Beingfaithfullyspeckled 2022!

I’ve been on a verryy long hiatus, with reasons I’m wanting to be vulnerable about.

The beginning of my hiatus was for the latter half of my undergraduate degree which was supposed to end by July, and I would get back to writing in Aug. I got a first, we thank God, but honestly, the second half of 2021 took a weird turn.

The first thing I want to say is we all go through things and sometimes the same or similar things, but the way it affects each person is different and shouldn’t be boxed to only one person’s narrative. One could experience something and feel no actual impact and the same experience can shake the whole reality of someone else. Okay, now that I’ve said that, let us delve into ME!

The last quarter of 2021 literally shook my entire reality, either more or on the same level as becoming speckled. Honestly, the set of things that happened weren’t the biggest things or the worse things that could happen to a person… But I wasn’t ready.

This reminds me of some beautiful things from the bible…

Matt 13:5-6
"Some of it fell on rocky ground, where there was little soil. The seeds soon sprouted, because the soil wasn't deep. But when the sun came up, it burned the young plants; and because the roots had not grown deep enough, the plants soon dried up. The seeds that fell among thorn bushes stand for those who hear the message; but the worries about this life and the love for riches choke the message, and they don't bear fruit."

Matt 7: 24-27
 24 “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. 26 And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. 27 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it" 

Psalm 127:1
"Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain."

Now I’m not necessarily calling myself foolish but, I was doing some spiritually foolish things. Lemme explain what I mean by I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t ready for life and what came with being a living and breathing human being, I must’ve had life confused with a bed of roses, and was disillusioned about the thorns. I was naive to assume life would have no thorns… so I wasn’t ready for when my fingers got caught in one of those thorns. Trust me it was a little thorn but it felt like I was going to die. This randomly reminds me of when I got stung by a very tiny scorpion, but the venom it had with it… damnnnn.

One thing that gave it away that I was being foolish spiritually was the anxiety attack I had on the train back home for crossover night on the 31st Dec of 2021. I was soooo frightened of another 365 days, considering the last 3 months I had just been through. I just couldn’t mentally be at peace with the reality that there were another 365 days that could be like the last 90. I was literally having a mental breakdown, and usually, I would cry in situations like that and wallow a bit, but I was on the train, meaning I wasn’t in a place where I could cry in peace and wallow in the mental crisis. Looking back, I thank God for that.

Yes, I’m glad I had this anxiety attack, it was my first time having one like it and hopefully last, so it was a big wake up call, and I’m glad it was on the train. This meant that I had to reassess and do a mental shake right there on the train. I was having a battle in my mind and I didn’t have time to wait for positive thinking or optimism to kick in, I needed the King of kings and the Prince of peace to jump in ASAP. He did! Knowing the consistency of God, it was obvious He would. It’s all good and nice to positive self talk about being brave and fearless and all that good stuff, but it’s hard to be all that when your mind can’t even fathom what it is you need to be brave for. Just in case, let me reiterate our human weakness, we don’t know past the present, but  God also knows that weakness and needs us to work with him about HERE and NOW.

I said I would delve, so buckle up as I vulnerably delve into my experience, and what I’m learning.

– It was 9pm, about 3 hrs to 2022 and the trauma of the last 90 days was literally weighing me down. I felt soo helpless, not understood and lost. I had felt this way in different capacities since the 12th of Oct when I had a stupid car accident and wrote off my car. This made me feel soo stupid and incompetent at being an adult; like it came for my throat! It was almost 3 months later and I was still stuck on that day, I couldn’t move past that day mentally, and to make things worse, everything else just seemed to have been downhill from there.

– No one around me knew this internal struggle to the extent that it was affecting me, maybe one or 2 people understood a bit. Yes, people knew I was sad and unhappy about the car (I blame customer service work for teaching me to master a fake smile or appear happy), yall I was on the verge… But it wasn’t just the car; the car wasn’t all that significant, there was something deeper I hadn’t allowed myself to admit for a while. I’d felt stagnant, lost and numb, and I’d been trying to do things to mask that feeling, acquire things, get a new job, be busier, but it was still there staring me down in the face, and unfortunately getting worse by the day. Litch the more things I was doing, the more stagnant I felt. So it wasn’t physical stagnancy, it was emotional and mental to say the least.

– I’d been doing something terribly wrong. I’d been trying to steer my own ship whilst trying to enjoy the view at the same time. I was trying to paint my own picture and when it slightly didn’t look like I’d picture it in my head, or if I went slightly off course, I started losing it and didn’t know what to do. But why? Since when was I called to be a sailor or a painter when there is a God? There is a God who wants to gladly take that responsibility off me, but He won’t drag for the responsibility, instead, He wants me to surrender control.

– I was scared of surrendering control. Don’t get me wrong I trust God, I trust He knows what He is doing and He has the best plan for me, and He has my heart 100%,  but I was scared. I was scared that my releasing control was going to look like a puppet being moved by a puppeteer. I couldn’t be more wrong. The first mistake I made was even giving myself enough cred to think I knew how to steer the ship of my life or paint my journey… like I know not even the next sec. The second mistake I made was not remembering how tailored and unique God relates to us. He knows my weakness and wouldn’t require of me the same thing He would require of the closest person to me, my best friend, no matter how close we could be or how similar our journey may look.

– God is sovereign and majestic enough to have a tailored-made approach to Faith Jesukanyin Oyelami. This means that with my biggest struggle so far – He isn’t expecting me to pretend that I feel like I know what I’m doing, or that I don’t have this unnecessary urge to be in control of everything, but instead, He wants me to give control bit by bit at the pace that works for me, not at the pace of someone else (which I have tried before and failed woefully), and is why I was here still struggling. The whole beauty of the relationship with Christ is progress, no matter how little, another day is another beautiful opportunity we have been blessed with to be better than yesterday. So if I have to give back control 0.377% consistently daily, let’s do that instead of pretending I am capable of doing 100% at once, and somehow waiting for the right moment to drop the 100%, which never came.

The story of Peter walking on water, was one step at a time, nothing more… just as long as his mind was fixed on Christ and he was looking unto him whilst he took that step. Jesus never rushed him, how ever how long he would have taken him to make the next step.

– I really needed to change how I had been doing things, it clearly wasn’t working. No matter how much I wished it was, or how much I pretended like it was working, if I didn’t change, everything that 2022 would throw at me, would level and drown me. With life being consistent, I crucially need to have a very realistic expectation, if not I would have a panic attack every damn month not just at the end of the year. It’s almost the end of February and being honest, all I’m writing now is only a recent very fresh liberation for me which means that I was still feeling numb and stagnant up until recently. One thing I am definitely grateful for is that the level of numbness and stagnancy I was feeling was reducing daily, even if by as little as 1%, or so, it was definitely better than nothing. Most importantly it was enough for me not to disregard the work that the Lord was, and is, doing on my mind. With God being the one doing the work, I couldn’t just one day decide and allow myself to shrink back to the helplessness I felt, just because I was still maybe feeling slightly numb.

– I’m not feeling this way at the moment all thanks to God, but that isn’t because life has suddenly become nice, or a thornless bed of roses; instead I am more ready for the thorns, I got my leather gloves on. I am more ready for the stones, cos I have my armour, and I am more ready for the storms, cos the responsibility of sailing has been given to the one who created sailing itself.

I saw this pic and I had this beautiful revelation. Life is a bed of roses with a lot of thorns, and Jesus wore a crown of thorns. Showing us an example of how when Jesus is in our corner he bears these thorns on your behalf, he feels the pain for and with you. But you need to acknowledge that he is bearing the thorns and not try to take it off him like we wouldn’t be hurt.

Somebody say AMENNNN!

I saw this beautiful quote this morning, it said;

Sometimes God calms the storm. Sometimes he lets the storm rage and he calms you.

Nicky Gumble

The thing is regardless of what option He picks, my heart posture shouldn’t change, cos he is still God and is still in control, whether it’s option a or b.

– Trusting God isn’t a days job. It’s not something you master and that’s it, it wouldn’t make sense that way. Trusting God is a day by day, minute by minute, second by seconds decision, whether it’s making sense or not. Let me not pretend like that doesn’t sound kindda scary, but God, as in God, the creator of Heaven and earth is rooting for me to succeed and do better every day. Every single day He opens my eyes and wakes me from sleep. Now I don’t know about you, but that makes me smile. It also wouldn’t be fair to go through 2022 and still be exactly where I was in 2021, mentally, emotionally and most especially spiritually. I don’t have like a target level or anything, as long as it’s not at the same spot as 2021, so ngl, even as little as a1% difference in the right direction is better than nothing.

– 2022 is actually the first year of all my adult life that I didn’t do a new years plan or resolution list. This is not because I don’t have a vision or aspiration for 2022, but because I’m more concerned about being led and at peace with exactly where I am than to have some form of gauge. Remember what I said about doing things differently, I think that was the number one thing I wanted to do differently. Remember as well, it’s only just February, and honestly, I have lost count of the number of things I have done differently, but the difference I have experienced in just these 2 months, has been overwhelmingly beautiful. It can be something as little as, how often I scroll through Instagram, to as big as, how I worship, and for me that is PROGRESS. This may be slightly obvious but I’m not that much a fan of change, especially when I don’t have control. I’m still alive and well tho, aren’t I.

– Friends can be lifesavers, and “there are some that stick closer than a brother”. My brothers are also my lifesavers tho, but that’s cause they are also my friend (Love you Bro and Lil Div). Speaking of friends tho, there have been 5 of them in particular. It is soo important to have friends around you that can be led and are yielded to God in their own personal lives, or at least not fighting the spirit of God. People that aren’t just there for you physically or emotionally, but definitely spiritually, cos “we battle not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers”. The way a lot of things, if not all, are controlled from the spiritual (the war has to start there), and you need people around you that understand the balance between chopping life and also fighting in the spiritual with and for you. People that understand when to come with you to eat chicken and when it’s time to come with you to be on their knees, in prayer.

Anyways, I have typed a wholeee lot, but I think you get my main gist sha. One thing this post is for me is a stamp of where I am now, and also a vehicle of accountability, which also can be scary. Accountability and vulnerability, however, has a beauty it comes with, which is worth every second of it being annoying. And with my big mouth I prayed for it, cos I used to be a lot closed off before and like an onion – the thing is, God hears all our prayers, even the little ones, and he will give you the opportunity to cultivate that character you ask for. What you, however, do with that opportunity is your business.

Also official happy new year from the OG SpeckledLamb, here on this journey of beingfaithfullyspeckled.