Missed Calls

Jonah is most definitely one of my favourite books in the Bible. I will always find humour in the way Jonah was not in God’s mood at all. Jonah was stubborn for the most part; he had an attitude and was on the run from his calling for many reasons besides the one he gave. Many people see Jonah as a challenging prophet — perhaps that is why I see a lot of myself in him. Aware of the significance of his call Jonah sought to flee from it. The speed with which we are introduced to the ‘humanness’ of Jonah is to me the most compelling part of the book.

January went completely left for me in so many areas. What started off as a collective desire for elevation in this new decade quickly turned into a struggle for my sanity. I was frustrated and angry at God. I didn’t understand why God seemed silent whilst I was facing these battles. My life was certainly not a reflection of what I thought Gods promises were supposed to look like. When I took major L’s the last thing I wanted to do was pray. I didn’t want to worship, I didn’t want to read the word. I didn’t want to do anything but feel my emotions entirely. I tended to block out anything spiritual for a few days in protest against God and to express the feelings of betrayal I felt towards him. It was almost as if I was holding a grudge against God for disappointing me. In attempts to understand what I felt I visualised a weighty ball of emotion. That weight consisted of fear, anger, shame, disappointment and many other feelings I had a hard time communicating. I felt this weight resting on my heart daily, invisible but undeniably present in everything I did. It was this weight that made me reluctant to communicate with God in the face of my troubles.

Gisting with Harriet on FaceTime the other day I asked her to be honest and tell me what she thinks my toxic traits are. Being that she’s known me practically my whole life I figured her opinion would be of most value. She paused momentarily and followed abruptly with “Grudges. Isabelle naa you hold grudges way too much”. I laughed because it’s something I’ve always known. However the gravity of it only hit me when I realised that this trait was also present in my relationship with God. This tendency of mine often put a wedge between me and the Holy Spirit in my lowest moments. Pride convinced me to keep hold of this weight and shift blame onto God for not fulfilling my hearts desires, but the truth of serving a God that loves me without condition rendered this weight meaningless.

What strikes me most about this book is that despite his disobedience, hard-headedness and occasional dramatics, God still called Jonah to do his work. God knew about Jonah’s toxic habits but his love for him transcended his flaws. So much so he prepared a fish for Jonah to rescue him from the consequences of his disobedience. Thankfully Jonah’s reverence for God saved him and the fish spat him out onto dry land. Jonah knew in his heart that holding animosity with God was like being so angry at the air that you stop breathing. Such an act would undoubtedly result in severe damage to your body or at worse lead to death. How much more damage is inflicted on our spirit whilst pain causes us to run away from a God that loves us without measure?

Holding onto the weight of your pain only seeks to place the call God has put over your life on hold. You cannot outrun this call, but freewill means that you can miss it. Put the weight in your heart down and communicate with your heavenly father. Get rid of all the background noise and remove the wedge you have placed between you and your maker because of your feelings. You are in this together for eternity, no matter how long you choose to run while on earth. Seek Gods face irrespective of it all & thank him for sending his son to spit you right back unto dry land.

Lonely Truths

‘Support’ is a weird thing to conceptualise sometimes. Defining it is hard because there is no measurement as to how much constitutes as enough, especially with this new social media age. Some measure support through monetary investment, others through time or uplifting words. As subjective as support may be, Love remains an integral component of it. For this reason, we often feel entitled to support from the people we love. To me, support is a reminder that people are invested in my greatness at every step of the way. To support someone is to remember and appreciate the important things, to do your best to show up when needed, to share uplifting and encouraging words and to remain a source of strength through someone’s weakest moments. I was always quite content with the support from people around me. It was never ground breaking but the occasional ‘you’re doing amazing sweetie’ was enough. After much time and maturing, I realised mere words didn’t hit like they used to. Dedicating time to pray together, providing monetary support, showing up when needed or simply offering grounded advice on a decision became much more valuable to me than words alone. Yet somehow I couldn’t seem to find these qualities in those who I expected them from the most.

After engaging in several conversations with people closest to me, I realised some of them didn’t seem to remember important dates or projects I was working on. Others forgot to show up to any events I hosted and sharing uplifting words became rare or awkward. At first I brushed it off as feeling entitled, after all everyone is going through their own stuff and won’t always have the time to support things they aren’t centred in. Plus giving love out with the underlying intention of getting it back in return went against what I stood for. Regardless, when observing others and the support systems  they had around them, I concluded that no one around me really cared at all.

I had a chip on my shoulder for a while. People only seemed supportive or encouraging when I had achieved something worthy of recognition. At times, communicating any lows, failures or self-doubt left me feeling even more defeated than before. In response I grew cold to people. I stopped inviting loved ones to things I held important, rarely informed them of milestones and started to withdraw emotional investment from relationships. I lowered my expectations of people and embraced the ‘get it on my own’ flex. When things went well I was proud to know I didn’t rely on anyone but myself, but when failures came it got lonely.

As time passed and my prayer life got better, my perspective towards ‘support systems’ dramatically shifted and I found peace in spite of my feelings. Knowing that I value the people I love outside of how they supported my success made this lesson much more profound. Sometimes even good people won’t support you the way you want them to. Pastor Toure Roberts describes this as a ‘lonely truth’ and that captures it perfectly. Venturing into new territory often times means we rely on the people closest to us a lot more than usual. Whilst it is extremely important to surround yourself with people supportive of your journey, humans will always fall short of what they can give.

The journey to purpose is going to be a lonely one at times. There will be days where everything you believe in may be undermined, ignored or questioned by some good people, more painfully by the people that you love. There will be days where a vision you have is not understood by those you thought understood you the most. Whilst support is an important component of love, it is not guaranteed. I learnt that relying on a support system often times obscures the value of God in our lives as our number one supporter. Not everyone will be supportive of your vision, but that’s why God gave it to you and not them. Purpose was always between you and God alone. A support system will always prove defective at times because it is made up of people that are human and flawed. For this reason I thank God his strength and love will always live inside of me and anyone reading; the most assured system of support that there is.

Note:
If eyes haven’t seen nor ears heard what is in store for you (1 Corinthians 2:9), don’t be disheartened if they don’t support you now, they will soon.

With love,

Isabelle

Camera shy

If i’m honest, my battle with self-love is most apparent in my hesitance to be in a picture. It may sound stupid but if you know me, you know that taking a picture or seeing myself on camera is one of the most nerve-racking things. It’s not necessarily the picture coming out weird that scares me, nor failing to hit the right angles; what scares me most is confronting society’s demand for perfection in a body that for so long I have deemed imperfect. The thought of people seeing my flaws pretty much paralyses me the very moment I see the flash.

Throughout March I had continuously confronted the word ‘perfection’ and realised that God wanted to teach me something about my battle with insecurity so I listened. What struck me most was not only how my insecurities made me feel, but how they had manifested in my actions and personality traits. For me, personality traits and character represent two separate versions of ourselves, which at times connect but often times may not. Whilst I believe character to be home to our authentic selves’, personality is the way our character is performed to the world. After much analysis and overthinking , it was clear when comparing my character with my ‘personality performance’ that something was clearly off.

Contrary to popular belief, I initially thought I could love myself without needing to love my self-image. Much of what everyone around me understood self-love to be was loving and accepting your appearance. I convinced myself that not loving my appearance was okay because what really mattered was my character, and that I did love. Whilst both of these takes on self- love contain elements of truth, self-love is not a monolith and seeing it as such is limiting. These factors are simply small pieces to a much bigger puzzle.

Insecurities related to my appearance began seeping into insecurity about my work and my voice. Before I knew it these insecurities were expressed in my personality traits. I sought refuge in shyness because I thought it kept me safe from judgement. As someone with such a bold character, shyness meant that much of this was continually hidden. Whilst confidence in my character helped me navigate certain spaces well, shyness meant I would suppress my voice or withdraw from spaces where I felt uncomfortable. Shyness continued to rob me of opportunities and remove me from places of importance because I was convinced that what I brought to the table was not enough – and after all, being shy was part of who I was.

I know now that shyness was not a part of who I was but instead was a product of insecurity and low self-esteem. Understanding self-love was radical for me because it meant much of who I thought I was had to go. Feeling shy sometimes is normal, but making shyness a part of your personality is problematic. Not only did a lack of self-love stop me from uploading fire pictures on the gram, but it also meant my greatness and purpose became stagnant.

Self-love is truly a courageous act. An act that acknowledges the ‘self’ as wholly deserving of unconditional love in spite of weaknesses. Accept your being as perfect, not because of self-image but because you are a reflection of the creator, who’s ways are always perfect and without flaws (Psalm 18:30). It is only through unconditional self-love that we are able become our greatest selves. When you place conditions on practices of self-love, it is bound to manifest itself in your actions and choices. Self-love is the fearless decision to choose yourself over and over again, even when nothing around you seems to do the same. Beauty standards will always change and situations will arise that threaten the integrity of your character – what’s important is that you make the decision to love yourself anyway.  It is only when you view loving yourself entirely as a necessity, like eating or sleeping, that you are able to confront life unapologetically and become your highest self.

Whilst this self-love journey will never be an easy one, understanding self-love as a necessity has opened my eyes to realise that my life and the bag is dependent on it. Bell Hooks writes ‘The light of love is always in us, no matter how cold the flame.’ I’ve made a decision to stop relying on anything other than love to affirm the greatness that has always been within me. My hope is that everyone reading chooses to do the same.

With love,

Isabelle

Conditional Love is Wasted Love.

No matter how many times humans beings fail me, I choose to never give up on people, I just learn how to discern characters better. I’ve always understood the importance of unconditional love when dealing with people, even when I try to overlook it. With friendship I struggled in my youth, easily holding grudges and falling out with people who treated me wrongly or I disagreed with. I now see the beauty in watching Love blossom my friendships into the family I choose. I grew to want my career and everything I do to have Love at the centre of it too. My career advisor described me as a ‘world changer’ and it made me teary eyed in a weird way. It was almost confirmation that the work I do and aspire to do, centred around Love and empathy, which is all I ever cared about. With family, like most people, I always understood that Love should be given regardless of the condition. Yet whenever I am confronted with romantic love, my tolerance is below zero.

I wondered how long it would take me to write about romantic love on my blog and continuously ran away from the thought of it. Dramatic I know, but romantic Love is a topic very played out amongst women, we talk about it way too much at times. Aunty Jhene’s new freestyle did however have me in my feelings, so I thought I’d write it all down to document it.

I’ve always battled with the part of my womanhood that craves romantic love and affection, simply because I rarely ever see it lead to anything worthwhile. Wasted love as Jhene Aiko calls it. The idea of Wasted Love seems so cynical, but the statement carries a harsh truth most people choose not to swallow. The song reiterated my belief that conditional romantic love can be one of the most painful things ever when it eventually falls apart. I’ve avoided falling in love for 21 years, and as peaceful as life can be, living in fear can be boring and loveless at times. My girls tell me I’m too guarded and that I’ll never marry if I keep up with this way of thinking. If I’m honest I just cannot come and kill myself for temporary love.

I blame fear for the most part, but I mainly blame myself for submitting to it. I also blame God for refusing to send me the love of my life through some sort of extremely cringe movie-like encounter. The love in movies always seems so fulfilling (depending on the movie of course). I’ve blamed my father at times, for not showing me what unconditional male love looks like – maybe then I wouldn’t desire it the way I do. At my lowest points I blamed myself for not being worthy of good love, for not being pretty enough or for not attracting the energy I desired.

Why get lost in a love with conditions? I’ve always thought investing in a love that is conditional was a waste of valuable time, but any form of Love comes with the risk that it won’t work out. Sometimes I wish I could do this fickle situationship/relationship thing my generation loves doing but my heart just isn’t set up that way.

The question then becomes what will perfect romantic love look like to me? How will I even know it when I see it? How will it make me feel? I suppose the beauty of Love is in its uncertainty. The possibilities remain endless without clarity.

With love,

Isabelle