Category: Encountering New Experiences

Loyalty… Sacrifice

Stop lying. You are not truly loyal. It’s desperation. I ain’t condemning you. I seen it in myself too that’s why I can tell you. You is a liar.

Too often we feel trapped in ticking all the boxes to please people until we tick ourselves right off a cliff. We feel we need to take care of it all but really we lying about the truth of what we do. All we do is hold ourselves captive to what we think we should do to sit at an imaginary table that never had legs to stand on much less a seat for us to sit. Many of us are still blinded by the need to do all at the cost of self and we claim to be doing something, like helping others. How are we serving others by sacrificing our health, our mind, and our spirit? No one asked, nor do they have the right to expect that. So stop being unkind to yourself.

When last did we help ourselves by being honest. By saying you know what we don’t want to do this, “this is no longer about using the gifts God gave me but trying to please others for their approval, this is not about serving God by serving others. This has become catering to the will of another human being”. When will we turn around and be honest and truthful to ourselves and to those we are trying to please? We take care of others, and when you think about it, we are okay with thinking we have some special talent for it. No, we need to be honest about the fact that because we are human we are limited. Stop doing that job to make others happy. Be yourself don’t sacrifice yourself for a cause you were never called to take up. Jon of Arc is a saint, but you are no Jon of Arc and nobody should expect you to be.

“What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” (Mark 8: 34)

For this advent period, we need to think differently. We need to start thinking of living in truth not living a sacrificial life based on how much we can please others and how much we need to please God. We need to reflect on why we may do the things we do and how we can work at being more intentional. It’s finally time to start being faithful to who God has called us to be and not to the calling of the world. Let us be loyal to Jesus and not the flesh

For I desire mercy, not sacrifice,  and acknowledgement of God rather than burnt offerings. (Hosea 6:6)

Let Me Vent!

Forget the label
see me,
see me!
See my tears
See my fears
know I have layers
Don't judge me
for being weak
let me vent;
relent!
Understand
I am allowed to be weak.
The truth is never sweet
it's sticky 
it's bitter
but it washes away
many lies
many disasters
many tragedies 
hiding behind a smile.
Can you give me grace?
can you let me go
at a kinder pace?

Strength Comes…

Strength comes not with facing adversity, but by overcoming them. We no longer want to survive no, for to survive is just about existence. If we are to be victorious in this life we have to get better, gain and overwhelm the adversities. We are told to be survivors, to keep quiet, take the beating now so we can live tomorrow. As for me, I have realised that surviving does not mean you will be in a better place, not stuck in the trauma of survival; always revisiting and feeding the wound. Instead, I want the wound completely healed so I can be stronger and more intuned to making life an endless possibility for possibilities to shine.

When I was younger I almost lost the top joint of my finger. I was opening a tin with a knife and it slipped and the tin cover I had partially opened almost sliced off the joint completely. At first, there was no blood, only a big blob of white mass oozing through. Then, with little warning blood started sprouting endlessly. For some seconds I stood watching the blood as it flowed to the ground, it seemed unreal to me. Then my grandmother came. She had heard me screaming in agony. I had not realised I was crying out quite loudly. I grabbed my finger and bent it back in place to stop the blood; there was so much blood. I was taken to the doctor and a big fat tape was wrapped around it. “You’re lucky you came in time or we would have had to get rid of the joint”, the cut was that deep. The doctor told me that if I wanted to get it as straight as possible I had to keep pushing it forward. When it healed, however, it was not straight. That finger was inelegantly larger than the other hand and had a permanent bend. Of course, I hated it. I tried to hide it and not to use it if I could.

Eventually, I realised three things about that finger. One, it will always be a part of me. So, whether I liked it or not, it was there. I had to accept it in its present state, not how it was or how I wanted it to be. Next, There was a story of survival that meant it had been through something that almost destroyed it but it lived to tell the tale of that experience. Finally, it was strong. It healed in the best way it could, functions the best it can and will remain where it was planted for as long as it has life. The last point was the most inspiring. Yes, it survived, but it had not withered away to a shell of itself. Now it has character, it has presence, and it is the strongest finger I have. Though it is not as beautiful as my other fingers in the original, expected sense, it is beautiful, it is itself because of what it can now do.

My finger illustrates for me the power of one who overcomes. To face the challenge and win means you have been stretched to the point where growth is possible. Where you can evolve into someone who does things you once thought unimaginable. It forces you to test the limits of your strength so you can realise that strength is gained in measures not given at once. Each day an overcomer represents the truth, that in order to thrive we have to be challenged or die a bud and not a flower.

The Curse of Enough

There was a boy, a poor poor boy, who did not have enough. He worked so hard each and every day to have enough to eat, but it was never enough. In despair, he cried to God, ‘Lord help me!” Yet nothing happened, for a while and so he had to go along. He worked, and he worked with little else as a witness to his work. On payday the little he got finished before he left work. He had no choice. He did not have enough. Looking on we could feel his pain as he went to his bed, half-starved. He was poor, so, so poor that even those who wanted him to win could not look on his countenance too long. He was far gone. He did not have enough. And so each night we prayed with him, that God would show him the light to Enough.

It continued so until one day the light did shine on him. “At last I will have enough to feel like a king!” To his credit, his words were true and slowly smiled Enough. It entered through his shabby door and promptly stayed within. Enough got comfortable, quite comfortable and so decided to stay. When we saw it would stay with him our hearts jumped with joy. It was one of those things we could proclaim a miracle. And so his life changed and as he gained his thin frame got healthy and thick. He looked as he should from the very start a most contented success story of Enough.

However, as most stories go, this heavenly state did not last. Because having gained enough, that man felt he must create more Enough to never lose him again. So, when he was to share Enough with his neighbours who did not have enough, he flatly refused, “How can I give the little I have for see, it is not enough!” This was a surprise to all because on the outside looking in, all we saw was the increase from his beginning. But nothing could convince him and with set determination he would not give in, he only would give from what he had when he had enough, Enough. At first, we were appalled but then we thought, “Maybe he has a point”. There and then we prayed hard night and day so he could have more Enough.

Would you believe God did smile down most brightly and sent some more enough? With joy and gladness he welcomed them in, but his neighbours, he would not let them in! For him, the gift of more Enough was one that needed special guarding. From those, he said who would take advantage of God’s anointing. So he kept all Enough and did not share a one. Oh, what lamenting, what wailing from him who wanted to be generous, but did not have enough, Enough. Though he was a busy man, he did find some time to reason with God to finally help him to have enough, Enough and each time he was more insistent. By this time we were all surprised when God answered him yet again!

More and more enough he got and yet it was not enough. We grew tired of the complaining and murmuring all day and one by one we left. No one wanted to waste their prayers on an evil discontented soul, so we broke the chain of prayer and each forgot about him and left him cold. It so happened that one Tuesday on my daily walk, I saw the impression of a former man walking down the street. Soulless eyes stared back at me and coldness squeezed my heart. My God! It was him! It was the man who got Enough and still would sing of wanting more. I looked at him and he looked through me and I cried a little for that innocent, hardworking boy.

You are Right Where You are Meant to Be

It is tiring, right? Always striving, reaching for the next thing, that one thing you are meant to do. To become the one you are meant to be.

It is hard. When you are tired. When you are not sure what to do. What to do next? Sometimes, we get so focused on the next thing that we miss out on the now. On the rich things happening now, the lessons being taught now. We miss the gems we are to collect now and we move to the next, with an empty basket. We are too quick to move, too limited to appreciate what we have before us before it becomes ‘had’. Pace, pace yourself and slow down. What is meant for your good will be given to you. There is no need for us to be chasing the next thing, presented to us as the ‘best thing’. I need to stop and look carefully at what is around me. What I can take care of now, what I can do now and do that. There is no need to reach beyond what is in front of me. First I have to address the present in order to successfully greet the future.

Forget perfection, it is not achievable. What can happen is that we devalue our efforts, the efforts of others and God’s awesome efforts on our behalf, because we are waiting for perfection. There is no perfect life. Yes, it is hard to admit and even harder to live this imperfect life but it is the truth. A truth I do not like is that death is sure. What we need to do before we get there is to embrace life with all its imperfections and just give ourselves the grace to live it.

So, we push through and beyond the stones we encounter in the now, before we move on. We do not need to turn back and seek another path. Really we can never go back, so why try? We push through and we take note of our strengths and weaknesses. We learn about our idiosyncracies and we push to thrive, no matter the harsh conditions. We do not stop. We may pause, cry out our fears, and wonder what we are doing here, but we never stop. We may slow down because it’s what we have to do. We may even pause for a good long while because the lesson module is so large, but we will eventually move again when the time is right. The only constant is change. therefore, we can see little changes in the little things taking place around us now. Sometimes even those little things become big things. But, we never stop, we are never stuck, and we are getting to where we are getting in a time that matches our ability at that time.

So, while it may be tempting for us to abort the boat in the middle of a storm and hop on a passing ship that seems destined for greater things, let us pause and think. How did we get here? Where were we told to go? Is that ship headed for our promised land or an iceberg? Sometimes we are meant to be in the boat, going at a steady pace, being led, because what is ahead for us is still in preparation mode and God needs time to set it up right for us. Just remember in the now you are in, you are where you are meant to be.

What Am I meant to learn?

I sit chained to my fear
submerged in doubts
adrift from my anchor.
What am I meant to learn...
from the withered flowers
from stormy seas
a love that don't involve me.
I wish I could see
ahead to what's meant to be...

I search 
time wasted
spent reaching dead ends
dead kingdoms bent
in destruction
spent by impotence...

But through I go
my story told
lessons I must learn
to grow.