Instagram story viewer> @sylvialongphd> Posts

Sylvia Elisabeth Long, PhD, CPH

@sylvialongphd

22K

followers

2204

following

Researcher. Idea Architect. Consultant + Advisor
•••••••••••••••••••
🙏🏾 Jesus’ Daughter | @reddgolongjr’s Wife

POSTS STORIES REELS

Three things Daddy gon’ do:
1️⃣ Keep eating 😂
2️⃣ Wave his hands, giving glory to God 👋🏾
3️⃣ Quicken when he feels the Spirit 🙌🏾

Thank you @missionbbq for always being so kind to my sweet Daddy ☺️

💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎

#Bible #God #Jesus #HolySpirit #YouVersion #Faith #Hope #Love #Trust #Worship #SpiritualGrowth #Christian #Gratitude #ChristianLiving #Family #Military #Army #Veteran #Caregiving #Caregiver #ElderCare #HappyFriday #WW2 by @sylvialongphd

I AM ALIVE 😭🙌🏾 Last week — for the first time in months — I actually looked at the scale when the nurse weighed me at the doctor’s office. While in the middle of the illness the Lord assigned to me this winter/spring, I literally withered away and I didn’t want to face the quantitative stats of my reality. Fear of food; fear of swallowing; fear of death — it all consumed me, and I lost weight, I lost strength, and became severely malnourished.

So last week, I learned I dropped 75 pounds within roughly four months 🥺 The week before I ended up in the emergency room in January, I was 244 pounds. I am currently 169. Not knowing what I was going through, some people told me I “needed to eat more”: I wanted to, but I couldn’t. Others said I “looked great”: but I felt like I was literally dying. In fact, I could have.

Earlier this month, my new practitioner tried to explain to my husband just how sick I really was when I first saw her in March…and tears just swelled up in my eyes. The fact that I am alive, in my right mind, and healing week-by-week is NOTHING BUT GOD.

I still cry. At times, I still ponder “why”. But one thing I know is true: When God ordains a fresh testimony, it produces fresh faith 📌 More to come…

#JehovahRapha #MasterPhysician #InSicknessAndInHealth #Jesus #God #Healing #Faith #Health #FunctionalMedicine #Supplements by @sylvialongphd

#TBT This was such a great week: married @reddgolongjr one Friday and walked across the stage the next Friday. Changed my name twice in one week…from Ms. Hayes, to Mrs. Long, to Dr. Long 👰🏾‍♀️👩🏾‍🎓

•••••••••••••••••••••••••

#SocialEpidemiology #Epidemiology #Empathy #TheEmpathyDoctor #MentalHealth #HealthCommunication #HealthEducation #Healthcare #Health #PublicHealth #Communication #BlackWomen #COVID19 #Coronavirus #Friends #Family #Instagram #Share #ExplorePage #Love #InstaGood #PhotoOfTheDay #GirlBoss #STEM #BlackWomenInSTEM #FemaleBoss #Business #businesswoman by @sylvialongphd

FUNDING for pastors, leaders, and visionaries? Don’t mind if we do…😃⬇️

@reddgo.long and I are very excited about the next iteration of our community work! In 2017, Reddgo founded and led a grassroots non-profit in Wilmington, NC @a.c.t.s.movement, combating food insecurity through an AWARD-WINNING food pantry. That work laid the foundation for our commitment to being the hands and feet of Jesus through needs-based aid.

Since moving to South Carolina, we have prayed on creative ways we can expand our philanthropy, and one of the best ways to do that is to innovate (😌) and allocate economic support to those already doing the work across the nation.

As such, we are elated to introduce the newest addition to our portfolio, Long Family Foundation. The Foundation is our legacy’s giving vehicle, built on a shared conviction that faithful stewardship means being conduits (not just recipients) of God’s provision. As our Pastor @bishopmablue teaches, we are not called to consume, but to PRODUCE! The Foundation exists to fund Kingdom work that is often overlooked by traditional giving entities.

Covenant Capital will be the grant-making division of Long Family Foundation, funding ministries and ministers through outcome-centered micro-grants: modest, one-time gifts provided through a solicited funding opportunity to meet a specific strategic priority.

We envision Covenant Capital providing funding for diverse Kingdom needs (e.g., ministry supplies, building projects, outreach events, youth initiatives, conference sponsorships, live recordings, etc.) Each grant we intend to fund is an act of sowing into the work already being accomplished in God’s vineyard, and we are excited to see how applicants illustrate their existing impact.

Please pray for us in the excellent execution of this God-inspired vision and all that goes with it: legal paperwork, tax implications [which already drive me up a wall 😂], and any retaliatory strike from the kingdom of darkness.

For now, TAG your pastor or a visionary doing amazing work and ask them to mention which types of initiatives we should consider first‼️

Thank you!

Long Family Foundation; Doing good with God 🫱🏽‍🫲🏾 by @sylvialongphd

On a very personal note, I can identify with Hannah in more ways than one‼️So I ministered to MYSELF with this one 🙌🏾

Last Saturday, I was honored to share with the women of Chesterfield Missionary Baptist Church during their “Rooted, Restored, and Rising” (Psalm 1) fall conference. We shared a lesson entitled “I Rose to Tell You” (1 Samuel 1 and 2).

Many times we think about the beautiful narrative of 1 Samuel 1, but we fail to mention Hannah’s song in Chapter 2. We shared an exposition of Psalm 1 alongside 1 Samuel 1 and detailed Hannah’s journey to a testimony in three points:

1. YOUR ENVIRONMENT CAN ROB YOU OF YOUR ROOTS. Psalm 1:1 warns us not to sit in the seat of the scornful [‘ridiculers’ in the AMP]…and here Hannah was living next to it! Peninnah’s ridicule kept her from enjoying the “worthy portion” from her husband!

2. YOU MUST POUR OUT THE POISON. Psalm 1:2 says the blessed one meditates in the law of the Lord. Whatever you meditate on will fill you, and here, it was Peninnah’s words instead of the word of God. But Hannah was HONEST about the bitterness in her soul, and she did not abandon the temple. She poured out her soul in the presence of the Lord and left the bitterness there.

3. PEACE WILL MAKE YOU PRODUCE. Psalm 1:3 says the one who is planted brings forth fruit in season. A tree CANNOT produce while its roots are disturbed, and neither can we! When Eli said “go in peace,” SHE ROSE up, her countenance was “NO MORE SAD,” and Samuel was the fruit of her season!

LISTEN 🗣️ When you are PLANTED in God, you can walk in the PEACE of God. And when you walk in the PEACE of God, you can PRODUCE the PROVISION of God!

But this is the point…Hannah rose in her heart and in her mindset FIRST! And then eventually, her belly began to rise as well! That is why [and how!] she ROSE to tell us. Chapter 2 became her own personal testimony service 😭

So if you are in a waiting season this morning, God has not forgotten about you. He will REMEMBER you, like He did Hannah ❤️‍🩹

I declare this over you: this next season is called NO MORE SAD.

I believe something good is about to happen to you‼️ by @sylvialongphd

Do you want to know what I am excited about right now? Re-directing my focus toward people who actually want to be focused on.

What do I mean? I am going to share a video about it at another time, but essentially, the Lord revealed to me that much of my frustration and let down has been due to wanting to help people who legitimately needed help, but just did not want help from me; wanting to love people who genuinely wanted to be loved, but did not want love from me.

Meanwhile…I have unopened and unread messages and emails from the hungry, ready, and willing. Former mentees, current mentees, former clients, waitlisted clients, ministry colleagues, and my all-time favorite…STRANGERS, who have literally been waiting on me!

I really wanted to slap myself 😂 But if I am honest, it also made me concernedly sad 🥺 And as a social scientist, I am interested in what the data and literature has to say about our unrelenting platonic pursuits to be accepted by the uninterested.

How much time have you wasted worrying about people who are not worried about you, while—although not intentionally, but still, irresponsibly—looking past the people who are ready to receive what GOD GAVE YOU to pour out?

When you FIX YOUR FOCUS, you will FIX YOUR FRUSTRATION‼️

God has joy and purpose waiting for you 😃 by @sylvialongphd

I think the light switch went off in my head on Sunday💡God did not restore me for me to shrink. I QUITE LITERALLY could have died…but God said, “NOT SO!” And He blocked death for a reason.

My birthday, itself, was the gift. I remember this time just three years ago not knowing if I would live. In the picture on the right—while I was finally gaining a little of the almost 100 pounds I lost overnight after my nervous system attacked itself—I was still wearing a heart monitor for incontrollable arrhythmia, experiencing breakouts and skin discoloration from malnutrition and fatigue, and going in and out of the emergency room for frequent chest and stomach pain, among a host of other complications.

BUT, I took the picture on the left on my birthday, this past Sunday morning 🥹 No heart monitor. No arrhythmia. No pain. Glowing skin. No fear of dying. A smile that I paid for.

So, yes, I think it’s about time to recapture the voice satan tried to silence… by @sylvialongphd

Today is a testimony wrapped in a birthday. It is a reminder that the woman you always see serving, loving, and giving has walked through chapters that she never expected to have to write, but still found a way to keep BECOMING.

There is something powerful about a woman who no longer feels the need to wait until she looks like the version of herself she imagined before she allows herself to be celebrated. She understands that she does not have to become someone else to be worthy of joy, but she is worthy of celebrating right now.

36 and still here, but more than a survivor.
A leader
A dreamer.
A wife.
A friend.
A giver
A servant

Today, I don’t just celebrate her birthday, I celebrate her becoming. I celebrate every version of her that had to learn something new, heal, start over, and keep going.

Babe, at 36, may you see yourself the way God sees you. Still growing, still becoming, still beautiful, still worthy, still loved, and still here. I want you to look at yourself and celebrate who you already are. Because I see a woman who has been stretched, tested, humbled, strengthened, and changed, but I also see a woman who still has so much life in her.

I celebrate the fact that you are YOU! If I could give you one gift today, it would be the ability to see yourself the way we all see you. AMAZING.

“That which hath been is now; and that which is to be hath already been; and God requireth that which is past.” Ecclesiastes 3:15 KJV📖

The chapters you wish you could rewrite, moments you wish had never happened, seasons you did not understand, and days you wondered why God allowed certain things to happen are not outside of His reach. He has not abandoned what happened behind you.

GOD. CHASES. HISTORY.

There may be some things that you thought could never be recovered because too much had happened, but God has a relationship with time that we do not have. What has been and what will be are not disconnected from Him.
God does not have to erase your history to give you a future. He is already there.

Happy 36th Birthday, my love❤️❤️ by @sylvialongphd

The sweet young people made me do the bounce dress challenge, and this is DEFINITELY my mood this week heading into the @officialccfm KING’S SUMMIT 2026 🔥 I’m going to the meeting‼️‼️‼️ Who is coming with me⁉️ Attendance is FREE, but you still have time to register and support this great work 🙌🏾

🎥: @iicky___sweets
👗: @shaunnabarfield by @sylvialongphd

People who I wish we invested more time in: NON-SINGLE SINGLES.

Here is what I mean…

I know that we say “Until you are married, you are single!” — agree, 100%. However, there are countless Believers who are single in documentation, but not in devotion. Yes, their left finger is naked, but the heart to which Egyptian romantic mythology suggests that finger is connected is fully clothed with intention…

…intention to be faithful, committed, loyal, and devoted to the one with whom they are presently in a committed relationship. This, my friends, requires discipleship.

If you are courting someone with intention, marital coaching and mentorship should happen BEFORE engagement. Sadly, many marriages are a reflection of this lack of pre-engagement investment because, unfortunately, those who have publicly announced engagement are less likely to call the wedding off, even if during pre-marital counseling they discover marital incompatibility. Thus, I posit that the appropriate bridge between dating and marriage is not engagement, it is courtship with discipleship accountability.

There CAN be a generation of marriages that reflect the love of Christ for His Church, in the earth. Marriages that reflect grace and mercy, safety and fidelity, forgiveness and reconciliation, but most importantly: spiritual maturity—without which, none of the others can happen.

Let us invest in these dear hearts—many of which are young adults navigating responsibility of this magnitude for the first time—and wage a war against Christian divorce rates.

Thinking about something…💭

📷: @elishasumo by @sylvialongphd

No long caption: Invest in your marriage 🔒 by @sylvialongphd

LIFE UPDATE: 11 months ago, I “fake retired” from my decade-plus federal career…

…the career that provided me with a safety net through a divorce, two graduate degrees, and the sudden death of my mother.

More notably, it was the career that gave me remote flexibility and financial security during a pandemic as a full-time caregiver for my WWII Veteran father until he passed at the sweet, young age of 100+ in 2024.

After Daddy died, my husband and I were set on permanently relocating to serve a ministry we felt called to. The federal return-to-office orders changed the practicality of that decision.

Since my Director did not want me to leave (which is always a good sign 🙂) and truthfully, their hands were tied, I was given two options: stay in town near the DMV office during the week and fly home on the weekends…or…commute five hours a day, five days a week to a federal office space that was closer to where we planned to move.

Both laughable. Both stressful. Both unaligned with my life.

I walked.

I used the phrase “fake retired” because I didn’t have the minimum age or the career years to actually retire, but I was blessed with enough of a nest egg to draw from until I figured out how full-time consulting could replace my salary.

This past weekend, a spontaneous emergency room visit reminded me of why separating from federal service was the best decision for me.

While waiting for labs and CT scan results, I managed three client relationships across three states: (1) a deliverable timeline, (2) a contract deadline, and (3) an unsolicited proposal for an organization that I know needs my strategic advisement.

I didn’t have to submit a PTO request or a sob story…nor did I have any guilt. Zero panic. Zero missed opportunities.

And this, good people, is what it looks like when your story, your systems, and your relationships are all aligned with your life. You know, that thing that actually matters in order for you to do any of this anyway…

xo, S. by @sylvialongphd