Matthews 5:14-16 “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven”

We light up the world in different ways with a purpose to inspire, heal, motivate, support, care comfort, and guide each other. Our daily living influences how we breathe life on our lights and through each other. The decisions we make in life graciously continue to light up our lights or unbearably weaken them.

This is my journey
A journey that drowned me down to valleys of adversities and lifted me up to triumph. I fell and got up countless times until I could stand still and found myself in God. Amid my storms, God rose me up high to reach my light and showed me the gate to my transformation.

Each person is born with their own uniqueness that makes them stand out from the rest. Identifying your distinctiveness can be a daunting journey. It is a journey where some are fortunate to be taught whilst young how to identify and nurture their seed; while some will be going through adversities to identify who they truly are. How we choose to emotionally see our journey of adversities, can either strengthen us to build more faith or blind us to much darkness of agony.

Adversity is hardening, it has compelled others to make good decisions to rebuild their faith and become resilient. They don’t let past failures, mistakes, or rejections hold them back. Regardless of all the odds that come against them, they strive until they succeed. Others also try to rebuild their faith, however relieving their past emotionally trapped to feel intimidated, insecure, discouraged, and unworthy. This negative outlook prevents them from seeing success ahead and makes them hesitant to try again. Then they hide under a mask and hopelessly choose to be either:

• Feeble and always looking for an easy way and quick on giving up,
• Conniving and ruthless by going behind people to steal what is not theirs,
• Confused and hide their suffering by becoming excessively selfless or
• Manipulative with intentions of being pitied.

The absence of appreciating the outcomes of my attempt to identify my distinctiveness, and failure in accepting the status of my life led me to conceal my feelings under a mask. Undesirably I focused on my adversities and past mistakes while masking was weakening my light. For I was far from God; I did not know who God was and became ashamed of opening my heart to God. I blindly allowed the rowdiest negative past of my upbringing, of numerous futile attempts, of my age and my level of education, to distort how I perceived things. Masking quietly was burying myself in darkness. The darkness of suffering in silence caged me to a deep lonely, cold, and narrow grave, while my mind was becoming a war zone of confusion. I was emotionally in the dark and battled to hear God, while unreasonably becoming excessively selfless trying to be there for everyone, as I struggled to save myself. The devil created comfort out of my discomfort of being ashamed and slyly blindfolded myself to normalize the abnormal behaviors.

So, masking disconnects you from yourself and makes you live two worlds, what you want people to pay attention to and what you are suffering from. It is a darkness where some dive deep and struggle to come back and would resort to killing their pain, mistakes, and failures through activities that draw them strongly to becoming addicted. I struggled hard to understand and appreciate what it meant for me to be created in God’s likeness and image: Genesis 1:27 (So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them).

Living under a mask controlled me to make poor judgments about my life. In as much as I would try to live positively, I blindly allowed my mind to be a secret dwelling of negative seeds of my past deprivations, insecurities, weaknesses, and fears. The lack of confidence led me to be discouraged and I would usually procrastinate or self-sabotage my dreams. My insecurities crushed my inclination to commit to any goals.

The downside of masking was, I was quick to act without thinking things through. In my reasoning, I slowly lost my identity. Masking imprisons one’s mind with the intent to produce negative outlooks. You find yourself normalizing the abnormal behaviors insensitively pushing others to accept you as you are. The results will give you name(s) and you cannot hide your stunts of:
• bitterness
• grudge
• dislike
• envy,
• pride,
• anger,
• stubbornness,
• ego,
• co-dependency or
• deflecting etc.
Masking shadowed my path to finding a harmonious way of overcoming my period of unfruitfulness. It is that deep-rooted negative growing web, cutting through people’s hearts spreading and infecting other parts of our lives. It infused undesirable attitudes that were hurting the people I love. Stubbornness became my tendency to take control of things, it broke me apart inside, but I had pride and would not admit that I was drowning. Despite that, God will never give up on us and He never gave up on me. God will always provide us with opportunities to correct our wrongs and to remove us from immoral behaviors that can hurt others.

I blindly masked because I failed spiritually on how I can emotionally relate to my period of want. Due to that, I struggle to accept my season of lack. I was unproductive in Religion, Relationships, and Finance. Impulsively keeping my past alive led me to a poor understanding of how I can set my goals. Impatiently allowed conformity to societal standards drove me to be disconcerted thinking that I was running out of time, and never gave my dreams a chance to flourish. Though I understood the Proverbs of Solomon (Proverbs 16: 1) saying “The plans of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord,” I still became critical because I was angry and blindly thought my blessings were not enough.
Outwardly, masking hardened me from asking, though my heart’s desires were troubling my mind. I suffered by allowing my past to stand in my way and became discerning of God’s willingness to bless me. I gradually continued neglecting my light under the mask. In a negative perception of how I saw God, my dreams of living my true self and strengthening my light seemed unachievable. Because I continued reliving my past disappointments. Reliving the past triggered doubts that manifested negative feelings without a challenge. It brought storms that came gushing, and I found myself stifling under my mask. It shattered my heart.

The unnecessary pressure we impose on ourselves; and the negative perception we have about God, disrupt our thinking. Although God knows our desires, He wants to hear our hearts truthfully. I made a decision to change my mind and surrendered everything and sought God. – Matthew 11:28-30 (Come to Me, all who labor and are heavily laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light). God wants us to find confidence and courage in trusting Him with all our lives and to trust ourselves in Him.

LET YOUR PAST CHANGE YOUR FUTURE

Surrendering my life gave me the strength to plan my future and vision my goal of bringing to life my uniqueness and achieving all areas of my dreams; then identifying the undesirable behaviors that had locked out my opportunities. I willingly sought Him first “Matthew 6:33 “But seek first, the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” and He took the lead. Opening my heart to God gave me the strength to uncover myself and clear my eyes. The positive spirit strengthened me to plead for forgiveness from God first and be grateful; to admit my failures; to identify and remove the negative seeds I had housed in my mind; to see the damages I had done and to be daily taught on how I can rebuild myself.

God is pleased when we directly respond to Him like Solomon said “Give me now wisdom and knowledge…” 2 Chronicles 1:10 God wants to show us how we can control and change our thinking and to focus on how we can rebuild our damaged selves.

God Bless Us All

“A light cannot be caged no matter how emotionally blinded we become. It breaks off the shells we hide behind and measures no deeds of the past. Follow the rays of the light, they are there to direct you to God” NSipuka