Stagnant
You ever had good news, like some great opportunity was going to happen in your life and deep down you want to tell the world but then you keep it to yourself because somehow you know that if you let it out, someone would just hate on it and it never comes to fruition? Yeah, I usually don’t share good news until they come to fruition because each time I had amazing opportunities thrown my way, and I shared it with people, it never came to fruition but somehow the opportunities that I didn’t share with people, it happened. However, late last year I started a new job, it’s a little in my field of study but I am over-qualified and underpaid. Which means, some of my peers on work have less qualifications than me and we are getting paid the same amount. This means, work is hard to get in my field at this present time and we got to do what we got to do to survive.
I had another job opportunity popped up, that would have been in my field, paid more than my present job and would have given me the experience to go on to a flourishing career in the field of my choice but I told some people about it and it doesn’t seem like it would be happening. The interview sounded promising. It went well, it seemed as though I had gotten the job, it was just time to wait for the “call”, but the call never came. Now I feel stuck.
You ever find yourself doing something, but your mind isn’t there? Like your body is present but your mind is somewhere else? That’s how I feel currently in my job. I get severely tired every week, interacting and surviving that now my mind is on autopilot and I am just going and doing things just to get by. I don’t hate my job; it doesn’t mean that I like it either. I graduated with a degree and was told promises of a better life with it. I was told I would get the good job and make so much more money than I am currently making. Truth be told, people who didn’t pursue a degree like many of us did, seem to be making more money than me. You mean to say, I put myself through a stressful 3 years and it was not worth it in the end? After two mental breakdowns and me being depressed through it, I didn’t get open doors? Instead I was stuck with closed doors and searching in empty rooms just to get an opportunity to prove myself. I felt I was robbed an opportunity to prove myself; like see, I told you I can do it. Thank God, my present and previous job gave me the opportunity to prove myself.
Sometimes I wonder; am I comparing myself to people who are in their late thirties and already seem to have it made. They have their house and kids and a great paying job, but I am in my early twenties and stuck. Stuck in a stagnant pool of hopelessness, wishing and praying for a door to be opened in the actual field that I want. I am only clinging onto the hope that doors begin to open in the future because I refuse to allow myself to stay stagnant in a position that does not allow me to grow and flourish, lest I wither and not bloom beautifully into all the potential that is hidden away in me.
Lonely
I feel like ever since I left secondary school, it has been a struggle to make friends. Every time I thought I had a friend; they would disappear like a mist, not even getting enough time to enjoy them. Many times, I would do introspection and wonder what have I ever done? What am I not doing enough of, how can I improve myself? As I grow older, I find it more difficult to make friends. I feel stuck in the middle, I feel like I don’t fit in anywhere. I used to consider people my friends before and then I realized that I was treated like a second-class citizen in their mind. People said they think about things that I would like but they never really observed me well to know, that is not exactly what I would like or even want. I used to carefully observe people and listen to them intently for what they would like. However, I have never felt it reciprocated.
An important time in my life where I needed people to show up and show their love for me, is when I realized I had very few friends that would have considered me. Each birthday is a reminder of how forgotten I am in people’s mind. Even though I am married, I feel this tiny bit of loneliness because I can’t form meaningful bonds that would last decades of time. I have adopted friendships through my husband; I have borrowed his friends. It sounds pitiful, but at least through him, they care.
I had a best friend, we stated our intentions, we said what exactly we wanted out of the relationship. She had even asked me to be her best friend as though I was entering a relationship with a partner. However, it didn’t work out. Life happened on her part. It broke my heart. She denied me the opportunity to be her friend. I was looking forward to her being there with me on my “big day” but she wasn’t. I thought even though, she shut me out of her life at the critical time she was in, at least we could have been just “friends”. But the sight of her presence on the internet and seeing how her other bonds flourish and bloom, was a slap in my face of reality. I believed, maybe I was just not good enough for her.
Each step in my life I miss her daily, but she was like an ex-boyfriend. I couldn’t see her living her life, I couldn’t hold on to her, I cut all ties, so that I can heal and move on. But her friendship throughout the years was a bitter reminder of the good times. She was an excellent friend to me, but she never allowed me to reciprocate it back to her.
So how to make friends? How to form meaningful bonds when all I feel like is a reject. I am maybe that, “oh she’s a nice person” in people’s mind but I am that friend that people don’t think about, I guess. How do I live with this torn in my flesh, how do I grapple with this loneliness?
Brokenness
Since I have moved out from my childhood home, I have felt like my close family ties has been slowly breaking down. Each time I think about the household that I come from; I am reminded of the dysfunction. Every man to themselves, a selfishness that is difficult to shake. I love them, but they’re toxic. They can consume your heart and bring you close to burning rage and hate. You see the brokenness from childhood in their lives manifest into raging monsters searching to be healed but end up in cross junctions, knowing nowhere to go. You see the pain that they endure, and the eat it up. Correction is taken as an attack and hatred is spewed out instead.
How, does someone have to feel when half of their siblings don’t acknowledge their presence, the one you grew up all your life with has a tinge of hatred for you and you just can’t seem to communicate well with the rest. How do you fight to find your voice with not being too mean, and not being too timid? How do you not feel helpless when people are attacking your mother and taking advantage of her and you cannot do anything?
I had to make the decision not visit where I was born and raised because I felt unwelcomed and overburdened with toxicity. When you try to help one person, but they see your helpfulness as an attack on their personhood. I have gotten hate spewed my way and belittled because apparently, I live in a bubble because I seemingly had an advantage at life? I didn’t have advantage in my life. How could I have an advantage? Sure, my parents provided for me, but I always felt like a less than child to my father. I felt like the by the way child. I never felt his presence and love for me, I always felt I was in competition for his love and affection with my mother.
I used to be naïve and believe one day things will get better. I mean, I kept praying and hoping and praying and hoping right? Things should get better by now, right? Except it is not better. I have grown tired of praying and hoping and just left things to be what it must be. I can not save everyone, and sometimes things don’t always turn out the way we want them to be. So, I leave it to reality. I have excused my presence and chose peace.
Lost
These days I feel like Jacob wrestling with God. Sometimes I wish I could go back to my early days of being a Christian, when I was brimmed eyes, enthusiastic and on fire for God. Now I feel burnt out and struggling to keep afloat. I feel as though since I have matured, it has become even harder to understand how God is good. I doubt Him a lot of times these days. I try to understand His word and His will but sometimes it doesn’t make any sense. I can see why some people don’t believe in Him because sometimes, it just doesn’t make any sense. I cling onto the hope that His thoughts and mind is beyond my little logical brain.
I have been struggling these days with how He is slow to justice and avenge His people. I see good people, harmed daily and are given situations that they don’t deserve while evilness thrives each day. I feel angry with God some days, because I cannot understand His ways. I cannot understand His thoughts and I cannot understand why things happen to certain people. How could I have allowed doubt to slip into my heart? God has been so good to me many times; how could I be doubting His very existence presently?
I struggle with praising God through the bad times. How could I not be connected to Him in the bad times, sometimes I struggle to see Him in the murkiness. I am fearfully of getting into ministry. I have never felt so free in a long time. I used to do so much that my personal spiritual life was suffering, but now that I am supposed to be recuperating, I am sinking slowly back into my fleshy ways. I miss being excited about God and His word. These days I feel like the prodigal son, running away from Him. I want to cling to God tightly. I want to be near Him. One night I dreamt I died. But then I got the strange opportunity to live again and get to say my goodbyes one last time. I have been thinking about death lately. What if we die and all this was in vain? But what if we die and all what the Bible describes was true? God…. please help me, I don’t even know what to say or do.
LOUDLY PROCLAIMING THE GOSPEL 