Stop the Pain, NOT Your Life! 2

Lesson one continued from the previous post

1.       Accountability: Accountability is in two forms namely vertical and horizontal.

a)      Vertical: In this context, it means submitting to people that have been placed over you as spiritual leaders/elders or pastors. I did that by leveraging on the relationship I had established with my pastors which allowed me to be open to them about my issues. I maintained this openness during my trying times by consistently speaking to my senior pastors about the situation of things. They were aware of my pain, and they helped a great deal. The pastors were always willing to hear everything I had to say even times when I did not have anything to say and all I needed was just a shoulder to lean on.

b)     Horizontal: This form of accountability is to your friends that are mature and have integrity. They play a key role as well, because your pastors and spiritual leaders would not always be available as they are usually very busy and need to attend to so many other people and things, but your true friends whom you relate to on the same level would always have time for you and be able to understand and go through with you on your level. They play a vital role that your pastors cannot play. It’s important to always have the right association of friends around you. They always come in handy as you would for someone else. 

The words of encouragement I received from these relationships in my life kept me going and I knew that I was not condemned by all, some people still loved me and I was glad.  

Lesson Two: Accept what has happened as the past and let it go! Acceptance is KEY! Evaluate the situation and learn from it without playing the blame game. Assess the whole event objectively; take responsibility where you ought to and MOVE ON! Make up your mind not to let the past ruin your present or your future, and most importantly, FORGIVE whoever is involved that has caused you pain, grief or hurt. Be it yourself, forgive yourself and move on. Forgiveness starts with a conscious decision and it helps you to let go and move on. Without forgiveness, you won’t be able to move on completely and you would be scarred for as long as the unforgiveness remains. No amount of unforgiveness can repay how you feel, so what’s the point?!!! Let it go! You deserve a better life, not one filled with anger or bitterness. You are too much for all that crap!

In my own case, when I made the conscious decision to forgive, I realized that with time I started praying for the parties involved, instead of hating them and casting blames. I made excuses for them, and I just moved on. I also forgave myself for the mistakes I made and I kept improving myself, turning to God’s word to renew my mind like never before and I depended solely on the Holy Spirit. It was a tough one, but God’s grace saw me through. I had done a profound evaluation of the whole process and I had learnt and grown. It became my sincere heart desire for the parties involved to learn and grow too, and the only way I could reach out to them was to pray for them.

I had finally let go of the event, but there was still pain and grief somewhat and I still lacked my energy, the zeal to live life was nowhere to be found. You may say to yourself “How sure am I that she even knows how I feel or the depth of what I am going through?” Well, I may not know exactly how you feel, but believe me when I say that I have felt deep excruciating soulful pain, and I have dealt with pain, and here I am today standing and sharing my victory over it. When I had that ordeal, I seriously had no clue as to how I was going to face the world, the society, church folks, my family members or even my everyday life. I literally thought that the earth was going to open up and swallow me, because truly I felt that there was no point living anymore. I struggled with so much hurt, pain, low self-esteem, rejection, anger, depression, hatred, betrayal, condemnation and regret. So many conflicting emotions and thoughts raged through my heart piercing my every moment. It was a period of torture for me. I felt so stupid at having “wasted” tangible years of my youthful life at something the court dissolved! Did it mean that I had willfully just thrown about 4/5years of my life into “nothingness”? I was inconsolable. I felt like a huge failure, like what on earth was I thinking or doing all these years, to what end??? Wow! That was a blow that I felt for a while. I remember each time I had to appear in court, I left the courtroom with the memory of the eyes of the judge, several lawyers, the sociologist, the psychologist, and members of the public in court on my frame as I stood within the box barely hearing my own words waiting for the verdict. It seemed as if my whole world had just collapsed! The future seemed so bleak, and I literally felt like I was not going to make it.

My pain worsened when some of my family members revolted against me at having soiled the Christian name and faith of the home, some were of the opinion that I was very stupid and had not represented the family name well. Alas! I was a disgrace to them.

It was so bad I couldn’t pray, and truth be told, there were times I couldn’t even be bothered, but other times, I knew that I had to get back to my altar, because it was my place of strength, wisdom and power, my prayer house, my place of fulfillment…so what did I do? I felt very numb and I was in deep shock, I couldn’t feel a thing, it was so hard for me to accept that life would just continue and go on as usual, I would go to church and wouldn’t hear a word that was preached or said, but somehow I knew that I had to hang in there for my dear life.

Part three coming up shortly..........