteen years, I knew exactly who I was—or at least I thought I did.

Shantra Taylor.

Wife.

Mommy.

Corporate Diva.

Founder.

Nurse Mommy.

Caregiver.

Fixer.

Advocate.

The one with the plan.

The one who could take nothing and make something.

The one who knew the medicines.

The one who knew the doctors.

The one who knew the numbers.

The one who remembered everything.

The one who showed up.

The one who handled shit.

And then life started stripping titles off me.

Not gently either.

Some were ripped away.

Some died.

Some I outgrew.

Some God exposed.

Some I had to surrender.

And some I finally had enough courage to put down myself.

I am not Nurse Mommy anymore.

I'm Mommy.

There is a difference.

I am no longer a wife.

And saying that after fourteen years deserves its own grief.

I'm not going to minimize that loss because other losses were bigger.

Grief doesn't work like a damn ranking system.

I can grieve my children and grieve my marriage.

I can grieve relationships.

I can grieve who I thought people were.

I can grieve the life I thought I would have.

I can grieve the woman I used to be.

All of those things can sit at the same table.

But they cannot decide who leaves the table with me.

God Has Been Undressing Me

That's what this season feels like.

Not destroying me.

Undressing me.

Layer.

By.

Layer.

Taking off identities I mistook for skin.

Wife.

Nurse Mommy.

Caretaker.

Fixer.

Protector.

Warrior.

Mama Lion.

And every time another layer comes off, I have wanted to cover myself because being this exposed feels terrifying.

But God keeps asking:

Who told you that you needed all of that to be worthy?

Before anybody called me wife—

God knew me.

Before anybody called me Mommy—

God knew me.

Before I had a company—

God knew me.

Before I had a platform—

God knew me.

Before I knew how to fight—

God knew Shantrael.

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.”— Jeremiah 1:5

Before the titles.

Before the accomplishments.

Before the babies.

Before the marriage.

Before the hospitals.

Before the funerals.

Before the grief.

Before Mama Lion.

There was Shantrael.

Maybe this isn't God turning me into somebody new.

Maybe He's removing everything life put on me so I can finally recognize the woman He formed.

And Women Know Something About Becoming

Naomi knew.

She left home full—a wife and a mother—and came back without her husband and without her sons.

When the women called her Naomi, she said:

“Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter.”— Ruth 1:20

That's Bible.

That's a grieving woman telling the truth.

She didn't come home saying, God is good all the time!

She said:

I'm bitter.

And God didn't throw her away for saying it.

Her story continued.

That matters to me.

Because I have had some Mara days.

Hell, I've had Mara months.

But bitter was where Naomi was.

It wasn't where God left her.

Then there was Hagar.

Rejected.

Sent away.

In the wilderness with her child.

And there she discovered something about God that became His name to her:

El Roi.

“You are the God who sees me.”— Genesis 16:13

Women who have felt abandoned understand why that matters.

He sees me.

Even when they don't.

Then Deborah.

A judge.

A prophet.

A woman operating in authority before anybody decided whether they were comfortable with a woman having authority.

“Now Deborah, a prophet, the wife of Lappidoth, was leading Israel at that time.”— Judges 4:4

She didn't need permission to carry what God gave her.

Neither do I.

And Mary Magdalene?

A woman Jesus restored became a woman Jesus trusted with an announcement that changed the world:

“I have seen the Lord!”— John 20:18

Do you see the pattern?

God doesn't waste women's stories.

Not the wilderness.

Not the grief.

Not the rejection.

Not the restoration.

Not the voice.

None of it.

My Babies Were Not Detours

And I need to say this clearly.

Darren's life had purpose.

Jaxon's life had purpose.

They were not tragedies God had to somehow work around to get me to my calling.

Their lives are part of the calling.

Their fingerprints are all over me.

They taught me how to see people the world overlooks.

They taught me how to advocate when somebody couldn't advocate for themselves.

They taught me presence.

They taught me that communication is bigger than words.

They taught me that a life does not have to look conventional to be extraordinary.

They taught me how much love a human body can hold.

They gave me language.

They gave me work.

They gave me legacy.

And yes—

they gave me a voice.

So when I step into my light now, I don't leave my babies behind.

They are in the light with me.

I don't have to remain Nurse Mommy to honor them.

I don't have to remain broken to prove I loved them.

I don't have to stop living because they stopped breathing.

That last one hurts to even write.

But it is true.

And truth is what I'm choosing now.

This Is My Measuring Stick Now

I am choosing the fruit of the Spirit.

Not as some cute church phrase.

As a standard.

“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.”— Galatians 5:22–23

So now I have questions.

Does this relationship produce peace?

Does this conversation require me to abandon gentleness?

Does being connected to this person constantly pull me out of self-control?

Am I calling something love that produces nothing but anxiety, confusion and chaos?

Am I behaving in a way that produces the fruit I claim I want?

Because this isn't just about everybody else.

God is checking me too.

I cannot demand peace while carrying war everywhere I go.

I cannot ask people for gentleness while sharpening my teeth.

I cannot preach kindness and use pain as permission to become cruel.

I cannot say I trust God and still insist on controlling every outcome.

That's growth.

And growth has hurt my feelings plenty of times.

But I'm choosing it anyway.

So Mama Lion Is Dead.

Not murdered.

Not defeated.

Not ashamed.

Released.

I thank her.

She came when I needed her.

But she cannot go where Shantrael is going.

Because where I am going requires open hands.

And you cannot receive with a fist.

Where I'm going requires discernment without paranoia.

Boundaries without bitterness.

Power without performance.

Truth without cruelty.

Love without self-abandonment.

Faith without pretending.

And peace that doesn't require everybody around me to behave correctly before I can possess it.

That's the woman I'm becoming.

Or maybe—

that's the woman I'm remembering.

“Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”— Romans 12:2

Transformed.

There it is.

God is transforming me.

And transformation is ugly before it's recognizable.

Ask the caterpillar.

Everything familiar has to dissolve before wings make sense.

And I think parts of me have been dissolving.

That's why I haven't recognized myself.

I kept thinking I was losing Shantrael.

Maybe I was losing everything that wasn't Shantrael.

My God.

There it is.

Shantrael Is Here.

I don't know exactly what happens next.

And for once, I don't need to.

I know what God showed me.

I know what is true.

I know what has ended.

I know what I will no longer force.

I know what I will no longer chase.

I know what I will no longer call love.

I know what I will no longer accept as peace.

And I know I don't have to manufacture the next chapter.

When it's time, it will happen.

Actually—

it's happening now.

I can feel it.

I can see it.

I can finally understand some of it.

I have been restored.

I have been redeemed.

But maybe redemption didn't mean God was going to restore my old life.

Maybe He was restoring me.

“He restores my soul.”— Psalm 23:3

Not my titles.

Not every relationship.

Not every plan.

Not the life I had before.

My soul.

And that is enough for today.

Mama Lion is dead.

Nurse Mommy completed her assignment.

Wife belongs to another chapter.

The warrior can put her sword down.

The fixer can stop fixing.

The protector can sleep.

I am still Mommy.

I am still a founder.

I am still a woman with purpose.

But underneath every title, every loss, every accomplishment, every scar, every relationship and every role—

I am Shantrael.

And for the first time in a long time, I don't need to become anybody else.

God knew her before I did.

Now He's introducing me to her.

And I like her.

I honor her.

I forgive her.

I trust her.

I am going to take care of her.

And I am going to be very intentional about what God has shown her to be true.

No rushing.

No forcing.

No fighting battles He didn't assign.

If God says move, I'll move.

If God says speak, I'll speak.

If God says fight, I'll fight.

And if God says:

Shantrael, sit your ass down. I've got this.

I'm learning to sit down.

Because the battle was never mine anyway.

God—

thank You.

For Darren.

For Jaxon.

For every version of me that got me here.

For fourteen years that mattered even though the season ended.

For every relationship that taught me something.

For every door You closed that I kept trying to hold open.

For every truth You revealed when I finally became quiet enough to hear You.

For restoring what actually needed restoration:

me.

I am forever thankful.

I am grateful.

I am listening.

I am choosing peace.

I am choosing Your fruit.

I am choosing truth.

I am choosing transformation.

I am choosing to live.

And whatever You are doing next—

I'm ready to meet You there as Shantrael.

No costume.

No armor.

No title required.

Just me.

Amen.