Hello. So my name is Christophe de Dinchin. Try to say that three times fast. I hope you learn since this morning. And so I'm working for Red Hat. Nobody knows what I do there because I don't know myself. Vaguely working on Continental Computing. And today I'm going to try to show how to go from a Continental Computing host all the way to the workload. So what we are going to cover today, first a quick overview of Continental Computing that's a repeat for folks who wear their faithful and wear their this morning. Then we are going to show how to access a guest memory to steal secrets. We are going to set up a confidential host, which is extremely simple as you'll see. Then we'll try to set up a confidential VM. Hopefully everything happens as we expect. Then we'll discuss some limits of memory production. We'll talk very quickly about confidential VMs for instance on Azure and other places. But Vitaly explained everything about that this morning. So there's a better talk. And things like confidential clusters as well with a quick example of SLS Consolation. And confidential containers I'll probably have to skip for time reasons. And there is a workshop on Sunday where we'll show you how to do that in practice. So you're welcome to join the workshop for containers. So the problem statement is how to protect data in use. That is data in memory. And we use so the problem is that confidentiality is really the essence of trust. And it's broken right now in the cloud because your infrastructure essentially sees your data. So the software that you have runs on the cloud, also known as someone else's computer. And the hardware resources there are owned by that host. You don't really buy for this memory or whatever. You just print it.  It can be virtual machines. It can be other things. And we have many mechanisms in Linux. Elected memory, fruit, all these kind of things are designed to protect the host from the workload. The other way around, nobody really cared about. In other words, someone who has root access on the host can fully look at the files for your containers, look inside the memory, and so on. And so that means that if you have competitors on the same hardware, they tend to not be very at ease to put really confidential stuff there because nothing tells them that their competitor did not pay the CIS admin more than they did. And so in the end, maybe their data is being shared. So we have solutions for data on disk or data in transit, networking, et cetera, so that the host essentially cannot really know what you have when you use an encrypted volume, for instance, normally you're safe. For memory, it's a different problem. And there's tons of secrets that run there. And these secrets, well, there may be a transient that may be moving fast, but you can still extract pretty much anything from it if you know how to look. And so what confidential computing first added was a way to encrypt memory. And the encryption is not necessarily super strong, which is why I'm not using a super strong encryption there either. But it's very fast. It happens on every write to memory. And so it really offers some serious production anyway. And then can I take that question at the end? That's an excellent question. The short answer to that is that the encryption is really normally not visible to the host at all, and dependent on the page, dependent on location, and other aspects that make it, in practice, hard to break. What could work well would be replay attacks on a given page, for instance. That would work better, because that encryption mechanism would be the same for that page. But we can take that later. That's a very good question. And when I say weak, it's not super weak either, right? It's still relatively serious. So there is also integrity production for the CPU state, essentially to make sure that the hypervisor cannot make your workload do whatever they want by changing the address of execution or some registers in the CPU state. And one thing that I covered extensively this morning was proving that what you run is what you want through mechanisms known as attestation, and that give you some cryptographic counties about what you're running. OK, so let's go to some real meat.  Today we are going to look at a real system. And I would have liked to do that live, but I explain in a moment why I did not do it live. So I'm going to comment what I recorded. So we have a FETA-R38 system. It has a relatively recent Linux, 6.2.14. And it's running with 16 CPUs. So that's an Epic 16 core. So that's a relatively serious machine with a CV and a CV S&P available on it. That's what I'm going to use for this demo today. So in terms of what the machine looks like when you remote connect. So that really depends on the machine. But you have typically web access like this. And you can look, for instance, at BIOS settings when it starts. That's the good old fashioned way of doing it. So I'm going to skip a little forward in the setup. You can access the BIOS the old ways with hitting the F12 or F2 or whatever it depends on the machine. What matters there is that we are going to look at the processor settings and check that we have secure nested paging enabled. So you can see that at the bottom of there. So that's essentially the thing that re-matters in your configuration there. And of course, the way you do that depends on the machine. So the rest is not specifically interesting.  And so older firmware may have BIOS issues. OK, so nothing really, really special otherwise. We can boot the machine and look at the virtual console. And you get just your regular text-only mode Linux. This also supports graphical mode. So the more modern we are doing that is to go through the web interface like this. So you have, as always, the place depends on where you are. But you have system settings. And you can see again that you have your secure nested paging somewhere in the middle there. That's called 2-Fast. It's a bit above. So you see it's a secure memory encryption, secure nested paging at the bottom of the page. OK, so I think that's about for this page. So we can check that we have some host-level SCV support simply by looking at the message log. And that's essentially all we can do without additional software. OK, so in order to be able to do some kind of demo, I'll have to use a little bit of extra software.  So you enable a special copper for that. And then you install what you need. And I forgot one of the packages is there, which is Libert's human client. So nothing really complicated, but you need essentially a hypervisor, a manager for that. So you're not very surprised so far, I guess. So now we can check with self-color. We can check a little more about what our machine has inside. So it has support for a CV, a CVES, and a CVSMP. And now you all know what this means. We also need to record these numbers that we have there, the number of physical bits, reduction, the CVIT location, and stuff like that. We'll need that later. So let's just remember for now, 51.5. We can also check that we have a kernel that has enabled the AMD support. And we can check that our Libert also has support for this kind of features. So the DOM capabilities will tell us, if there is an SUV section in there, then your Libert also has support for that. So this is essentially a pre-flight check to be sure that your machine has what you need. And again, we have these reduced face bits and the 51. And of course, you can now notice that the number of reduced face bits is not the same between the two. And you're starting to scratch your head and say, OK, something in there does not cook. Well, which one will I use? We'll see. OK, it doesn't. So KCLI, I assume most of you don't really know what KCLI is. It's a sort of a quick user interface to create VMs, create clusters. And it has vice-backends that can use Libert. So here, I'm going to use Libert. And so I create a default pool for that. I essentially reset that machine initially before doing all that, except I forgot to reset the network. So let me just delete the network, reset, recreate, so that you can see how you get started setting up a special network for your machines. And we can skip a little. And now I have no VM. And these are the images I played with. One interesting thing with KCLI is you can list all the available images. And you see there's a number. And that's, for me, the best tool, for instance, to install things like R-Cos or REL, compared to the others. It saves you a few steps in terms of being able to deploy this kind of operating system. So this is essentially the basics for what you can do with it. So we are going to, in the first run, create a regular VM and steal data from it. So to run a VM, you use the KCLI create VM. The dash i is I want the Fedora 38 image. I want four CPUs. And I want four gigs of memory. And I'm going to pass a root password, which is one of the secrets I'm going to look for. So please remember that secret. We'll use it later. So now I connect to my console. And I check that the machine boots. So far, it looks good. I'm happy with it. And you see that there is some cloud-init magic happening behind my back. I log in. I type strumpf, which is the French for strumpf. And KCLI already sets up for me SSH and stuff like that. So that means instead of going through the serial console, I can use a more serious tool and use SSH, because now we really care about secrecy and stuff like that. So I'm going to SSH into my test VM. And you see that I'm user Fedora there. So KCLI has this idea that, depending on the image, it can actually create a user for you and do not necessarily log in as root. But you can also log as root. And we are going to do that to check that there is no ACV inside. So no ACV support in this VM, the way I created it. Just a regular thing. And let's try to now inject a typical C program in there. So that's high-quality C code. QE told me you'd better run that in a VM, please. So they told me there is a bug or two in there. I don't know. Looks good to me when I compile and compile. There's barely a little one or two. Let me copy that to my VM. So I have the scp command as well. That's fine. And I connect to it. And then I'm going to run. And of course, it's going to run perfectly well, like any C program. So it's not exactly what I expected. That's not the message I put in there, but close enough. Ship it. So now I have this program. And I'm going to do something slightly more complicated. So this one, I have to look up the documentation every time I want to use it. And I'm going to dump the memory of the guest. So that's why there is a pause there, because I'm thinking, OK, where is my documentation? Where do I copy and paste this stuff? And also because I discovered at this time that reinstalling everything caused me to lose my completions. That's also because. So I'm going to use the QMU monitor command and execute a dump guest memory. And the arguments are, it's very user-friendly. It has all the quotes and backslash and curly braces you want. And I'm going to use a protocol, which is file colon something to dump to a file, which why not just file colon, but I don't know. But it's essentially I'm dumping the memory of my guest into this place. You can also do something like gcore. If you do that, you're going to have some other stuff than the guest memory. That's why it's better to do it that way. And you see this disconnected from QMU system doesn't look really good. In reality, that's probably why my machine ended up being a bit screwed, but we'll see later. So now I can drape for my secret. That was in my C program. And you see, I have a match. So let me check with Emacs what I see inside my guest memory. Emacs is being completely designed to open 4G files. So it takes a few seconds to open. It does want me. 4G is big. Do you really want to do that? But then it displays the stuff the way it should be displayed with tons of zeros control at. And now I look for secret. And I find my, hey, really secret stuff right in there. So my C program does not emit that message, but at least I see it in the memory. So I know I did load the right program. Now what if I search for my strong password? Well, of course, I find this as well. And I find it in this nice little snippet of script. So hey, that's perfectly unsafe. I'm happy because that's sort of what I wanted to demonstrate, right? So success for some definition of success, of course. So let's try to fix that. And you'll see that it's really, really super easy. Don't worry. So let's first try to make our VM compatible with what you need for continuous computing. So unfortunately, KCLI still creates all style VMs. So I have to change the hardware to say I want a more recent Q35 stuff. So let me do that. I replace PC440FX with Commu. And then it complains because, oh, now I need PCI. OK, so let me fix that too. So I need to fix my devices. The good thing about Libvert is that it checks tons of stuff for you. And then it complains about the addresses being wrong. So I just remove everything. It's going to recompute a set of addresses that match. Usually works. And the next thing I need to do is replace my SATA disk with SCSI disks. And normally I should be more or less in a good shape after that. So what I'm doing here is only trying to make my machine compatible with the kind of hardware I need for virtual machine. So OK, now I forgot something. And I mentioned the SCSI stuff. And I did not do it, so let me fix that. And that's because the devices you are going to pass in your VM need to be protected somewhere. So you need to have IOMMU active everywhere. And to have IOMMU active, you essentially need to convert to Verteios SCSI and stuff like that. So that's what I'm doing here, converting to Verteios SCSI. And everything should be pitchy. OK, so let's start my VM and check that it's still alive. Come on, don't do typos. My AI is typing. That's why it's sometimes making typos. OK, so the VM looks good. And I can still connect. And of course, I still don't have any kind of ACB. I did not activate that yet. But at least the VM has the right kind of hardware. So I need to do tons of VM edits like this. And it's well documented in LibVert, on the LibVert.org page. So you see that, for instance, that's why I took the Q35 idea and things like that. But it also tells me I need to change the boot loader. And I need to do some adjustments to the memory. So we are going to do that. Let me skim a bit quickly in that. So you need to boot with OVMF, so UEFI. And you need to do some adjustments to the memory. You need to do some adjustments to the network. This is all relatively well documented. Let's skip relatively quickly through this, because it's not necessarily the most interesting part of the talk. But it tells you what I'm spending my days on, right? Who doesn't love that? OK, so I follow these instructions. And I keep turning and turning. And I try to start it again. And that's why I got my first LibVert hang. That's why I knew that something was up. Forget that. Restart, just restart some demons. And I can start my VM again. And now it boots in UEFI. So that step looks good. I'm still not completely there. Of course, I still have not enabled ACV. So you're starting to think, maybe this is taking a bit longer. Maybe this is not the best way. So before I can actually activate ACV, I need to activate it on the host and or set. So to do that, first let me give you a bit of terminology, because AMD is very light on acronyms. So ARK stands for AMD root key. ASK stands not for ask, but for AMD ACV key. CE key is a chip endorsement key. OCA is the owner's certificate authority. P-E-K is a platform endorsement key. PDAs is a platform Diffie-Hellman key. You need to know all of this. And there will be a question at the end. I ask questions at the end. Oh, and there are two more, like the tick and the tech. And you can read. OK, so let me do my host setup. Let me first reset everything. And let's verify the host. And you see that I have this nice chain. So this morning, I taught you about the root of trust and maintaining the chain of trust. You got a good example there with this sign, this, and certifies that, et cetera. And if I run it twice, I get the same results for PDH, PK, and OCA, which you remember what it means. If I do a reset, though, I'm going to get different numbers this time. So you see that the PDH has changed. And transparently, SCVCTL is actually talking to somewhere at AMD, which I learned the hard way when their server was no longer responding to the requests. So notice also that the AMD root key, fortunately, did not change when I did a reprovisioning of the system. So that's what you do when you reprovision the system. OK, so that looks good. Now I'm going to do the guest setup. So the guest setup is primarily adding a long security step to certify the virtual machine as confidential. And you'll see it's really easy. So it's all well explained on the document here. That's the XML you need to put. So I need to find a place to put it in my code. And that's why I'm going to put that stuff. And that's over. This is where my CBITPOS and stuff matter. I need to put them there. And I need to select whether I want to put one or five. Probably both work. There were some discussions on what exactly was supposed to be there. So I've got my long security section. But it's not sufficient, because I need to have actual keys in there. So in order to do that, I need to create a security session. So first, I will export my PDH, which is the, OK, everyone, platformed if you have none. And then I'm going to just check that it works with this setup. And then I'm going to generate the files that describe a given session for a VM. So now that's related to that specific VM. Normally, you would use the host name there, because you can transport this data to some other place. But I'm going to keep it simple. Just use host.pdh and do everything local. Normally, you can do that remotely. And the policy is helpfully explained in chapter three of some obscure documents somewhere on AMD website. It's also on a different page on the Libvert documentation. And you essentially have to orbit mass for stuff. That's modern style, 1980s style of user interface. So now I've created my session. And what this did is create a few files that all begin with that VM. So there is this God mode thing. There is a tag, a tick, and a tag, and a session, and all the stuff. So that looks good. I can probably make some progress from there. And put that stuff inside my file. So I'm going to insert where there is dh side. So dh should remind you, of course, that it's pdh. It's the same thing. So you insert the copy of the file there. And then you insert the copy of the session file in the session section. I think that makes sense. I mean, that's simple. That's a good user interface. Use emacs, use vi, whatever. I mean, just text. There is some remarkably low entropy on this sequence of As that I find really surprisingly low. I don't know why exactly. That's something I'd like to look into, why there are so many As. OK, so now that's edited.  I'm not going to try remote attestation, because that's complicated. So we'll keep the simple stuff here. And so what we do, essentially, now is that we are going to enter a brave, new, secure world where we are completely productive. So to launch a secure VM, the first step is to start the VM, but you start it in post mode. Because reasons. The reason is you have to check before you actually launch it. That's called pre attestation. Remember, I explained that this morning. So you have to check that it passes the test before you let it go.  And then you need to validate it with this helpful tool where you just have to copy paste the output of the previous comment. But of course, with different option names, like everything that begins with scv it does not begin with scv on the command line. Other than that, it's really simple. You do that, and you try to not typo too much. Oh, you have to measure the firmware, so you have to tell where the firmware is. And with that stuff, it looks pretty inoxy to me so far, right? Now I'm going to get my grade four. And I get this nice answer. Looks good to me. So now I'm allowed to resume my VM. I can say, hey, resume, console, and let's go. And what happens? So booting again into EFI. So what should happen there? I should see a CV. And I should be able to run my application without its content being visible. That's what I expect. So I do that. I connect. I type stromf, which is no longer so much of a secret. And I have a CV, success. I'm really happy. Memory encryption features active. Yay. Let me SSH into it from another window and run my little test forum. So let me copy the latest version where I upgraded nothing. I don't know why I need to copy it. I think because in the meantime, I recreated a VM from scratch. So I run it. It works just as well as before. And now I'm going to do my memory dump like before. But now I have it in the history, so it's easier. And I take the encrypted version. What do you expect? OK. Same here on the same thing. But let me now grab. Ta-da-da-da-da. That is a pretty. Huh. Let's look with the max. Something is wrong there. Hmm. I have to wait to see why it's bogus. It's slightly faster. And the reason for that is that we see the world secret as part of some fight system stuff, which is already, I'm already scratching my head. But I don't actually have my secret stuff with 3F. It's not there. So something is working. I have product it somewhere, something. But if I look for Stromf, oh, OK. Who can tell me what I did wrong? I scratch my head. I thought maybe it's something on the console that is going wrong.   No, it's much simpler than that. So I double check. SCB is there. No, we have a problem. If you have not seen the WhatsApp talk, you search Google talk. WhatsApp talk right now, you watch this. OK, so it's time to tell the boss. Dear boss, my demo for next week doesn't work, which is why I completely changed compared to what I was supposed to talk about. Dear Ryan, my problem doesn't do CPCs of my secrets in there. And I'm not sure why. So that was my secret. The first experiment was with TicTac.toto, SprintShot, SCB is active. And so for my boss, isn't that the punchline? I'm just supposed to point out from that. OK, so the reason for that is that only memory is encrypted. What I did wrong, if I grab the stuff from my program, it's not there. That stuff is not visible. That part we succeeded with. However, when you do encrypted memory like this, you cannot send that to this directly. You cannot write to a network directly. So all the IO buffers that are being used by the kernel have to have the famous CBIT clear, saying it's not encrypted, which means that you'd better encrypt your disk. And that's the thing I forgot about KCLI, is that by default, it uses this good old card in it. And there is no encryption of the disk setup by default. So we need tools, and we need to build tools to keep that complexity and reduce the risk of misconfiguration. So first of all, how did I get there? You can blame Wainer over there. I'm pointing fingers there, because I'm also doing a workshop in two days with Wainer. And his workshop was about, I know it's Q&A, but it's the last session of the day. So I have a little extra time. So I have too many talks going. And he did a remarkable series of script for this lab. And he was using KCLI all over the place. And I said, ah, that makes it really shorter compared to what I was planning to present. So let me use KCLI. And I switched to KCLI and did not realize it wasn't encrypted until the very last step. So step one, prepare a list of commands for a live demo. Step two, prepare another workshop with Wainer. Step three, notice that this workshop uses KCLI. Step four, think, ah, great idea. I used that too. Step five, record a movie with all the planned steps, but where you replace carefully all the steps where you were creating encrypted VMs with a fun installation with KCLI. Totally forget that KCLI does not encrypt disks. Success. So that's how you fail spectacularly in public. Now, there are a bit of ways, and I'm going to show them that should be for another talk. You can set up VMs in the cloud. That was at 10.30 this morning with Italy. You can use confidential containers. That's the talk we have tomorrow until this. And you can deploy complete clusters, which I'm going to show on the next slide, with a tool like Constellation, for instance, which is careful to set up the VMs the right way for you. It's just that it would not fit in the 30 minutes that are still alerted to me after the end of the talk.  So this is the recommended way to go if you want to really spend your money. If you have too much cash on hand and you're ready to pay for all your VMs and all your control plane and everything to be encrypted, go with it. That's very easy. It's then behaves like your regular cluster. So then you can connect to a node and check that it's encrypted properly, that the disk is encrypted, et cetera. And of course, we are working on this for Fedora and CoreOS. So what you see here is the creation of a Fedora CoreOS disk with ignition, with a secret injected, and that gets encrypted on the fly as the ignition step happens. And I have to thank Timothée Ravier for helping me doing that this morning. This is relatively new to the talk. Now, it's time for questions if there is any. There is no time for questions, but... So the question is about what is the cost of memory encryption mostly, right? And so in terms of power usage, it's hard to tell because it's not exactly the same generation of processors. So if you do processor with more transistors, but they're smaller, then maybe it's not consuming that much. Yeah, I don't think that using encryption adds much in terms of consumption of memory. Sorry, you have energy. And it does not add latency. We did some measurements. And in terms of latency compared to non-encrypted, it's the same speed. However, on the same CPU, however, what it adds cost is that you cannot do any kind of deduplication. You cannot deduplicate your disks because they are encrypted.  So you're downloading the same thing over and over again. And you cannot do any kind of KSM or anything with encrypted memory anyway. Don't ask me. So the question was, when do we get cheap hardware? So to be precise, yeah, to be precise, I think it does consume a little bit of power, but when you see that you have chips that consume 100W or 130W of TDP, I'm sure there is half a watt in there that is encryption, but I don't think it's more than that. The reason I think it's cheap, the reason I think it's cheap is that my phone does it on a battery for a whole day. So it keeps encrypting stuff all the time when it's communicating, and they accelerated in hardware or the encryption with the network and so on, precisely because the hardware could do it relatively cheaply. But to be fair, you've got the wrong Dinshan. You've got the wrong Dinshan. My brother Flo is the hardware guy in the family. I have a brother who does FPGAs and stuff like that. He could tell you everything about how much it costs to encrypt stuff. I can't. Sorry. And back to your question, when does that become mainstream? I'd say as usual it will probably take a decade. So the feedback we got so far is that there are a few markets that are already interested today because they have to deal with regulations constraining the kind of, their responsibility in terms of data leaks, and that's banks, medical, stuff like that. But also that because this becomes available, of course the manufacturers are not being all they can to make this mandatory. And so now it becomes a lot that you have to encrypt your data that way. And so maybe there will, in some cases you won't have a choice. Time will tell. We'll see how this works. No, so when I'm saying it's weak is that it's typically done in real time. It's still modern algorithms, and the algorithms they use are dependent on a chip. And frankly off the top of my head, I don't recall which one they use, but I think they have AES 128 somewhere, some label for the first generation chips, and now they are doing more complicated stuff. So it's not the stuff that you can break with your computer without paying a lot of energy. And by the way, I suspect that one reason that triggered these efforts is, I don't know if you recall like almost 10 years ago there was this big push about memory stores, and persistent memory, non volatile, RAM, and this kind of things. And everybody at the time thought that we'd have really cheap, non-volatile memory one decade later, so that's now. And so the problem became for the chip vendors, I need to make sure that if someone plugs one of these non-volatile chips, they don't get all the data that was in there. So that was probably a primary motivation to get started on this encryption stuff, initially. And in that space, so it had to be relatively robust anyway. So I apologize for the use of the word weak, I meant it's not as strong as you could do if you were really pushing the limits on your crypto, but it's pretty good. I'm out of time, I knew, I knew that.


Hello, hello, everybody. Welcome to episode 13 of The Walk Podcast. If you're new here, my name is Sam. I post all things lifestyle travel face. This is kind of a video diary of my life essentially here on this channel, and I kind of just post whenever I feel like it with whatever's on my mind. This is going to be the last episode of The Walk for the year, and it's also going to be the last episode in general or the last video in general on this channel for the year. And I figured that there was only one way to kind of end the year on this channel, and it is by doing essentially a 2023 wrapped 2023 is a year that I will be telling my children about. It started as the most painful year where I was lost, where I didn't fully know who I was, very low self-esteem, I mean all the things I've talked about it before. I was down bad, and I went through some things.  It is the year where I learned who I am as an individual, who God says I am. I have boundaries that I actually put in place now. I have confidence. I don't regret anything because everything happens the way it's supposed to, and those things build your character and build you into the person that you are meant to become. At least that's what I believe anyway. So I just wanted to, and this video is very unscripted, okay? I normally plan every single one of these podcast episodes, even the Christmas one, I had notes. This one is extremely unplanned, and I would say that I'm nervous, but I just prayed before I sat down and filmed this video. I'm just kind of letting God take over here, but it's very unscripted. But I figured the best way to do this, to be the most authentic and to an extent vulnerable, would be to go through, it's not even a journal, it's I don't even know what it is. It has church notes, it has some aspects of journaling, it has a lot of scripture. So this, I will say right now, this episode is going to be heavily faith-based. There's a lot of scripture in here because that is what helped me build myself back into who I am, and even surpassed who I was before all the bad things happened earlier in the year. And so, I mean, I have to give credit to where credit's due, and that would be God. So a lot of faith stuff in here. So just putting that out there now. I haven't really looked through this much. We're just going to go through it. I'm not going to share everything, because some of it really is just church notes that I don't think really needs to be shared. Also, some of it is very personal, and I won't share anything that is too personal. But I've said it before, I truly, truly believe with my entire being, with my whole heart that God had me go through the things that I went through. One, to build me back up. He has to, I read my devotional actually was about it today. God has to break you before he can use you. And let me tell you, your girl was broken.  And I really believe that I went through those things so that God can use me. And one of the ways I believe he is using me is through this YouTube platform and through this little The Walk series. I know it's not a real podcast. I know some of you like to point that out to me. It's not, it's not on Spotify yet, mark my words. It's not on anything yet other than YouTube, but I still call it my little podcast series, because that's kind of what it is to me. And I truly believe that I went through all that in order to help people. So how many times did I say that? Probably six times already. So I'm going to just go and I'm going to read through a lot of what I wrote, I think, and then I'm sure I will stop and kind of go over my, my thoughts, maybe what I was thinking about in the moment, we're really just going to, we're just going to go all in and we're going to wing it here. Okay. So I will say, this video is not totally going to be just about my breakup because I went through a lot more than just a breakup in 2023, although that was the big catalyst that started everything. And like really started my new journey, my new walk. It's funny how when something happens, you feel like that's like you're, you feel like your world is crumbling, like that's, it's the end of the world. And little did I know that that was actually the beginning of something beautiful. I just didn't know it yet. And so I bought this journal three days before my breakup. And this first journal entry was from my old church, the church that I grew up in. And I remember actually taking these notes, it was January 8th. And I remember this, this, this message, it was about distractions of the world and how things of the world can pull you away from your relationship with God, pull you away from the things that you're supposed to be doing, pull you away from the person God has called you to be in things like, you know, like, what did I write here? I don't want to read all of it because again, it's a lot. And also, I don't know how like relevant it is, but this is every, this is what started everything. It's about keeping your eyes on Jesus. When you say yes to one thing, you're saying no to something else. When you're saying yes to something in the world, you're saying no maybe to like for me, for example, use myself as an example, I would say yes to going out and drinking Saturday night until two, three a.m. And that would mean that I was saying no to going to church the next day. For example, when you say yes to one thing, you're saying no to something else. And it says whenever you fall off course, because we're none of us are perfect, we're going to fall all the time you pick yourself up and you throw yourself back in the race when needed. Distractions will hold you back from your Christian walk, blah, blah, blah, et cetera, et cetera. And it was just I was talking a lot about like, relationships that are not for you. excessive drinking is a very big distraction because when you're clouded with, you know, substances like alcohol, for example, it's very hard for God to speak to you, it's very hard for those thoughts to come through. And there's a scripture, I don't know what it is specifically, but it says basically that the more the friendlier you are with the world, the less close you're going to be to God. And that's just the way that it is. So anyway, that's what this message was basically about. And I remember I sat there and I just, I ate it all up. I wrote it all down. And this was the day I think I spoke about this in my testimony episode here on this channel. But this was the day where I knew that my life was going to change. And I knew that my ex was not of the same mentality. He didn't agree. And I knew that that was going to be a problem. But I didn't let myself face it. And sure enough, a couple days later, that relationship ended, which brings us to our next thing, January 18th. And I in the beginning, when I was like, still like down bad, you know, it was not, it was never about wanting the relationship back. It was never about wanting the person back. Literally, it never was. As soon as that relationship ended, I knew that it needed to end. But I was still, I had a lot of feelings of betrayal, a lot of feelings of hurt and all that. And so I started just writing things, thoughts, scriptures that I came across, and I would title it New Beginnings. Sort of says on top of this paper, New Beginnings, January 18th. And I wrote, and this was just like off the top of my head. I, because like I, I think things through by like writing them out. And so I came up with the five stages of heartbreak. The first one is shock and heartbreak. Two is accepting the truth. And that's the morning period. Stage three is when you start to get a little angry. Four is wanting to still talk about it over and over again, because it still makes it relevant in your brain. So it's almost like that relationship isn't completely gone because you still talk about it. So you're trying to keep it relevant. And then the fifth thing was knowing that healing isn't linear. And I have four verses here that I guess I came across at the time that were speaking to me. John 13, seven, you don't understand now what I am doing, but someday you will. I remember I saved that one the day of the breakup, but before the breakup happened. But it was the day of the breakup, the morning of Psalm 147 verses three through five. And I summarized it into He heals the wounds of every shattered heart. That was my wallpaper for a while at the time on my phone. Psalm 30 verse two. Oh Lord, I cried to you for help and you have healed me. Second Kings 20 verse five. I have heard your prayer and seen your tears and I will heal you. So those are all things that were, you know, giving me comfort. And then I wrote here, God's plans will always be greater and more beautiful than all of your disappointments, which is very true. By the way, I have learned it's indeed true. And then I wrote four songs here that were, I guess, getting me through at the time or like we're encouraging me. And the first one is everything you do by river valley ages. Same God by elevation worship, a thousand hallelujahs by Brooke Lagerwood and flowers by Miley Cyrus. That song came out like, I think like the day of my breakup or like a couple of days after. And that was like the running joke, like with me and my loved ones of like that was my anthem at the time, because like every word I was just like soaking it up. I was like, yes, and it made me feel all powerful. So shout out to Miley for that. Okay, this is another church note that I wouldn't really see necessary to read. Now we have new beginnings part two. Again, these are just my my miscellaneous thoughts and things that were speaking to me at the time. I'm sharing all of this really just one, because I want to summarize it and just leave it all leave this all in 2023, all that pain, all that hurt, it is ancient history. Now I used it, God used it for my benefit, and now it's done. And now it's going to stay in 2023. So that is the the reason of this like year wrap. But also I'm sharing it because maybe, you know, if some of you are going through things now, maybe this can help you now. So this is literally my healing journey from beginning to now. New beginnings part two. And this was there's no date on this, but I'm assuming it was around January 22. Philippians four verse six. Don't worry about anything, but pray about everything with thankful hearts, offer up your prayers and requests to God. Romans eight 18. This is a good one that really I was relying on at the time. The pain you have been feeling cannot compare to the joy that is coming. Romans 826. I love Romans. It's such a good book. God understands the cries of our heart, even when they're too deep for words. Then I have three little quotes here. Again, no idea where they came from, but they're here. God removes to replace. The next one is one day you'll see why God made you wait. And the last one in our waiting, God is working. All very true statements. And this is a new beginnings part three. This is January 25, 2023. It says new beginnings plus other notes. So strange. Okay, but I'm so glad I have all this to look back. I will keep this journal forever. I don't see. I don't even know what this is. Oh, okay. I wrote down like the spiritual dress code. It's found in Ephesians, the book of Ephesians. And this was just like notes because I guess I wanted to memorize it. So that's where it talks about putting on your armor to go through to go through the day. So it's the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, shoes of the gospel of peace, the shield of faith, helmet of salvation, sword of the spirit and a prayerful heart. That's a lesson in and of itself. So we're not even going to talk about that. But if you're curious, it's in Ephesians six. Okay, I have some other quotes here. It says, you will be someone's best thing, but until then be the best for yourself. Very true. Next one is God knows your heart and he will provide the one. We may make a lot of plans, but the Lord will do what he has decided. And that's Proverbs 19 21. I actually just read that this morning. You can make your plans, but God's going to tell you what's actually going to happen. And this one was a big one. I have a star next to it says God's protection is removing someone from your life that he knew you'd never leave despite what they did. And that was me clearly, I never really shared the full story of what happened in my breakup. And I don't think I ever will not in full detail because that's just too much. And also it's ancient history at this point.  And I am living proof of that. And that's not just in relationships. That's in literally every aspect of your life. Why is my phone, my phone is blowing up right now. New beginning is part four. Wow, I was really just on a roll here. Okay.  So I wrote, you can't start the next chapter if you keep reading the last one. That's true. So I was trying to get myself to stop thinking about what happened and just look forward. This one's a good one. It's a quote by John Piper. And it says, occasionally weep over the life you hoped it would be, grieve the losses, then wash your face, trust God and embrace the life you have.  And at the time, my mentality was so different. And I thought I knew the life I was going to have. I knew that I thought it was like right around the corner. I could like taste it. And so I know now that that was not the future that God had for me. But at the time, I really had to like accept the fact that okay, that is not the life that you're going to have. And that's okay. And then I have some other quotes here just talking about like people in general. If it's pulling you away from God, it is not from God. This is a good one. It says so many people love you. So don't focus on the ones who don't. So go one. This is a good one. I think I've said this one to you guys before. It's exit gracefully, heal and grow, and don't look back. That could be like for a family breakup, or like a like a not family breakup, but like a friend breakup, or a romantic relationship, any kind of relationship that ends, I feel like that is appropriate. Now this one is a little quote. It's like a passage that this can be taken into many, many, many different contexts. And I'm reading it now. And I remember writing it. And it seems very dramatic. But at the time, I thought that this was like very relatable to me. So I'm just read it. And then you'll you'll see the second half of it is very true. The beginning is a little dramatic. But anyway, I wrote I look back to the vulnerable girl that was taken advantage of. That's the dramatic part that made being is not super relevant, but to me. But anyway, I don't recognize her anymore.  I think it was the last part that really like stuck to me. Um, and again, like I've said this so many times, when talking about this, like, not saying that I was perfect by any means I wasn't I had so much to learn about life and myself and love and relationships and all that. But your girl was really hurting at the time when I was writing all this, I was like two weeks fresh of this breakup. Okay. A lot of the self growth hadn't happened yet. This was me just like getting my feelings out. My devotional for the day on January 31st was titled steps to forgiveness. And I wrote notes on it. So let's read step one, accept people as they are and don't try to change them. Changing people is God's job, not yours. Step two, see your offender as God's tool for your growth. That's a good one. See them as God's instrument to develop you. Again, that goes back to like everything happens for a reason. And step three, try reconciling with your defender. That one isn't always necessary in my opinion. I think you can forgive somebody without telling them you forgive them, but that's just me. But of course, if it's like a family member or something, like I absolutely advocate for that. But um, okay, then I have some other notes here about it. It says you have to walk out the process to become gold meaning like to make gold. You have to go through fire. So when they're making like a gold ring or whatever, you have to go through fire for it to, to become what it's meant to be. Meaning you have to go through hard times to get to what you're meant to be. And that the degree of heat and the amount of time required to make that gold ring, for example, is determined by God. So the time it takes for you to go through that hard season is not up to you. It's up to God. And when you rush the process, it doesn't come out right. When you really need him, God shows up and does for you what you can't do for yourself. I said that before. And the rest of the time he strengthens you and says walk out the podcast. Well, a little did I know that I was going to have a little podcast called The Walk when I wrote this. That's actually really funny. I see, I just realized that for the first time. New beginnings part five. And I think that this is the last new beginnings, but I could be wrong. Okay, two scriptures to start both in Romans. I love Romans. Chapter five, verse three, we gladly suffer because we know that suffering helps us endure. It makes us stronger. Romans five, verse five, endurance builds character that will never disappoint us. All this happens because God has given us the Holy Spirit who fills our hearts with his love. So again, going through the hard times makes you who you're meant to be. And then a couple other notes under it says God deconstructs to reconstruct. That's kind of the same thing as saying God removes to replace. And it says Jesus says it is finished. He has everything worked out for your good and his glory and you are in the palm of his hand. So thank God for what you're praying for as if it's already done, because it kind of is. And then I have a random little quote here that says you deserve somebody who knows your rare and will hold on to you no matter what. Because that's what I was longing for at the time. The next page I'm not going to read this, but I essentially wrote a letter to Jesus. It literally says Dear Jesus. I think, did my therapist tell me to do this? I don't remember how I got this idea. But anyway, I wrote a letter to God about what I wanted in a partner, what I desire in a future husband. And let me say my thought here, again, I'm not going to read it, but looking at this, I was still very much in a place where I was romanticizing relationships and I was romanticizing love at this time. This was almost a month after my breakup. And already, I was like, okay, now I have to just keep working and keep working so that I can meet my husband one day so that God can give me the person he has for me, which, yes. But I was always, I was only a month. I was only single for a month. But I was still very, very focused on it. I hadn't yet learned how wrong it is to idolize relationships, how a relationship is not going to complete me. That's not the missing piece. That wasn't the missing piece. But at this time, it's very evident to me that I still thought that it was the missing piece. There's nothing wrong to have that desire to get married and to have a relationship. I think it's actually a very good thing. God designed marriage. It's a good thing. But I can just see how much it was still, it was my focal point at this point. Again, the self growth hadn't happened yet. I do recommend writing a letter like that or like a list of things that you want in your partner. That way, when you like meet somebody, you can reference the list or the letter and kind of be like, okay, does this person check off these things? I actually, I recommend it. This is where my old pastor at the church I used to go to started a message on faith and it was amazing. He preached on it for like, I don't know, like 10 weeks or something. That's a lot in here, but that's a whole other thing that we're not going to go into because that's a whole other lesson in and of itself. Although it was really helpful to me at the time. Okay, I have some devotional notes now. And this was January 22nd. He says, when something happens, recognize that it's God, see God in it and recognize it often because there's no such thing as a coincidence. When you diligently seek him, it strengthens you to keep fighting the good fight of faith. Learn how to be happy between happenings. So learn how to be content in every situation. When it's boring, when it's bad, when it's good, learn how to be content. And that's where your inner peace comes from. It says maintaining it is the hard part.  And to do so getting into God's word is what you should do every day. And I definitely was not doing that at the time. I was reading my devotional every morning, but that was like it. I didn't actually read the physical Bible. And then I have more relationship stuff. Again, you could see how important relationships were to me still. A relationship sent by God will not steal your joy, damage your self-confidence, or take life from you. It will give you confidence, peace, life, and a healthy radiant glow. I don't know where I got that from, probably Pinterest. I mean, that's all true though. It's all very true. And then there's another quote that says, you are right on schedule. That delay, detour, disappointment is a part of God's plan. Be patient and wait for His plan to unfold. Again, everything happens for a reason, a lot of repetitiveness in here. Okay, then I have 1 Peter chapter 3, verses 3 through 4, don't depend on things like fancy hairstyles or gold jewelry or expensive clothes to make you look beautiful. Be beautiful in your heart by being gentle and quiet. This kind of beauty will last and God considers it very special. And that was me kind of just learning to not put so much thought into like what men thought about me, you know, or just people in general, like outside people. It's got to come within here. And it's true. I've seen that once, like, I got my inner peace and I got my confidence back, it radiated forward, it radiated outwards and people noticed. So it's not about how you look on the outside, really, it's about it comes from in here. It's so cheesy, but it's actually true. I've said this to you guys before, when God sees that you appreciate your now, he starts to release your next. Oh, I have a little quote here. Wow. It says a quote, did I come up with this? I don't know. It says I want to marry someone that I didn't have to give a million chances to because they appreciated me the first time around. I think that was a quote, actually, I definitely didn't come up with that. But I mean, yeah, I think everybody deserves that. And then it says focus on God and enjoy every single day he has given early. Yeah, I think most of these are from like Pinterest. Okay. More church notes. This stuff is a little personal. These are like I literally just tied a little miscellaneous notes. This is good. It says I feel so liberating to finally let go of something you thought was right for you. This one's good. I'm going to read this and it is kind of personal and this is probably the most personal thing I'll read. But it's just so it really describes my mentality at the time of the breakup where like, I'll just read it. I'm just going to read it. This is a quote. I didn't come up with this but I related to it very much at the time. It says it got to a point where I was okay with being a fool for you if it kept us together. I was fine with getting hurt and forgiving you when I knew I couldn't expect any better. It's kind of rough but okay. It got to a point where I became this was the part. I got to a point where I became less concerned with being loved the right way and more concerned with making sure I held on to the relationship for getting the whole reason that I was in the relationship in the first place was to pursue happiness, not heartache. I mean, that's pretty self evident. I had just, like I said it, I think in my testimony video, I had just lost myself so much in this relationship and I had so many insecurities that I didn't handle in the right way. But that all of that made me so lost that when the relationship was ending, I gripped onto it with everything I had even though I didn't deserve to put myself through that because that's all I knew how to do. So I hope you learn from me to not do that. Okay, let's see. This is a good one. It's a good quote. It says, don't worry about the people God removed from your life. He heard conversations you didn't. He saw things you couldn't and he made moves you wouldn't. That's true for any kind of relationship. It's amazing how this is going to change so much because you could really see how down bad I was at the time. This is still February. I'm sorry, it was the beginning of March. I was still very, very fresh and I was still down pretty bad. It's going to get better, I promise. This is a good one. This is when I started learning about just things in your life that can distract you from what you should be doing. So this was my devotional for the day and like my verse of the day that morning, this was March 10th. God wants you to be as fruitful as possible so he prunes you and that requires lopping off things from branches that don't produce fruit, a.k.a. good things in your life because God has something better in mind and he's at work. Philippians chapter 1 verse 6 says, God who began the good work within you will continue his work until it is finally finished. Like that Tornwell song, if it's not good then he's not done with it yet, that kind of thing. If it's not good, he's not done with it yet, yeah. And this was my verse of the day that day, Romans 1212. Let your hope make you, I'm sorry, let, oh yeah, I was right. Let your hope make you glad. Be patient in time of trouble and never stop praying. And then I wrote, God gave us his word to guide us through hard times. One, be joyful in hope because God is within you. Two, be patient in affliction.  Three, be faithful in prayer. Who or what do you need to pray for?  When we endure suffering, Jesus forms strength and confidence we couldn't attain otherwise. Again, everything happens for a reason. Yeah, this is a little prayer I have here. It says, God, I am grateful for all the plans you have made for my life. Because you are in control, I can place hope in you when I face trouble. Going forward, please help me to have honest conversations with you when my future feels unclear. And this is when I really started, like my walk with God really started to form. We have more church notes and this was all about like speaking. Like when you're when you're acting in faith, you have to speak it out and like speak God's word back to him essentially.  There are a lot of them. I don't know if I'm going to read all of them here, but they essentially became the verses that I was like reading back to God or saying back to God. First, John 5 15. And if we know that he hears us, we are sure our prayers have already been answered. He says, put it in God's hands, be patient. God has to prepare these things and he has to prepare you. Psalm 51. In the morning I lay my request before you and I wait in expectation, meaning you know he's going to hear you. Psalm 37 4. Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. Jeremiah 29 11. Very well known one. I know the plans I have for you says the Lord plans to prosper you plans to give you hope in a future. And then Matthew 6 33 says seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be given to you. Seek him above all and know he is working all things out for your good. I have devotional notes here from I think the same day and it says what she lost was painful but what God promised her is powerful. She's not afraid of the wait anymore for she knows he will open doors beautiful and perfect in their time. Love that. Philippians 2 13. God is working in you. He wants your plans and your acts to fulfill his good purpose. Amazing. See so you see I'm slowly starting to come out of the funk. I'm slowly starting to really just seek something else other than the hurt. I don't want to read that. That's a little personal. This is a good one. Actually hold on. Yeah this devotional from April 5th says God is calling you. Nothing about us surprises God. And it says that even when you don't know what to pray for yourself he knows what you need better than you know what you need. So his word literally says that when you don't have the words to pray he will pray for you. It's in Hebrews 7 25 it says he Jesus he speaks to God for them. And not only can God turn your life around he can use you to turn the lives of others around too. That's so so powerful. This is what this is April 20th and I was like okay I want to walk with God but like how and I came across this TikTok from this girl named Kim Caputo. She actually just got engaged. She is a Christian. She is very involved in her church. I just I think she's from New York and I followed her after I saw this and she made a TikTok about how to hear from God. So there are three scriptures and then three pieces of notes. And I wrote it all down. I saved the TikTok and I came home and I wrote notes on it because I thought it was so good. Isaiah 26 3 you will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you and whose thoughts are fixed on you. Psalm 29 11 the Lord gives his people strength. The Lord blesses them with peace. 1 Corinthians 14 33 for God is not a God of disorder but of peace as in all the meetings of God's holy people. So she said stop monitoring things you already surrendered in God's hands. Set your eyes on him and just trust him and his process. Wake up in the morning knowing that God is on your side because he is like we said he takes delight in our lives. She finds peace in knowing God will always lead her exactly where she needs to be and that is something that I remind myself of daily. I always say God you place my steps you know I'll be fine no matter where I am no matter where I'm going I will be fine. More church notes more church notes let's see this is literally faith part 10 it's such a long series. Okay now we're in June I have my verse of the day here the end of June June 27 and I think I think July is when I started actually reading my Bible like every day so we're getting there my verse of the day was Psalm 27 14 wait patiently for the Lord be brave and courageous yes wait patiently for the Lord and it says how and then I have a bunch of bullets one looking at his hands and ordinary moments two reading about his story and his plans and his word worshiping him no matter the bad happening in the world that's harder to do easier said than done but it's doable do it by serving people and by thanking him for what he's already given us and I have a couple notes here just because a specific door isn't opening doesn't mean that God isn't moving it just means that he says either later you're not ready yet it's not ready yet or I have something better and God works while we wait even when it feels like he's not working he is asked for patience and trust that he is in control of your future I ask for patience every day I'm like Lord please don't let me settle for something that is not for me just because I want it I literally pray that all the time on this is when I started going to my church for the first time so I didn't write anything for like a month and a half because the next one is August 13th and this is when I started going to my church that I go to now and I really started like digging into the word and really like learning I learned on August 23rd the fruits of the spirit that's a thing it's a whole list of things that you get from walking with God you get love joy peace patience kindness goodness faithfulness gentleness self-control I'm still trying to memorize those and I wrote by choosing to obey God instead of your impulses you activate the power that brings victory and it's harder to do because you want everything of the world is easier it's more fun in the moment until it's fun until it's not that's a different that's a different story the different message for a different time but by choosing to obey God instead of your impulses you activate the power that brings you victory this is this is good okay I started reading things this is when I was really just soaking it all up and I was like okay I want to know what God says about me and this is where my self-love really started I have a list of five things and it says know that one God is above me I am submitted to him two God is for me and I am accepted three God is with me I am engaged with him not like engaged but the other kind of engaged for God is in me I am directed by him and five God is using me and I really had to meditate on those things and that's really how I started to learn like who I am and who God says I am then on September 7th this is a cool thing my church started 21 days of prayer I didn't know anybody I knew one person maybe two at this point I didn't know anybody but I participated kind of by myself in the church's 21 days of prayer and they encourage you to sit in prayer every single day I started this on September 7th and I have prayed every day pretty much since then I have spent 10 15 20 minutes sitting in God's presence just talking to him in the mornings and so I wrote I am participating in my church's 21 days of prayer from September 7th to September 21st and here is what I'm believing God for building the foundations of God the community in my life this is my first time reading back to this I wrote friends to talk to slash sit with on Sundays friends who will give me godly encouragement worship nights bible studies having the confidence to talk to new people having the favor that can only come from God wow guys literally after I film this I'm going to a Christmas party a white elephant party with my young adult group at church that I have become friends with and you know what it's it took four months to get here at three because I've been friends with them for about like a month now but I prayed diligently every day believing for God the community every day and now look it's just amazing I wrote the next bullet I want to continue to grow into the best future partner best future spouse that I can be so again it wasn't about now it's not about finding a man it's about God preparing me for the person he has for me it's about me it's about working on myself not about searching for it working on myself it's just amazing how I'm looking back and I can see how much I grew and I even wrote I prayed that God would open my eyes if what he has for me looks a little different than what I pictured that's a really that's a whole other thing where you're like fantasies or you're like daydreaming can actually hinder if something that God sends you doesn't maybe look like what you thought he doesn't have six pack he's not six foot five he's whatever that's a very real thing that maybe we'll talk about another time I pray that I would meet someone who also wants a Godly relationship someone who's intentional clear will pursue me and don't and won't leave me guessing this is your sign to be specific with God when you pray be specific oh and I wrote I know this is a lot to expect in just 21 days but I pray that the foundations for these things will begin to form in the next three weeks but God is crazy and can turn things around faster than we can imagine I am expectant thank you Lord for working in my life that is why gold because man he was working I even wrote like finding ways to volunteer and help others in my community is also something I started praying for and I have done that as well crazy all right and this is my my current pastor now some of his first messages that I I started to write down and just soak it all up let's see I wrote notes on how to speak to others this is September 17th one the heart touch them emotionally to speak to hope inspire them with their potential and their possibilities three speak with help how to apply what you're saying for use humor laugh at your mistakes to show them they're not alone and I actually tried to implement that in my little podcast episodes church notes church notes this is the message of this one actually was if you don't transform it you will transmit it and that's very real that was in my healing journey healing era this I have spoken about this I learned on September 21st the recipe for prayer and it has changed my life I actually know the woman who taught me this at my church and I have yet to be able to tell her that she taught me this but I will one day it's the recipe for prayer one reverence praise and honor him first before anything two reflection thank him for what he's brought you through so far three repentance reprint for the things that you're aware of that you've done that were wrong and even things that you weren't aware of and ask him to reveal those to you four this is your request now you get to ask him for things and five that's your reward and he does that part I follow that recipe every day amazing all right now we're in October so we're getting close to current time more this is now this is where I started doing like less journal entries and really was just soaking in all the bible studies and the things that my pastor was saying um let's see I don't want to get too much into this because this is actually like not personal but it's personal to like my church and I don't want you guys to know where I go to church so um now I'm in December okay the last thing I think I will end on is this message it was from a guest pastor actually it was November 26 and it was called dying for a purpose and it's basically about I'll just read it to you it says death proceeds purpose so it's again like God has to break you you have to kind of like die to yourself first before you figure out who you are and what God has has for you and who he's called you to be Proverbs 14 12 there is a path before each person that seems right but it actually ends in death doesn't have to be like death death but like bad things happening essentially John 12 24 unless a kernel of wheat is planted in the soil in the soil and dies it remains alone but it's death will produce more many new ones a harvest of new lives so again if it doesn't die the seed that seed is going to wither it needs to die in order for it to blossom it's the same thing for us in a life dedicated to self doesn't produce anything lasting so we live in a very like yes do you queen era right and like yes do you but also when you're just serving yourself it doesn't result in anything lasting so be careful what you idolize me I was idolizing relationships I was idolizing appearance I was idolizing marriage you know just everything that I was a year ago was putting before God you know let life's author God write your script purpose produces life Ephesians 12 I'm sorry Ephesians 2 10 for we are God's masterpiece he has created us a new in Jesus so we can do the things he planned for us long ago um yeah you have to believe I have a star next to us when you have to believe that his plan is better than yours exchange your plan for his purpose because that's the best for you and acts 2024 says my life is worth nothing unless I use it for finishing the work assigned to me by by the Lord the work of telling others the good news about the wonderful grace of God live a life that outlives this life so man if that is not and there's more here but it's just like church notes and this leads me to my notes from two days ago so man if this does not show you how much I grew this year then I don't know what does and I would really encourage you guys if you are going through something write it down journal it doesn't have to be formal journal entries like dear diary it could be bullet points it could be just random thoughts it could be anything but write it down because I promise you one day you're gonna look back it's all gonna make sense you're gonna understand why you went through it it doesn't have to be a breakup it could literally be anything that life throws at you anything bad or anything that you thought you didn't you didn't see it going that way but it did now you're like whoa now what do I do write it all down because it's not nothing is forever it's not gonna last forever one day you are gonna look back and it's going to make sense and you're gonna it's gonna make you feel so good to see how you've grown I mean look at what I just read to you I went from a heartbroken girl who had no idea who she was who was just craving that love which like where does that even come from because I'm loved by my family I'm loved by like I don't even know where that comes from but I just wanted that love that love and I still do but not the way I did before because now I don't know that I now I know that I don't need it I just want it and it's different I don't need a partner I don't need a man he's not gonna complete me because he can't only God can but it would be nice you know it's a want not a need so anyway I don't know what this video was I'm gonna be really honest with you as I was sitting here reading this I'm in the back of my mind I'm like wow I really hope they're getting something out of this am I talking too fast I know I talk fast especially when I read I know I read fast so I hope that you guys got something out of this I really do and this stuff it's gonna stay in 23 2023 the bad stuff the good stuff can come to 2024 but the bad the bad stuff the bad stuff is gonna stay behind so yeah that was my 2023 wrapped I hope you guys had a great year and if you didn't 2024 is gonna be better I saw something that said 2023 was the year that God made you strong now 2024 is gonna be the year that he makes you happy not to say that I'm not happy now but I just feel I feel in my gut in my heart that good things are really coming like I've already entered into it I have these godly friends who we encourage each other and we do worship nights together and we we you know lift each other up and it's just it's what I prayed for for so long and I just know that this is this is the beginning this is the beginning of new chapters for me and I'm just really excited and I'm excited for you guys too I'm speaking it over your lives as well that 2024 is gonna be a fantastic year for you and we don't have to be all cheesy and do like new year new me because you know we're not new but I just have a good feeling I really do and I hope you guys do too and thank you for being here it's been a really good year on this channel I finally used it in a way that I think I want to continue using it like I found what I want this channel to be it is very me I don't have to live up to any anybody's expectations it is just what I want it to be and I'm so excited to see all the videos that are coming on this channel in 2024 I already have ideas I already have videos I've started working on that are not podcast related but like vlogs and yeah I hope that you'll subscribe and you'll stick around and go on this journey with me and again thank you for being here and I will see you next year for the next episode of The Walk Padcast bye guys


The home of English rugby, Twickenham Stadium, Surrey Cricket Ground, the Kia Oval and the Geraint Thomas Belladrome in Newport are just some of those. Six sporting venues throughout the UK have been renamed after local sporting heroes who have gone above and beyond during the pandemic by the National Lottery. And if you want to have a look up, the stadium has been named and you're honoured. That is amazing. That is so cool. We deliver emergency food parcels to vulnerable people within our area, include sort of disabled people, elderly people. And then it went from a few parcels to over 1,300 parcels. We are so thankful that we've been recognised by the National Lottery and by the RFU. We have Ratan from Capital Kids Cricket joining us because he's doing amazing work with underprivileged kids in London. We've got a surprise for you up there. You just want to look behind these. It's been named after you today. It's a surprise for you. Oh, brilliant. Excellent. So it's to congratulate you and just show appreciation for the amazing work that you've been doing. My name next to Geraint Thomas, absolutely amazing. During the lockdowns we had to consider virtual challenges. Our members extend from Cardiff right up to the Seven Bridge. So we had a 500 mile virtual relay in April. And that motivated everybody and that was just the starter. And it's like just little old us, little old Ava Mife and it's like check that out. It is an absolute honour.