Brought up in a family of prayer warriors and being a first hand witness to many miracles during my days of upbringing, having seen a perfect example on how to minister to the men of God by my mother and been inspired on how to give to the Lord by my Father, I was pretty much raised to be a proper Pentecostal Christian. Hosting so many men of God, I was also familiar to prophets and prophecies. Unsurprisingly, I was never once warned nor told a prophecy regarding my mental turmoil in the years to come.
It was a moonless, eerily silent night exactly two years from now. The month of July. I had hit an all time low and was facing something I hadn’t even seen in my wildest nightmares. The report that flashed on the screen in the morning had changed everything for me, and none for the better. Failure had come knocking on my door throwing me into an endless pit of despair and sorrow.
Tossing and turning on the bed, restlessness overtook my being. Hopelessness and helplessness clouded my head blocking all my senses. No one could reach to me. Words and actions seemed futile and labor gone in vam. Unable to sleep, I got up in the middle of the night. The sound of crickets and the darkness of the moonless night welcomed my eyes. Suddenly, I had a solution. A complete solution for my parents disappointment. A solution for me to run away from being an outcast. Without procrastinating much, I simply took a knife and started carving it deep into my skin. And to this day, those are my battle scars, still fresh wounds. I couldn’t cry, my eyes had gone dry. No more tears. The pain inside was so overbearing, it managed to surpass the pain I was trying to inflict on myself. That night was the beginning of few more nights of self-harm and another final futile attempt of suicide.
I meditated with all my heart, I prayed with tears, I attended camps and fellowships religiously and I was every Pastor’s favorite kid. Inspite of all these feathers in my cap, I still to this day wonder – “How could it happen to me?” My understanding of the scriptures was so low, God’s will didn’t even cross my mind for once. For me, victory was from Heaven, failure was from Satan. In short, I was living the life of a Pharisee at a time where I should have lived a life loving Christ.
My eyes still fill with tears as I pen down the most horrendous time of my twenty years for someone out there to drop that knife. These days even if no words reach you and none can comfort you, trust me when I ask you to give Jesus a chance. On the nights I would sit with my chin tucked on my knees, when my sobs had no voice, I felt someone lightly pushing my head to a shoulder and strong arms engulfing me. He wept with me. He wept my loss. He let me cry my guts out but he was the one to wipe those tears. He rubbed my back and whispered sweet nothings. I haven’t found a single human able to comfort me like Jesus did to me that night. You know what the difference was, with wiping my tears he also raised me up. He held my hand and hasn’t left me yet.
When you think it’s finished, he’ll begin turning your water into wine. When you think it’s over, your vessels will get filled with oil. When you think you’re alone, he’ll be your pillar of cloud through out. When you think this is the end, he’ll raise you even if it’s the fourth day.
Breaking all the histories, rules and traditions, he’ll be your Daddy.
Give him a chance sweetheart, let him rule your heart. He won’t fail you but embrace.
And this is how, I CARVED MY RENEWAL.