KEEP THE HOPE ALIVE
Looking at your life and your current situation, it really looks like you’re stuck and life is no more worth living. Hear this!!!-I look back now and I am thankful for every struggle, insult and hardship. It’s in those unbearable seasons that the best of us created. When the pain of lack in any form or the betrayal of a loved one happens, we are crushed yet it is these times we actually designed to PRODUCE. We produce because for most people, our natural survival instinct kicks in.
What we must never ever do however, in our seasons of pain, is to wallow in self pity and hopelessness. We now know, that our pain is designed to birth something. The question to ask is this, WHAT AM I TO TAKE AWAY FROM THIS?. WHAT LESSOBS AM I TO LEARN?. So long as that is the question, our answer to the NEXT LEVEL will always be right before us. My friends were working in Oil companies, banks while I was marketing things to them to buy. I won’t lie, there were times I wanted to give up everything. Trust me when I say I have been through my fair share of humiliation but I have come full circle in trusting the custodian of my destiny and writer of my story when He assures me not to look at those things that are temporal.
If God came to tell that it was all for my equipping, I doubt I would have believed. I had many questions and countless tears to God on many occasions. Who would have thought that my struggles can give strength to some today?. Think about it!. Would I have written my life story this way if I were God?, NO. Would I now have wanted to write it any other way? ABSOLUTELY NOT!!!
I love and cherish every pain, every struggle because of the things going through them has produced. No life is perfect, far from it. At every stage, there are fresh struggles, New fears, Higher mountains to climb and greater hurdles to overcome. But at the end of it all, you will be grateful for the realisation that truly all things work for the good of them that love God and are called to a purpose. A purpose eyes may not have seen and ears comprehend. So why do you look to mimic that someone else has done before? or use somebody’s standard as though it were God’s?
Your journey is uniquely yours and how God is set to use you is in your ability to yield to Him. Embrace your journey, every experience, every twist and every turn. Do not ever lose hope! You are loved.
GENERATIONAL STRONGHOLDS
You mean there were things called GENERATIONAL and FOUNDATIONAL STRONGHOLDS that I had to break? Wow!!!- That explains why I could see some ugly patterns within my family . Nobody knew they could be broken let alone take responsibility to break them .
You mean, I needed to pray to activate things in my life?
Because, there are people who carry what I want , that I need to locate . And those who want what I carry that need to locate me. Amazing!!!- No wonder, we sometimes go through life missing our spouses, missing our helpers and missing out on opportunities.
I sat in the fellowship watching as people fervently prayed .
The prayers hit the nail of challenges smack on the head each time .
My elder sister had blessed me with one of the greatest gifts ever.
Learning the power of praying for myself and by myself effectively .
I felt like I was in kindergarten but I was willing to learn and learn fast . My life needed it .
So, I had been living in a bubble!!!
This was what my mates were learning while I was sleeping .
Better late than NEVER !!! Born Anglican, I wasn’t used to praying this way. I wasn’t taught to be seize the things that were rightfully mine in the spirit .
These are keys of the kingdom the Bible talks about and learning to activate these keys effectively was what I was beginning to learn.
I suppose the first measure of security while on this new journey , was the peace I felt .
I felt like FINALLY , my prayers were going somewhere .
We need associations like this. Ones that would lead us to solutions not leave us revelling in them.
THE COST OF LOVE
The cost of love…..do you really know it?. Loving someone, people, come at a cost. A price we trivialize or simply under estimate. Have you counted the cost of loving the people around you and can you afford it?. From the moment my children were born, I knew what I had gotten myself into. It started the minute they cried and I no longer had the Will power to resist it. I repeatedly pushed myself to breastfeed, inspite of my excruciating pain after the C section. And even when I couldn’t breastfeed because I wasn’t lactating, the thought of an alternative broke my heart. It was at these points I knew, I had been caught in the irresistible web of love.
I talk about the cost of love today, because as a parent, I have had to re-evaluate the quality of love I have within me for my children and whether or not I’m paying the right price for it. I lived for that priceless look of happiness when I handed my child either a new toy or a stick of biscuit. The satisfactory feeling of being solely responsible for the well being of another human being and meeting that need. I promise you, it’s close to heaven and can begin to drive you like a car. My precious little ones simply had to have the best things and opportunities, this woke us up every morning and drove us.
At the early stage of marriages, the cost of love is commitment to work harder, cutting of excesses. The real cost is not money, the real cost is the effect of the earnest search of it……that’s the real cost. Minds would be pre occupied with work, romantic and spontaneous dates no longer exist. When pressures are real, out goes patience, curtiousness etc. As a couple, intentions and goals would be great but at what price?
You want a bigger home for the children to have room to play. Get a new car to rid you of the embarrassment of a broken down vehicle as you go about your day to day activities. You desperately want a bigger power generator-the heat rash on the children is becoming unbearable. As the marriage starts feeling the weight of all these things, you need to sit to re-evaluate. The question you would come to is this-If for the love of these children, the pressures break the marriage, would you still achieve your goal?, would it all worth it?. And would the children thank you in the end?.
PARENTAL INFLUENCE ON MARITAL CHALLENGES
The more I talk about marriage, the more my eyes are being open to see where the challenges stem from. Its not about your spouse. A lot goes on during our child hood, we don’t even realise how much we soak up and are conditioned by the things we see, hear and feel during these early stages of life. We get into adulthood in search of all that was missing from our childhood. Most often the girls are searching for the love and affection of a male figure. But why? Daddy was hardly there growing up, and when he came home, he was the most revered member of the family. He was given the nicest food, and everything was often done for him. He only saw to the cars, pumping machines, generator etc. On the few occasions he would play with us, we thought it more than made up for the times he was busy and unavailable. Now explain this…..how is a girl to choose right? when she has been conditioned to expect very little from a man. She doesn’t have her dad converse extensively with her or pay attention to the small things that concern her nor has she even heard him tell her how valuable she is to him.
She hasn’t felt his support with her personal struggles nor has she seen him vulnerable before. So how is she to know what to expect when she starts dating?. No standard has been set for her and in the search for what her heart yearns for, that she can’t even articulate. She meets someone, someone equally broken. Also conditioned by the failures of his own upbringing. Unschooled by His own father both in deed and in speech. These two meet, deluded that they are in love because their hearts and bodies pine for each other. How are they to know it’s not LOVE?.:When they don’t even know what they are in search of. The ones who should and who could, have not exemplified it. Not that I blame them. They too have found themselves in a situation they were ill equipped to handle and all they have tried to do for the most parts of their family life is to survive what a vicious cycle this is. How do we put an end to it? By you and I influencing our children differently.
The more I talk about marriage, the more my eyes are being open to see where the challenges stem from. It’s not about your spouse , a lot goes on during our childhood, we don’t even realise how much we soak up and are conditioned by the things we see, hear and feel during these early stages of life. We get into adulthood in search if all that was missing from our childhood. Most often the girls are searching for the love and affection of a male figure. But WHY?
By YOU and I influencing our children differently
What a vicious cycle this is?. How do we put and end to it?
The ones who should and who could, have not exemplified it. Not that I blame them, they too have found themselves in a situation they were ill equipped to handle and all they have tried to do for the most parts of their family life is to survive.
