IN THE LENSES OF GOD.PART 1

Growing up, especially in my  high school years, I was having the best time of my life, yet there was this monster rearing its head threatening to consume who God had created me to become. The monster put its foot very cunningly into my life, I didn’t know that the words that I constantly heard when my friends would talk about their fathers were creeping into my mentality and the devil was using them to create a sense of low self-esteem in me.

My sister Jane and I never grew up with the opportunity of having our dad raise us or even be present in our lives. My memory of him is vague, but the little I can remember is that he was quite friendly and caring. This is regardless of the differences he might have had with my mother. Down the line, when they both went their ways and I remained with my wonderful mother, I tended to miss him but I could not bring myself to tell my mother, I didn’t know how she would handle it.

Fast forward to highs school. We can all relate in one way or another how life in high school was. There was the highlight (or not) of the term which was when our parents would come to see us for those that went to boarding secondary schools. There was also the beginning of the term and the return from the midterm breaks. These parts of the school calendar had one thing in common; they made us speak a lot –or not so much – about our families and experiences at home. Some with a pinch of exaggeration others with lies, some of us with truth and nostalgia while many remained silent when the stories were told. To most of those that remained silent, it is the untold horrors of what happened back home, the lack, the memories of negative things that we would not trust our peers with knowing. The stories told would only sink the scars deeper into us. The comparison that comes with that adolescent stage in our lives where we are trying to find out who we are didn’t help things either. 

I in some ways belonged to that silent group. This was especially when other girls would talk fondly about their daddies and how they were spoiled with all manner of treats. It sure felt awesome to be someone’s daughter, I silently thought to myself, especially when that father or daddy figure is loving, caring and mindful or is keen on sharing the nature of God with his daughter.  As the stories would be told every other time, I would wrongly see how much under privileged I was for not having a dad. The trap of comparison made me forget to be grateful that I have a strong, supportive and caring mother who went out of her way to make sure I had the best. I started to think that Mwende would have been much better with a biological father present, which I realized it is not entirely true. I started to feel abandoned and insecure, I didn’t have a daddy to look out for me and spoil me as a daughter. That was the start of a downward spiral that influenced bad decisions that nearly ruined my life- story for another day!

With that story, I want to ask you, where do you get your sense of significance and security?

Have you ever asked your heavenly Father and creator what He calls you? Have you grasped your identity from God? Who is it that has inspired how you see yourself and what you call yourself? As a woman or a child of God, it is very easy to take in what the world and our surroundings give us if we are not properly in our place in God in regards to our mentality. It is very easy to take in definitions about ourselves from everywhere else but God. The definitions may not be all bad, at least not at face value but if there is any how you define yourself that has no origin in God then it is likely that you are living a lie about yourself; even if those things are positive. The world and the god of this world satan is a master at positive thinking. However, not all positive thinking is truth, if it is not from God then it is egoist and prideful.  Proverbs 16:18 says that before destruction is pride and with a self-exalting spirit comes a fall.

We live in a world where it’s easy to be labelled in regards to the problems, negative challenges, past and present experiences and mostly the unpleasant ones. The people around us may also tend to perceive us in light of how they see us; which may not always be a proper perspective because of how they see things. I have come to know that all these perspectives don’t matter; the best they can do is to leave us torn apart within ourselves trying to follow after many different tags that are pulling at us to try and prove that we are indeed what all else outside there is saying we are. The only tag that we should seek to find, follow and actualize is God’s perspective of us. This is why I am asking whether you have really sat down and asked God who He calls you or how He sees you. I am not talking about the corporate declaration in our fellowships and in songs of “I know who I am” or the things we say in crowds. I am asking whether you know who you  really  are and whether it is real to you or it is something popular that you keep saying but don’t even mean it.

God's perspective brings in peace, joy ,encouragement and assurance. Its empowering and doesn’t cast your soul  and personality down but has a lifting up energy and strength to it. Therefore anything that doesn’t bring in light to your being and situation is not from God.True light builds up and advances you to become the real authentic self. False light will only make you relevant in what isn’t really important, it is but for a moment, false light will let you abandon truth and start to seek out an illusion of proving yourself to people, trying to fit in and conformity to the world. False light is like limelight. Lime light is used in theaters to create public attention. Anybody in the limelight will begin to behave differently either to prove a point or answer to a tag that has been put on them from the outside of who they really are. Switch off any foreign voices in your surrounding and pull closer to read from the Father's heart.

Look out for PART 2 of this

I love you and you matter!