forgiven

The first blog post of 2023.

                                                                               {A moment of silence}

I remember coming back here last year (https://mywalkoffaith.co.ke/the-return-of-the-prodigal/) and pouring out my heart saying how I felt extremely horrible for ghosting, letting myself, my walk of faith and my readers down. How despite the silence and not blogging for months/years, the flame never withered or died out, it was always in there, holding on to the last embers. Hope faintly burning on that one day we would get back to this ministry and that God would restore us back to penning down what He places in my heart.

                                                                                         {Sigh}

You would think that would have sparked the fire back to the full glory of its glaring blaze, you would think that the hiatus would have churned tonnes and tonnes of blogposts from the many months of absenteeism, you would think that the life experiences in between the months of silence would have overflowed into testimonies poured out here, to the glory and honor of Christ.

                                                                                      {A long sigh, lol}

I remember back in 2016 after I had been saved for a few months and I was burning for Christ. The Zoe life I had started experiencing was truly overwhelming and all I wanted to do was just scream out and share what God was doing. I wanted to tell the world of how amazing God is; how He was gracious enough to save a lil broken girl who was almost giving up on life, how He overlooked all her flaws, shortcomings and her scars & He choose her and restored her. How He shined His light upon her, comforted her of all the pain and baggage she had been carrying around, pain that she had heavily pegged her identity on. How He had bestowed on her a crown of beauty instead of ashes and she was now a living testimony of how a broken piece in the hands of the Master can be transformed to a masterpiece for the glory and honor of His name.

So I started writing and sharing my new found journey, I didn’t know much about blogging, it was a pretty new space that I dived head in and decided to trust not only the process but the God of the process. I started small, on a free site with zero audience but that never deterred the zeal, I knew I was doing what I felt led to do even on the days when the walk of faith had its slippery moments. I didn’t have the full picture of where this would lead or what would become of it, I didn’t have any expectations and even with my audience of one (God), I was just happy and content to have a space where I could pour out my heart and share what I was going through. Looking back, I miss this girl, the girl with the blind crazy childlike faith who didn’t need to wait for a clearer calling but would gladly follow the leading of the Spirit without any hesitations, reservations or interrogations.

In 2018, I got a clearer call that it was time to step into the public and launch an official blog thus https://mywalkoffaith.co.ke/ was born. I remember the excitement like it was yesterday, finally I was sharing my heart with the world and people would get a glimpse of my personal journey in salvation as I strived to follow in the footsteps of Christ. I was allowing Christ to use me as a mouthpiece to voice out what He placed in my spirit, allowing Him to use me as a vessel, to outpour His overwhelming love to His children, to bring healing to broken hearts and give hope to despairing souls. I moved from an audience of one to a platform where hundreds would be reached and impacted for His glory and I loved my ministry because as I was pouring my heart, I was also growing in my faith. I still didn’t have the bigger picture but I was happy to step in obedience and do what I was called to do for that season.

One year down the line, BAKE (Bloggers Association of Kenya) 2019 happened and I was more than humbled to say the least…truly God is amazing and super faithful. Who would have thought that three years down the line in salvation and an year into blogging, this girl would be nominated for a national award under best religious/ spiritual blog, placed in the same category as personalities I’ve grown up looking up to… But God. He qualifies the unqualified. That night I looked back at the journey it had taken to get here and I broke down in tears…years of struggling with anger, bitterness and hurt from a broken childhood that left me messed up. Years of struggling with self-esteem and self-worth, lost in a lack of identity, years of searching for my validation in the arms of the wrong men, a search that left me more hurt, broken and damaged. Years of struggling to believe that my life could be better than the situation I lived in, years of doubt that God would forgive me for my mistakes and that He, in his perfect Holiness could love a sinner like I was.

Only a Father’s pure unconditional love can reach out to the grimy, slimy pits of emptiness and hopelessness, the deep trenches of hurt and brokenness, the dark caves clouded with despair and desperation. Only a Father’s heart can feel the last desperate heartbeats of a child who’s giving up on life and show up just in the nick time. Only a Father’s eyes can see beyond the smiles and the make-up, the facades and appearances we put for people yet deep down we are sinking further into depression. And only a Father’s arms can stretch open wide to receive us in our stained attires, embrace us and give new garments of praise, new identities and make us new creations. What can’t God do?

That was 2019, the fire, the passion, the drive and the zeal was still burning furiously and I was serving the Lord wholeheartedly. Accolades or not, audience of many or one, it didn’t matter because for me the ultimate joy was in the inner work that Christ was doing in me, the scars that He had chosen to use for His glory, the vessel of clay that He had honored to be the evidence of His hand upon my life. The bigger picture and the highest calling was the impact of the blog as a ministry and the number of souls that would be saved for the glory and honor of Christ. So I kept pushing, kept writing, pouring my heart, reaching people globally. Kept churning weekly blog posts and with time it became fortnightly, then monthly then quarterly then gradually I stopped…slow fade!

                                                                                {A longer sigh, lol}

The first few days of ghosting, I felt extremely horrible for letting myself, my audience of one and my walk of faith down, then another couple of weeks down the line I felt a little less horrible and then it spiraled downwards until months turned into an year, years and I honestly no longer felt horrible, I succumbed and just became numb. It’s always a slow gradual fade, you don’t wake up in sin, nope, it’s a gradual progression. It starts small, little, almost harmless and when not nipped in time, when its fed continually, it grows and matures until finally it’s a fully blown out of hand crisis.

When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; 14 but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. 15 Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death. James 1:13-15

Despite not writing for eons, I never stopped thinking about it, it was always lingering at the back of my mind like the heart tag of your first love. And it’s not to say I had fallen off the bandwagon of salvation, nope, I was still a church girl, loving the Lord, pursuing Him in my walk of faith, witnessing Him being super faithful in my life and of those around me, celebrating the numerous answered prayers He was fulfilling. The only thing I stopped doing was actively serve in ministry for three years, a season I never anticipated, a season of silence, doubts, regrets and so many emotions in between. I had loved ones who kept querying why I stopped writing and most importantly when I would get back to it and I didn’t have a valid answer to be quite honest. Maybe I stopped walking in obedience in terms of the leading of the Spirit when it came to serving, maybe I learned to rely on my own strength and not flow in His grace thus ended up burned out, maybe God answered some major prayers and I allowed the pleasures and pressures of the blessing to take the top priority and put Him in the passenger’s seat. Maybe it was a season of been hidden in training for manifestations…

I had my moments of deep, gut-wrenching anguish and regret, days where I would sit and think “what ifs”. What would have been had I kept on writing? Serving? How many souls would I have reached? If after one year of blogging I was nominated for awards, where would the journey have taken me? How much I had disappointed God? To this end, was I even deserving of a second chance?

                          For though the righteous fall seven times, they rise again, Proverbs 24:16.

Enough is enough. Am done feeling mellow and all sorry for myself, lol. Am getting up from the ashes and jumping back to blogging, back to what I love doing and most importantly back to serving and walking in obedience in this ministry. I am so grateful to God for His never ending mercies and His faithfulness even in my faithlessness. I am so grateful that He never grows weary of picking me up and getting me back on track. I am so grateful that He never grows impatient with this living sacrifice that keeps crawling away from the altar.

Do I know how this will play out? No. Will I start and fall again into silence? I don’t know. Will I be consistent? I know I will try but am such a wretched man like Paul said in Romans 7:15 for what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do. What I do know is I am a carrier of the glory of God through Christ Jesus and He never fails so I will anchor myself on Him and Him alone. I know am weak and my weaknesses are perfect for Him.  As Charles Spurgeon once said in a sermon, “God does not need your strength: He has more than enough power of his own. He asks your weakness: He has none of that Himself, and He is longing, therefore, to take your weakness, and use it as the instrument in His own mighty hand. So I will yield my weakness to Him, and receive His strength.

I refuse to continue living thinking I’ve blown God’s will for my life because clearly am not that powerful. Jesus loves taking messes and transforming them into priceless rubies. I don’t have it all together and I can’t wait to tell the world how much of a mess I was/am and show them what the power of God can do, all for His glory and honor.

So let’s get back to blogging and sharing about this amazing journey of faith, this beautiful love story of a girl and her God, shall we?

And if you are out there feeling like you missed out on a certain season or gone through an intense one that almost broke you to the point you have written yourself off, don’t be discouraged. Like John Piper once said, occasionally weep deeply over the life that you hoped would be. Grieve the losses. Feel the pain. Then wash your face, trust God, and embrace the life that He’s given you. Don’t let that season you missed/lived through define you, let God have the final say in your life.

No matter what life throws at us, we refuse to lay down defeated and cowering in shame and pain and guilt, we let it hit us and then STILL WE RISE!!