Don’t Let The Story End With Shame

Shame is no stranger to me and I’m sure to a lot of you out there, reading that article today. I’ve lived shame, lived in it, been shamed and sometimes wrapped my identify around the shame that I was feeling. And I still sometimes do. I think the biggest problem about shame is not only what it makes us think we are, but also what it makes us feel we are not and will never be able to be (or do). My curiosity about wanting to understand my shame and find out what it was all about happened when I started listening to Brené Brown; but  the reckoning and the rumbles started when I dived into the book Rising Strong. At random moments during my journey through this book and my own personal journey navigating shame and guilt, I have pondered what were the odds that out of all the books that I have, I would specifically be reading this one, at this very moment; right when I’m caught in an internal (and external) shame sh-tstorm.

I have once heard someone very close to me say that people who do bad things should be shamed however, my own experience with shame has taught me that unless there is a personal desire to change and use it as a defining turning point in life, shaming someone never makes them a better person. Shaming leads to pain and isolation. Shaming leads to despair. Shaming leads to hopelessness. Shame doesn’t make better people. Accountability does. Speaking the truth does. Empathy does. Giving people a safe space to share their story does. Doing your best to help and support with the generous assumption- to quote Brené Brown- that people are doing their best does.

I do not believe that shame makes better people, I believe that shame if pushed on people for a long time and hard enough, has the potential to literally and figuratively end their stories, not reshape them.

There have been moment in my life where I might not have verbally shamed people but I certainly did by the behaviors I exhibited towards them and by the approach of life I had. I walked the earth- especially as a Christian- portraying that Hollier-than-thou attitude when the truth is that attitude was more of a sin than someone who secretly (or openly) struggled with shame and leaned on God to find their way out of what was the root of the shame.

The reason why shame has such a big impact on us is because it directly correlates to our sense of worthiness and our identity vs just our ability to "just do". The shame of making a mistake will shift our monologue from “I made a mistake” to “what is wrong with me” or “I am so dumb/ stupid” etc… Shame has such a big impact because we tend to assimilate with it and Brené Brown put it better than I could ever explain in words when she said: “ I did a bad thing so I am a bad person” to illustrate the difference between shame and guilt.

When I think of shame, there are two people from the Bible immediately come to my mind : Mary Magdalene and Peter. One labelled by shame before meeting Christ and the other labelled and probably plagued by it after denying Jesus. What I like about those two in particular is that they did not let the weight of their shame truncate their destinies and their stories. Mary Magdalene before meeting Jesus was a prostitute. And I am sure after rallying with Jesus a lot of people still referred to her by her wrong and the subject of her shame while Jesus and God referred to her by her name. Peter was the one about which Jesus said : “ And I say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades (death) will not overpower it [by preventing the resurrection of the Christ].” Matt 16:18. Jesus knew already that Peter was going to deny him but He still made that declaration on Peter. He went further and told him :“Simon, stay on your toes. Satan has tried his best to separate all of you from me, like chaff from wheat. Simon, I’ve prayed for you in particular that you not give in or give out. When you have come through the time of testing, turn to your companions and give them a fresh start.” Luke 22:32. And although I had never thought of it this way, I want to think maybe Jesus wanted Him to have something to hold onto so that he wouldn’t be taken out by shame. Maybe Jesus wanted Him to have something to hold onto when the thoughts “ I am a bad person, I am not worthy” stormed him so that he would be reminded that he still has purpose; so that he would be reminded that shame is not the end and that even if we had a choice, we wouldn't let it be the end. I think Jesus wanted to remind him that his humanity would fail him but it would not be enough to stop God’s sovereign plan or change God’s mind about him or the mission He gave him.

If you are wrestling with shame know that it can be a turning point, a defining moment in life or it could be the end but only if you let it. You might feel like the worst human being on this earth for one reason or another, you might feel like you are not even worthy of being on this earth but know that God has you here for a purpose. You are accounted for in God’s Sovereign plan, He loves you and can turn what you see as a mess into a masterpiece. Nothing can make you fall out of God’s hands. And although you might be going through the storm and weeping, know that there is hope on the other side. Lean onto God, find safe people to shine light onto the darkness in which shame reigns and trust that as long as you are willing to let God write your story, you will get to the other side of this storm. I might not know a lot but one thing I know for sure, is that God is a redeemer. 

Until next time,

The test of obedience or the hidden hardship in simplicity

“The path of obedience to God is simple, yet often the hardest road to walk—requiring both trust and surrender.”– Unknown

                                    

Hello and welcome back to another article. You thought I was going to fall into the usual pattern and leave you hanging again huh? Well hopefully this year is the year of consistency and new beginnings where I will try my best (by God’s grace) to keep this train choo-chooing. 

This particular article is a testament to how God has a great sense of humor. I have always said that the words that I write here minister to me first before they go out into this world to do what they do. Or sometimes they minister to me later when I go through seasons where those words make sense and resonnate. But one thing is for sure, these words are also for me. And this article here is not any different. It is almost midnight, and as I type those words I am exhausted. After a very long day, my plan was to wrap up the day and start unwinding to go to bed but God had a simple instruction for me: put those words in writing. Simple right? Right. However just because the instruction was simple, doesn’t mean it wasn’t hard to execute. The tiredness in my body made it hard for me to walk in obedience but here we are. 

As I was going about my day today, God had already started to plant the seed of what this article was going to be about. He led me into the book of 2 kings 5 which narrates the story of how Naaman, a very influential man got healed but almost missed out on his miracle because the instruction was too simple for his liking. Long story short (you should really read for yourself): Naaman had leprosy, one of his servant (a young girl) said : “hey, there is a Prophet in Samaria, he would heal my master if he would just go see him”. Naaman took that information to the king and the king gave him permission to go. Once Naaman went to Samaria, he was expected to be received by Elisha with the highest honors but to his dismay,  Elisha didn’t even come out to see him: he sent someone else to give him the instruction that would unlock his miracle. He got upset and wanted to return home but “But his officers tried to reason with him and said, ‘Sir, if the prophet had told you to do something very difficult, wouldn’t you have done it? So you should certainly obey him when he says simply, ‘Go and wash and be cured!’. So Naaman went down to the Jordan River and dipped himself seven times, as the man of God had instructed him. And his skin became as healthy as the skin of a young child, and he was healed!” (2 kings 5: 13-14)

This is a perfect example of how we miss out on miracles because we judge God’s instruction too simplistic and yet, there is a hidden hardship in it: the test of obedience. As humans, we all for the most part, are wired to like a challenge and to question the simple stuff. And that is where the difficulty is for us. We tend to associate simple with ease when most of the time, they couldn’t be further away from each other because of our sinful nature, because of pride or because life experiences have skewed our view of of life (“it cannot be that easy”, “that’s a trap”, “what is the catch?”, etc…) 

We are so used to the hard things that the simplicity of God in the way he requires for us to do things throws us in for a loop. But it is really as we sit and practice what He is asking of us or go from a place of hearing to doing, that we realize that the simple things are in fact not easy and require from us humility and the grace of God in order to obey and take hold of our miracles. Sometimes, we miss out because the miracle does not come wrapped in the packaging we want or it does not look like a rubic’s cube. And so we overlook it or look at what God is presenting to us as the blueprint as beneath us, when in fact, it does come with the perfect level of challenge that we need to rise to the next level. As someone that has been in the biotech industry for years now and that has worked in the lab, big repairs are important but it is the fine tuning and calibration of instruments that makes a big and noticeable difference in the quality of the output. And sometimes, the “simple things” that God requires from us are the things that produce the difference that we so long for.

“So what are you saying?” What I am saying is : sometimes it is not about praying for two hours or fasting 40 days. Yes they are great things to practice, however, if they do not come from and align with obedience, I am afraid you are missing the point. I will leave you with this: if you are have been praying and asking God : “Lord what’s next?” And what you have been hearing from God is either the same instruction or crickets, make sure you stop, go back and check that you have done the last thing God has asked you to do. And if you think it is too simple, maybe you are missing the point again. It is not about how simple or complicated it is, it is about our pride and how hard it is to submit to God because we think we are above certain things. The fine tuning of the heart posture is the most important process a believer can go through because the posture of the heart determines the outcomes of a lot of things in life (prov 4:23)

I pray and hope these words blessed you in the ways God intended for them to. 

Until next time,

A Note On Grief

Hello and happy new year. I have been gone for a while and as timid as my re-entry on this platform is, I do home that the time that has passed since my last post on here and now has treated you well. If not, well just know that you are not alone. You are probably reading this and gone back to the title and wondered why is my first post of the year and my first post after being away for so long is one on grief. What an odd way to reenter the conversation. Well, maybe it is but maybe it isn't because grief is cuch an ever present thing in our life. An elephant in the room that people acknowledge (reluctantly) but dare not to speak about past the acknowledgement. I might not have lived long years on this earth but i know a thing or two about grief. Grief is what 2024 was made of for me. Not the entirety of 2024. But I dare say a big part of it. 

Grief is such a weird thing… Like a fog that wraps its arms around you. A heaviness that sits on your chest and on your eyes… The bags under them, puffy and so noticeable, being the sign of something that can never be explained or understood unless you have been through it, unless you have lived through it. It’s the scream that you can never let out. The one that you choke on through silent tears at night and sometimes during the day, when you need to keep moving through life but you have to keep excusing yourself to the bathroom so you can ride the wave of tears that hit you out of nowhere. Ride the waves not because you want to, as if not riding it was an option… But because you need to in order to keep your sanity. But also because those moments where you get to break and let it all out are the reason why you are still standing. A little over a year ago, I watched a movie called Love again and and it is about life after grief. From the time the clock stops when we start mourning to the moment life picks up it’s normal pace and we stop feeling stuck or moving forward in slow motion.

I remember once having a chat with one of my former bosses about grief and a post she saw on LinkedIn. The post was a picture of a ball in a jar. At first the ball took the majority of the space in the jar, but then it seemed as if it was shrinking. But then there were a few words about how grief doesn’t shrink but how our lives (the jar) keep getting bigger in comparison to the grief (the ball). The jar gets bigger through the new connections we make, the memories, the new experiences as we live life on the other side of grief. They don’t make grief any less significant or any less painful and if you have once thought about someone that passed a long time ago and still got teary eyed, you know about this. They just give us something to hold onto. Something to give us traction in life. Something to anchor ourselves to so that when the waves hit out of nowhere, our ship can still remain on the sea of life and not drift away when the pain, sadness and sorrows of the present moment make us lose sight of tomorrow. There is something about loss and grief, whether it's people, dreams and/or missed opportunities in life, that remind us of how small and frail we are in the scheme or things. But in these moments of grief, heartbreak and deep loss, I was also reminded as a believer of how big and strong my God is. I was reminded that a God that can hold the hold universe in his hands, can and will carry me in his hands too. A God so strong can carry me but He can also carry a pain that threatens to crush me minute by minute effortlessly. And it is because He is that strong that Peter invites us to cast all of our cares on him because He cares for us (1 Pe 5:7)

Time waits for no one but there is no time limit on grief. You can’t outrun it, you cannot fake strength through it. All you can do is go through it, one day at a time, sometimes standing and sometimes kneeling, until the needles of your clock start moving again and you can start walking towards the rest of your life, on the other side. All you can do is give it to God, moment by moment and ride the wave knowing that you are never alone and never will be alone in the boat for God is an ever present help in times of trouble (Ps 46:1) and a God who has made a promise to never leave our side (Mat 28:20)

This might be a bit of a glooming and heavy way to open this year on here but I wanted to encourage someone today. You are not alone and thought grief never really completely goes away, life does get better. The boulder that grief represents doesn't get lighter, just easier to move as time goes by. If you have lost someone close to your heart, or even a dream or something that had so much weight in your life, so much so that the loss and the grief knocked the wind out of you, know that you are seen. Know that you are not alone. I hope and pray things turn up for your and that life gifts you with a jar that widens to make room not only for your grief but also for all the other beautiful things that await for you on the other side of it. Because the truth is grief never leaves us: we just learn to live with it.

Sending you hope, prayers and good thoughts for your journey to the other side of grief.

With love and comfort,

Can You Be Thankful For The Rain?

I was listening to a recognition speech by Iyanla Vanzant and she opened her address by being grateful. As most of us would do, she presented the good things she was grateful for. But she also added to her list the things that most of us would have concealed or not brought up as there is probably nothing to be grateful about when it comes to them. At least that is my opinion. And her ability to speak on those things and say she is grateful for them prompted this article. And although the words that I am using is different, it is still about the posture of the heart and the ability to look beyond the negativity that could be associated with the things we go through in life. I have a habit of saying that the words that write minister to me first before they go out in this world and do what they do. And this article right here is no exception.

We all love the beautiful flowers we get in the spring, but not all of us appreciate the rain that allows them to grow and bloom and bring about the beautiful bouquets that we gift people just because or on special occasions. We love the beautiful gardens that we tend to and take so much pride in but we are not too keen on the weather inconveniences when the sky turns gray and it starts pouring. But the rain in life represents the things that sometimes wash away our hopes (or reveals it when all the impurities are gone), the rain represents things in our life that interrupt the “good flow” that we were experiencing. But it is also the water that refreshes, the water that brings life, the water that makes the soil soft enough so that whatever has been planted can breakthrough and come to the surface. More often than not we complain when the rain hits our life. We complain of the rainy reasons that we go through not understanding what lies on the other side of it. We complain about the rainy season because we look mostly at what we are loosing not realizing that yes, there might be loss, but there is also what is being flushed, carried away with the rain so that it will not poison the new that is about to come. God is the creator of all elements and all seasons; and everything He allows in our life has a purpose. It is sometimes painful and most of the time it doesn’t make sense, but one thing remains: there is goodness in ALL He does.

In my times of trouble, I always go back to the book of Job. Not because I want to be like him but because I am always intrigued by how he handled the greatest raining season of his life: trials and tribulations came down pouring. And when everyone around him, including his wife, advised against him sticking by God, he said: "We accept good things from God. So we should also accept trouble when he sends it" (Job 2:10). Job had it all and when the rain of trials and tribulations came and he lost everything, his posture remained the same. He blessed God because, even though he didn’t understand why he was going through all that he went through, he understood that there was purpose in it. He understood that we cannot just praise God and be okay when things are good: we also need to remain in same posture when the sun isn’t shinning anymore and it is pouring.

There is a song by Maverick city Music that I really like and it’s titled : Promises. It is one of the songs that I listen to most to because there is a part of the bridge that goes like this:

Yes, I'll still bless You

In the middle of the storm, in the middle of my trial

I'll still bless You

In the middle of the road, when I don't know where to go

I'll still bless You (yeah)

In the middle of my storm, in the middle of my trial

I'll still bless You (yeah)

When I'm in the middle of the road and I don't know which way to go

I'll still (I'll still bless You)

I'll still bless You

and then it goes on to say :

I'll still bless You, oh (I'll still bless You)

I've got a reason to bless You, yeah

I've got a reason to bless You (I'll still bless You)

I've got a reason to bless Your name

You've been faithful, You've been faithful (I'll still bless You)

You've been so good to me, You've been so good

I love this so much because it speaks of the places I have been in life and it speaks to the struggles I am still facing in my journey with Christ. It is not always sunshine sometimes it rains hard but God’s goodness doesn’t stop when it rains: just as his love is enduring, so is his goodness.

I want to leave you with this: do you remember what happened after is rained on the earth for 40 nights and 40 days? Well if you don’t let me remind you. it says in Gen 8:1-2 that “God remembered Noah and all the animals, wild and tame, that were with him in the ark. So God made a wind sweep over the earth, and the waters began to subside. The fountains of the abyss and the floodgates of the sky were closed, and the downpour from the sky was held back.” 

I want you to keep in your heart the words “God remembers”. When going through a rainy and trying season, it is VERY easy and also normal to wonder if God forgot about us. But I want you to hold onto these words as a reminder that God remembers… He always does. how do I know? He says so Himself in Isaiah 49:16.

'But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me,

the Lord has forgotten me.”

“Can a mother forget the baby at her breast

and have no compassion on the child she has borne?

Though she may forget,

I will not forget you!

See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands;

your walls are ever before me.”'

God has your name engraved in the palms of his hands. He has not forgotten you. Never has and never will. So I pray you will hold on a little longer because on the other side of the rain, there is sunshine, there is growth and there is restauration. If you ever find yourself out of words or prayers you can say to God as you go through the rain, maybe just say “thank you God for the rain. And thank you for what is coming after the rain is over”. God will see you through and when the time is right, He will turn things around for you. So be encouraged.

Until next time, 

Make Yourself Home But Don't Get Too Comfortable

I used to believe that the ultimate test of a human being’s character was taking everything away from them. Then I came to realized that just as scarcity reveals a person true colors, so does abundance. So over time, I found myself disagreeing more about the statement “things got better for them and they changed”. The truth is they never changed: who they really were got revealed.

Years ago, God took me on a journey. It was the rumbling: I was tested in the season of “not having” and through it all, I held on to the confession of my faith as best as I could. It is not to say that I was all perfect in my walk. Far from that. I stumbled. I wrestled with my faith. I had beef at times with God but I always went back to the one place that I knew for a fact was always safe for me: God’s presence. Just right there, at the foot of the cross. And I waited. I waited for prayers to be answered. I waited for the breakthrough. And it came. It took 13 years but it came. It felt like forever when I was in the midst of it and yet when the floodgates of heaven opened, the blessings came rushing all at once. Something only God knows how to do. It feels like only not too long ago I was saying “But God… When? What about me?” to now praising as God ushered me into the season I was praying relentlessly for.

And now, my prayer has changed. I am no longer worried about the lack. I am worried that being ushered in season of rest and refreshment will make me too comfortable and cause me to forget that there is still a road to travel. Not too long ago during a prayer night at my church, someone brought up the story of Elijah at the brook. And as I stood in my kitchen, thinking about these here words, it came back to my mind and my inner prayer was : “God don’t let me get so comfortable with where I’m at in life that I forget you still need me to go places because there is still a mission”. Bold and scary right? I know... But it was important for me to keep in mind that the purpose of a place of refreshment is to refresh yourself, to replenish, to revive. I looked it up and found a definition that I like better and that is more fitting for the theme of this article. It said to refresh is to restore strength. And it is exactly what God did for Elijah at the brook: He had water and the ravens brought him food (bread and meat) in the morning and at night. Homeboy had two free, square meals, free water, he had down time and nobody was bothering him. As an introvert this is a dream. But then, the brook dried up and God instructed Elijah go to Zarephath where He had instructed a widow to take care of him. Knowing myself and how I am, I know for a fact that the only reason I would move into the next season of my life is because God would have made the one that I am in unbearable. I have a hard time with transitions and change so it is not something that I would do willingly; and if I did, I would lose precious time overthinking the move even if the word came from God. Having been through that before (because it’s seems to be God’s Modus Operandi that works best on me) I started to pray that prayer. I started to pray for a spirit that is keen on obeying and moving when it’s time because comfort is attractive. And as attractive as it is, it is also one of the biggest reasons why most people, myself included, would settle for a fraction of what God has in store for us. It is never easy to leave comfort: think about how hard it is to leave your bed in the morning; not to mention a life fully sponsored by God (Elijah was living the life!). As much as I want to believe that Elijah would have obeyed God without batting an eye if He had said "move!", there is a lot less to think about when God tells you to move especially when: 1) moving when the situation you find yourself in is less than ideal; and 2) it is more beneficial for you to be on the move because God has already made arrangements for where He needs you next.

These past years, the idea that my life (and the goodness that is birthed from being pressed through trials) is not all about me is sinking in more and more. Just like the move wasn’t solely about Elijah, I am coming to the realization that I can be selfish if I want to but, because this mission that I am on is way bigger than me and what I want, God will find a way to keep me moving. Why? Because someone’s breakthrough and miracle is connected to me and a delay on my part can have a ripple effect. And as much as you can argue with God about picking someone else to fulfill the mission He put you onto, there are some missions that God cannot pick someone else for. How do I know? Look at the story of Moses when God picked him! He basically told God “with all due respect? pick someone else!” (in a very paraphrased, Black Living Translation version). And what did God do? He made him go still but was kind enough to give Moses a spokesman (Aaron). God has a sense of humor... Kinda... God insisted on Moses going because that mission could only be fulfilled by him. No one else. 

I want to close with this: the Bible says “weeping may endure for a night but Joy comes in the morning” (Ps 30:5). Nothing is permanent. And whatever you are going through, know that “this too shall pass”. However, I pray that when all the trials, tribulations and sorrows pass, two things remain in you:  the love of God and the awareness that you are still on a mission. And the mission only ends when we take our last breath and transition into the Glory to be with God. And you may ask “what is my mission?” Well the common mission as Christians is to further the Kingdom of God on this earth but the one that God has personally assigned to you is one that you will have to go to God about and find out for yourself. And my prayer is that you do find out what it is and that you run that race to the end well. My prayer is that you run it so well that when you meet your creator, the words that He welcomes you with are :“Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord” (Matt 25:23).

Until then, “...May the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you” (1 Pe 5:10-11)