Kay-Marie Fletcher - Believe in Your Own Fairytale

B ELIEVE I N Y OUR O WN
F AIRYTALE

B ELIEVE I N Y OUR O WN
F AIRYTALE

Kay-Marie Fletcher

2018 Kay-Marie Fletcher

Believe In Your Own Fairytale

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or otherexcept for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Elm Hill, an imprint of Thomas Nelson. Elm Hill and Thomas Nelson are registered trademarks of HarperCollins Christian Publishing, Inc.

Elm Hill titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail .

Scripture quotations marked ESV are from the ESV Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version). Copyright 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the King James Version. Public domain.

Scripture quotations marked NKJV are from the New King James Version. 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are from the Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.Zondervan.com. The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018960780

ISBN 978-1-595559470 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-595559432(Hardbound)

ISBN 978-1-595559357 (eBook)

Information about External Hyperlinks in this ebook

Please note that footnotes in this ebook may contain hyperlinks to external websites as part of bibliographic citations. These hyperlinks have not been activated by the publisher, who cannot verify the accuracy of these links beyond the date of publication.

Ebook Instructions

In this ebook edition, please use your devices note-taking function to record your thoughts wherever you see the bracketed instructions [Your Notes] or [Your Response Here]. Use your devices highlighting function to record your response whenever you are asked to checkmark, circle, underline, or otherwise indicate your answer(s).

I wrote all of these words in hopes that they would find you.

T ABLE O F C ONTENTS

For my granny who taught me how to pray, love, and spell words

I hope Im making you proud.

For my uncle Chris who encouraged me to write my first letter-to-the-editor

Your fresh fish la la lou is writing books now.

Dear God,

I thank you for this moment. I thank you for finally connecting me, the author, with this reader. I pray that from this moment forward, every second spent with this book will be an inspiring one. I thank you Holy Spirit for filling me up with creativity, imagination, and transparency so that my words, thoughts, ideas, and messages may be transformed into books. And with this same spirit of gratitude, I thank you that this life will now be transformed. I lift you up, reader; yes, you, as there is no distance in prayer. Your picking up of this book was not by chance, and now I ask that you join me in agreement trusting that the Lord will begin to do a new thing in your life. I pray that my penned testimonies encourage you to never give up, trust God to help you through all that youre struggling with, and most importantly to never stop believing in your own fairytale.

In Jesus name,

Amen.

T here are two types of people in the world: those who dream and those who make their dreams become a reality. This book was written for those whose dreams are anything but normal. For all the wanderers, big thinkers, and all those who still believe in love, passion, and living life to the fullest even though theyve faced a lot of challenges or lacked support from others along the way.

I was just a girl from a small twin-island who always had a wild imagination and a lot of big city dreams. First, I was afraid of what people would think when they read my deepest thoughts. However, it was only when I allowed my vulnerability to take the form of my words that I was able to break free and continue on my journey.

Today, I am a vessel for all those who at times cant find the words to describe how they feel or tell others about that thing thats stirred up inside them. Something that they probably have not yet realized is their true passion and dreams. Today I write not only for my voice but for other voices to be heard as well. I write all that I feel whether its pain, love, frustration, fear, conviction, faith, or hope. Most importantly, I write with all my heart. My journey has brought me to this point and I hope that this book can help you along your path as well. My words are meant to inspire, to provoke thought, and to ask the question, Do you believe in fairytales?

When you heard the term fairytale, Im sure you immediately thought about magic, fairies, myths, Disney stories, and so on. Until now youve always imagined a fairytale to be folklore, and something that could never ever happen to YOU. [PS: You were so wrong.] But have no fear because Ive come to convince you otherwise. [Waitdoes that make me your fairy Godmother? Damn. I guess so.]

You see, when I tell others about my goals and dreams, they too think that it could only happen if I lived in Neverland. And if were being honest, my road to success has always included difficult and at times devastating incidents, making one believe that its really impossible. But through it all, my experiences have somehow always led me to improbable and happy endings.

The truth is I got so fed up of hearing the word fairytale that one day I woke up and decided to create my own narrative of what a fairytale should be. From that moment on, I also promised myself to never allow what others thought or what I go through to stunt or stop me from striving toward success and neither should you.

As such, my goal after youve finished reading this is to have you begin to believe that magic exists within you; that you deserve true love; that you are more special than mythical characters; and more than anything else, you too deserve to have (especially after everything youve been through) a happily ever after. I hope that instead of only watching it on television or reading it in a book, you would allow yourself to create your own fairytale.

But lets rewind for a moment.

You see I did not become an overnight success, nor did MY fairytale story begin with the traditional Once upon a time.

I, however, have always dreamed of being twenty-five. I dont know why but there was something about being twenty-five, at the peak of my youth, that excited me. I always believed at age twenty-five I would be in control of my own destiny. Ive always pictured my twenty-five-year-old self with a masters degree, getting married to the love of my life, having a career that would allow me to travel the world and fulfill my passion to write. Then I would work toward accomplishing my PhD before age thirty after which Id start a family. I would be accomplished, happy, and in love with the best version of myself. I had this all mapped out for years. However, September 2015 I turned twenty-five and it was such a crazy year for me. It was definitely one of growth and freedom but also one full of anxiety, confusion, and nothing like what I planned. I mean, NOTHING.