About the Author

Lucretia is a wife, mom of three, and a TEDx and Q Ideas speaker (Charlotte, NC, 2017). As a former college professor, she designed the popular ‘beginners’ course and study guide, What LIES Between Us: Fostering First Steps Toward Racial Healing. She is the creator and director of the Brownicity.com...

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things we love
& you will too!
Find more at
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Comments

  1. What a precious promise that God is with us in the mud, mire & mundane! Thank you for this encouragement, Lucretia! We’re in a season of muck & mire that has become the mundane but God is faithfully with us! What a comfort in the gross gritty ugliness of this season!

    • Ruth!
      Yes, we are not alone in our less than desirable circumstances. We can rejoice that we are cultivating. We are growing. I am sending you prayers of encouragement and increase.

      Thank you for reading.
      Shalom
      LCB

  2. Good morning. This was an excellent read. Thank you for sharing your heart and reminding of us about the wait. Waiting cultivates patience, long suffering and more. I love the use of nature and The Wiz. Thank you so much.

    • Ada!
      You are welcome! I am so glad you appreciate our connection to nature and The Wiz!!
      I am sending you prayers of encouragement and increase. We are growing.

      Thank you for reading.
      Shalom
      LCB

  3. Oh, Lucretia! This message is beautiful! Cultivating is a process… And results WILL come, because He is faithful. Thank you for sharing these encouraging words today. Blessings!

  4. What an awesome devotion! Thought provoking and practical. Spoke directly to where I am. God is cultivating. And, I am uncomfortable! So needed this. Thanks for sharing

    • Hi Sonya!
      Thank you for your encouragement. I am grateful that my words resonate with you!
      I am sending you prayers of encouragement and increase. We are growing!

      Thank you for reading.
      Shalom
      LCB

  5. Your words – regarding the muck, mire and mundane in my life – spoke to me through your encouraging words and examples of nature. I will continue to chew on your thoughts & let them germinate within.

    With Gratitude,

    • Hi Chris!
      “Germinate!” I see what you did there! Clever.
      I am grateful that my words resonate with you!
      I am sending you prayers of encouragement and increase. We are growing!

      Thank you for reading.
      Shalom
      LCB

  6. Lucretia,

    This touched my heart, souk, and spirit. I just came through a very long season of muck and mire and felt so sucked down into it. But with God all is possible and passable. He teaches patience and hope and trust and faith in those times. And today I can look back and see the path that I walked and the fruits that came from it.
    Thank you for this wonderful devotion as it helped me to take a second look at this journey and all that grew from it.
    Peace be with you.

    • Hi Paula!
      You wrote, “with God all is possible and passable.” I love that. I am so glad that you are able to see the fruit of your walk.

      I am grateful that my words resonate with you!
      I am sending you prayers of encouragement and increase. We are growing!

      Thank you for reading.
      Shalom
      LCB

  7. this is so encouraging Lucretia!! – thank you … I did not know that about the bamboo tree. Gives me hope, to keep planting, keep cultivating, keep humbly myself, allowing God to prune me and help me grow as He works in and through me to plant seeds that will bloom and grow in His timing and ways!! God bless you!

  8. Thank you. I needed this reminder and it is confirmation on what God spoke to me last week.

    Growing Slow….we’ve got this because God’s got us!

    • Hi Diane!
      Yes. Slow growth is necessary AND challenging in our fast-paced times.
      I am grateful that my words resonate with you!
      I am sending you prayers of encouragement and increase. We are growing!

      Thank you for reading.
      Shalom
      LCB

  9. Lucretia, this is a very thought provoking essay. I don’t think I’ve ever examined the waiting, growing period quite this way. Thank you!

    • Hi Irene!
      Thank you for the compliment. I really enjoy seeing myself through the lens of nature.
      I am grateful that my words resonate with you!
      I am sending you prayers of encouragement and increase. We are growing!

      Thank you for reading.
      Shalom
      LCB

  10. Nothing for 4+ years and then 80 feet in 6 weeks?! Wow!!! Powerful examples from the plants God made. That really drives home the point you made, “While we may perceive time as lost or wasted, we and our yes are being fortified for sustainability.” Thank you.

    • Hi Pearl!
      I know right! And we are also the plants that God made and cultivates. I am grateful that my words resonate with you!
      I am sending you prayers of encouragement and increase. We are growing!

      Thank you for reading.
      Shalom
      LCB

  11. Thank you Lucretia. I really needed to read your words today…and read them twice! I needed to be reminded…
    “While we may perceive time as lost or wasted, we and our yes are being fortified for sustainability. We can embrace our momentary mundane and know that growth is happening”
    AND not beat myself up if…
    “When that happens to me, I feel frustrated and foolish. I question the invitation. I wonder if I made it up. I wonder if I am suffering from delusions of grandeur – if my ego is trying to play God”
    Thank you

  12. Thank you Lucetria for this brilliant reading. Yes I remember the Wizard of Oz. Dorothy and her dog toto. Plus the tin Man and the Scarecrow all in it. Plus the Yellow brick road. I remember the song follow follow the yellow brick road. They followed it didn’t know where they were going. That is like us on life. We can be following the wrong road in our lives because we taken our eyes of God. We are going the wrong way. Then God uses something in our lives to get us back on the right road living right for him. Doing what is word the Bible says. But at times following God on the road or path he has set out for can be hard. As in this world you have so many things that try to distract you and seem sometimes more inviting. Something get the better of you and you decide to have a nosey. Then up getting into things God would not want you to have anything to do with. You have to then ask God to forgive you help you not be tempted to go that wrong path again. No matter how nice and temping it may seem. It only in the end leads you into trouble and things that are not of God. So we have to ask God as well to forgive us as I said not do it again. Ask him to have follow the path he has got for our lives. We have keep our feet on that path God wants to be on. Not be tempted to go on another path that not of God. It not easy with so many temptations about that see appealing to the naked eye. Then we can say ok I just go for a look down this path. No harm in looking. We get then trapped and that is what the Enemy wants. We find it can become addiction. We are then only getting ourselves into bigger and bigger trouble and further away from God. So we have to be very careful we walk and listen to God Holy Spirit guiding us and keeping us on the right path God wants us to walk and not go on the path that looks nice like the world would be walking that doesn’t know God. Sometime we have mud of sin on us as we gone done the wrong path that God does not want us to be on as his true Followers. So we have to ask God to help us wash the mud of sin of us which is the dirty sin in our lives from going down the wrong path. God will wash us clean and remove the mud sin we got from going on the wrong path because it seemed temping at the time. We are only some of us human we went for nosey. When God does wash the mud sin of the path we were on that not of God. We have to make sure in the tempted to walk that wrong path again do as 1Corinthians 10 v 13.says ask God to help us so that. “No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man. But God is faithful who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able but with the temptation will also make the way of escape that you may be able to bear it.” Especially if tempted to go down I path God would not want you too. Love Dawn Ferguson-Little keeping you all in prayer incourage.

    • Hi Dawn!
      Thank you for sharing your encouraging words! Yes, God is faithful and journeys with us.
      I am grateful that my words resonate with you!
      I am sending you prayers of encouragement and increase. We are growing!

      Thank you for reading.
      Shalom
      LCB

  13. Lucretia, thanks for the words of encouragement. We have to stay with it for it to make a difference. Yes, when things and situations seem stagnant, we need to realize and have faith that He is working it for our good. God bless you and I love you.

    • Hi mom!
      Thank you for your encouragement and your example! Your walk has demonstrated God’s faithfulness.
      I am grateful that my words resonate with you!
      I am sending you prayers of encouragement and increase. We are growing!

      Thank you for reading.
      Shalom
      LCB

  14. Lucretia,

    This is so me “But our microwave, fast food, have-it-your-way culture has shaped me to be at odds with slow, sustainable growth over an extended measure of time.” God is constantly molding & shaping us into the Christian woman He knows we can be. I found this out recently. Had been working part time at hospital as ICU Step down clerical for almost 3 years. Then suddenly they shut my unit down due to staffing issues. I was put in an ICU Covid unit. Less than a month later they offered-actually wrote the job for me a full time permanent position as ICU clerical. I would be assisting the other ICU clerical. About two weeks ago the other clerical quit. God used the ten years I spent dealing with aging parents dementia & working as a Medical Assistant (living in the muck/mire & mundane) to cultivate more empathy in me for the patients & their families. Great post!

    Blessings 🙂

    • Hi Beth!
      That is incredible. Congratulations on your new position. Your patients are fortunate to have you.
      I am grateful that my words resonate with you!
      I am sending you prayers of encouragement and increase. We are growing!

      Thank you for reading.
      Shalom
      LCB

  15. I found myself embarking on an initial journey into
    recovery. When I found recovery, I can’t even summarize how significant it was for me to talk to people, tell them
    what I’d done, and then be told to, “keep coming back” and that “this too shall pass.” But glad I did.
    With my career in the political arena at least temporarily done as a result of my actions.
    They say whatever you put ahead of your recovery will be the second thing you lose.
    I can’t agree enough.