Until I Faced Them.

Dear friend,

After much meditation and self introspection, I finally got the courage and inspiration to write to you again. Being a long while not updating on this blog, I got messages and queries of when I am most likely to write again; well here I am.

Of things that kept me silent; my past hurts, dissapointments, violances, abuses, rejections and discouragements are what have been secretely holding me hostage for the past 24 years of my life until I found myself standing in the midst of a heap of broken promises, splintered relationships, and shattered dreams.

 In the past month I went through a 'Self Healing & Realisation' moment. This is a healing of self, forgiveness of self and embracing of self. I know you might be a bit clueless as you read this passage but I will attempt to make you understand as we go along. Sometime, somewhere, somehow in our lives we have to deal with our worst enemy- US. We have to deeply dig down and find the very essence of our being that masters us to speak the way we do, walk the way we do and act the way we do. In other words we all get to a point in our lives where we seek answers for all the questions we have about the type a people we are. That self realisation is what sets us free from the yokes and bondages we so live to suffer under day to day.

Everybody has a story to tell. One that will inspire, release, strengthen and encourage the next person but as long as one hasn't realised the purpose within their past they will forever walk as slaves of shame, regret and bitterness.

Perhaps you don't know my story so let me break it down to you a little. I was born during an era I call 'The breaking of dawn', those are the late 80's. My parents met, fell inlove, married and only God knows how I got concieved, what matters is that I made it of all my little cell brothers and sisters who were competing with me in that baby-making-race. I was my father's only child and my mother's second son. My father was an accomplished and hard working taxi business owner whilst my mother clipped and filed for a living as a clerk at the Post Office. I assume we lived a balanced life, a normal life but sadly life took a toll when my father was tragically killed in a car accident a day after Christmas just a year after I was born. My mother being a 22- year old young adult at the time had to drop the madam cap and sail the family ship all by herself. So we had our ups and downs like any family and  life was still worth living. I still remember how our mother made sure  that we atleast had all we needed with the little she made. I feel a need to tell you of how beautiful my mother was, a radiant glow she had with a gentle charm that said 'I am a lady' on her face. She possesed a rare quality of style that I still live to see till present. I remember her smell, her gentle touch, her discipline and most of all her laughter. Hard  working as she was, she saw a need to further her studies and spread her wings to fly when she rellocated to Port Elizabeth, a metropolitan city in the Eastern Cape, when I was just 6-years old. She did well I assume; in an attempt to create more opportunities for her and us. So sad that life is just unpredictable, my dear mother suffered a similar death to that of my father when she was killed in a car accident also in one of her travellings when I was only 7-years old. It is then that life taught me to live and be an individual as young as I was. I thank God for my mother's family- my grandmother to be precise who clutched us with her warm wings and raised us to a people of dignity. As I grew up that part of my life was almost treated as just a figment in my dark imagination- we never spoke about it till I was a teenager in my late teens. It is then that I realised how damaging the experience had been to me but my family and so that chapter remained ignored.

My childhood starred a series of emotional emergencies, brokenness and a cargo of unanswered questions. I longed to have some messiah who would rescue me from the precepot of self destruction I was slowly subjecting myself into. Not that I had much of a choice but I longed despite.

One of the lessons I learned during these years was a lesson of self-affirmation and endurance. In every encounter I've had in the past be it positive or negative, these two elements ushered me through and helped me be a better me.
I encountered a number of emotional, physical, spiritual and verbal abuses in my life- ones I have never shared with anyone. The pattern of my life was used to dissapointments, rejection and mockery and nothing was unusual with these occured. What triggered danger though was never being to  openly talk about what I was going through as a child and so I carried the wounds of my childhood to my adulthood.

When the wounds of our past have not been openly exposed, they remain supreme, sensitive and sickly within us for the rest of our lives. It is only when we have found courage to open-up that we get to experience healing and liberty and be inspired to be a patronage to those who are still afflicted.

One of the mistakes I made was to close-up and ignore areas in my life that demanded intervention with urgency. I was too busy, I was an accomplisher, a go-getter, a benefaction to friends and family, there was just too much to accupy myself with but I had absolutely no time for my own disorders. The corollaries of such ignorance came at a great prize. I became a self-destruction weapon and did a remarkable job in trashing myself without even putting much effort. I had a solution to every problem except my very own as a result I pushed away those who sincerely cared for me because their attention demanded me to meet-up with my little devils. My brokenness was in a state of emergency and as long as I didn't acknowledge it, it continued to virus vital areas in my life- I lost out as a result.

Nobody knew what I was going through because I wasn't even aware myself. My brokenness had created cracks and loopholes for seeds to silently sneak into my life and germinate into different fruits- fruits that I would later be judged by. Let me clarify the outline of seeds in our lives. Somewhere, somehow, sometime in our lives we had encounteres that left us broken and opened a way for seeds to be directly deposited into secrete places we are unlikely to look at in ourlives. That embarassing experience from your past you don't want to look at or open up about is most likely to have dozens of seeds that will later germinate into different fruits. The seed of brokenness in my life resided in areas I didn't open up about for too long and as a result it created pathways for other seeds to be easily deposited and find a place of rest within. A seed of jealousy can germinate and be a fruit of bitterness and a seed of abuse can germinate to be a fruit of promiscuity. A seed of poverty can give birth to pride and a seed of rejection can produce a fruit of lust. Seeds have all sorts of complexities and dynamics. We all have seeds within us that we are too ashamed to search for. The problem with this is that as long as seeds have not been discovered they will continue to spread and grow at the expense of our liberty and peace.

I was a walking zombie for too long and my seeds were in control of my life, they created addictions and hooked me like a fish in a fishing rod. They directed my path and used my hand to feed their own selfish desires. For as long as I didn't deal with my disorders, I continued to live in slavery and shame of my bitter past. I lost relationships and friendships I so dearly treasured which will only take God's hand to restore. Some of these relationships though were never meant to be for a lifetime but they were a part of God's plan to help me realise the urgency of my self-uproars and that I will forever be greatful for.

Friends, it is vital for our own peace and health that we visit those areas of sensitivity in our lives, make peace with them and move on before they create more commotion meanwhile leading into a place of dispeakable loneliness. Healing is not just a process but it is conversion on its own. Freedom is not just the ability to do what you wish to do but it is assurance within that you are in full control of yourself and not defined by your experiences.

So let me challenge you to look within not above yourself and find that seed uproot it and move ahead. There is a reason you act the way you do, sensitive like you are, defensive or short-tempered like you are. I have been there and it is not a nice place to be in but you will forever live there as long as you do not come to terms with your self-uproars.

I hope you find the courage within to meet-up with your dark clouds, see the light in them and experience true freedom and liberty. It is never too late to re-claim what you are entitled to- your emotional healing and restoration is your rightful entitlement.

Here are some of the key steps in helping you get your emotional healing and move ahead.


ACKNOWLEDGE.

Be willing to acknowledge that you have a particular problem, history or weakness. Acknowledgement doesn't mean praise. By acknowledging your sexual, verbal, emotional abuse it doesn't mean you are praising it, no, it means you are brave enough to admitt that you once these encounters.

CONFRONT.

Find the courage or inspiration  to confront your past no matter how bitter or painful it is. Confront every single feauture in it and tell it what you think of it. Confrontation varies in different degrees. There are some uproars in our lives that require physical confrontation inorder for us to find healing and restoration. Sexual and Verbal abuse is one of the uproars that require physical confrontation to allow healing to happen easily. In cases where the individual is no longer, anything connected to them might assist in your confrontation.

FORGIVE.

It is so amazing how we are so used to forgiveness but have never really grasped the idealism in it. Forgiveness is a choice for you not the other person. Its for your own betterment not the other person's. Forgiveness is to choose to move from that place of hurt despite its dreadful returns. On of the biggest mistakes we still continue to make is to think we only forgive when there is another party or individual- that is not true. Self-forgiveness is the most beneficial yet difficult to exercise because it requires you to be as honest as you can about the incident or past so that you can find your position and make peace with it. Sometimes we spend our lives beating and punishing ourselves for things we can not change, we forgive others but not ourselves. Self-forgiveness makes it easier for you to forgive others.

 RELEASE.

Of all four, this is the most challenging. To let go and release the individual, memory or incident. For as long as we have not followed the other steps, it will be impossible for us to exercise release. Let go of those individuals, let go of that bitterness, let go of that shame and let go of the embarassment. Your mind is too precious to keep gabage from 5-10-15-20 years ago. Keep yourself clean. See yourself as a luxurious mansion and your past as bags of gabage and as long as you keep those bags of gabage within, the beauty of this mansion will never be seen. Keep calm and keep clean. Release!

RECONCILE.

You can not be at peace with what you have not reconciled with. Reconciliation is what assures us that healing has taken place in our lives. Sometimes you will have to make a heart to heart declaration of your peace with the individual, situation or event. This is your ultimate to peace.

There are many more other steps to follow to get to your self-healing, self-forgiveness, self-affirmation and living a life of peace of mind.

I hope you find the courage to finally look within and find your liberty becuase I never did till I took a closer look within.