Category: Naomi Stainbank

The Burden of Equality

Lately, I’ve been wondering about the plight of yearning and pursuing equality. This has come about because of the longstanding discontent I’ve had with my husband about the skewedness I feel and see in his presence and proactive participation in building up and nurturing our friendship, marriage, family, and household.

Recently we were gifted a dishwasher. I’d lied to myself that perhaps that would solve the problem. But the dishes were never the problem.

What is the problem, Daughter?

I feel it’s true that, like many wives, I shoulder the bulk of the weight of carrying a marriage and family life while getting the short end of the benefits. I feel it’s true that as the automated Operations Officer of the home, my role seldom has breather moments, and my work often goes unnoticed, unless I have a burnout or end up in the hospital. It’s obvious that I’ve been reduced to a beast of burden.

Oftentimes being capable feels like a curse. My aunt once pleaded with me to never show a man that I am capable, instead I should nurse long nails and play the damsel diva. I did not listen, and more truly, I did not know how to be incapable when in fact I am highly capable. Like the A student teamed up with slow coaches and slackers, I’ve been annoyed that I’m often left to do most of the work while others benefit off my capacity.

I am starting to secretly agree with the pop culture maxims: I don’t need a man, don’t depend on a man, miss independent… basically, I am low-key becoming the thing I loathe: a political and ideological feminist.

The sad truth is I’m not completely wrong in my frustrations. Many men in our time are indeed cowardly. Having abdicated personal and pack responsibilities, most are nauseatingly passive. Like a beggar plucking out their eyes to elicit more pity, they choose disability by allowing laziness and selfishness to castrate their authority, masculinity, and power. And when they see female ability, great envy ensues and they persecute her in overt or passive abuse.

Yes, like me, many wives dim their light so as not to shine brightly upon the darkness in the males they live with. No wonder so many languish like caged birds in perpetual anxiety and depression from stifled potential and muzzled expression.

The cowardly man is a master at manipulation through gaslighting and breadcrumbing. He is referred to in many wives’ minds as another baby, instead of an equal and a husband. 

You ask, what is the problem? I am completely frustrated because he demands not to be treated like a child, but he is not willing to mature and rise up to admirable and honorable manhood.

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The Unspoken Truth

I see. Yet you are charged with submission, and you fail to reconcile submitting to a man-child. You continually lament but feel defeated, because you made your bed, and now you must lie in it.

Alone. Again tonight.

Yes, I can hear you thinking it: “while he plays video games, watches sports, or perversion on screens.” You feel this time you have of solitude is a bad thing, even excruciating. I wonder, why?

Is your company so loathsome that you cannot bear to be alone with yourself? And if you cannot bear to be alone with yourself, why should anyone else suffer you?

I know you’re startled and didn’t expect this blunt probe and feel like it is harsh. The truth often is, daughter. You have bought into a lie, and I want to show you how you’ve been short-changed, and that your grumbling over burdens you need not take on is foolish, because I have commanded you to do everything without grumbling. Therefore if there is anything you are doing half-heartedly, you are better off leaving it than crumbling under it.

There is truly nothing new under the sun. Just as it was in the garden of Eden, many women across time continue to be deceived and scammed of autonomy, authority, and joy.

Autonomy is a gift the Creator bestowed on humanity. It is one that is only enjoyed responsibly. For many women across history, the ability to act freely and independently is a right that has been severely suppressed to the extent that female heredity still struggles to reign with natural ease.

Instead, as a present-day female, you live in a time where your access to autonomy is suppressed by a continued belief in your oppressors’ narrative of who you must be, despite the screeching protests from deep within you.

Perhaps you hold fast to the incapacity narrative because you know that you are complicit in your oppression and the dissonance of who you are and who you allow to be is an excruciating jamming.

When Woman was created in the garden of Eden, she received the right to act with independence and freedom in the capacity of an agent of objective morality. She received every right to be fruitful, to increase in number, to fill the earth and subdue it, and to govern over all the earth, including herself.

The woman, however, used her right and capacity to act under the influence of her desires instead of obedience to her Maker. Moreover, she chose to not own up to her failure in favor of assigning blame. In this assignment, she relinquished her power of autonomy. Someone else now had the right to act on her behalf, imprisoning her to limited or no capacity and thereby keeping her oppressed time after time.

And so it is also for you, dear daughter. As long as you do not own your whole life—your attitudes, behaviors, feelings, thoughts, and well-being—you continue to forfeit the right to freedom.

Authority is the power we have been given over our own lives. How does the following statement make you feel?

‭‭“I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet.“

Me before this meditation: Thoroughly vexed and indignant.

The focus of my probe above is not cincerned with the context or eschatology of this scripture, merely the statement in plain. In a hyper-feminist culture, such an utterance has conditioned women to lose their shit in protests. But on closer consideration, I find there is great wisdom for me, and perhaps you—if you would be true, if you would see.

I’ve been around many women who are consumed with teaching men and assuming the power to make decisions for men, yet they never teach themselves or own the right to make resolutions and enforce obedience over themselves. I was once such a woman, and for lesser and lesser parts, am still her. But thank God who delivers me daily from this needless and futile toil.

Eleanor learned this sweet truth one morning when, after expressing her aching need for intimacy with her husband, he chose to spend his evening watching videos. The following morning was a weekend, and as was his custom, he opened his computer at the breakfast table and proceeded to fiercely gaze at the videos that had become his passionate love.

Heart crushed and burning with searing sorrow, Eleanor thought for a moment to repeat her near-decade plea for his attention. But she remembered the wise counsel that a woman must not exercise authority over a man and should rather remain silent and quiet. She realized what she had authority over was her response. So she finished her food and went to another room to spend time with herself. She came from her retreat feeling empowered and strengthened in her dignity.

It is a truth as old as time that we have no power to truly make anyone do or be what we want. The bitter fruit of such efforts are grumbling, murmuring, and criticizing. These resorts erode self-esteem, but picking up the mantle of personal dictation begins to build a deep well of self-respect and enjoyment.

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A Harvest of Joy

There’s a fallacy about partnership that leaves all who fall for it critically depressed. Except for the rare one percent, most unions are unequally yoked. At any given time, one of the parties is bound to contribute less or the bare minimum. This can lead to grumbling and diminishing joy for the party who is wired with conscientiousness.

But we’ve determined that grumbling is a thief of joy. Therefore, we must cease this rebellion.

I know submission has for the longest time been a dirty word, but I am finding that it is in accepting the truth and reality of individual autonomy and authority in our daily encounters that we can bear every unequally yoked toil with ease and joy.

You and I can only be and do what we decide we can be and do. If we decide we are incapable and dependent, we sentence ourselves to the gloom of endless disappointment and frustration. But if we submit to our God-given identity, ability, and capacity, we will reap the delicious harvest of joy, peaceful contentment, and personal fulfillment.

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The Crowning

From infancy, little girls and boys are endearingly called princesses and princes. This has been a lifelong fascination to me. It seems we innately know that we were made to rule, and indeed, this is the very first command our Maker encoded. Following the corruption of sin, however, we now seek to have power over everything and everyone, but ourselves!

But we’ve already established that this, too, is futile.

Since that rude awakening breakfast, I continue to pursue reigning over myself first. 

One way I am taking charge over myself is to cease grumbling about my burden as the default “operations developer, executive and manager” in the home. Choosing to assign personally meaningful reasons why I must do the mundane tasks, like the fact that I am a neat and tidy person who appreciates the peace and wellbeing a clean and organized living space provides for the residents, of whom I am one, helps. Doing it also in service so the other residents can be nourished by the solace that a clean environment provides elevates it from pure drudgery. But doing it primarily as unto my LORD is the ultimate “why” that revives me when I’m weary and launches me to soar when I am down and out. 

It’s not easy. I admit, it is just about the hardest thing I will do for the rest of my life.

But do it, I must. Because in so doing, I rise from glory to glory, unburdening from baseness into the divinity and image of the Holy Deity who made me and crowned me to rule and sway myself and all things within my reign to greatness.

xoxo

Nimi

My dear heart. I know the irresistible pull of desolation feels impossible to overcome. Nevertheless, I hope you will dare to know that though your hopes and even your whole life may feel faded, stalled, and crawling, you may yet realize every dream and live the truly great life you long for and deserve. You only need to refrain from colluding with discouragement and despair. Instead, commit to your slow-but-sure, little-by-little efforts. By enduring through the seasons when both wheat and tares grow together, and though the tares seem abundant, if you persevere in watering your hopes, dreams, and life with faithfulness, then in the fullness of time, despair will not flourish. Instead, your enduring hopes will fruit into a bountiful harvest.

Is there something you spent your sleeping and waking hours dreaming of creating, cultivating, or producing? Do you remember how your heart once pounded with palpable excitement at the notion of pouring your days into bringing that thing forth for the enjoyment and service of everyone it would reach, touch, and sweep off their feet?

I can almost feel your heart sigh and your sharp inhale. I can hear a hurried exhale that suppresses the well of tears that rise in mourning for yearnings long forgotten and hopes deferred. I am glad for your soul that rejects grieving your passions and potential as though they were dead. Together with your soul, I am here to proclaim that your special something is not dead, but only asleep. And like mine and several others before us, your special something is awakening, even through the seemingly endless stalling and crawling.

Creating a space for total, authentic spiritual interplay is something for which my heart has burned for as long as I can remember. It is also something I’ve dodged, evaded, and passed up for far too long. Until the fated day when I mustered every shred of courage in my bones and flung the window to my heart wide open for all the world to peep by publishing this site. 

When I launched kingdompurposeddaughter.com, according to my faith in the promises of several internet advisers, I envisioned an instantly expansive reach.

However, contrary to the promised grandeur of several click-baiters, since pressing “launch this site,” I’ve seen no more than a couple of views, which I suspect are mostly from me—as I often find myself back here, grasping for encouragement. I must say, I am often revived and spurred on by the outpourings of this sacred fountain.

Nevertheless, I’ve become rather curious about those views which are not me. Yes, I mean you, skimming or poring over these resonant contents of our inmost being. I wonder what meaning or aid you gain from listening in on these Conversations with Heart.

It is because there seem to be more hearts than just mine tuned in to “Conversations with Heart” that I am drawn to continue these musings about my candid quest. I’ve been in contemplation for the last little while, so please pop by and devour the new uploads.

But before then, here is a little history of my being “missing in action.” It goes something like this:

2023 began with great joy and material ambition. After a couple of years in a wilderness of waiting for clarity about a child or a career, I ended 2022 with the answer in the form of the marvelous gift of a job in what I thought was the only environment sufficiently wholesome for my sensitive soul. With the advent of the new year, I was revved up to go full steam upward.

Thirty days in, however, I discovered that my other long-awaited desire was forming within me. The ensuing days were a blurry rollercoaster and intense crucible of choice.

At the end of 2023, I was emboldened to go live and share several rudimentary “coming out” posts on schedule for the first half of the following year. A few months earlier, I had gone into the hospital and returned home with a little whole human who, not so long before, had miraculously sprouted and bloomed inside me. Something about fulfilling such a feat invigorated me, and I was certain I could do anything and everything. I expected to return to my job four months after my ultimate treasure arrived, all the while dreading the horror of being anywhere other than in my new promotion: Her Mother.

The internet had promised that starting a blog was a sure way to rake in six-figure chin-chings, and I was sold. Whatever I could do without abandoning my divine charge was music to my heart. So I jumped onto some internet peddler’s train that assured me I could make it big within six months of launching a site into the big, wonderful world wide web. As instructed, I gathered several contemplations from my Gmail drafts and edited as much as my new-mama, sleep-deprived eyes and recovering body, soul, and spirit could, with the aim of getting a head start.

I figured, in full faith in the internet peddler’s promise, that I could go back to my job and six months later I would be able to have the luxury of leaving the job outside the home and return to work in my home and be with my precious child, comfortably rolling in the dough of an internet money machine. The plan was to juggle the job, an infant, a marriage, and this little corner of the wild, wide web postpartum, without any help from a maid, or sisters, or the baby’s grandmothers. I’d also be doing all the washing, washing up, sweeping, mopping, and cooking. Woah!

But I’d heard from many that it was possible to do and have it all, and I wanted it all. My job, for the yummy, large paycheck that made me feel oh-so safe and secure and independent. My marriage, for the amazing physical and spiritual benefits. My little corner here, for “the call” and catharsis. And my sweet girl…well, she’s everything!

When I returned to the job the following year, on that first day of leaving my baby, I knew that I could not afford to have it all. Still, I gave the myth a shot. But after three months of scattered focus and soul-shredding severance, something had to give.

2024 The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men truly gang aft agley!

Maybe it’s just me. But have you suffered the affliction of going to great lengths to construct a perfect plan only for your efforts to crumble into futility? That’s what happened with my “have-it-all” fatuous plan, which quickly disintegrated and left me exposed at the crossroads of a high-impact decision.

Deciding that my fabulous and very important job “out there in the world” was the thing I’d give up was excruciating. I so loved the freedom, comforts, luxuries, and security my lucrative salary afforded me.

Yet, I could not silence the pleading whisper in my soul that bid me to consider: “What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” Many souls are sacrificed at the altar of Mammon. For money and the lifestyles it affords, little humans are disposed to strange institutions for rearing, and big humans bury their dreams.

With this choice before me, hard as I tried, I was unable to “unsex me here…make thick my blood…and exchange my milk for gall.“ I was unwilling to lose my soul. I refused the notion of giving my child the whole world while her soul shriveled.

All these things considered, I relented, resigned, and returned to raising my child while building that six-figure internet blog.

Key to my plan was to follow the academic and charlatan internet advisory boards (Experts, Google, Instagram, YouTube) that assured me of foolproof baby eat, nap, burp, poop, cry, play, etc. schedules. Armed with hordes of information, tips, tricks, and hacks, I could see clearly how I would get an hour or two here and there in this little corner, writing big-dollar-worthy posts. When I lay it out like that, my delusion is mortifying, but such delusions of grandeur are the snares of our time, and for a time, I was ensnared.

In reality, I had my hands and mind full of Baby, so all my plans completely stalled.

I wonder whether your learning-to-drive experience was anything like mine. I remember how prickly my entire body became and how my stomach knotted so tightly that I could barely hold back its contents while trying to will my nostrils and lungs to draw breath. This was the terrible sequence I suffered every time I stalled. And this terrible rattling jerking exponentially multiplied when there were other, faster, and often impatient drivers on the road—which was pretty much always. This feeling came back when I embarked on my career in the home.

As an “out there” career gal, I’d been cruising along smoothly, doing my stuff at my preferred speed. I gloried in getting all my wild and wonderful ideas and plans done whenever I wanted. Then I returned to the full-time care and raising of my baby and the rude awakening that my thoughts, time, and body were no longer my own, and I would be curbed in the slowest lane for the foreseeable future.

Adjusting to the present reality of my new career in the home was tremendously difficult and humbling. I quickly realized that the work of a Homemaker oscillates between outrageous denigration and fantastic romanticism. Unlike my office job, I did not have a neat eight-hours-with-one-hour-lunch-break containment. Nor could I leisurely make and drink several cups of tea or coffee or complete tasks reasonably uninterrupted.

Of the couple of office jobs I’ve been interviewed for, they often asked whether I could work under pressure. Naturally, I prefer to work in serenity and composure, but sure, if an occasional situation should arise, I could work under pressure. The first several months of orienting myself to my work in the home, however, felt like a constant drenching from a pressure hose. I even found Queen’s “Under Pressure” on replay in my head, and sometimes on my lips!

Thankfully, I eventually got the hang of it. But as soon as I felt like I’d found my feet and a rhythm I could work in, I became aware of my long-dormantly disgruntled soul. On the surface, I ascribed my intense discouragement, frustration, and discontentment to the stalled progress in growing my little writing corner to that six-figure dream. I surmised that this is what was weighing down my heart to the point where, in a fit of desperate despondency, I nearly deleted a library of start-stall, half-baked drafts I’d scribbled between nighttime feeds and day naps.

Peering into what bubbled beneath the surface, however, threatened to expose the deep and gutting disenchantment whose violent tide I wore myself out straining to suppress. Because honestly, whenever I attempted to express the depths to which my heart gave out, I was deeply conflicted and afflicted, and then always defeated—the certain end for all who dare bring any charge against the Almighty.

A lot of my life I’ve had to choose the better of two evils, and I was well accustomed to those lots and never imagined there was anything else. I confess, in my heart I often reviled people who lamented what I perceived as great lots. Like a peer moaning about having to choose to go to Paris or Venice for the school holidays. Or a pretty girl whining about whether to date the sun-kissed sports captain or the ultra-alluring dark school boffin. And the trust fund kids weighed down by the lavish spreads of extravagant adventures and experiences to indulge in. It was easy to have (self) pity for a choice between two evils, but I was tormented when I needed to choose between two very good things.

When presented with two perfect and mutually exclusive things, it somehow feels wretched to lament the choice. One way or the other, we are getting something perfect. We should be elated. Except, I was crushed with a truly perplexing agony.

You know that feeling when someone suddenly knocks you behind your knees and you buckle? That’s what happened to my heart when I had to choose between two great desires and petitioned the Almighty for outcomes only He could grant, only to suffer the buckling betrayal and humiliation of watching my prayers cascade and dash into that pitch-black bedrock that cradles impudent dreams and hearts.

There my heart lay for twenty-two months, muted, blinded, and deafened. On repeat, my heart whimpered, “who is like you God, who ever so severely strikes those who place all their hope in You???”

There, in the comforting cradle of utter dejection, I lay. With each passing day, I felt myself curl deeper into the cozy embrace of darkness—a welcome sanctuary from the audacities of life.

2025 – First Half Buried in the arms of oblivion, I drifted to purgatory and resigned there. After loitering a while on this dock, I settled for the twilight of not returning back. Neither to the futility before You, nor to naive fidelity in You. But even there, I was not hidden from Your relentless pursuit.

“What are you doing here?” Like a sudden spark rousing a long-comatose patient back to life, Your unexpected probe pulsed through me, announcing the dreadful recall to life.

Despite my heavy reluctance, I could not resist You. Magnetically compelled, I found myself crawling toward You. Even though part of me continued to grieve, I surrendered to the Spirit’s gathering to You. Though You’d broken my heart, every strand of her found itself irrevocably twined and tethered in You. So I relented, knowing this one thing is true: apart from You, I have no good thing. Therefore I offered this whisper to my soul till it echoed through all of me: “Come, let us return to the LORD. He has torn us to pieces but he will heal us; he has injured us but he will bind up our wounds.”

2025 – Second Half From my bedroom window, I’d spent the week curiously observing a nest where a couple of little birds flapped with all their might, eager to answer the call of the vast skies. By the end of the week, all but one little birdie had soared. This little one had also flapped and chirped excitedly earlier in the week, but now she lay spiritless and despondent.

I climbed up the tree and peered into the nest where I noticed the little bird was injured. Some wounds were obvious, and others I only discovered as I nursed the creature to wholeness. Though it took a while and a great deal of devotion, in time, even this little birdie soared far and wide, and would always return to visit with delightful chirps of all her wonderful adventures in the vast skies.

When dreams, hopes, and plans go awry, the temptation from the ensuing frustration, disappointment, and discouragement is to resign, give up, and lose heart, because, depleted, we succumb to believing that “dreams are not reality. Dreams are buried because life is hard, brutal, and without pity.”

And in my and most people’s version, “God is hard, brutal, and without pity.”

We often underestimate the energy we exert to dream and hope and try and fail and try and fail and try one more time. Yet it is vital to acknowledge the comforting fact that energy is never lost but transferred. And though the dream, hope, and plan does not come into being promptly, every effort exerted toward it is like the tiny, fragile snowflake that rolls off a snow peak and staggers about tempest winds, collecting momentum and growing into a snowball, then a fearsome avalanche.

As I emerge from concealment in purgatory, I’m coming to see how responding to disappointments with despair has befogged and propelled me to sabotage the realization of my dreams, hopes, and desires, and ultimately obstructed the momentum for my living the truly great life I want and deserve to live.

Therefore, I’ve resolved to accept the threefold invitation I perceived we gain from faltering, flagging, and foiled efforts, namely: reconnoitering with heart, reframing in truth, and revering paths marked out by Grace.

1. Reconnoitering with Heart

Our thoughts, emotions, and decisions during times of distress often go unchecked, yet it is crucial to closely examine the state of our heart, from which our actions and overall life flow. Whenever I survey my various freefalls into disillusionment, I recognize that any hopes and dreams I prematurely abandoned suffered due to my neglecting to do this first critical work we must do following any disappointment.

Whether we’re told to swallow the tears, suck it up, or just keep on smiling, we learn early to avoid dealing with the grief of unfulfilled hopes and expectations. Yes, while we must continue in the relentless daily march of time and life, it is necessary not to wallow in our pains. However, ignoring and suppressing the critical signals of our heart’s distress for prolonged times only serves for its degradation. Therefore, as soon as possible after experiencing distress of any kind, make room in your days to engage with the emotions and thoughts sparked by whatever is happening that flares up unhappiness in your heart.

I learned the necessity of urgency to start the critical work of reconnoitering with my heart after a prolonged period under the weighty heel of the ogre of desolation. 

I’ve always struggled to be confident about my decisions, but when I decided to leave work outside the home, and the large paycheck that came with it, and return to my home economy and being there to raise up the child entrusted to us, I felt a fierce conviction about this decision to the exclusion and forsaking of what carnal reason pleaded and urged.

Very soon after, however, the testing of terrible loneliness and stripping to the bone began, but I was adamant and decided to steel myself and pass the tests. As the days and months marched on, I found my strength waning, but I soldiered on. The practiced chant I affirmed whenever I was asked how I am and how things are, was the much-welcomed auto-response, “carrying on.” Eventually, depleted, my weighed-down soul collapsed, bringing my body also to bed in a case of terrible burnout.

Bedridden, I could no longer ignore the necessary conversations with my heart. During this time, I birthed the observance of regular SOHA—State of Heart Address—and where necessary, SpeHA—Special Heart Address.

A State of Heart Address is an invitation to relate and engage truthfully and in love with oneself, or another, in order to explore any soul injuries that would otherwise fester and impede our living the truly great lives we want to live.

Following the betrayal of a dear friend, a certain man imagined he could suppress his guilt and shame by hiding from his friend. But his friend was very wise and loved him so much that he initiated a SOHA with the simple yet profoundly powerful probe: “where are you?”

Our heart moves us to be in places, with people, and in doings according to the energy fueling our motions. By determining where we are, we can trace how we got “there,” and with deeper engagement, we can discover the roots and seeds for why we got where we are.

Even the quickest recon of where you are is tremendously stabilizing when your mind feels tumultuous and tosses in stormy emotions and your soul spirals to plummet into deep darkness.

I was recently reminded of this when a friend let me down. “Ag, it’s no big deal,” I heard that well-meaning voice coax. So I carried on with my then occupation. But I found my mind ruminating, and the more I tried to brush away the incident—whether with positive thinking, quick forgiveness, rationalizing…whatever—I felt a terrible dissonance and suffered the chilling shrill of my soul demanding I tend to the wound. I took a breath. Then asked: “Ok. Where are you?” I found that I was in rage, which had already turned into the vengeful actions against my friend of withdrawal and stonewalling. The result was a growing cold front. As soon as I saw where I’d drifted, I could make the necessary decision to extract the shrapnel and salve and bandage my wounded heart, and thereby redeem my relationship with my friend.

Avoiding necessary recons with our heart puts us behind enemy lines and lies. Had I continued to neglect surveying where I was, how I got there, and the deeper attractions that drew injury to my heart, I would have sabotaged a precious friendship which is a valuable part of the truly great life I am pursuing to enjoy. Thankfully, by changing the way I interpreted the situation with my friend, I was able to dislodge from my initially constricting framing. I was able to gain a deeper understanding about my and my friend’s human frailties, and received an opportunity to exercise compassion, mercy, and forgiveness.

Because our first reactions to people and events are often based on fear and a limited perspective, it is invaluable, in reconnoitering with our heart, to acquire and hone the power of reframing in truth. This is the second invitation from all offenses and faltering, flagging, or foiled efforts.

2. Reframe in Truth

“Reframe in truth” is a call to question our initial feelings and thoughts about people and happenings and pose the critical inquest: “what is the real story here?” Examining our reactions “in truth” therefore seeks to transcend simple positive thinking or denial and reach deeper to prospect for objective realities and a more foundational perspective. Here we are not simply putting a positive spin on things but committing to tearing down our volatile assumptions and bringing them in alignment, clarity, and steadfastness of The Truth.

While I entertained outrage toward my friend, I was blinded to the fact that I too have failed him so many times and always fall short of perfect fidelity. While vexed about failed plans, I forget that I too only get a few things right, once in a while—so why do I condemn the rest of life, which is also crushed under the weight of incapacity for unfailing perfection?

When something imperfect, undesirable, painful, and downright awful happens, the shock and whiplash always blur our ability to see, let alone comprehend, the whole truth. In fact, we, by default, perceive from a fractured, distorted, or damaged lens. This kind of lens shows us frightful malevolence, triggering our fight, flight, freeze, or fawn reactions. These reactions in turn obstruct us from progressing, enjoying, and flourishing in our pilgrimage.

The ability to see value in our unique journeys is key to living out the truly great lives we deserve with ease and joy. It is also the final invitation from difficulty, failure, and disappointment: to revere paths marked out by Grace.

3. Revere Paths Marked Out by Grace

The Swahili proverb, “haraka haraka haina baraka” (hurry, hurry has no happiness), has proven true for every accounted time when I’ve plunged into depression’s abyss. The frenetic and relentless pace of modern life that is the bane of our collective calm, we continually feel that everything must happen instantly. Therefore we transgress the graceful rhythms of “a time for everything under the sun.”

We sow today and expect to reap lush harvests by evening. But only weeds sprout instantly, without effort. We, and our life odyssey, however, are cultivated with time, intention, and great effort. Like seedlings, our lives are planted, watered, and cultivated by Grace, whose pace is slow, steady, and serene. Any rash moves tend to cause bruising, injury, and harm.

Because our modern, fast-paced world patterns us to expect immediate gratification, we often fall out of step with the tranquil ways of Grace. This misalignment—this act of disregarding the patient, divinely marked path—is the source of our deep soul malaise, the jerking agony of stalling because we want to go from “zero to sixty in three point five.” This is a profound spiritual restlessness that may only be remedied by forsaking the quick and instant for what is steadfast and true.

In rebellion, we fiercely hold on to various lies, thinking and willing them to become true. Like when I held to the internet advisory boards, social media miracle workers, or the silly myths about “having it all.” It took my crushing in total burnout to come to the cure for this terrible malaise.

Though it was an awfully harrowing pill to swallow, consciously and deliberately choosing to trust and obey the pace of Grace is drawing me back to wholeness. To revere His paths has meant ceasing to fight against the moments of waiting, uncertainty, or slow growth, and crawling into the, albeit prickly, embrace of Wisdom to watch and wait as He perfected His work in me.

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Conclusion

Any worthwhile work that has been done, and may be done, has been accomplished by faith. For me, faith in the Gospel of Jesus Christ has been and remains the Star to my wandering bark. It is this resolute, clinging dependency on Christ, my Maker, the divine Architect of my unique path, that anchors my pilgrimage. And I believe He will anchor the journey of whosoever pilgrim ceases to rely on the mirages of mortal men and the whims of a whirling world.

So while the world demands haste and instant gratification, we must learn that the work of our lives is not a frantic sprint, but a steady, purposeful walk. In this faithful trust, we will be able to walk in the paths marked out for our unique odyssey at the pace of Grace.

Moving in this quiet confidence, we will rest assured in the fact that Christ, the LORD our Maker, will bring us intactly to the truly great lives He designed for us to enjoy. This is the ultimate fulfillment—not in having it all, but in being exactly who we were made to be, trusting that our story, in all its unique timing and beauty, is in the hands of the One who wrote it.

In this blessed assurance I now crawl and pray to stay in the beautiful shape of me in Your dear and lovely heart, O LORD, my God.

With Love, Daughter. (Nimi)

It’s amazing how deeply our environments shape us in the most subtle and sublime ways.

A girl growing up in a place where no appreciation or affirmation is expressed to her or around her grows up to mimic the words– because, you know, it’s the thing to do. 

But even as the words leave her mouth they are dry and empty, void of the feeling that she never knew could accompany these two little words: thank you.

Do you ever pause to ponder on the magnitude of value packed into the things for which you say “thank you”?

Growing up we’re conditioned to parrot the two ‘magic words’ such that it becomes an unconscious reflex in our engagements in and with life. The automation of our thank yous has made them reek with triteness and inauthenticity. As such, we say them as a passing remark and take for granted the things we toss them on, without the appropriate conscious thought, attention, and appreciation.

You’ve heard it said that familiarity breeds contempt. Indeed, as we grow just saying the words, having no guidance as to the weight, wonder and worth for the things to which we say the words, we come to expect that things should just be so.

Think of how often we are easily tempted to take so much for granted.

A child may clean his room, eat her vegetables, or obey a command and this can go unnoticed leaving a good deed of today to drown in the sea of prior misdeeds.

A clean, tidy home is often overlooked, as though items magically return to their proper places and dirt intuitively knows to vanish.  And of course mom has to make nutritious nourishment every single day, after all she is naturally the nurturer. 

How the food comes to be in the home can also be disregarded as dads dutifully and routinely go out and return over and over again shouldering the heavy responsibility that is to provide for and protect a family.

We chase the dollars, consume the goods and services without acknowledging the miracles of agriculture, industry and free and fair trade economies.

For those living in safe and sound lands, we move about without recognizing the enormous privilege of a stable government.

Even the Self is spared no appreciation for the courage it displays in accomplishing the toilsome task of daily living.

And above all, God our Creator is scorned, though He is the giver of the very breath we effortlessly, freely and limitless enjoy continued life and livelihood; by whose immeasurably and incomparably merciful reign we continue to live in, and vandalize His good creation.

When I look around the world  – my inner world and the world at large – I am often staggered at how prone we are to presuming graces and favours, and in their voracious consumption we have the shameless audacity to give no sincere thought to the incredible odds and synergies that align to bring about the various things we presume.

Is it right to depreciate something or someone just because it exists  inexhaustibly and abundantly?

Alas I wage this is a construct of our beginnings. When we are born we come into a place where the sun comes up, the rains fall, and food comes forth from the ground. We’re swaddled in warm blankets, coddled and served on demand. Year after year we come to surmise that the world is ours and everything and all who live in it exist for our pleasure. God help if something or someone does not par up to our demands.

And when they do meet our expectations, should we give standing ovations for our servants merely doing their duty? So we nurse entitlement and thereby fall and perish into contempt.

Caught in the lie of our supremacy, we learn to say the words, but our hearts are far from it. We think we deserve it all. We feel we are owed it all. We wish to be the center of it all. Oh the folly of this hubris!

It’s taken me a long time to get my heart out of this detestable insolence into the waters of genuine thankfulness and though I am still not quite there yet, I’ve gained some worthwhile insights that helped me embrace and attain joyful thanksgiving:

Firstly, 

“It’s your life, but it’s not all about you”

I received this admonition from the Holy Spirit when I was obstinately stuck to a season where everything was about me me me.

Why me. Why not me. They’re talking about me. They’re not talking about me. They’re jealous of me. They don’t care about me. They didn’t think of me. They’re out to get me…me…me.

Gosh when I remember how I was, I should appear pale with horror if my skin tone was lighter! At that time, my refrain could easily have been Destiny Child’s Me, Myself and I.

I was caved into my little self and tiny world that I honestly didn’t see other people; to me they were just figures moving about, occasionally mumbling nonsense. Doubtless they were not blabbering fools, but I was just so wickedly tuned out that I neither heard nor could listen to these other figures. All I wanted was to hear the sound of my voice at all times and with all people: let me tell you what happened to me… I feel… I think… I wish… I need… I want…

Woah! No wonder the Lord had to step in and just shut that awful record down!

Yes, down. 

Because authentic gratitude begins at low altitude.

Self absorption is one of the hindrances to giving thanks wholeheartedly. It is the affliction of thinking, consciously or not, that the world revolves around us and our insatiable demands. This condition is a symptom of our disconnect from the Truth, who calls us to subservience and an others focused consciousness.

Cultivating sincere gratitude is a lofty endeavor which is attained in the same way as undertaking to summit a high mountain: we start from the bottom . 

In Scripture God the Christ teaches us that “whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted”
Jesus Christ in Matthew 23:12

Perhaps because the nature of our beginnings in life breeds the innate tough-to-kill or uproot weed of self-centeredness, our hearts cannot bear not being the main attraction.

Having been the beginning and end all from infancy, adopting a lowly view of ourselves is the fierce fight we must willingly conscript to if we would hope to be spared enormous humiliation. But more often, our stubbornness rouses the divine intervention woven in the law of human relations such that one way or another we come to understand that we are but grains on the shores of life.

The reality is that each grain is both remarkable and insignificant.

This is worthy of consideration. 

When we interact with others, they too are like us, knowing and demanding (and deserving) of notability, while burdened by their own smallness.

I’ve heard that sometimes small people feel that they need to be ultra loud to be recognized in the world. Infants, somehow aware of their smallness, scream and shrill their demands. 

Yet it is the distinguished person who accepts the grace to not think of himself more highly or lowly than he ought, but rather considers himself soberly in light of the duality of his humanity. Such a person grows at ease with the responsibility of minding their life, while simultaneously minding his Maker, his neighbor, and his surroundings.

It’s not easy to care about the rest of life that is, nature, animals and especially humans, if we are only obsessed with ourselves and our lives.

Nevertheless, creating or seeking out opportunities to practice humility can transform us into genuinely thankful people.

Then only can we start making the most of the opportunities presented in various moments to really recognize and see the whole rest of life and we will find truly awesome gratitude germinating in our heart. 

In addition, we will be able to cheerfully serve the fruit of authentic thanks in all the circumstances wherein we have things we get to enjoy, humans we’re graced to encounter, and all such other things and moments whose treasures we may perceive  in retrospect.

Embracing humanity is another essential element for achieving hearty gratitude.

“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (This is my favorite definition of sin.)
Apostle Paul in Romans 3:23 

No matter your faith, humanity continues to suffer the dis-ease of inadequacy to get anything perfectly right, every time, everywhere and with everyone. 

I’ve liked to think of myself as a considerate preemptive person but even with my best effort to say or do it just right, whatever it is often falls short and does not quite hit that glorious spot with perfect precision or satisfaction.

So here’s the problem I found out about someone like me who thinks too highly of themselves (exhibit above – “considerate and preemptive person”): we harm ourselves and others with absurd expectations.

Idealism, another affliction that has tormented me to madness, aggravated my inability to offer genuine thanks; nothing was ever just right and on par with my ideals, thus nothing was worthy of my gratitude. The result of this foolish interaction in life was exceeding impoverishment.  

The truest fact is that absolutely no human can know, let alone attain The Ideal. 

It took God coming into the world to reveal how the true ideal we constantly fall short from looks like in real life, and He revealed that man’s best efforts are offerings of dust and ashes.

Failure to embrace my and others’ humanity was a heart attack waiting to happen to me. I hated the tension of receiving something or someone doing something for me and not being able to pump thankfulness freely through my heart and express it joyfully. I was always so harsh and cruelly critical of any effort, my own or others.

But now that I know that everyone, including myself, is really trying their best in spite of our inherent weakness and propensity to miss the mark, I am amazed that mere mortals should exert massive effort, though they really don’t have to, in valiant attempts to reflect a shadow of the Perfect One in whose image we are very goodly made. 

Therefore, enjoying goodness, imperfect as it may be is another ingredient that turns ordinary, and even bitter waters into sweet wine.

Authentic thankfulness, and every other good thing in all creation, comes from God. Misery, suffering and tragedy are consequences of sin which God allows, according to divine decree way back in the beginning. God is too holy to mess around with ancient boundary stones, and though these things taint the very good things he made it is our responsibility to choose to see and celebrate any speck of retained good in the world, in ourselves and in our neighbor.

I wish I was smart enough to come up with these things myself. But I am not. I was only human for a long time. Now I have the mind of Christ, praise be to God!

As a human, my concern was merely for survival and civilian affairs. Add to that my rather gory childhood, prolonged existence in lack and staggering tragedies, I always found it hard to see any good in the world, and about life or people. Most of all I hated God, thereby hating goodness and forfeiting its surpassing joy.

But today, my heart swells with joyfull thanksgiving to be found here, a transformed soul that lacks nothing to beam out praise. How did it happen?

Certainly not of any ounce of my effort, albeit for a needless while I strove with all my might to make myself genuinely thankful. All I know is that it was by the wonderful mysterious work of God, who answered my heart cry prayer for a heart that gives thanks, with a grateful heart and slowly but surely God grants my petition and continues to  make me new!

Sure, I still fall short and grumble every now and then at something I think someone didn’t get just right, or when something I presumed my right is denied me, and when I backslide into the abyss of covetousness. But the Holy Spirit now living in me quickens me and I find my heart more and more in rhythm to all the good things generously available for us to enjoy and experience along our pilgrimage.

Like our time here together. ^^,

My heart smiles to picture you reading this humble Scribble, and I am grateful.

I hope, going forward, you will allow your heart to expand and gratefully welcome and embrace all the good-in-the-moment-and-in-hindsight interactions and encounters along your pilgrimage.

With Love,

Nimi