{"id":11813,"date":"2016-02-06T02:02:33","date_gmt":"2016-02-06T07:02:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/verastic.com\/?p=11813"},"modified":"2024-02-27T21:55:16","modified_gmt":"2016-02-06T04:05:17","slug":"11813","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/personal\/11813.html","title":{"rendered":"May I Urge You To Keep Believing?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">I don&#8217;t usually blog in the weekends, but I sent out an email to my Sweet Potatoes yesterday, and I was so shocked and honored at the multiple responses I received, so I thought I should share the newsletter here. By the way, thank you to everyone who emailed and texted. You are awesome! This email was sent in the moment; I did not take time to go think about it and arrange it first. Enjoy! [Also, a link to subscribe to my Sweet Potato Mail is at the end of this post].<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8211;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">This morning, I woke up [and before even saying my morning prayers], I reached for my phone because I was eager about an email I sent and anxious to read the reply. Well, I got the reply, and it was exactly what I did not want. So I walked into the kitchen to warm my baby&#8217;s milk, and then I broke down into more boo-hoo-hooing.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">I used to wonder why more people did\u00a0not follow their dreams, but now I don&#8217;t wonder that anymore. Following your dreams is hard! There&#8217;s a lot of sweat, a lot of work, a lot of heart break,\u00a0a lot of frustration, and yes, a lot of tears, too. But the people who have succeeded, they say that it is worth all the tears. So here I am, nose still red from all the blowing and cleaning, sending you an email, and urging you, too, to continue to believe &#8211; just in case you might be in a similar situation as me.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-11816\" src=\"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Believe.jpg\" alt=\"Believe\" width=\"750\" height=\"500\" srcset=\"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Believe.jpg 750w, https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Believe-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The truth is that nothing good comes easy. Maybe there are people who luckily and easily fall into their dream life, but I have not met such people, and I am definitely not such a person. Every successful person I have met has said that it is not easy, but that it is always worth it in\u00a0the end.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">I don&#8217;t know what it is you are believing in or for, but the only thing I could think of doing this morning (after crying, of course) was to send you this message and urge you to still keep believing. Even when things don&#8217;t go your way, keep believing. And when all your hard work seems null and void, keep believing. And when people you care for use their words to crush your heart in a million tiny pieces, keep believing.\u00a0And when you receive a disappointing and discouraging message, still keep believing.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">My hope and belief right now is that in the end, it will be all worth it, and I will look back on this morning when I cried so hard that I seriously wanted to soak my phone in hot water and\u00a0blend it through and through before passing it through the shredder,\u00a0I will laugh. I will laugh because I would wonder why I was even worried. I should have known that it would get better if I just kept believing and pressing on.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Don&#8217;t stop believing. Keep pressing on. We&#8217;ll laugh at our frustrations later. Have a blessed week and month, until I write you again.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Yours truly,<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Vera Ezimora (Chief Sweet Potato)<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>P.S. <\/strong>If this message touched you in anyway, please share it, so that others too may be touched and may be inspired to keep believing.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>P.P.S.<\/strong> Don&#8217;t forget to connect with me on social media [links below]<\/p>\n<p><!-- Begin MailChimp Signup Form --><\/p>\n<div id=\"mc_embed_signup\">\n<form id=\"mc-embedded-subscribe-form\" class=\"validate\" action=\"\/\/verastic.us5.list-manage.com\/subscribe\/post?u=2f38ab8db75351257265d14e6&amp;id=b8f666ef88\" method=\"post\" name=\"mc-embedded-subscribe-form\" novalidate=\"\" target=\"_blank\">\n<div id=\"mc_embed_signup_scroll\">\n<h2>Subscribe to the Sweet Potato Mail<\/h2>\n<div class=\"indicates-required\"><span class=\"asterisk\">*<\/span> indicates required<\/div>\n<div class=\"mc-field-group\"><label for=\"mce-EMAIL\">Email Address <span class=\"asterisk\">*<\/span><br \/>\n<\/label><br \/>\n<input id=\"mce-EMAIL\" class=\"required email\" name=\"EMAIL\" type=\"email\" value=\"\" \/><\/div>\n<div class=\"mc-field-group\"><label for=\"mce-FNAME\">First Name <span class=\"asterisk\">*<\/span><br \/>\n<\/label><br \/>\n<input id=\"mce-FNAME\" class=\"required\" name=\"FNAME\" type=\"text\" value=\"\" \/><\/div>\n<div id=\"mce-responses\" class=\"clear\"><\/div>\n<p><!-- real people should not fill this in and expect good things - do not remove this or risk form bot signups--><\/p>\n<div class=\"clear\"><input id=\"mc-embedded-subscribe\" class=\"button\" name=\"subscribe\" type=\"submit\" value=\"Subscribe\" \/><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/form>\n<\/div>\n<p><script src=\"\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/downloads.mailchimp.com\/js\/mc-validate.js\" type=\"text\/javascript\"><\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\">\/\/ <![CDATA[\n(function($) {window.fnames = new Array(); window.ftypes = new Array();fnames[0]='EMAIL';ftypes[0]='email';fnames[1]='FNAME';ftypes[1]='text';}(jQuery));var $mcj = jQuery.noConflict(true);\n\/\/ ]]><\/script><br \/>\n<!--End mc_embed_signup--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I don&#8217;t usually blog in the weekends, but I sent out an email to my Sweet Potatoes yesterday, and I was so shocked and honored at the multiple responses I received, so I thought I should share the newsletter here. By the way, thank you to everyone who emailed and texted. You are awesome! This<a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/personal\/11813.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11816,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[561],"tags":[150,1214,1059],"class_list":{"0":"post-11813","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal","8":"tag-faith","9":"tag-oga-madam","10":"tag-sweet-potatoes","11":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>May I Urge You To Keep Believing? 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