IDENTITY

Hi there!

How are you doing this fine day? Here's hoping you are doing fine, and that God continues to be with you and to guide your steps.

Happy new month! And welcome to today's gist. 

Long time no Brooke St James gist. If you're new here, Brooke St James is one of my favorite authors in the world (you really should check her out) and I recently got a couple of books she's written and suffice to say I've missed her a lot! I'm currently reading one of her books titled 'Just for tonight' and there's something I've noticed since I began that I decided to talk about. 

So this guy, called Beau Cameron, fell in love as a youngster; he was totally devoted to his girl, only to find out a while later that the main reason the girl agreed to be with him was to get close to his younger brother, AJ, in hopes that AJ would fall in love with her and she could ditch Beau for AJ. Her plan fell apart, she was discovered and, as expected, Beau was heartbroken. He goes to find comfort in his mother and talk through his feelings. 

Guess what his mother tells him?

She tells him that he had too lofty dreams going after that kind of girl in the first place, that because he wasn't as good looking and athletic as his younger brother, he shouldn't have gone, and should never in future go, for girls that are strong and powerful women, that he should look for girls that are as docile as he is, those are the only kinds of girls he would be able to be with. This Beau in question is an extremely intelligent human being, Genius standard as the book tells it, and actually ended up growing up to be a handsome man. 

Here's the thing however, because of what his mother told him when he was young, which he believed and was running his life with, he didn't believe he was good enough for anything, not just romance but life in general. See the words his mother said, I'm still hoping to get to the part of the book where she explains why she spewed such rubbish from her mouth, took root in his heart and festered, affecting every other area of his life such that even when someone paid him a compliment, any compliment at all including calling him smart, he didn't feel deserving of the accolade and always felt like the person was trying to patronize him. To cut the long story short, the summary of it is that his mother destroyed his entire sense of self worth with a few words she told him presumably to help him heal of his heartbreak and the worst part? None of them even realized, at least not at the place where I am in the book, that this was a problem –he had relegated himself to the 'never good enough' position and was comfortably staying there.

As I thought of Beau's dilemma, I realized that we really must be careful about the words we speak to people in their vulnerable moments. See, when someone allows themselves be vulnerable towards you, it's because they trust you and they believe truly that you can be of help to them. It's a position that you should never take lightly or trivialize. Their hearts are very tender and are like fresh soil that has been turned over and in that moment, literally anything you say will take root in their hearts and grow. 

Over the years, I've had to revisit some incidents in my life where someone had said something to me in my moment of vulnerability that took root and festered in my heart, and I've had to consciously heal from such incidents and I'm actually better for it, I'm still finding out some such incidents and in the process of healing from them but I can tell you that it's worth it. However, the crazy thing is that until I started consciously working on this, I didn't understand how some things I was dealing with in my head were the products of things I had been told and had unknowingly believed. 

I know you're tempted to think of words thrown in anger, and I agree that they too have this effect, but I'm talking majorly about words said purportedly with good intentions. These are the words that sink quickly into our hearts because the fact that they are not borne out of a place of strife makes the recipient more susceptible to believing. And believe me when I say it wreaks havoc on mind and life: there was a time when I used to believe that the only thing I was good for was academics because of something that someone had said to me. So I threw myself into my academics believing that was the only thing I had going for me, I didn't expect anyone to want to befriend me so I also didn't go out of my way to befriend people; at the slightest conflict in a friendship, I was quick to withdraw and say I no do again because somewhere at the back of my mind, I had believed all along that the person couldn't possibly have loved me and wanted to be friends with me so I'd have been waiting for the proverbial second shoe to drop the entire time and when it did, at least in my mind, I was quick to hightail it out of the friendship. And when I didn't get good grades, I would feel like dying, why? Because in my head, that was the only thing I had going for me so losing it meant having nothing. So I would do anything, including pretend that I didn't know answers so that no one else would know the answer and drag my spotlight, to remain on the top. It took me a while to figure that out and I'm honestly still on the journey to ridding myself of that erroneous belief.  

There will always be people who will come to you in their vulnerable moments, to receive cheer and advice. I enjoin you today, please measure your words carefully before you speak to them, Ephesians 4:29 says ‭‭"Let no unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building up the one in need and bringing grace to those who listen."(BSB) When someone comes to you in their time of vulnerability, they are in need of building up, please be careful so that by your words you do not tear down someone God sent to you for you to build up. I've always said that if you know you have no edifying words to tell a person in their moment of 'downness', just keep quiet and offer your presence only, you'd be doing a whole lot more good than opening your mouth to say something terrible. 

Finally, I'm giving you an assignment today: I want you to consciously think about your life, your behavior, beliefs and patterns and try as much as possible to ascertain if these beliefs are from unwholesome words that have been told to you before and please consciously try to heal from those words, that's not who you are, you are only who God says you are. Draw close to God in prayer and in study of the Bible and allow Him to reintroduce you to yourself, and decide everyday to believe only what God tells you about yourself, it doesn't matter who the person was that told you those things, refuse to believe them anymore, believe only God!

I pray that God will help us to see ourselves as He sees us and to be help to the people He brings to us for building. 

NLS HOT GIST: We're finally in May! This month, we're finishing the term and proceeding for Externship and to say I am excited is putting it very mildly. Someone said no set of persons are as happy to be in May as people who are in the Nigerian Law School and I heartily agree because wetin person eye don see for this place, mouth never fit talk am complete. I was speaking to my mother today and I told her to expect me very soon after we go on break, I've even told her what I want to eat on the day I'm coming home, because nothing except God can keep me here the moment we are allowed to go on break. 

Well that is that about that as far as that is concerned, see you next week!

Love,

Achenyo. 

PS. If you really are struggling like I've struggled with your identity because of things you've been told about yourself and you need to talk, you can leave a message for me at achenyosmusings@gmail.com and we'll talk about it. 

Also, I'd really love to hear your thoughts, so please don't forget to leave a comment, thank you.