Is it just me or we all experience this. I want to pray, I want to study the bible but i have a thousand things going on inside my head. I ride from starting my prayer, ‘ Dear Heavenly father,’ to , did I correct the mistakes I made on the report before submitting? What am i going to say to my client tomorrow about the matter at hand. Do I have enough money for my weekly supplies? The list goes on. Am literally all over the place and get lost while trying to focus,
Is there an art to being still and quiet inside. Clearly I haven’t mastered that one yet. I can shift from being in tears before God to thinking about what my colleague said in the morning that offended me. I resorted to writing my prayers because talking alone, my mind flows in all different directions.
The say do what works for you, apparently writing is what works for me, so just have to be writing as I pray, its the only way I can tame my mind right now. How do you guys handle a crowded mind, or maybe you don’t even have such?
As simple as that, was told to write. Not by one person, or two, but rather a number of them on different occasions. They encouraged to write, gave me the tools I needed and now here I am, a couple of years later, writing!
Its heartbreaking how much we take certain things for granted. truths that have been over simplified that we no longer see the importance. When Jesus was being nailed on that cross, He was doing it for us. He had us in mind and heart. He loved us before we were even concieved.
He came for you and me.
But why? Why love such a sinful, rebellious, ungrateful generation. Because love keeps on hoping, love keeps on believing, love is sacrifice. And He did that for us fully aware that we may even turn our back on Him, But He did it anyway because He believes in you, and to Him, you deserve another chance. Another chance to live life in the fullness of God’s wisdom, knowledge, guidance and will. After all, He created you for something bigger which the enemy wanted to take away from you.
Dear readers, I want you to know that there is a God whose name is the great I AM, who sent His son, Jesus, to pay the prize we had to pay, and gave us His Spirit to journey with us in this life till we meet with Him. There is a God who loves you dearly and has somehow made you come across this message, and He is calling your name. Will you accept Him In your heart?
Growing up, we always had a pet at home. The earliest dog I remember, was Spider. She was a gentle dog. Surprisingly, though never the vicious type, people just feared her because she was a huge dog. I don’t remember what breed she was, don’t even have a clear picture of what she looked like , I was really young, but the name stuck with me, to me she was my gentle 4 legged buddy.
There were a couple other names too, we had a Rex a Jack, Shumba, Silk, Buster, each had a beautiful tale. You could tell by the way my dad would talk about them. They held a special place on our hearts as a family, in fact they were part of the family. But it was not just dogs, we also had cats, I remember, Kitty, Bella, Kendra or something like that. But Bella was the most popularly known and stayed with us for long. To be honest am sure 2 cats were given that same name. basically for cats they were stray cats which we would take in.
Theses companion animals, as they are called, could never talk back to us yet there would be undeniable evidence that they loved us. I do miss them, these were not just dogs or cats, you could tell there was a connection. We loved and provided for them, they respected and stood by us faithfully. they didn’t have to say the words I love you, but everyday there was something, be it waggling their tails and coming right at you when you call them, licking your face off when ever they got the chance, playing with us, nibbling too and not to forget the stubbornness that often looked cute. I believe that was their way of saying ‘I love you’ back.
Looking back, my heart is full, knowing that at least I was a part of their lives. Now we have Sky and the 3rd generation Bella 1 and Bella 2. Sky is a whole different story, too playful, loves to load his 40 something kilogram body on people. I believe he thinks he is still a small puppy. Because then it was fun and cute, now you will be left with internal soft tissue trauma and scratches too. But we take it with grace, he is our baby after all, our 3 year old puppy. And every chance He gets he loves to bolt out the gate, obviously scaring the people passing by. and honestly seeing the fear on their faces its kind of funny, its only us who know he is young at heart. I cant even tell if he sees us as family or what, too independent and, never listening to anything you say. Am still trying to figure him out. I don’t know if he missed the, ‘I love you too’, memo, left by all our previous furry buddies.
BELLA 1 AND BELLA 2, WELL THEY KEEP COMING BACK, ITS A LOVE LANGUAGE RIGHT ?
If one was to describe me, they would say I got my emotions up my sleeves. Its has been my truth for as long as I can remember. I would let how I feel control how I respond to life situations and stuff like that. Please bear in mind I don’t mean anger issues. I mean any small thing had the power to make me sad, or maybe be quickly offended and withdraw.
Of late, after a certain work incident, I knew I had to make some changes with regards to that. I believe its a positive change because it is helping me process things better. Of course am not going to ignore my feelings, but am not going to let them control my mood and ruin the day, instead, I control them.
With day to day life, we come across things that can and will irritate us. There will be clashes and some silent wars going on be it work places schools or family. By choosing to not let offence determine how you will live your life, it frees you from being controlled by other people.
So what is controlling ones feelings? Well, I will give an example, of what happened the other day. Here I am, doing my business I set up my things at work, and then someone decides to take what I was using for themselves because they reasoned they were in a more critical position. Mind you what I had set up for my project were not the only material available, this person could have just done their own setup. And unfortunately it disrupted my work and on my side it was a total flop. Both projects were equally important. How did I react to this. Yes, I was hurt and disappointed, it was easy for me to resent this person, put all the blame on them. But I didn’t, I chose to forgive. Did this situation jeopardize my work? Yes! But did it tarnish my heart? No! I was completely free. Their project worked just fine and turned out great, mine didn’t, but my spirit was free. Forgiveness is such a powerful tool. I can smile and go about my business. Did I make them see that it wasn’t a fair thing they did? Yes! But in a wise friendly way, that they acknowledged.
Forgiveness is such a powerful tool.
So what am doing, am simply using what the bible says and leaving it all in Gods hands. Forgive 70 times 7, that’s a hard pill to swallow, but trust me it frees you from being full of negative energies. I CHOOSE WHAT TO DO IN A SITUATION DESPITE FEELING A CERTAIN WAY.
Well that’s one way of doing that, can you think of other ways?
Got to say it was an uplifting realization. You know, a lot of times we hear preachers, teachers and motivational speakers saying that ;when nothing seem to be happening , prayers not being answered , it doesn’t mean that God is not doing anything. We often hear the statement, ‘He is working behind the scenes’ often followed with a ‘soon it will all make sense. Hang in there’. Well I kinder had somewhat experience of this.
For the longest time, I have battled low self esteem, self doubt , lack of confidence , you name it all. I was disappointed in myself that I never really have much fruit in things that I put my whole body, mind and soul into. Was often just a discouraged soul trying to get trough life.
A couple of months ago, made a decision to work on me for a while, hence the decision to be celibate. Started a journey of self discovery, or so I called it. The main focus was to work on finding me, sort of define myself. And am happy to say that have picked up a thing or two, which I may or may not have posted before. For example, now have a personal mission statement. Am embracing my interests, and cultivating into them. No longer hiding away or brushing away my feelings or emotions but rather respecting them and working on them. If something ticks me off, am not letting it mess me around, I confront it, in the nicest possible way. Been working on becoming more optimistic and not a pessimist.
So my bible study yesterday lead me through a series of scripture that in summary were focusing on how much the things in our heart can affect how we respond to the world. Had to reflect a bit, my thoughts had been pretty negative, and the source of this negativity seemed to steam up from unresolved issues. Took me some time to be honest with myself. I then discovered a huge gap that had been growing in me since my early years. On realizing this, it all made sense and to make it even crazier, though I was feeling blue, when I picked up my issue, it was like I got set free, cant explain the feeling, as if whatever was weighing my heart, got lifted. But it doesn’t stop there, I did my research on how people can heal and recover from this and what do you know, the very steps that were recommended by mental health professionals is exactly what I have been doing on my journey.
Its like the whole time, though I did not see any change in the main issues I thought were the problem, God was already leading me through my journey of healing from the actual problem. I thought I was just doing theses things you know because I want to, but it was already in His plan. Was already in my healing journey, and didn’t even know what I was healing from, but God already knew. I hope this makes sense to someone.
I did not realize that all my problems were rooted on a particular hurt, which I carried in my heart. Though subtle, it controlled pretty much everything.
Am no mental health guru, but I do believe that most of our problems come from our mind, and what’s in our heart. God was not opening certain doors because He knew I still had some healing to do. This has given me courage to continue on the path, and strengthened my trust in GOD.
May sound a bit strange for others, but I will have to choose the bible. To me this is the most relevant, practical always updated book. The way I read and understood the bible as a child is different from when I was a teen and compared to now as an adult, but at each stage played an important role in my life. Its literally my guide book.
I will choose the bible because it carries truths about the God I serve and believe. In it is wisdom, guidance, comfort, encouragements, rebuke, and promises. Its rich with God’s very word towards His people. So yes I will go back to it over and over again, because that’s where my hope lies.
This past few days been feeling like that character that no one cares about, or even knows about. Just there to fill the room but without playing any important role. Maybe the extra in a restaurant, or party scene.
I don’t know why my spirits are so low, but its one of them days that’s for sure.
Why art thou cast down oh my soul, hope thou in the Lord.
I keep telling myself that, even though the blues have struck me yet again. I just hang in there, even though there is seemingly no logical reason for me to, but I guess am a prisoner of hope. Just got to hope that God will makeall things work together for my good.
I wish I knew how! Am surrounded with a people divided by doctrines and theologies yet they believe they worship the same God. I live with a people that seem to exist in all communities but attached to none. People who stay within the same vicinity but do not know each other’s names. Its difficult to tell now if we truly share the same interests.
Community can be in the sense of people staying together, then on another end people sharing the same attitudes, so which one exactly are we talking about?
When it comes to those living in the same place, I wouldn’t know how to improve anything if I don’t even know them. Perhaps its me who has to improve first; communication skill, interaction and genuine neighbor love. When it comes to sharing the same attitudes, am not sure if people do that anymore. Look at the Church divided, look at work places, divided. Families, divided.
So maybe the question should be ; What do I think needs to be improved in communities, and my answer straight away will be , the people themselves. and stop this nonsense.
The voice in me 