ABSOLUTE TRANSFORMATION....MY GOD......I THANK YOU!!!!!

Mama Lion Is Dead. Shantrael Is Here.

SHE DIED YA'LL......

I have come to realize something.

And maybe I had to get quiet enough to hear it.

Maybe I had to lose enough.

Maybe enough had to fall apart.

Maybe enough people had to leave, disappoint me, misunderstand me, stop showing up, or simply become part of a season God was closing before I could finally understand:

I don't have to fight anymore.

Not every day.

Not everybody.

Not everything.

And certainly not battles God never assigned to me.

For the last nine months, almost every morning since Jaxon left this earth, I have awakened feeling like I was being introduced to another version of myself.

Who are you today?

What survived yesterday?

What died overnight?

What do we have to carry today?

And lately, so much has happened at once that I couldn't even answer those questions.

I just knew how to protect.

So Mama Lion came.

And baby, she came with teeth.

She came because I felt like everybody was fading while I was standing in the middle of the wreckage trying to understand how I was still standing.

She came because I had children to protect.

A heart to protect.

A legacy to protect.

A life to protect.

A voice to protect.

And when you have experienced enough loss, protection can start feeling like your permanent assignment.

But God showed me something:

Protection is not the same thing as peace.

And I have been called to peace.

“The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still.”— Exodus 14:14

That Scripture hits differently now.

Because I know how to fight.

Oh, I know how to fight.

I know how to advocate.

I know how to make the phone call.

I know how to show up.

I know how to find the answer.

I know how to protect my people.

I know how to survive.

But maybe my next lesson isn't learning how to become a better warrior.

Maybe it's learning how to put the damn sword down when God says:

Daughter, this one is Mine.

There is “a time for war, and a time for peace.”— Ecclesiastes 3:8

And I am choosing peace.

Not weakness.

Peace.

Because Scripture doesn't tell me that the evidence of God's Spirit operating in my life is aggression, defensiveness, hypervigilance, control, or constantly being prepared for somebody to hurt me.

It says:

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

That's my measuring stick now.

Before I respond:

Is this peace?

Before I react:

Is this self-control?

Before I allow something access to me:

Does this produce good fruit?

Before I call something love simply because I've known it a long time:

Is there kindness here? Gentleness? Faithfulness?

Because if the fruit isn't there, I have to stop pretending the tree is healthy.

And that includes examining myself.

Women Shed Layers Too

The Bible is filled with women whose identities changed when God moved them into another season.

Naomi left Bethlehem as a wife and mother and returned grieving both identities. Her grief became so consuming that she told the women:

“Don’t call me Naomi… Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter.”— Ruth 1:20

I understand that woman differently now.

Sometimes loss is so enormous that you don't recognize the woman who remains.

But Naomi's story did not end at Mara.

Neither does mine.

Ruth lost a husband and stepped into an unknown future with nothing but faithfulness and obedience. What looked like the destruction of one life became the road toward another. Her story eventually entered the lineage of David—and ultimately the earthly lineage of Jesus.— Ruth 1–4; Matthew 1:5–6

Deborah was a prophet and judge before Israel ever went to battle. Her authority wasn't created by warfare. She already carried authority because God had placed it upon her.— Judges 4:4–9

Esther learned that there are moments when a woman must find her voice and stand in the authority God has given her:

“And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?”— Esther 4:14

Hagar encountered God in the wilderness and called Him El Roi—the God who sees me.— Genesis 16:13

The Samaritan woman walked to a well carrying one identity and left carrying another. After encountering Jesus, the woman people knew by her history became a woman running through the city saying:

“Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did.”— John 4:29

Her story didn't disappear.

Her story became testimony.

Mary Magdalene knew what it was to have a past and still be entrusted with an extraordinary future. She became one of the first witnesses of the resurrected Christ and carried the news to the disciples:

“I have seen the Lord!”— John 20:18

And Mary, the mother of Jesus, teaches me something else.

Sometimes loving what God gave you also means eventually having to surrender what you desperately want to keep.

She carried Him.

Birthed Him.

Mothered Him.

Watched Him fulfill His purpose.

And stood near the cross.

— John 19:25

Women in Scripture were not powerful because nothing happened to them.

They were powerful because God continued transforming them through what happened to them.

And so am I.

Fourteen Years

For fourteen years, I carried identities that became so intertwined with Shantrael that sometimes I didn't know where the titles stopped and the woman began.

Shantrael Taylor.

Wife.

Mother.

Corporate Diva.

Founder.

Nurse Mommy.

Caregiver.

Advocate.

Problem solver.

Protector.

Mama Lion.

I knew how to perform those assignments.

I knew what everybody needed.

I knew how to show up.

I knew how to carry.

But seasons end.

And some of mine have ended in ways I never would have chosen.

I am no longer a wife.

I am no longer living the same motherhood I once knew.

I am no longer Nurse Mommy.

And now:

I am no longer Mama Lion.

Mama Lion is dead.

And I need to say something before anybody mistakes that sentence for sadness.

She completed her assignment.

I honor her.

She got me through something.

She showed her teeth when I thought I needed teeth.

She stood guard when I didn't feel protected.

She reminded me there was still strength inside a woman who had been hit by wave after wave after wave.

But God never told me to build a house there.

So I won't.

I Am Still Mommy

Some titles changed.

Some were buried.

Some were surrendered.

Some simply no longer belong to this chapter.

But I am still Mommy.

And motherhood isn't diminished because heaven holds some of my children.

Jaxon lived purposefully.

Darren lived purposefully.

Their lives weren't placeholders in mine.

They left legacy.

They changed people.

They changed me.

Their lives taught me advocacy, compassion, medicine, caregiving, systems, faith, endurance, presence, and a kind of love I didn't know the human body could hold.

They helped create the woman standing here now.

And I will never have to stop being their mommy to become who God is calling me to be next.

Their fingerprints are on the assignment.

Their lives helped me recognize my voice.

But now I have to use it.

Shantrael Is Here

Maybe that's what God has been doing.

Stripping titles.

Removing armor.

Closing chapters.

Revealing relationships.

Breaking agreements.

Exposing wounds.

Healing wounds.

Correcting me.

Teaching me.

Quieting me.

Restoring me.

Redeeming me.

Not because everything behind me was a mistake.

Because it was preparation.

Isaiah says:

“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing!”— Isaiah 43:18–19

And Paul writes:

“If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!”— 2 Corinthians 5:17

Transformation requires shedding.

A caterpillar doesn't negotiate with the cocoon because it misses crawling.

There comes a moment when what once carried you cannot accompany you where you're going.

And I think I have reached that moment.

I'm not trying to resurrect identities God allowed to die.

I'm not chasing what walked away.

I'm not forcing timing.

I'm not begging anybody to recognize what God already showed me.

I'm not fighting for spaces God is calling me out of.

I'm not explaining myself into exhaustion.

And I'm not calling chaos passion anymore.

I choose peace.

I choose love.

I choose joy.

I choose patience.

I choose kindness.

I choose goodness.

I choose faithfulness.

I choose gentleness.

I choose self-control.

And when I fall short—and I will—I choose correction over condemnation.

Because transformation doesn't mean I suddenly became perfect.

It means I became willing.

Restored. Redeemed. Released.

God has restored me.

God has redeemed me.

And restoration doesn't always mean God gives you the old thing back.

Sometimes restoration means He gives you back to you.

Joel 2:25 says:

“I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten.”

Maybe I once thought restoration meant everything would return exactly as it was.

I don't anymore.

I don't want everything back.

Some things belonged to the woman I was.

Some things belonged to the marriage I was in.

Some things belonged to Nurse Mommy.

Some things belonged to survival.

Some things belonged to Mama Lion.

I bless those seasons for what they taught me.

And I release them.

Because Shantrael is here.

Not the finished Shantrael.

Not the healed-from-everything Shantrael.

Not the never-cries-again Shantrael.

Not some perfectly packaged Christian woman who has figured out why God allowed every painful thing that happened to her.

Me.

Fully transparent.

Fully human.

Fully grieving.

Fully learning.

Fully accountable.

Fully loved.

Fully His.

And finally intentional about honoring the woman He created—not just the woman circumstances required me to become.

Romans 12:2 tells us to “be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

Transformation.

Not performance.

Not pretending.

Not perfection.

Transformation.

And I can feel it.

I can see it.

I understand things today that I couldn't understand nine months ago.

I understand things today I couldn't understand last week.

And I don't need to know exactly what everything will look like next.

When it's time, it will happen.

And some of it?

It's happening now.

So Mama Lion can rest.

Her shift is over.

The war belongs to God.

And when He calls me to battle, I'll come.

When He tells me to speak, I'll speak.

When He tells me to move, I'll move.

When He tells me to be still, I will learn to be still.

When He tells me to rest, I'm going to stop confusing rest with weakness.

Because I don't have to wake up tomorrow and manufacture another version of myself strong enough to survive what might happen.

I don't have to be Mama Lion.

I don't have to be anybody's savior.

I don't have to carry every title I've ever earned.

I just have to be Shantrael.

The woman God knew before anybody gave me a title.

The woman He knew before wife.

Before mother.

Before caregiver.

Before founder.

Before Corporate Diva.

Before Nurse Mommy.

Before grief.

Before survival.

Before Mama Lion.

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

He knew Shantrael.

And maybe after all this shedding, grieving, dying, releasing, restoring and becoming...

I'm finally getting to know her too.

Mama Lion is dead.

Shantrael is here.

And God—

I am forever thankful.

I am grateful.

I am listening.

I am willing.

I am Yours.

Amen.

~~~~~~SHANTRAEL