“I depend on my faith for everything. It has gotten me through hard times. I was once evicted and I didn’t have a place to live. I survived and knew I had to go through hard times to get stronger. People I respect made it because of their hard times, so I made that part of my bucket list. I knew being evicted was part of me moving forward and learned so much from that time and speak of it with joy now. It took about a year and six months to get a place to live again. My cousin and her friend came to visit and they wanted to make vision books, cutting out pictures from magazines and taping them to construction paper as a collage of where we wanted our lives to go. I was the only one who did it, but it helped me focus everything. These are the things I wanted to be. I didn’t always have this faith. I had moved away from Mobile, but after I lost my sister and my mom, I lost my faith and moved back home. In 2006, I was at a restaurant with friends and a man looked at me and said God wants me to tell you to just trust him. He also told me some things that no one else would know. I started going back to church and going all out. One Sunday morning I was feeling so far behind everyone else and the preacher turned during the sermon and said, ‘God said you are not behind, you are ahead.’  She later prophesied that I would have a store. That was December 2006. I wrote it all down in mu journal.  It is a constant thread of reassurance that nothing happens by happenstance. There is a plan.”

“I had moved all of my stuff into this building and was selling here, but I could tell the owner didn’t care about the business anymore and he asked me if I wanted it. At first, I thought he was trying to set me up. I took two weeks to think about it and was terrified, but I knew if I didn’t do this, I would always regret it. I apologized to God for my doubt and fears and signed the lease. It was the best thing I have ever done. I have been growing and learning how to treat people and trying out new ideas, some work and some don’t. I pray to God for this to be a place of respite where people relax and feel good and buy something and they tell other people about it. Then they walk in and say this is a place of respite and bring back their mom and friends. A lady at church told me God told me to give me her mini van and she gave it to me. That van was essential and came when I needed it. I gave away my Honda Civic.  I had been praying for a way to advertise and then Lenny Kravitz came into the store in May. He was the perfect one. That man came in here and posted a picture with me on his Instagram. So many people have commented on that picture and people still come here because of it.”