Yesterday I struggled. I struggled to be happy, to love, to forgive, to be happy, to not worry.
I just felt like I was failing, and kept thinking about all the ways I seemed to be failing. The messages I got from my mother definitely didn’t help matters, but I can’t say they bothered me as much, as I was adequately prepared for them.
The subliminals from my flat mate got to me so much I actually spent a good amount of time worrying about money and thinking about an offer I had no business even considering. Thank God for The Holy Spirit who nudged me to reread what He spoke to me this morning.
I also had other things I struggled with and honestly I just spent a good part of the day just stressed. At some point I dropped everything and took a nice long nap.
For some reason (I’m sure it’s God’s leading) I decided to look through my Instagram page, and finally the sermon note made sense, especially this line “Do you feel like you’re failing and can’t even see how much fruit you’re bearing?”.
Sometimes in life we have all these ideas of what success is supposed to look like. Society always gives you pictures and ideas of what success should look like. If it’s not society, it’s that person you follow on Instagram with the perfect aesthetic, (the one wey dey reign now) or even worse your family members and friends/loved ones. Everyone just seems to have their own idea of what success should be for you.
It’s easy to internalize all of that and then see who you are and what you’re doing as a failure. Especially if you don’t know who you are in Christ or aren’t grounded in His word. It’s easy to take these things to heart and start trying to trade who you are for these images that people are trying to convince you to be if you’re seeking their approval, or desperate for it.
Looking through my Instagram page today made me smile, and made me happy. It reminded me that I’m being the best Yoma I can be one post at a time. I might not have thousands of followers, and I might not have the aesthetic that everyone thinks is cool these days, but why do I have to? Why should I be trying to produce someone else’s fruit when I can produce my own fruit?
Success to me is helping people and genuinely reaching them. Genuinely touching people and helping them see that it’s okay to be who they truly are. It’s okay to like what they like, it’s okay to be themselves. Natural, vulnerable, soft, truthful, flawed, and beautiful. It is helping people feel things with my words and life just like Drake does with his music. Letting them know that even though everyone says it’s mature and wise to hide stuff and present an image to the world while you’re dying inside, it really is a prison to live like that. A prison I definitely won’t be living in. Heaven knows being broke is a suffocating enough prison. I’m not going to add the prison of a life of pretense to it.
Success to you doesn’t have to be the same thing, and that’s okay. Just make sure your ideas of success aren’t images passed down to you from external sources. Make sure they’re God given and in line with your life purpose. That’s what is most important.
We need to reevaluate as a society our ideas of success. We need to figure out where we got those images from and who gave them to us so we can emancipate ourselves from a lifetime of voluntary slavery.
May God help us all in Jesus Name. Amen.
Love, Yoma.
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