Category: Naomi Stainbank

You know that time when all the shit hits the fan at the same time; times when a light summer shower erupts into end-of-the-world thunderstorms?

That’s where I’ve been lately. I’ve been here before, many times than I can count and I feel tired.

In my body, sluggishness has been creeping into my bones such that it hurts to perform the normally simple tasks of living. Walking is a massive effort, I would rather sink into my knees and have them fold onto the floor, the couch, oh yes, the bed is first prize. 

Wake me up when it’s all over and I am on that beautiful shore where everything is not so fucking hard. 

It’s been another one of those seasons when several clients regretfully give notice of discontinuation with our services, throwing an awful wrench in the cog of our meticulous, faith declaring plans.

Building a business can be the pits when trying to get a move on and catch up with the Smiths. 

For the longest time, I’ve loathed these kinds of seasons and how they ground us or set us back, but my loathing is most at the memory and angst of the couple of times these blizzard winters have hurled us to the verge of destitution. 

And here we are again. Down by two of our regular clients – one being our major cash cow. My knees feel weak from the whiplash of the sudden halting from the jolly pace I was enjoying, and my courage threatens to fail as I comprehend the snail pace we now have to exert. 

One step forward two steps back. How does anyone still deserve to breath when going nowhere slowly is the story of their life?

Plagued with this lamentation, a gentle probe slips through to inquire: “why are you so downcast and discontent when slow is the pace of life and love?”

I know, I am afflicted by haste. I hate waiting, wasting away as time marches on relentlessly. Like a runaway train, days rumble along, not waiting for even a moment that I may catch my breath from my frantic pursuit to make it by thirty. O dear God please let it be no later than forty! 

The word on the street is that a life is worthless if it has nothing of accomplishments and possessions to show for it by x and y age. I’m under pressure. I must hurry. 

But I cannot seem to keep up, and this is what’s driving me mad. I’m a slow coach. A late bloomer. I am the tortoise, the journey seems infinite, while the end of my allotted years draws neigh with every tick on the clock

I’ve spent the days past agonizing about the futility my life appears to be. I would have said is, but personal development experts sternly warn that things are the way I choose to see them. Glass half-empty-half-full blah blah — I know, I know there is much wisdom in the advice but fudge, I’ve been looking about and within me and it’s so fucking bleak….again (this is important)

Relationships, money, work, communication, even my sex life is under siege. 

All because of The Mammoth, the eternal fiend of existential crisis that always rises on a wave of financial storms and casts me on this exile island to grieve the finitude of lives: my own, my loved ones, and humanity. 

Dear God, why was I made this way, to consider such morose matters?

I look at people about me and they’re carefreely living their best lives out loud while I am quietly agonizing whether I should give any more of myself to myself, my husband, my mother, my siblings or my friends in light of our fleeting existence.

I’ve hated this contemplation for as long as I can remember. Deep down I know I could be, do, and have so much more of the things my soul thirsts for, and may have by generous divine decree, but this thing weakens me so!

Like kryptonite, my proclivity of ruminating about existential crises has been my nemesis ever since that fateful time an age ago in the land of a thousand hills. 

I was a preschooler when war in my birth country erupted, bringing everything built over many moons to rubble and lives to wayside litter, and life conspired that I should learn ahead of my time that all is meaningless, a vapour, and chasing after the wind. 

The problem however is that I survived the carnage and every waking morning demanded I continue the tasks of existence in the knowledge that in a twinkling of an eye it should all count for nothing, but suffering and misery. WTF.

For a time, I rebelled against the cruelty of existing and decided to spend my meaningless, miserable continuance sleeping as much of the days as I could, cowering and hiding under the safety of heavy blankets from anything that could be taken. 

Sadly that included the abundant life.

Then I endeavoured to live it up to the full, sampling every pleasure my flesh desired. 

At first, I found great relief in alcohol, narcotics, and relentless wanton sensual carousing. I believed I had found heaven on earth. Until these too turned to misery, then to the hell of bondage and finally to futility.

Most days I’d wake up and go about life thinking and praying it could be my last. But day after day, I continued to exist and when the years proved I may yet have life stored up, I became weary of the dreadful burden of gloom.

Fed up with my miserable existence, I sought help from personal development gurus who punted positivity. The teachings triggered my soul to imagine that there could be more to life than bubbling toil and trouble. I went to conferences where we learned about believing in ourselves and manifesting and visualizing the ideal life we want. And I did. I manifested a high salary job that afforded me more pleasures of the flesh and prides of life.

But this too, could not blot out the fact that in the end, all comes to nought. As good as their prescriptions were, they were merely temporary salves sold by speculative peddlers.

I needed a cure. I simply could not continue living in the dread of annihilation. Every day could not be an omen for the approaching end.

I hoped, oh yes, I prayed that dawns could also be the beginnings of glorious things.

My pleas were heard, and first the eyes of my heart were opened to see how year after year there was a preeminent Faithfulness that provisioned for and sustained all life such that despite the many threats, we are not consumed.

Since then, a part of me knows there is marvelous glory in daily life from several past encounters. Therefore, I should be well initiated to the passing clouds, though they may bring wild winds and storms.

So why am I here again? Am I not even of little faith that my heart should be so downcast within me and my mind under siege with worry?

This latest tussle with th existential reality however has been quite profound. Our livelihood in the balance, with two large incomes forfeit I should be inconsolablely despondent but something feels different. 

This time I can see that I am not who I used to be. I can see that I am becoming alive. 

What ever could I mean? It’s hard to articulate but it’s something like the shackles of anxiety falling off to reveal faith, forging.

It’s taken a long while and I confess that I never thought this would happen for me. 

Jolted into a rude awareness of the instability of this place I’d come to, from whence only God knows, my soul craved a sure thing. A certain guide to navigate such treacherous terrain. And that’s who I got when I chose faith in Jesus, the Christ.

Believing Jesus Christ is proving to be my salvation from the terror of existential tyranny that I’ve walked with for far too long. 

Oh, how do I explain the quiet wonderful changes happening to me now that I have the antidote to that bone decaying poison?

It is something like this: where once upon many a times I’d be paralyzed into depression, then moved to self destruction and sabotage when any one of the countless little and big upheavals and losses in life occurred, I am finding that the happenings – the inevitable trials and tribulations of the traverse in this world – do not essentially matter because in and with Christ Jesus there is more to life than what meets and beats up the flesh.

Through my new eyes of faith, I am seeing and learning who I am and who I’m not. 

I now firmly know that I am a spiritual being having a physical experience. 

I’ve known full well that physical things do not last and inevitably come to an end. Therefore if I am eternal, surely not even the perishing of my physical form can remove me from existence. 

Well, this just does the trick for me. And possibly you, if like me you lament at the notion that we come here, go through this crazy business of living, and then we die and it’s all over. What a waste that should be, but for Christ – our hope of glory!

In this most recent episode of existential crisis, I was very aware of how remembering who I am now swiftly stabilized me from spiraling into the abyss of depression that this existential thing can suck a soul. 

Having an eternal perspective, which comes by faith in receiving the scandalous offer Christ affords makes the temporary sufferings more bearable, and ultimately refining.

All that said, I still have a long way to go toward Christlike tranquility amidst crises.

Yes, I still hate being cross at my husband and immediately panicking that our love and marriage are doomed. I’m still initially a wreck when shit hits the fan financially. I still get despondent when my efforts or work feel insignificant. And I still hate that I and the people I love will go through all kinds of pain and suffering.

Indeed my soul should hope to live forever in a place with inexhaustible abundance and in harmony with everyone I love but it is true that nothing under the sun lasts forever.

Yet it is also true that whoever has the Son, not only has life in abundance on this earth, but also gains access to life, eternal, in a place with inexhaustible resources, perfect harmony and where love lasts forever.

Therefore my prayer is for you, my loves, to know Christ, the Hope of Glory unto life evermore.

So I say to myself, and all my friends, take heart. We are going somewhere, slowly. 

Even though we cannot always see it, and at times it can feel like we’re going backwards, and yes, it is very very slowly, but because we are eternal there is no haste, whether now, and then

And this world is not the end. The best is yet to come.

xoxo

Nimi

PS: You are welcome to subscribe and follow for notifications for your dose of weekly Scribbles and Discourses delivered every Saturday.

High school was brutal. 

We were poor. Or as the Eldorado Park gang christened, “kak poor” (sh*t poor).

This meant we couldn’t afford the expensive facial cleansers and treatments my peers swore by. We had one green bar soap that washed clothes, dishes, bodies and faces.

My parents were careful to maintain our family’s dignity despite our lean life, and for a blissful while, I could just about blend in – although it was more that I could go about obscured. 

And then the turning happened. The girl child became a woman and raging hormones wrecked havoc.

Virtually overnight, what was a fairly smooth face deformed into a puss-filled minefield

The problem with poverty is that it makes an eruption of pimples pop out grotesquely. At puberty, this is a horror because it’s when most, if not every girl wants to be prettiest and cutest and most enchanting to boys. It’s around this time when the every woman question popped up for me.

Am I adorable, beautiful, and captivating?

The mirror told me I was hideous. The girls were cruel, branding me ‘mubi’ (isizulu for ugly) . The plague evading boys affirmed what the mirror and my gender proclaimed.

Why was I so ugly when my peers were so effortlessly beautiful with youthful, clear glowing soft skins, and their stunning noses, captivating eyes, beautiful beautiful everything. How did they do it? 

Granted there’s nothing I could do about my “oxygen-thieving” broad nose but marketers promised there were lotions and potions that could make my face less terrifying.

I determined to collect, beg for, and even pinch some coins just so I could have a better answer to my yearning. The day came when I had the required fifteen rand for a beautifying cleansing potion and I skipped to the mall with giddiness.

There I fell into a black hole of complexity.

Staring at the beauty shelf was overwhelming. Having never shopped for a fancy face soap, the vast options were staggering, and expensive for days! 

How could I know what concoction set would be right for my face, considering my complexion was much darker than the pictured beauties on the bottles? After a long spell browsing all the strange concoctions, I settled on a bottom-shelf cleanser my pennies could procure, with great hope for a glorious transformation.

After months of sparing use, I was disillusioned. Instead of clearing up, the pimples worsened and any confidence I had vanished. Desperate, I tried several recommendations until I succumbed to weariness and resigned to my fate as the ugly duckling.

Less is more

Certain no boy could accept an unsightly peasant girl, thereby condemning me to a life with no love, romance, marriage and happiness, I consoled myself with excelling academically. 

No longer concerned with three step beauty routines, I simplified to a simple daily wash with soap, water, and moisturizing aqueous cream or coconut oil.

Once a week I pampered my face with steam and gentle exfoliation with bicarbonate of soda.

This simple routine helped my face through puberty. Although I’d have breakouts, usually before, during or after my menstrual cycle, I had more radiance for more of the time.

More for less

Countless gurus have undertaken to define the concept of beauty but in all the noise, they’ve managed to stir even more confusion and complexity as to the essence and substance of beauty. 

It has been said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and to all extent this is only true dependent on the critical variable that is the beholder.

The beholder controls the narrative. And throughout modern history and my experience it’s been purported that the pale, rosy cheeked, golden haired, blue eyed damsel is the standard for beauty. 

Various cruelties have been inflicted in the aim of preserving this narrative, and though not as brazen as Hitler’s acts, this serpentine narrative claims many a woman’s joy, peace and sometimes, their very life.

For the longest time I believed the cunning tale of white supremacy. Somewhere deep down, I loathed that I was born with dark skin, coarse curly short hair, brown eyes, and voluptuous curves. Oh yes, and, that never would my cheeks turn rosy with coyness. 

With this propaganda widely spread in media, its poison seeps into most people’s hearts, such that whenever “the image of beauty” enters a room, there is instant turning towards her by males and a kind of dimming into the shadows by females.

Over time this model has slightly morphed, because nowadays – on occasion, they allow for darker skinned girls to grace magazines, advertisements and beauty contests however certain criteria remain: the straight nose, narrow face, long flowing hair,  and skeleton frames – you know it.

The mad thing about this brainwashing is that more often, it is meritless beholders who, because of one or other personal insecurity, start a feel-good campaign or movement that ends up defying the unity of truth, to the tragic deception, anguish and destruction of many.

The day I resigned to my fate as an ugly duckling sparked a change in me. Suddenly, my concept of beauty began to drift away from blind acceptance of society’s volatile ideas and models of beauty. 

Who were they to say who is beautiful or not anyway? What qualified any of them to pick and choose from what they had no hand in crafting?

Looking back, I see my concept of beauty was shaped by who magazines portrayed as “hottest”, and who TV shows crowned as Miss South Africa, World or Universe. My desire to be beautiful, to be told I am beautiful and to be celebrated for my beauty was a vital affirmation and nurturing I missed out on in girlhood and I thought I could gain the answer to my question from the world.

The thing is, many things in the world are misleading, often strenuous toils and oppressive yokes. 

Perhaps what I needed to know during my puberty stage was that I was intrinsically wonderful and be educated on how my anatomy, biology, physiology and psychology were going through very normal and natural developments that need not have alarmed me into a frenzy. Maybe then I should have been saved from those extra panic zits! 

In our wicked cultures, I’ve heard preteen girls referred to as sexy and encouraged to pose and pout as the idols of beauty do. If only they were not so hated to be so misled and rather loved to be reminded and affirmed of how fearfully, wonderfully, and divinely made they are.

There are many voices that murmur about what beauty is and isn’t. It is the half truths and whole lies ceaselessly dished out that drive so much of the cosmetic and beauty sales. It’s these cruel equivocations that drive women and now men crazy trying to preserve shifting shadows.

As I grew into womanhood, my face gradually climatized to the changes of puberty and steadily cleared out. Now it has more and more glow. Every now and then I peer at myself and cannot help give thanks for the beauty and radiance reflected back.

The true secret to lasting radiance and beauty comes by asking God. 

Whether we like it or not, God Almighty is the only qualified author and beholder of beauty. Therefore it is from Him we may find true definition, standard and application of beauty in ourselves, others and the world.

So many things in the world conspired to confound the answer to my question. Propaganda promoted white girls, light skinned girls, and plank wraiths as the symbols of beauty. This hit hard on my question as a dark skinned curvy girl.

It is when I started to glimpse the whole truth from our Maker that I came to perceive the blessed assurance of my beauty. The Sunday school chorus erupted into my spirit and I sang it until I knew that indeed God made little boys and he made little girls out of straight lines and circles and squiggles and curls – all unique and gloriously diverse!

How awesome that there isn’t just one portrait of a beautiful girl and woman. My curves God made and affirmed good. My dark skin he gave me and affirmed good. My knobby nose he made and liked it too. As did he make everyone else in the world: very goodly and fearfully and wonderfully! 

As the unfolding of the true concept of beauty continued for me, I came to this summation:

Let your true beauty come from your inner personality, not a focus on the external. For lasting beauty comes from a gentle and peaceful spirit, which is precious in God’s sight and is much more important than the outward adornment of elaborate hair, jewelry, and fine clothes.
Apostle Peter in 1 Peter 3:3-4

I’m ill at ease with the elaborate. I love simple things. I relish effortless and efficient.

Even so, there has been much effort in understanding the value of a gentle and peaceful spirit having been long schooled in secular cacophony, but two keys completely unlocked the purpose and pursuit of beauty

Man sees the outward appearance, yet none of us is solely our bodies. We are more than the tent or vehicle we use to navigate and experience the world, yet, because of man’s infinite ignorance we fail to perceive the deeper things. 

In searching for a mate, one may chase the prettiest thing in a skirt (as they say) and end up living with an embittered, immature, hateful wi(fe)tch. Outward appearance alone rarely informs the true nature of the whole and therefore is the least reliable measure of people’s value and worth.

But the Lord sees the heart

Obviously this is how Supreme Intelligence would behold boys and girls – men and women. 

As our Maker, God knows the shell is not the chick but that the chick is inside and what’s inside is what eventually emerges to reveal the actual spirit-person in the body. 

So what’s the value of a gentle and peaceful spirit?

Earlier I mentioned how bewildered women and men toss from pillar to post for every new ideology and narrative regarding the every woman (and man) question. We try to measure up to exclusive impossible opinions and then fall into stupid comparisons and competitions. What this does to our true selves, the spirit, is make us frazzled, ever anxious and discontent. Living like this is hell, if anyone would be so courageous to confess truly.

There is no peace in hell. Your mind must always be chattering about what next outfit, contour kit, shoe or pose you must do to be the most beautiful. All this in the face of fresher, younger, prettier things popping onto the stage by the dozen

When we find the answer to our Am I beautiful quest through the eyes of I AM, the true Beholder, God our Maker, this is the beginning of healing for our whiplashed tormented spirit self. A peaceful spirit is never brash, rushed, or unsettled. Such a spirit moves in the rhythm of love’s ease and joy – because they are adored by the only One who has any right and all jurisdiction to answer our every woman question.

Like external potions and accessories, we have to procure the pleasing fragrance of a gentle and peaceful spirit from Merchant God. The distinction about Merchant God is that he makes great effort to ensure our purchase is worth more than we could ever have dreamed.

So it was for me when I bought the true concept of beauty. An outwardly beautiful form is quickly marred by sin’s peace-robbing nature. Envy and covetousness of our neighbor’s features makes us fretful and unhappy thereby causing hardness and scowls of tension and dis-ease. But knowing that the only One who matters thinks each of us is uniquely beautiful soothes our souls to wholeness and thereby a graceful gentleness and radiance that man can never manufacture.

Truth be told, there is no dress, shoe and jewel we can ever have

or face-beat we can ever do that can compare to the sweet delight and tranquility of surety and security in God’s firm response to my heart’s Am I adorable, beautiful, an captivating yearning. And He alone being the observer of hearts is sure to affirm us back to our truest pleasing self.

When I asked God “Am I Beautiful”, he kindled and continues to ignite his joy in my heart as he faithfully makes me whole. I believe it is exactly for this reason that I am beautiful.

Unlike stores, Merchant God’s beauty products: joy, peace, love, patience, gentleness, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, and self control give the most for a whole lot less — and refills never run out or get discontinued. Moreover, the longer we apply his remedies, we radiate more and more gloriously as the days go by!

Obviously it’s alright to use external beautifying products. It’s lovely to enjoy quality time caring for our hair, faces, and bodies, and if we are at ease with elaborate rituals, that’s cool.

I’m just a simple girl who likes to slay several serpents in as little time and in the simplest most sustainable way possible.

Tapping into God-beauty and maintaining my simple facial routine is that for me. 

xoxo

Nimi

What’s the longest you’ve waited for something or someone your heart deeply desired, ached, and nearly despaired for?

For me, it was a child.

I had heard it said that easy come, easy go and I now wonder if my heart would too soon have strayed to other distractions if I had conceived with ease.

Perhaps you can also relate to finding it is easy to take some things for granted when we acquire them with ease and how easy it is to lose heart for something when we’ve waited an age for it. During the long while of waiting for our treasure, I was at an all time low when the word came to my heart, nudging me along, “the revelation awaits an appointed time; it speaks of the end and will not prove false. Though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come and will not delay.”

Despite knowing that the most valuable things take time to be revealed, like the Israelites of old, alas, I confess, I seldom got it right to wait in quietness and trust. Through every one of the eight four months that bereft my longing and subdued my hope, like a driving rain that would not give up, I pestered the Lord. I envied all who I suddenly became acutely aware of who seemed to be popping out babies all around me. And I often (daily) entertained taking matters into my own hands, even entreating my husband that we should seek out surrogates. But God is faithful, infinitely wise, and incomparably kind. I am forever grateful that in His mercy, He restrained all my foolishness, and lead me away from all paths that sought to cause me to stray from the appointed time for the delivery of His promise to us.

A promise is given

Since the fall of man, a promise was given: that through the seed of the woman, a Savior would come. That there was yet hope for the world and mankind

When and how this Savior would come became the frustrating mystery, and crushing wait under which generations came and died.
Still, the promise was echoed through the prophets
‭
For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

With each year, decade, century, and millennium, Messiah’s delay caused the hearts and hopes of many to fail.

Hope is said to be the expectation and desire for a particular thing to happen, and it is written that ،hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.

A hope is deferred

Looking back to my frustration with how my hope for a child would come to be, and constantly straining under the waiting period, I can abstract our predecessors’ anguish under the oppression of slavery, awaiting the promised savior.

As a married woman, I felt strongly, even entitled to the promise of the fruit of the womb. It seemed quite assured as peer newlyweds would conceive shortly after, and some even before their wedding days. Surely the promise which my heart longed for should soon come to fruition too, I’d entreat the Lord.

But at the end of our seventh year of waiting, I yielded to Omniscience, gathered the remnant shreds of hope, and placed them at the Sovereign’s feet, and as Peter and his friends returned to fishing I went back to the busyness of the marketplace, the hope of a child relinquished.

Little did I know that just then was the Divine appointed time for my dearest dream to come true.

For behold, in the month of our eighth anniversary, unbeknownst to me the promise of the fruit of the womb was fulfilled in me and precisely eight months later, my hope was observed and is now that which I see with awe in my eyes and hold reverently in my arms.

A hope is observed. A promise is fulfilled

We live in the time since the promise of the woman’s Seed was fulfilled, and if we are diligent and resolute, we too may find our deepest hope observed.

There are many things for which I hope:

I hope for a joy-filled and peaceful marriage affair. I hope to live a long sweet life in this realm with my husband, child(ren), and all my family and friends. I hope to accomplish every dream and word the Lord has sowed into my heart. I hope to travel for culture and leisure with my husband, child(ren), and grandchildren. I hope to be healthy and wealthy.

And I’m sure you hope for several wonderful ones of your own.

All our moral desires are pleasant longings. But I incline, and invite you also to lean toward the whisper of our Maker’s hope for us.

Deep down, the Lord God knows the true longing of all creation and every human heart is redemption and restoration to wholeness. And this is the hope He honors in the Promised Seed, the Lord Christ Jesus.

Since the invasion of sin into the world and hearts of mankind, the whole creation has been groaning together in pains that cannot be articulated under the weighty anguish of our afflictions.

But the Spirit himself intercedes for us, for the forgiveness from our sin and reconciliation to wholeness in the image of our Maker.

Because ultimately, this is every heart’s deepest yearning; our soul’s truest longing. Our dearest hope, whether we capitulate or languish in wait for all other temporary and lesser hopes that will never restore us to the wholeness our spirit agonizes for.

But this wholeness is the  hope God, our Maker, observed. A promise He fulfilled and generously honored that appointed moment in time in Bethlehem, and forever at Calvary.

Praise the LORD.

xoxo

Nimi

Praise the Lord. Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty heavens. Praise him for his acts of power; praise him for his surpassing greatness. Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet, praise him with the harp and lyre, praise him with timbrel and dancing, praise him with the strings and pipe, praise him with the clash of cymbals, praise him with resounding cymbals. Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord.

King David, Psalm One Hundred and Fifty

When all is said and done, the only appropriate response is to praise the Lord.

For a little while now I have agonized about my dear Mama’s life which for the longest time I perceived as an unbearable plight. I’ve grieved how when she was just beginning her life as a wife, mother, and high-level career woman, a terrible war broke out in the country she was born and raised in, leaving her with nothing but her life, husband, and children and a few clothes on their backs.

I’ve agonized over the ensuing days and years as a refugee, having had to be humiliated to minimal works even though she had accomplished cum laude university graduations and accumulated executive international expertise.

And as if all this calamity was not enough, I’ve been staggered by the unspeakable loss of her son to murderous thugs and her husband to illness in the same year.

Preceding this deadly year, Mama endured consecutive years of losing her parents from whom she had been separated and not seen since fleeing during the war in the country of her birth.

It has been a few years since the little while of lamentation came upon me, around the time Mama turned fifty-nine. In the spiral of my distress over her misery, I’ve plunged to the depths of despair.

What meaning could be found in all of my Mama’s trials and tribulations? What purpose could be contrived from all her pain? And if one such as she could live so many years in hardships, what was the point of her life? And if her life should have no point, what hope remained for the rest of us?

After much guttural sobbing and wailing one night, the Word came to me, urging me to see beyond the suffering to the glory. Sure, the odds of my Mama recovering the mansion she was building before senseless war bombs decimated her efforts, look slim. But in Our Father’s house, are many mansions, of which our Savior Lord Jesus has gone to prepare for her, and me, and whosoever believes.

With this word, I began to glimpse the glory of the Almighty displayed through a simple woman’s tenacity, faithfulness and fortitude of mind and spirit. I continue to be floored by the Wisdom who uses the simple things, the foolish things, the senseless things, to confound the wise, and still work it all out in conformity to his will – a gloriously definite hope and future.

Hallelujah!

Praise is the expression of approval or admiration for someone or something.

It is infinitely hard to conceive praise to the Creator when his creation is still in groaning, like a woman about to give birth. We see and experience tremendous suffering and wonder whatever in the world there could be to admire of a King who does not stoop down and instantly soothe every ache and pain.

Yet it is only in hindsight that we may get to glimpse the inarticulable glory of the perfect wisdom of God. It is the nature of fortitude that it should be attained through perpetual adversity, strain, pain, and resistance. It is transcendently mesmerizing that One should put his whole heart on the line to ache as he administers or allows his dearly beloved to undergo present suffering, for a greater reward he knows will meet them in the end.

There are so many wonderfully terrifying strengths and aptitudes I have gained through surviving a war and life as a refugee and watching my parents struggle yet persevere and not crumble. 

Most days I fear and tremble at these examples my Mama has set for me. In 2020, my Mama, at the high-risk age of sixty-three contracted COVID, yet she was adamant that she would live. As excruciating as the afflictions of COVID were, she daily dragged, even crawled out of bed, to have a cold shower, and at times only an English bath since where she lives suffers municipal service maleficence. Such an arduous morning would be followed by a full day at a thankless job, hemmed by travel time and big city traffic.

I cannot say I yearn to undergo such hard testing, in fact, my plea is mercy. Yet, therein I find appreciation for a Father’s foresight, to grant me a model of conquering through sheer grit and staggering integrity. Moreover, I am brought to full awe and admiration of the Creator of such a spirit as the one embodied in my Mama.

Surely He who made her has also made me uniquely, fearfully, and wonderfully!

Therefore I approve and greatly admire the incomparable divine wisdom of God, the Creator of the heavens and the earth and all who live in it.

Hallelujah.

Praise is the expression of respect and gratitude as an act of worship.

I’ve come to deeply revere our Creator’s ability and perfect qualities that enable him to govern every aspect of the heavens, the earth, and all creation.

There was for a vast span, a season when I dared to wield God’s scepter. In my god complex, I incessantly worried about my mother, my brothers, my sisters, and virtually everyone whose existence was tethered to my heart. Eventually, I learned that humans were not made to bear the weight of the whole world. It’s already not easy bearing our own weight! Yet to conceive of God, who has the whole world in his hand. RESPECT.

It was a needlessly long time before I relented and relinquished God’s scepter, yet the bane of our existence is pride, so I can now understand why I foolishly held on for so long.

There is a defiance in the human heart that would strive to disapprove of superiors and authority. Perhaps you’ve seen, or like me you have shamefully partook in coffee break huddles where the junior employees grumble against their superiors’ decisions, directives, and standards. Most of the murmurs revolve around how the manager, boss or leader ought to do this or that in this or that way.

Most of these prescriptions are only for the complainants’ immediate benefit at any point of contention, all the while failing to manage with distinction the small parts of the whole with which they are entrusted. 

It is only after I was delivered from the folly of undermining the extensive ability and competency of my boss to make organizational wise decisions, the lengthy hours in strategy meetings, and the extensive application of high-level logic and analytics that I repented of the futility of despising those in offices of authority.

During the novel global pandemic of twenty-twenty, I remember the multitude of prescriptions for how the president should and ought to manage the crisis while still governing the sixty-million population. Most of the dictating spectators barely survived managing themselves, or their two to six-person households. And at the end of the day, the nation would go to sleep while the president labored with various teams to ensure the best possible scenario for all. 

So it is with God, the creator of the known and unknowable universe.

While he works out all cosmic magnitudes for the good and perfect will of all creation, his surpassing attributes and accomplishments are derided by the blind and the cripples whose own hair they have no accounting.

When I consider my defiance, I come to recognize that any discreditable contempt towards anyone’s admirable, lovely, noble, pure, righteous, excellent, and praiseworthy ability and achievement is sheer wickedness.

But what praise can I conjure when I find myself in great distress, subjugated by unfathomable evils and troubles?

This was my incessant cry when I believed that The Almighty was a blind, deaf and cruel sadist, until one scene renewed my mind to the glory and majesty of Our Father, in heaven.

In the twenty-eighteen Avengers: Infinity War movie, Dr. Strange runs through all the possible scenarios in which the Avengers could hope for a victory against the nihilist Thanos. There is but only one scenario.

Maybe, this is the case with individual life and all creation. That the ant that is crushed by my careless traipse upon the earth finds itself a purposeful soldier, catalyst, and participant in the only scenario that tips other effects into motion. Perhaps my decimated childhood is the best scenario whose ongoing outcome is the person now contemplating these things.

Perhaps the gruesome murder of my closest brother, was the best scenario in all cosmos that finds me here, with my only trust and hope in Omnipotent Presence and Permanence.

More could be said, debated, and searched out. But this I have witnessed, I know, and continue to discover:

When every tear has been shed,

When every complaint has been murmured,

When every hope has been exhausted,

What remains is to approve God’s holy Sovereignty 

To admire the surpassing wisdom of Him who works out all things in conformity to His will,

To respect the genius of His intellect that orchestrated every inhale and exhale on the earth, from the minute ant to the giant blue whale,

To worship and give thanks to Him whose enduring love came down to scandalously love, forgive, and reconcile everything to Himself,

To honor the only One who knows the end from the beginning, Whose knowledge of the plans He has for all – plans not to harm but to provision a hope and a future is enough,

To acclaim Him who holds the universes in the palm of His hands, and still knows your name, my name, and the number of hairs on each head.

Yes. Let everything that has breath. Praise the Lord

With every inhale and exhale

Praise the Lord.

Most of life’s precious things are hidden in plainness, slowness, and quietness. If we would take hold of them, we must see beyond, slow down, and be still.

As was their Christmas tradition, the fellowship began to pick gifts from the “Dirty Santa” pile. Among them were a pair of miserable-looking offerings, grotesquely wrapped in old newspaper. They grabbed my attention as I keenly observed how everyone was careful to avoid them, rushing to grab a pretty one lest they be left no option but to pick up the foreboding unsightly presents.

Eventually, even they were picked, and the recipients’ visages could not hide their disappointment and dissatisfaction.

Beginning with the elaborately wrapped ones, the fellowship started unwrapping the presents.  Box after box revealed beautiful edible delights or practical trinkets, and with each unveiling, the recipients of the humbly wrapped gifts despaired; so much so that at their turn, they protested unwrapping their gifts, opting to toss them back on the table despite much encouragement to open them from their friends.

Later, when everyone had left the festive table, I looked to find the despised gifts among the food and wrapping debris. I decided to take them home with me where I could give them the dignity of a private, sneerless unveiling.

What I found beyond the ugly wrapping, remain gifts that keep on giving me so much more than I could have dreamed of by just looking at their despicable presentation.

“But the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.”. the LORD,

Outward appearances, first impressions, and all that glitters and gold have been the bane of our existence since the beginning. How quickly we discount and depreciate the innumerable gifts arrayed for us in nature, experiences, encounters, and people. Yet it is the nature of life in this realm that true glitter and gold are hidden in the depths of unattractive dirt, mess, and gore.

A “blue Monday” elicits groans from most of us, instead of praise and thanksgiving for another day in the land of the living. A grey week of rain fills us with gloom instead of gratitude for the water reservoirs refilling and the earth drinking deeply to quench forests’ thirst. A tragic loss cripples us instead of revealing the divine resilience of the spirit. A foul-smelling beggar nauseates instead of enlarging our hearts in awe of God’s sovereignty.

Perhaps the call for our outward-looking nature is to peer within, to look again, and to see beyond the glitter and gold, so as to perceive the beauty in the unsightly, discern the glory of the despicable, and appraise the wonder of the tedious. And therein glimpse the Gifts of God.

There was a time when I’d write long letters to God requesting an assortment of my heart’s desires:

“Please God, this Christmas, give us a big beautiful house where we can have our own rooms.”

“Please God, bless the work of our hands so we can have more income in the house”

“Please God, give me a smart phone so I can video call my family and friends abroad.”

“Please God, give me a handsome, rippling muscled husband.”

“Please God, give me a child.”

It’s been said, “be careful what you wish for…” A kind of foreboding on the nature of God’s gifts which often come wrapped in unsightly and undesirable packaging, like our blessed Saviour and Lord:

He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

God is faithful. If we are careful to peer closer, we will see that He hears us and answers us.

Of the few requests in my Christmas letters to him, all were answered:

He gave us a big house with more rooms. Its beauty was ours to unwrap through its proper upkeep, cleaning, and decorating. He gave me jobs with lucrative remuneration. The covert gift of being the person who can ensure the income increases our wealth was ours to unwrap. He gave me the smartphone, but the real blessing is forging self-control so as not to be consumed by it. He did give me a heartthrob man, and learning to love him well is the inexhaustible treasure hunt.

In retrospect, I’ve noticed that I’ve dismissed many gifts, because I couldn’t see the chair in the tree, the Savior in a manger or the King on a criminal’s cross. Yet in the wake of my error, I have gleaned these treasures:

The gifts of God come clothed in frail humanity, and strain

It is often hard for us to see, recognize, and accept, the fearful wonder that is you and me and them when our unrealistic expectations collide with eventual humanness. From a distance, we see a hero, a superwoman, a god, or a goddess but the closer and longer we mingle and mesh, the more we see the mere mortal, the creature of dust and ashes and we are disenchanted.

The greatest event in history came and passed but only a handful recognized and received Him as four hundred years’ anticipation of a knight in shining armor were dashed, obscuring the majesty of the Messiah in a helpless baby laying in a manger, and El Shaddai, shredded and dying on a criminal’s cross.

We are too quickly and easily put off by things that require our strain and regard, at first sight, thereby missing their beauty, glory, and wonder and forfeiting the many benefits of perceiving and attaining. 

But if we could see beyond the obvious and and the temporary pain for greater gains, we should find ourselves perpetually rejoicing in the gifts of God that come in unexpected and uncomfortable ways.

The gifts of God come in a moment, with time, in perfect love, and move at the pace of perfect grace.

We often miss God’s immeasurable gifts as we’re captured in the worries of yesterday, the hurry of today, and the scurry for tomorrow.

If you were to count, how many times would you be caught absent from a moment?

You may be in a conversation, on a date, in a meeting, at an occasion, in a queue at the bank or store, in prayer but your mind is partially or completely elsewhere. In this time of rapid technology, our ability to fully engage with and be absorbed by a moment is a treasure we must fight to preserve. 

There is no quantifying how enriched our souls become when we are alive in a moment. Staying awake to a moment is a terrible hassle in a time when expertly curated distractions are ever before our eyes and at our fingertips. How poor we are for it!

Our futures are also ravaged because we are afflicted by haste. We simply cannot wait, for anything or anyone. Impatient to earn the right to lifestyles of the rich and famous, we amass debt. We crave love’s sweetness but cannot wait for the harvest times. We hope and dream but despair and give up easily, and too soon. We pray but, like Esau or King Saul, too quickly take matters in our own hands, screw things up, and lose God’s best.

Perfect love always has been, always is, and always will be God’s best.

I came across this poem about God’s best and it ever resounds whenever I am tempted to worry, hurry or flurry, past the presently present presents all around me in all of Abba’s creation and His imprint and spirit hovering over the face of this deep

~Love Walks Slowly

“God walks “slowly” because he is love. If he is not love he would have gone much faster. Love has its speed. It is an inner speed. It is a spiritual speed. It is a different kind of speed from the technological speed to which we are accustomed. It is “slow” yet it is Lord over all other speeds since it is the speed of love.”

Three Mile an Hour God: Koyama, Kosuke

So when you, and I may feel prompted to worry, hurry or scurry, if only we could slow down, and be still.

Selah. 

[Pause. 

Breathe.]

And sense the Spirit’s invitation to perceive, discern and appraise the gift clothed in frail humanity, of a moment in time, and patiently anticipate the coming time when we will see face to face, know fully and be fully known…

…And therein find ourselves in the rapture of praise and thanksgiving – our only reasonable response when we discover, uncover, and delight in the Indescribable Gift of God

xoxo

Nimi

Do you hate yourself?

To admit that we hate ourselves is a tremendously vulnerable and courageous thing to do in a time when the buzz is #selfie, #selflove #selfcare.

It was at a merry luncheon when my aunt confessed that she hates herself that I was tackled with this rattling probing.

The moment the words left her lips, a heavy silence fell over the room and for a brief stifling while, every soul at the table contemplated the weight of her innocent confrontation.

I’d always wrestled with a torment of deep self-hatred but I had no idea that other people were also plagued by this menace until my aunt dared to lay her heart bare for those with eyes to see and those with ears to hear.

The reckoning has been the echo of my life several years on, and the inspiration for personal exploration as to why I thoroughly hate myself.

The immediate response when we use the word hate is “Oh, that’s a strong word to use”, or “Oh sure you don’t mean that.” But to anyone who has endured even a moment of feeling intense dislike for themselves, it is not a strong enough word.

Throughout the years, I’ve sought out more precise synonyms, hoping to grasp one that accurately pinned down my abhorrence with all that was me. Beginning with my appearance, voice, gait, mannerisms, nuances, laugh, and odor, I could not fail to notice something that nauseated me. Most of all I loathed how desperately deficient of light and sparkles, sunshine and charm, or wit and poise I was.

A day in my life, my thought life, in particular, was a scene from a demented movie where a severely troubled soul repeatedly stabs their brain, face, and body with shards of grotesquely jagged glass, or dagger in an attempt to rid themselves of the maddening splinter that is their very self.

A day in my outer world was one of overcompensation with bucket-loads of make-up, platitudes, vibes, and hypes. But these modes were always utterly draining and unsustainable. As a result, I always craved hide-outs and coverings, in the form of people in whose shadows I could at least disappear, if not totally be extinguished.

Looking back, I am mesmerized by this strange effect. Indeed it is from tracing its cause by carefully inspecting my past where I discovered the various events that translated in my dreadful self-loathing, where words became flesh.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Through the Word, all things were made. Through the Word is life. As long as the Word is with God and is God.

Humans are made in the image of God, therefore through our words, things are made, and through our word life can be. But because humanity is corrupted with the deadly virus, Sin, through our words, things are destroyed and through our words, things die.

The words that shape our formative years have a critical impact on the vocabulary we assume in our thinking. It is in our minds that we wield the powerful force of words to create the nightmares, fantasies, and realities we proceed to live through.

Parents are as gods to their children and thereby carry an impossible burden to speak only beautiful words of life, yet they too are but mortals incomparable to and under God. Environments and experiences can also drastically outline the confines in which we create the narratives that govern our lives. Therefore, words spoken or withheld by parents, environments, and experiences form the foundation of the mental characteristics and attitudes of the impressionable person who yet has to discover the ultimate, incorruptible Word that identifies and defines all.

The delicacy of words is ravenously and indiscriminately devoured by our minds but just like in child nutrition, those early words of identity, belonging, purpose, capacity, and function influence the whole health of how we see God, ourselves, and others.

The primary and eternal Word through which everything was made, and through which is life is love. Love that is perfectly patient and kind. Love that is content, modest and meek. Love that is reverent, selfless, temperate, and forgiving. Love that hates evil and celebrates truth. Love that always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love that never fails

So if we hate ourselves, we may recognize that the words that have shaped this false self-concept are invalid because without the Word nothing was made that has been made.

Now what was made was made to demonstrate the glory of the Word, that is God, who is Love. As such, the greatest commandment is to love. To love God, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. But how do we love our neighbor if we hate ourselves?

My brother told me this parable to express the common encouragement with regards to the second greatest commandment:

‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’

Jesus, The Christ

There was once a little boy whose dream was to one day walk into a McDonald’s and buy himself a Big Mac burger. Since the little boy’s parents were poor, he determined to collect coins that he found on the many streets and roads he adventured. After a long while, the little boy reached his goal, and with a tally of coins enough to make his Big Mac dream come true, he raced to the nearest McDonald’s. As he entered, there was another little boy pitifully sprawled on the pavement covered in a tattered mucky piece of blanket. The little boys’ eyes met briefly before the little dreamer boy opened the door to go inside his wonderland. With giddy anticipation, he stood in the queue waiting for his turn to utter the words “may I please have a Big Mac burger”. The counter lady is sweet and pleasant. She patiently counts every coin and proudly smiles when she finds the sum of it. The little boy grins and shuffles with excitement. Oh, what glory he feels as he sees his order approaching. He sways to the orchestra crescendo that brings this moment to its climax. He can hardly contain the froth in his mouth but because he wants to savor his burger in the peace and quiet of home he steps toward the exit. As soon as he swings the door open, the wretched little boy heaves himself into a half-sitting sprawl, his whole manner miserably begging.

“Should the little dreamer boy give the burger to the little beggar boy?” my brother asked, jolting me from the riveting tale. “Perhaps the dreamer boy can give the beggar boy half of the burger.” I offered.

“No. Little Dreamer should wholly eat and thoroughly enjoy his burger so that he knows the fulness and satisfaction of experiencing a dream coming true.” My brother counseled.

Yes. It is indeed quite sad when selfless-prone people deplete or disenfranchise themselves for the sake of others. It is certainly not the intuitive way, nor is it according to the last two words of the Christ’s second commandment, “as yourself.”

How can we give what we don’t have? Is it possible to love others if we do not love ourselves?

“With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

Jesus, The Christ

One of the weaknesses of my personality type is martyrdom. I was a sucker for plying others with love and resources but was unable to apply the same to myself. It seems this is a common misappropriation of Christ’s second command that often finds the culprits in dire burnout, resentment, and fruitlessness.

One of the reasons people like me have for being selfless and compassionate to others but harsh and condemning to themselves is that they believe that others deserve compassion and love but to extend these to oneself is self-centered or morally remiss. Another reason is that we misunderstand the Scriptures and the heart of God. I’ll even go further and say that the root of this condition is what my father called inferior pride, but pride nonetheless.

Nowadays we are encouraged to love ourselves, give to ourselves, and serve ourselves so that we may know how and have the means to love, give to, and serve others. While this is a nice encouragement, I’m afraid the devil in its equivocation may entrap us or cause us to stray from the Truth.

To avoid the prideful self-deception of self-debasement, we need to be aware and vigilantly guard the knowledge of who our neighbor is. Scripture scholars have determined that the original meaning of neighbor denotes the person closest to us at any moment. So, to the point of the prescriptions to self-love, self-care, and self-serve, because we are indeed our closest companions.

Yes, it is true that how we love ourselves will overflow into how we love others. But I have observed and personally found that these efforts rather steer our propensity for inappropriate self-importance.

In his letter to the Romans, and us, apostle Paul instructs:

Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.

The assurance God has distributed to all the world is that He so loves us all, enough to die and then resurrect in a glorious demonstration of His incomparable love. Thinking of ourselves any other way than this is defiance, rebellion, pride, sin.

Another assurance God has dispensed to all the world is that we lack nothing. We in fact in all things, and at all times, have everything that we need to abound in every good work. Therefore, we cannot say that “we cannot give what we do not have”, and thus, I propose that it is indeed possible to love our neighbor even if we suffer the affliction of self-loathing. The caveat eternally remains humbling ourselves under the mighty hand of God.

A maxim of Christ states give and it will be given to you, and we’ve also heard it said that an antidote to personal suffering is to help someone in greater suffering. My experience attests to both proverbs.

I had reached a point in my life when the agony of self-hate was unbearable and no matter how hard I tried or how much motivation and inspiration I soaked in, I failed to apply to myself the radical love and compassion Christ’s command requires. It was here, at the end of this rope that I received the insight from Christ’s maxim: Give, and it will be given to you.

A lot of the time we want to receive and then claim that having received we will be able to give. But let God be true and all men liars. For as truly as the sun rises, it is only when I started giving others patience, kindness, compassion, and sacrificial service in sobriety and humility as Christ instructs, that I realized that I am abounding in beautiful, lovely treasures. And that has made all the difference.

In Isizulu, one of the eleven languages of South Africa, the proverb states that umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu. Even though we fail to apply it, I like the heart of this expression as it basically re-enforces my discovery that it is through manifesting and bestowing sincere love on others that we get to recognize the value and power within ourselves and serve it to neighbors beyond our self-cocoon. Commensurately, it is in our dishonor of others that we accumulate hatred for ourselves.

Moreover, Scripture confirms,

We love because he first loved us. Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.

When we see others as lovable, we begin to also see ourselves as lovable. I understand this as the mirroring or reflection phenomenon. It’s through applying signals, in this case, love (patience, kindness, gentleness, goodness, mercy, service, generosity) that we can perceive feedback that we can relate to ourselves, and then review and, or repeat.

Living out love’s virtues reveals us as we truly are, and the more we are revealed virtuous, the more we grow in appreciation of our value addition, significance, and potential to contribute to making the world a better place. As we affect impact in our world, the more we feel good, and the more we like ourselves. The more the liking of ourselves overflows, the more we love our neighbor, and like ourselves even more! ^^,

As I’ve demonstrated patience, kindness, acceptance, and honor to others, I have proved and approved the law that state that we receive a proportional reward for how we give. In the case of love, gains are the abundant life of overflowing fulfillment, goodness, peace, and joy in my heart.

It is true. Through loving my neighbor I have come to like myself. Consequently, I can love my neighbor as myself. Thereby fulfilling the law and the prophets. One moment at a time. 😉

xoxo

Nimi

What is the greatest injury someone can commit that ripples infectiously to their core thereafter seeping outward into the lives of others?

I propose that unforgiveness is the greatest injury we commit against ourselves and neighbors whose infection ripples to our core, resulting in a world of disease. It begins with dishonor and culminates in vengeance, a strong desire to inflict punishment or exact retribution for an injury or wrong.

We’ve all suffered wounds. Whether physical, psychological or spiritual, we’ve experienced the bitter sting of gutting and piercings inflicted on us by others or by us.

The nature of wounding is that it is a deeply felt injustice such that it demands retribution, one way or the other. Yet it is this innate feature that often hinders the healing of our wounds, instead resulting in the spread of infection in our inner man, transforming us into oozing fiends who perpetuate impetuous retaliation for any real or imagined injury.

In my mother tongue, the proverb goes that “ahar’abantu, haba uruntu-runtu.” A phrase loosely translating that where there are people, there will be humanness. This is simply due to the fact that we all have unique wickedness and are often oblivious to it and to how we inflict it on others around us, including ourselves.

It is this ignorance that rouses our innate demand for vengeance against another not realizing that we too are condemned. So on we go about accumulating grudges and dishing out revenge, foolishly guzzling poison and degrading our neighbors.

It’s easy for us to recognize when others dishonor us but we seldom consider how often we dishonor others, even when we think we mean well. Nevertheless, it is vital to know that Perfect Law does not condone the dishonor of His image-bearer by anyone.

This truth is illustrated in Jesus’ parable of The Unmerciful Servant: one day, Peter, one of Jesus’ disciples wants to know [as we all do] how many times he should forgive someone who wrongs him. In response, Jesus tells a story of a King who decided to bring his accounts up to date. He called those servants who owed him and demanded they repay what they owed. There was a servant who owed him about three and a half billion US dollars ($3.5B) and since he couldn’t pay it, the king ordered that he, his wife, children and all he had be sold in settlement of his debt. The servant fell to his knees and begged the king for mercy. The king took pity on him, cancelled the debt and let him go.

Now when this servant went out, he met his fellow-servant who owed him a negligible amount of about eighty-four US dollars ($84), he grabbed him and began to choke him demanding immediate payment. The fellow-servant fell to his knees and begged for a payment extension but the wicked servant refused and had the man thrown into prison till he could pay the debt.

When the other servants saw this, they were astonished and told the king. Outraged, the king called that servant and handed him over to the jailers to be tortured until he should pay back all he owed.

Basically to dishonor someone is to humiliate them. How sad it is that often, like the wicked servant, we tend to dish out heaps of humiliation on tiny matters when we’ve been spared disgrace on grander scales.

Of course, because the universe revolves around us, we are hard-pressed to consider whether our speech and conduct humiliates those around us. It is through our speech (in all its forms) and our conduct that we can make someone else feel foolish and debased, which results in injured dignity. Everyone has a right to dignity; and although we often demean and succeed at dishonoring others, that does not remove the reality of every person’s intrinsic dignity that is due to them, on pain of God’s wrath.

A little while ago, I completed Dr. Bruce Wilkinson’s course on forgiveness where I learned one of the steps in the forgiveness process which is to list every name of anyone who has hurt me. Once listed, and beginning with those who have hurt me the most, I was to detail specific wounds (injuries, and harms) each person inflicted whether accidentally or purposefully.

I’ve been staggered to see how much of the wounding I’ve suffered was a direct injury to my dignity, and how consequent rebellious, insolent and malevolent speech and conduct towards others seems to be a good tell-tale sign that our own or another’s, dignity has suffered an injury.

The hardest part about recovering from injuries to our dignity is reviving from the shock that the people who we hope to love us are in fact the ones who wound our dignity the most.

But what of our wounding others? Recognizing that I am also capable of causing injury to others’ dignity was quite a breakthrough. This happened to me when I dared to read my husband’s list of wounds I’d inflicted on him. In my self-righteousness, I was indignant that he should have any charge against me, seeing how loving and caring and longsuffering I had been with him.

Abstracting that we are more often villains than saint is a difficult task due to our inherent human defect of self-importance.

It may be just me but for a very long while I had no concept that someone else could have feelings, thoughts, and dreams that could be hurt just as my own could, and were.

I have often been acutely aware of when I’ve been dishonored, and because I am prone “to keep peace at the moment” (better known as brooding), it was difficult for me to tell someone off so I often let the wounds fester. Some people react directly but it seems most are like me. I think this could be a learned handicap from when we were children and couldn’t talk back.

But even when we learn to talk back, we have trouble being talked back to. This became apparent to me through the many duels with my family and husband. Not many people will admit but on many occasions I found myself expecting honor from others – young and old, all the while dishonoring them, not considering them; seeking only fulfillment, validation, and justification of my own interests.

As I reflected on my speech and conduct in the past, I was firstly jolted awake by my self-absorption, and then I went through a season of crushing anguish in the light of my revealed wickedness. My pursuit of what I wanted and needed had terribly infringed on the dignity of those from whom I sought the gains I fixedly believed I deserved. Being self-seeking made it impossible to consider others’ feelings, or relate to them with genuine respect.

Incidentally, people have sensors for when we are operating for our own interests, and looking out for number one, and nobody likes being treated that way. The irony of course is that we don’t like being dishonored and disregarded but we do that to other humans and imagine, even expect them to receive it well. The result is a slow decay of our relationships and connections and in dire cases, bitter isolation.

But being a human is a difficult thing. We are haunted by the good we know we should do but do not. We try our best but we don’t quite perfectly hit the mark. Even our good deeds often don’t go unpunished. Yet in all these things, we are called to love our neighbors and enemies. But how can we answer this call when our hearts default toward vengeance?

We have to wrestle with our super importance and bring it to submission under the One who can help us live up to the call to humanity.

Since I accepted Jesus Christ to be my Savior and Lord, I’ve been noticing beauty growing from within me. When I used to say I love so and so, it was based on their relation to me, or what I could get from them. This helped me to know who I should expend any effort of demonstrating kindness, politeness, patience, attention and care towards. Then I didn’t have to care about the rest.

To love as humanity is called to love is a very difficult pursuit. Yet it is the most worthy competence that will enable us to satisfy this basic need and craving of every soul. The kind of love we are called to serve one another is not of this world, and it is not of the flesh. Therefore to ever hope to make the world a better place through the power of love, we need the Spirit of Love to come into our thinking and give us a new and true perception of love and purpose for us to love.

As I continue on my pilgrimage, I’ve observed how regularly I am tested on my progress and standing about my living out love wholeheartedly. It’s easy to say I love you when I’m in a good mood, or we’re on good terms but as soon as you cross me, I have an instinctive impulse to let out my teeth and claws, in my case with brooding passive aggression.

The more someone crosses us, we callously cancel them out of the “lovable” quadrant and chuck them in our heart dungeons until they’ve paid in full for their audacity.

For some time now, I’ve been tested on “love does no harm“, and “love keeps no records of wrongs“.

So, we all know we are outright the most forgiving person in the world.

But for me, what the results from my testing revealed was that I was operating in self-deception. Contrary to my self-assessment, I faced the fact that I’d never really forgiven, fully. That’s why I was still causing so much harm to myself and my neighbor.

Often, we can keep a record of the many wrongs done to us without being aware that we have those records buried deep in our souls. But just because we cannot recall them off the top of our heads does not mean they are not festering and evoking torture from our jailers until we completely release and forgive those who inflicted the injury. This is why Dr. Wilkinson’s process of forgiveness is radically transformational in its effect to guide us to complete relinquishment of all our debtor’s charges fully.

When we keep a record of wrongs that happened to us, we are sucking the abundant life from our lives, and producing bad reports about life because we keep using out-of-date records. This is why God can be blessing someone who did something to you and you can’t understand how or why.

But God works with us using the most current information that will never go out of date, and it is this:

The coming of the Son of God into the world was not to condemn it but to save it through atoning for humanity’s trespasses with His blood shed on the cross at Calvary thereby paying all the debt of sin of mankind. In this Jesus Christ purchased forgiveness from God that mankind may forever be free from the penalty due for sin.

This is love.

Selfless. Sacrificial. Sanctifying.

In and of ourselves, we cannot attain to treat every person, at all times with perfect patience, kindness, politeness, humility, honor, consideration, peace, sacrifice, forgiveness, and truth. But because of what Jesus Christ accomplished for humanity forever, any human who chooses to follow Jesus becomes empowered to operate in the Spirit of Love, through which everything that Jesus said and does flows, for the glory of Love.

Choosing to follow Jesus means you get to be in company with him and very soon more and more of him rubs off on you and you begin to live and operate in life in the love that heals and nourishes the souls of everyone we encounter. We are no longer plagued with loving how we know – which is always going to fall short – but we get to love as God loves: inexhaustibly, indiscriminately, and perfectly under grace.

The recent tests I’ve gone through have been opportunities where I’ve experienced what it means and looks like to operate in the power of the Spirit of love. Without God’s Spirit, I am certain I should be estranged from my husband and family because I felt like I had no more love to give.

Yet God’s eternal love living in me, the Holy Spirit deposited into me when I believed in the Son of God and accepted to follow Him boosted me to a level of love for them that is transcendent and much more beautiful.

A love that is patient.

A love that is kind.

A love that is content, polite, and humble.

A love that honors, sacrifices, peaceful, forgives.

A love that is delightfully true and always hopes and perseveres

A love that does no harm.

A love that heals and mends and restores.

A love that makes the world a better place

xoxo

With Love,

Nimi