Tag: sista to sista

Watch your words, Sis, they can kill…

She was tired. The results did not match the effort. “Why was this so hard? O God I just want to die! Come, Lord, I can’t bother no more.” She puts down her sword, puts down her armour and just sits there. She thinks she’s ready. She thinks she’s ready to die, because why should she live if she has nothing to give…

You are too harsh by far. You are too harsh to yourself and each word you utter cuts deep and leaves a wound. Soon, you will start bleeding until all the life is drained from your body. Be kind to yourself, just as you are kind to somebody else. Your words are causing those wounds that will be hard to repair.

There are times when we feel so much despair we just don’t care. We look at our situation and think of death before dishonour and so we say, death. We claim death to our dreams, relationships and our very being. We lose sight of our purpose and speak so much nonsense and we start to believe them. We start to nurture them, water them protect them; we start to worship them. Then we feel despair hounding us and we get tired. Yes, we get tired and we think those thoughts, over and over again until, our light is diminished. We lock ourselves off and forget our powerful friend. We forget we have a friend in Jesus. We sink into a hole so dark and so deep that we are consumed by it.

However, to give in is when despair truly begins. This is where the dishonour becomes a real thing. Giving reign to the dark disqualifies our purpose, and dishonours a gift given in love, blood and unimaginable pain. Yes, Sticks and stones can break bones but words and be the death of us. Little by little those words of failure of surrender begin to chip away at our tenacity, our resolve and our birthright. So be careful, be very careful of the things you tell yourself. Because what others say to you, doesn’t really matter, until you begin to repeat them to yourself. Only then do they become true. So, be careful that the words you think of, the words you use with yourself are words, God, has commissioned over your life, not those carelessly tossed around by a desperate mind.

“Let me give you a preview of what your words can do and tell me what you think…”

“Oh God! I shall not die but live and declare the works of the Lord, forgive me!”

Pull back when you are closest to the edge, reach out and seek help. But don’t allow yourself to be enticed by the tragedy of your story. It’s better to seek the repairer of the breach, that’s what we should seek than to blindly orchestrate and actively participate in our defeat. Words are powerful use the with wisdom, love and kindness.

A Letter with Love. For My Sisters in Distress

“It’s a vicious cycle”. A good friend of mine uttered these words to me recently. She had grown frustrated with herself. She was not herself. And so she was condemning herself. I wanted to give her a hug because I know how it feels. When you wake up each day to change those things that seem to take you down a dark road you end in the same way you were the day before. It can be so frustrating. Especially when we place so much pressure to do the right thing and give no grace for our humanness. “I hate that I am…” But what do you love that you are? Yes, there are things we wish we could change at the snap of a finger but just a well-placed thought. However, it never ends up that way. But Sis, where is the grace?

We live in a world that is so fast-paced that we place so much pressure on ourselves to rebound, bounce back and carry on. All in haste to get nowhere, just being further away than where we started. The funny thing is that each day it is the same. This is a vicious cycle. We do not stop to think that maybe it’s okay, to not feel okay. We think it horrific to just allow ourselves the space to have this thing play out to its own conclusion, even if right now we feel stretched thin so we can catch ourselves back down the road when we come back together again. We need to be comfortable with a process that is uncomfortable so that we can come out fine on the other side, in our own time and not when we think we should. Our body knows the score, it knows it’s a process but when we interfere with its attempt at healing we undermine our very being. It is hard, and words are easy – sometimes. But we have to stop the cycle by being kind about what we say and think about ourselves. Maybe you too feel like my friend now feels and you too are silently suffering:

It's that feeling in the pit of your stomach
it balls up in your throat
blocking the air 
flow
It's the tightness of and suffocation from
the mask you wear
It's the jumbled thoughts in your head
It's not knowing what exactly is wrong 
but
sensing the weight
It's... (by S.A.D)

Yes that darn feeling, that paralyse the strongest of us at one time or another. There is little that can be said in those moments to truly brings us the salvation that we need. We have to wait, we have to wait for the feeling to pass so we can get back to ourselves and then we have to hug ourselves and remind ourselves, that we are doing our best. It will take time, just breathe and wait. 

And I have learned too
to laugh with only my teeth
and shake hands without my heart.
I have also learned to say,’Goodbye’,
when I mean ‘Good-riddance’:
to say ‘Glad to meet you’,
without being glad; and to say ‘It’s been
nice talking to you’, after being bored.

But believe me, son.
I want to be what I used to be
when I was like you. I want
to unlearn all these muting things.
Most of all, I want to relearn
how to laugh, for my laugh in the mirror
shows only my teeth like a snake’s bare fangs! (from Once Upon a Time by Gabriel Okara)

When you don’t feel like yourself, it’s knowing someday you will, if only you push through to the next day. It is not easy but it can be done. It is not easy but thy will be done. You just need to know that you have a choir singing behind you reminding you to stay true to your intentions and more importantly, to stay true to who you are. and when you don’t see how great you are then remember whose you are and sing with conviction:

… Then sings my soul, my Savior God to Thee
How great Thou art, how great Thou art
Then sings my soul, my Savior God to Thee
How great Thou art, how great Thou art

And because He is great you are great. You are greater than your circumstances. You are greater than your troubles. You are greater than anything that is kicking your ass now. You were always great, never less than great and will always be great. You are great SIS! But never feel less because you don’t feel great when a moment or moments of weakness have you in a chokehold. This too shall pass