Who is Momma Naturalista?

I want to use this post to write about why the name Momma Naturalista and who she is. I want to give a little bit about my background and why I’m so passionate about writing for moms and women who need and seek encouragement on a journey.

The beginning

I wasn’t always a believer.

I was a typical kid who was raised to know who God was, but I wouldn’t consider myself as a believer. In fact, I was quite the opposite. I was resistant actually.

Church to me was just following a set of old archaic rules that didn’t make sense to me. I was never the type of kid who would follow rules blindly (and I still don’t, not ironically). I don’t believe in conforming with the norm. If I see something going on or people following something, I question it to death until it make sense to me. I guess you can call me a challenger, or a questioner. So, naturally, I questioned religion.

I questioned existence. I questioned who God was. I questioned why we had to thank Jesus. I questioned why I had to put blind trust and faith into higher beings or a presence that I had never seen!

But God showed up and out for me! He is the reason for Momma Naturalista, and who I am today.

My story starts with witnessing the end of who I thought I was. I thought I was happy. I thought I was content. I thought things were going pretty well, but God didn’t want that life for me. He had more in store for me, and he wanted his daughter back. He wanted my devotion. He wanted my love. He wanted my trust. He DID want my blind faith! So he had to tear apart who I was in order to show me that.

I went through a terrible breaking to get to where I am now. So when I say I don’t take my faith for granted, just know that it was a rough road to get me here. I hope that my story provides some proof of that.

The breaking

The tearing and the breaking started when I refused to get baptized when I was in high school. Honestly, I was just terrified. At the time I didn’t realize it, but looking back, that is when it all started. God needed my attention, but I wasn’t ready to accept who He was. I wasn’t ready to accept Him into my life. He gave me so many chances, too. But refusing to be baptized I think hurt Him the most.

After that, God began removing things from my life that I had worked so hard to get. Family relationships and bonds I had created, gone. Best friends and friendships that I had since I was little, gone. Passions and things that I thought I had a talent for, gone. It was harder and harder to create new relationships with new friends, it was harder to work towards passions and talents that I had. Almost everything that I tried failed. My usual everyday hobbies weren’t even fun for me anymore. In 2004 and 2005, everything started to stripped away right before my eyes, almost every month. It was my senior year in high school, but it might as well been the end of the world for me. Friends were gone, my college plans I had been dreaming about and preparing for over 2 years were gone in one phone call, and personal friendships and relationships were ruined. All in that year. I was so devastated all that year, but then came graduation in 2005.

The answers

Then I stayed home and began State college, with all the dreams I still had left. Want to know what happened? Well you probably guessed it, those plans were dashed too. I had wanted to be a veterinarian since I was 12 years old. Seriously. I went into college in 2005 as a Biology major. But by 2009, I ended up changing majors five times. Life was definitely not going how I anticipated. In 2007 I lost my grandfather- a great God-fearing man who I absolutely adored and looked up to. It hurt badly to lose him. The following year in 2008, my father lost his long battle with lung cancer. My world was torn apart. I didn’t have any of the passions I had anymore. Personal relationships were affected and I wasn’t able to make new friends, even if I tried. All my life became was work and school. I wanted so much more for myself, but it seemed that the things I tried just fell apart.

Then, probably one of the worst things happened that could have. The strongest friendship of my entire life was ruined. It was my fault, but I couldn’t comprehend the magnitude of what was going on. I had ruined that friendship without even knowing. That broke me the most, and I mourned that lost friendship like another death.

Just to spare you all the details, let’s move to 2011. I was married, and I thought things were going to be great. But that relationship really had no basis at all. I had no idea what I was doing, and being in a marriage only highlighted the pain that I already had inside of me. I was a broken person, and I found another broken person who I thought could rebuild me. But, of course, that’s not the purpose God has for marriage. So after having my son, my marriage started to fall apart too.

So now I bet you’re wondering when does the happy part of the story begin, right? Belinda, this is so sad! How did all of this bring you to God?? Just stay with me!

Ok, so remember me being the rebellious kid who questioned everything? Who was always asking why? Who didn’t want to follow the norm? Well, she needed to be humbled. She needed to be sat down and made to listen to the answers. See, I was always asking “Why?”, but I never waited for a response, either. So God made me get really still and quiet. It’s hard to think about even until this day, but I truly believe that God needed my attention, and that was to learn how to love His son Jesus.

The rebuilding

So remember that best friend I had that I screwed up our friendship and I lost her? Well, God kept telling me to reach out to her. To get in contact with her again. To talk to her, and, most importantly, to apologize to her.

We did. And it was great.

Granted, our relationship wasn’t the same, but my friend did something so great for me, that NO ONE else on the planet could have done. She brought me back to church. She helped me get my first Bible that was actually mine! One that I could study. She helped me learn how to forgive myself and I found that forgiveness in church. Through studying the Word, I was able to see, like really see, who God was, why He gave us His son, who Jesus was, and that He actually loved me. Me. With all the flaws that He gave me. With all the mistakes that I had made. I really learned who He was.

So wait, before I go there, let me back up to early 2013. I had just (traumatically) given birth to my beautiful baby boy. I was bored being on maternity leave, but I was so emotionally connected to being a new mom. I wanted to talk to people. I wanted to share what I knew. Even with the little expertise I had. I just wanted to share whatever I could with others. So I started a blog. You guessed it, Momma Naturalista. But it was over on Blogspot (who else had a blogspot page??).

Mind you, this was around the time that Black women were finally expressing themselves through their haircare routines. We weren’t slaves to the “creamy crack” (aka perm for those who aren’t in-the-know) any longer. I was in the midst of embracing more of a “natural” lifestyle, starting with my hair. I was proudly wearing my natural hair and then it lead over to my diet. I stopped eating red meat, and just being comfortable with who I was and embracing all my flaws.

So after reconnecting with my friend again, my marriage began to evolve into something unrecognizable. I began to resent him. I was annoyed with everything, and we even tried therapy. He pulled further and further away from me. I didn’t even know him, and ultimately, I didn’t know myself anymore. So the Momma Naturalista, the woman who had a new zest for life and passion for others, returned to just being a shell of a person again.

But something remained. My friendship with my friend and my passion for discovering who Jesus was. I loved Him more and more each day. I felt the closest to God more than ever. I began to get quiet. I listened for a response after asking “Why?” and I sat even quieter when I questioned the response.

...And the journey

Now, things in my personal life still were going the same as before and God told me that my career as a Health Educator was done.

So enter back into who a Momma Naturalista is.

She’s a fighter, she’s a go-getter, she struggles, she cries, she’s walks even when she is in pain.

But she also never gives up, she fights on, she tries even harder after she fails. She never stopped doing something after God gave her instructions.

Momma Naturalista is a journeyer. She knows that if something isn’t going the way she planned, she doesn’t get discouraged. She doesn’t give up. She looks in her Bible for the answers. She listens for encouragement and guidance, and she keeps going.

The one thing that has kept me going on this journey is guidance. God has a way of answering my prayers by placing people, strangers really, in my life to help me. Now I know why He had to remove so many people from my story. He was making room for others to show up for me. If I didn’t make the room, I would have listened to the wrong advice. I would have doubt strangers who were able to help me even more than my own friends and family could.

Mind you, I still had close people in my life, but whenever I needed a specific prayer answered, God placed someone there temporarily who could help me. I would get the most helpful advice from strangers! I still do. Even though I didn’t realize I needed them. I needed to learn how to trust His people in order for me to learn how to trust His son! Wow!

Embracing who Momma Naturalista is...

So today, I’m not the Momma Naturalista I was when I first began this blog, or even this journey. I never intended to be a mommy blogger. I wanted to teach college-age women about birth control methods!

Today, a Momma Naturalista is whomever is reading these words today. It’s for you, not me. God has truly moved me out of my own way, so that I can talk to you.

"Momma Naturalista"s are fighters. We’re overcomers. We’re pursuers of love and life. Pursuers of passion. Pursuers of answers. Pursuers of encouragement. Pursuers of hope. And finally, pursuers of Christ and each other.

So, momma- who are you choosing to be today?

Love always,

Momma Naturalista, aka Belinda