A Rabbit Trail... Continued

Hello to all our fans out there (A.K.A myself and Emily). It’s time again for us to release another story. I am thrilled to finally release this story because this one comes from a dear friend of mine. This lady has quite the wisdom for being a young adult, but so relatable with all us women folk out there. She has such a fun, loving personality with a little dash of spunk. Her interview was full of laughter and rabbit trails (which I love). I hope you enjoy Her Story.

Her name is Michaela Parker.

Emily and I met Michaela at her workplace, which really captures Michaela’s passion: Music (You will get to learn more about that later on). It took us a little bit to actually start our conversation because we all have side track minds and wanted to discuss other things like how cool the floors were, which I mean they were pretty awesome with vinyls (records) as the flooring. We were finally able to begin, as we always do with Michaela telling us a little bit about herself. She starts by saying, “I’m going through a mid-life crisis… I’m just kidding. I am a musician. I also teach music to young people. It’s a lot of fun to get to invest in the younger people who are going to be the leaders of our country one day. I’m hoping that I’m not ruining them because it’s potential that I might be ruining them for the future, but they’ll be able to sing and play guitar (insert laughter here). I am Oklahoma born, raised in Kentucky, and I moved here to Birmingham almost two years ago. I feel like those are the most interesting things about myself.” Knowing Michaela, I also knew of few things about her, like the fact that she just got engaged in March and is getting married in this next year… Congrats to her and her BAE (which means before all else, I just recently learned what that meant). She didn’t forget to mention that, but she explained that it’s something that feels so normal and the next step so it’s just a part of her everyday life.

Since we were in her workspace, I asked her if she had any funny stories from work. She doesn’t have a lot but one of her favorites was when one of her students was signing and farted right next to her in their session. She explained that it was super funny and awkward. She goes on to discuss that she’s had a student cry, which is the not so funny moments at work.

After laughing at some funny stories, I wanted to get a little more serious. I asked her to discuss with us if she defined herself as successful in the career that she is in, as she is now fully engaged in the adult world at 24 (which by the way is super fun, figuring out the adult world). She explains, “If we are going by the standards of five year plans, which those things are awful because when you don’t meet those expectations it can be debilitating. According to my five year plan, I thought by now I would be gigging and doing all kinds of stuff music related, and I would be signed to a record label by now. I would even be a back up singer, I don’t care, really just traveling and touring. Definitely not in Birmingham, but there was a greater plan than mine. So successful in the eyes of myself 5 years ago, No. Nineteen year old Shayla, No, I’m not successful in the eyes of her. For me right now, I’m at the best place that I can be. I’ve had some hard seasons since I’ve lived in Birmingham, but you know you just have to go day by day. The success is really in the small moments just day to day. I want to make sure that I’m living my life in the way that I want people to know me, and obviously failing at that some days, but that’s the success of the day.”

We moved on to talk about how Michaela has a lot of wisdom to give even being just twenty-four, but I wanted her to look back on her life and describe something that has been one of the most challenging things in her life. She goes on to discuss how she experienced daddy issues, which the relationship has been now reconciled, but it’s taken a long time to get there. She starts by describing that her parents were having a hard time in marriage before she was born and she was surprised they lasted as long as they did. Her parents ended up separating when she was five. She explained that her mom remarried after her parent’s separated and they moved to Kentucky. That is when she stopped hearing from her dad. She said that she saw her dad only two times since the time she was eight. She explains, “I was trying to fill these gaps, and what is this suppose to look like. Even as I am about to get married, what does it look like for my husband to be a father. So that really was one of the hardest things that I had to deal with because I was filling my heart with all these things that were not satisfying long term… like one of those struggles was pornography. I’m going to get real. That was one of the voids that I felt that was gratifying at the time, and that started when I was about eight or nine until I was sixteen. That stuff effects you and you wonder why you start to do stuff like that because it doesn’t have to be that certain struggle but could be serial dating, and you’re just trying to feel gratified and satisfied by those things. When I became a Christian when I was fifteen, it didn’t really change a lot of my daddy issues, that didn’t really change until about last year.” She explains that she finally reached out out to her dad on father’s day through text and he responded by telling her that he tried to do the best he could and that he was sorry for not being present as he needed to be. She explains that this encounter gave her complete freedom in her heart, but she still struggles with trusting men, but is continuing to work through that. She also describes another difficult thing in her life was making the move to Birmingham. She states, “I was in Kentucky at a small baptist college and was doing life, trying to finish school. I don’t know why I went to college, I didn’t need to go yet. I was so miserable. I was going to take the reigns and do what I wanted, so Senior year I transferred. I was planning to go to Liberty University, but I did Student Life in the summer and two men named David Nasser and Jared Brown mentioned to me about coming to a church in Birmingham where they were. The thoughts starting creeping, and I wasn’t even going to do because I thought David was crazy. I kept thinking about, and it wasn’t that crazy the more I thought about it. It was closer to home than Lynchburg, Virginia was. I had never been to Birmingham. Then the Lord called me into that, and then it was like You called me and I’m going to go and some stuff kinda fell through and I had to go back home. That was the worst. But then the Lord aligned everything, like he always does, and I was able to move to Birmingham. With that, deep depression started because I had no friends. I was also having a hard time connecting with the people I lived with, but it got better. It was really hard in the first 3 to 6 months I was here. I felt completely alone and I asked God why he would call me here. This was the start of me learning that the Lord is my portion, and still I don’t know that to the fullest, but he was starting to teach me that in this now two year season of life.” She goes on to explain how even when she felt lonely and had these hard times that God was teaching her that he was still there and he was still calling to her, if she listens. She is still learning that, and is continuing to go through.

We transitioned to talk about how society puts certain expectations are young adults these days, especially going to college and having to have things figured out. Earlier, Michaela mentioned that she didn’t feel like she was ready to go to college yet. I asked her to elaborate on what she meant by that. She explained that she knew she wanted to go to college because she was always an academic student. She was even valedictorian, and it really wasn’t a questions. She wanted to be a music major, but as a lot of parents do, her mom wanted her to pursue something that would make a little more money and be able to support herself. It was really discouraging for her. Her major changed a million different times because she really wasn’t ready to be there yet. We discussed how there’s that expectation that you need to go to college, even when maybe you aren’t prepared yet, maybe you should take a year off.

*Side Note: I do not want to discourage young people not to go to college, we want them to truly know it’s okay not to know, and you don't have to do what society expects of you. We want the young women (and men) out there to truly be who they are and not form into what society says is okay and the normal.

We continued to talk about societies expectations in a more broad since of just what pressure society puts on women in general. Michaela talks about being more a tom boy and how that’s not really how women are suppose to be. She mentioned that she is a part of a movement called Beacon People (#befree). It’s all about having freedom in being a women, and having purpose in what God has called us to (Go Check it out). Her encouragement to the young folk out there is to “think about what is important to you and what are your values, what are your beliefs because if we just keep following everyone else, we end of being really empty at the end of the day.” Michaels goes on to talk about her advice for women out their in the world, and she really focuses on just being Free in the identity that you have. Truly just embrace who you are. She goes on to talk about how it’s important to know another woman’s story and to truly know what other women are going through to be more understanding and compassionate… exactly what Her Story is doing. :) One of my personal favorite quotes from her is, “Our differences can also unite us.” Honestly, there is so much truth in that. If we as women focused on how we all have differences and that’s what makes us each who we are, I think we could stand more united together and just embrace that every woman has something to offer to the world.

As we wrapped up our conversation, I wanted Michaela to touch on something that I always try to talk about in each conversation. I asked her to define beauty and tell us if she found herself beautiful. This is what she had to say, “When I looked in the mirror today, I said ‘Wow, wow… that is rough.’ What can I do to fix that? That’s how I look in the mirror most day. I’m not huge on makeup… my eye lashes are really short… I feel like my eye balls look weird… Now I’m just judging myself. The point here is that, no I do not inside or out for that matter. Most days I feel that I have been very ugly. I’ve had some ugly thoughts towards people, people who are made in the image of God. I ask myself, ‘am I actually baring fruit or am I just being the same ugly, bitter person I was 9 years ago?’ So much of that is satan, so much of it. He would much rather us to be debilitated by the fear of not being beautiful… but what if we woke up and saw our identity in Christ? But somewhere we are told that we are not beautiful, like it’s ingrained in us somewhere, mostly society…It’s like we just are throwing mud at each other, But our beauty comes in being free. The days where I feel that most beautiful are the days where I feel free and know that I am the Lords. I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”

She wants to leave you all with this, “All of the things we worry about day to day, life is too short to dwell on those things. To dwell about your hair being out of place, or to always have to be a part of things. Life is way too short. We could wake up tomorrow and the world can be chaos. It’s interesting how disasters always bring us back to our knees, and back to how simple life really is. But really just try to free of all those things of the world.”

See what did I tell ya, Michaela knows how to bring the wisdom to the table. It was such a treat to sit down with this sweet friend of mine and hear her heart for all you ladies out there. I hope You, the lady reading this, can resonate or take to heart what all Michaela has to say. We are so excited to continue to see where the Lord takes her in her journey, especially as she is in the season of engagement.

Michaela, thank you dear for being a part of our Her Story journey, and each story is so different and that’s why I love doing this so much. You are a bright spunky star, and never let the world tell you otherwise.

Also, a special thanks to Mason Music for allowing us to use their space to have our conversation. It truly was a great place to see Michaela in her element.

As always, thank you to Emily for being a great partner and photographer. She is someone who is seen on the side, but she plays a huge role in everything we do at Her Story. And thank you to our readers who actually sit and read the whole story. We are grateful to know that sometimes it’s more than just Emily and I who actually read this stuff. We would love to know your thoughts about Her Story, and if you don’t already, please subscribe to our website and follow us on Instagram at herstorybham.