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A preacher said something this week that stuck with me (link to the sermon will be on the bottom of the page). She said, there were areas of our lives where we have removed our expectation (faith) for God to do anything. These are the barren lands we do not even pray about because we have resigned ourselves to a future that looks no different from the present and the past. This is the place where nothing grows – not faith, not hope, not joy, not miracles, signs or wonders.

Nothing.

For me, it would the areas of my life where I would say things such as “it is what it is.” And resign myself to the fact that nothing can ever change about it. It is easier for me to embrace a reality that looks bleak, and make peace with the fact that this is what my life is going to look like, than to continue to hope for more and be disappointed over and over again. I can handle the sameness of never having more. I do not do well with raised expectations only to have them repeatedly shattered.

A decade into dating, my relationships were the “footpaths” in my life – the place that was once fertile ground but had been trampled so often by others than nothing could grow anymore. My outlook on relationships was damaged. I no longer prayed about them. I was convinced that God was not interested in my relationships anyway. He had bigger fish to fry. So, if I wanted to get married, it was left up to me to figure out the best option and just go from there. After God healed my understanding of relationships and I did eventually marry, the footpath changed.

It was no longer relationships;  it was my career. I had prayed and fasted about my career for many years without seeing a change. After almost ten years of believing for more, only to end up with less than I had in the years before, I once again concluded that God did not care about my career. He cared if I was a good wife, mother, friend and disciple, but my career was mine to figure out. He had bigger fish to fry than whether or not I could get a job. So, I stopped praying about it.  I removed my expectation that I could ever have the professional success that I saw my colleagues enjoy. It was not in the cards for me. Years of applying, and being rejected, feeling overlooked, and inadequate had me convinced that “this is just what it is.” I was destined to be one of those women who did not work because she could not find a good job. God used my husband to heal that fear of failure and success for me. Before long, seeds began to germinate and grow in that area as well.

Then the footpath changed again.

The most recent footpath I have discovered in my life is anxiety or worry. For as long as I can remember, I have always been the “worrier.” I plan things to worry about for the future. My mind is never not working and thinking and calculating and making readjustments. Caring for two toddlers with ongoing appointments for school, doctors, dentists, extra-curricular activities and so forth means there is always something to “not forget.” Managing our household schedule, budget, finances, vacations, doctors appointments, after-school care plans and such means that my wheels are always turning. If I do not keep the machine that is the Odedere Household moving along, it could all come crashing down in disaster. There is always something to think (or worry) about. Because of the mental load of thinking for myself, my sons and my husband a majority of the time, worry and anxiety became the norm. As I solved one thing, my mind would move on to the next concern. On and on like that until everything had a solution. If there was no solution in sight, then concern became worry, worry grew to anxiety and the anxiety became a paralyzing fear that made each of my limbs feel like they weighed a ton. When that fear becomes a behemoth (larger than life), I would run to prayer. I would cry out to God for relief since all of my own efforts had failed me. Even as I prayed about it, I would worry. Would God really take care of it? What if this was one of those times where He wanted something awful to happen to me so I could grow from it? (This is bad theology by the way.)

I have operated with this kind of fear and anxiety for all of my walk with Christ. I figured “this is just my personality/I am just a worrier.” I have never expected anything to change about how I operated in the world. I am just naturally anxious. God made me that way, did He not? I did not recognize this paralyzing fear as a footpath until the panic attack that happened in February.

Since then, God has been challenging my default settings as a worrier. It turns out that my fear is not just “how things are.” It was an area I had allowed the enemy to infiltrate and take over because I had never thought to pray against fear (fear of failure, fear of success, fear of the unknown). I thought fear was a human response and there was nothing  to be done about it other than just to ride the waves and hope the feeling passes sooner rather than later. I was fully prepared to live the entirety of my life being afraid (or worried) about one thing or another.

It is what it is, right? This is just how I operated.

Until God started showing me that this is a footpath. Fear had me in a stronghold for so many decades, it has taken me this long to realize that I was not always afraid. Up until a certain point in my life, I was actually pretty bold and fearless. And even in my faith in Christ, I am bold in so many other ways especially when it comes to the situations of others. But when I am the one that is under attack, instead of faith rising as it does on behalf of others, fear is my first response.

But God is changing my life in real time. As we speak, seeds of faith that have been sown on this particular “footpath” are beginning to germinate. This is no longer barren land where the enemy can introduce any thought or situation and cause me to fly off the handle. My faith is growing by leaps and bounds, and for the first time in my thirty-six years, I am fully convinced that fear does not have to be my default response to the arrows of the enemy.

When attacks are mounted, more and more, I see myself rising up filled with righteous indignation, inspired by the Holy Spirit and fighting-mad at the enemy of my soul that he would dare raise up such an underhanded “sneak attack” against a child of God. What an insult to the Heavenly Father who goes before me and girds me all around!

Literally, satan how dare you?

As I continue my walk with God, I know He will continue to show me the “footpaths” or  patches of wilderness in and around my life, the places where I have wrongly concluded that God cannot touch or change. I look forward to the day when my entire life is the lush garden that my Creator has in mind, each flowering field yielding fruit by the tens, fifties and hundred.

I look forward to the day when there would be no such place in my life where nothing grows.

(Sermon Series: Crazy Faith Part 5- Daily Faith – Brie Davis – Transformation Church) – Get it here!

 

I did not always have a fear of not being loved or accepted. Even when I was ten years old and classmates were calling me ugly for my dark skin and making fun of my accent, I took it all in stride because my weekends were filled with other Nigerian kids who looked and sounded like me. And they made room for me in their hearts. I was accepted and loved, even if it was not at school.

No, rejection did not become a fear that could deter me from reaching out to others until my first instance of abuse. I knew my way of looking at the world shifted at the age of eleven, but I did not realize that the trauma had changed my very personality and would not let me go for the next two decades of my life. Although trauma kept me quiet as a child and a teenager, I knew that I was too “broken” to be loved fully. I began hiding key aspects of myself from the people who loved me. They could have the acceptable parts of me. I was more than willing to show them my sense of humor, my love for cooking and even my creativity with words. But the parts of me that had been informed by trauma – my overwhelming sense of inadequacy, my secret competition with any other woman who had the audacity to be prettier, my jealousy of anyone who had what i didn’t – those things had to stay well-hidden. Behind the bravado and the constant boasting of how well life was treating me, I trembled with fear that anyone who see the “real” me.

When a long time friend told me that what she heard about me made it impossible for us to continue to be friends, my worst fear was realized. To be fully known was to be instantly rejected. I never knew what she heard that left such an impression but from then on my guard went higher. Eventually as I came to Christ, I learned to find my worth in what God says I am rather than the opinion of men. But I did not realize that I was still allowing my traumas to dictate my response to others. Even as I made the effort to cultivate authentic relationships with others (especially other women), my response when people do not accept the friendship I offer has always been over the top.

When someone rejected me, i would simply pivot. I was able to accept that God had a plan for me that did not include whoever was not willing to play a role in my life. The initial rejection always stung but I could move past it by reminding myself that I had plenty of others who saw my worth.  I took comfort in the unwavering presence of God in my life and invested my energy into deepening the relationships I already had. But I did not realize that I was only able to pivot away from new people. I had no tools to deal with the rejection of those that once loved me.

The second time a friend rejected me rocked my foundations. After six years and hundreds of hours invested in our sisterhood, the words “everyone warned me about you and I should have listened” brought all the trauma I had accumulated over twenty-eight years to a head. Here was more proof that to be fully known was to be ultimately rejected. It took everything in me not to go back to the comfort of hypocrisy – if I did not let anyone see the real me then the only thing they had to reject was a persona. I was free to be my messiest self behind closed doors. But hypocrisy had served me badly before I came to Christ and I remembered the pain of trying to live two lives. I could not go back.

Rejection seems to rear its head in two consistent area of my life. I am either afraid to follow a passion that I know God has given me because someone I trusted rejected my gift. Or I am afraid to open up to people I love because someone I loved pushed me away for being vulnerable. I am only just now realizing how heavy the weight of rejection has been over me. Rejection kept me from going back into the workforce for ten years. Rejection kept me from owning the stories and books I wrote because I decided it was safer to print them without my name on it. Rejection kept me from re-embracing the people that have broken my heart because the risk of being pushed away was higher with someone who had already done it before. Rejection kept me from asking my husband for help because him saying no would be confirmation that I was not deserving of his help. Rejection keeps me from seeking certain connections with other women because it is constantly whispering that I am not good enough for them.

Rejection and the fear of it is a thief and a liar. Even as I unpack my journey with a licensed therapist, I am committed to not allowing rejection to steal any more than it has from me and I pray the same for you as well. In anyway that the weight of rejection has been leaning on your relationships and your view of yourself, may Christ be the healing and difference-maker in your situation. And it is okay to have Jesus and a therapist. I highly recommend both.

Till we meet again.

A Nigerian who found beauty (and acceptance) in Christ.

 

 

 

I have told this story many times but I cannot tell it enough because that is how much it changed me. I was having the hardest summer of my life, newly traumatized by a sudden lack of financial security, and interestingly enough, planning our wedding. I went into a meeting with my pastors about our upcoming wedding and was gently advised that marriage should not be entered into while financial insecurity was looming. It was good advice. But for someone who had been trying and failing to find a job for five years at the time, it was another reminder that my life was on hold until I had enough money.

I went into my car and cried my eyes out.

A good question for anyone to ask me at that time would be “why are you getting married when you don’t have a stable job?” They would be well within their right but they also would have poked a sleeping bear in my life. Career and finances were a sour spot for me. And anyone implying that I could not move on in any other area of my life because I lacked the finances would have broken my heart and earned my ire.

But let’s pretend for a minute that someone did ask me that imaginary question.

“Omowunmi, why did you get married when so many things about your life were still up in the air?”

I got married because it was time for me to get married, not based on my biological clock or any external pressure but based on where I was emotionally, spiritually and relationship-wise. My hubby and I did some really deep work on our relationship, from learning to communicate with one another, to discussing and making peace with our respective pasts, to learning to function as a partnership. We were ready. There was no benefit to our relationship by delaying our marriage; if anything it would have increased the temptation that was always a consideration for any couple that valued purity. We got married because we were both confident that God wanted us to. We got married because our maturity dictated it – we were both fully committed to making each other better and there was no higher calling to serve one another than in marriage. We got married because we were already best friends. We got married because my husband was ready to be a provider even if he did not have all the material trappings of success. We got married because I was ready to answer the call to submit to my husband’s God-given leadership. We got married because we were ready to build a legacy for our future family. We got married because we were tired of going home to separate homes at the end of each date. We got married because neither of us had ever meshed so well with any other person before; even our differences complemented each other perfectly.

And lastly, we got married because we wanted to honor God.

Financial security is an important part of marriage and I am not going to pretend that it is not. But it is not the only consideration. Being rich, comfortable or lucrative is not the underlying determinant of a successful marriage. If it were, teenage newlyweds would always end up divorce and millionaires never would. For me, marriage cannot be divorced (pun intended) from purpose. I got married because it was part and parcel of God’s purpose for my life. Right before our wedding I told someone that all of the increase and expansion that God wants me to have will be realized in the midst of my marriage, not prior to it. I had 29 years and 9 months as a single woman and although I did a lot in that time, the plan is to spend more years being married than I did being single. All the future achievements I intend to have by God’s grace are intricately tied to my position as my husband’s wife. There are certain things I want to do for him; there are certain things I want to do for me but cannot accomplish without him; and there are still other things that have to be done by us.

I got married because my husband needs the favor I carry and I need the covering he provides.

Not because my finances were perfectly in order.

Not because our lives were perfect.

Not because I no longer had any issues to work through (more on that in another post on another day – it is okay to get married before you reach the pinnacle of wholeness; as long as you have began the work and started the journey, it can still be perfected in your union).

I got married according to God’s will for my life. And honestly, I would not have it any other way.

A few weeks ago, I told my counselor that I wanted to unpack my apprehension around professional women of my age. I have long-standing relationships with women of all professions and caliber. I am honored to be connected to the sisters who make up my tribe. But when it comes to new friendships, if I am making connections in a work environment, my guard goes up. I am open to women in church, at my children’s school, through family friends and virtually everywhere else I can meet new faces, but when it comes to women in my same career field or a similar professional track, I have virtually no work friends. There are no other women attorneys in my life that I go to outside of the ones who have been with me since we started our first study group together in law school. I wanted to know why I have no work friends. I had an inkling of a reason but needed confirmation.

This week I have gotten to the root of my lack of professional connections and interestingly enough, it ties back to the fear of failure that kept me stuck professionally for so many years. I do not make new female attorney/professional friends because I do not think I have anything to offer them. For years, I was fearlessly pursuing my dreams and eager to connect with women who were doing the same. I suffered my first real “fail” in and regarding law school and unbeknownst to me, the failure traumatized me. It was the first time I felt like I could not do something I genuinely gave my best efforts towards. “Oh! I’m not as smart as I thought” came the notion, and every seeming failure since then has been a confirmation of my worst nightmare. I have been carrying a deep sense of inadequacy when it came to career and that weight kept me from connecting with others. In my eyes, professional women who were in my age group and other similar demographics were better than me because they took the same set of circumstances as mine and created success for themselves while I continued to struggle. Every affluent, professional, black woman was out of my league. I had nothing to give them. They were smarter than me, had more money than me and probably knew more about their field than I could know about mine. If I opened myself up to them, they would discover what a failure I was with my lack of income and lack of achievements and likely move on any way. It was better for me to keep everyone at arms length than risk their rejection when they discovered how little I had to offer. I have always known that young professional women scared me, but until today I could not pinpoint why.

Nowhere is this more clear than with my mentoring relationships. Women I have watched over and discipled since they were in middle school and high school are now thriving professionals in their twenties and whenever I glimpse their lives I am always filled with a mixture of pride and sadness. Pride at all they have achieved even if my contribution was limited to being a listening ear, a big sister and letter of recommendation for college. Sadness that at my thirty-six years of age, I had no connections or resources to which I could add to their life to benefit them as young professionals climbing their various ladders of success. It made me sad that I was only a benefit to them for that short window and could not be a resource now because in my own eyes, my professional life had not measured up to much.

I did not realize that I had measured myself against my peers, professional women I admire from afar who were thriving in their various field, and found myself unworthy of their friendship. What if I opened my life up to them and they realized how little I knew (I’m not as smart as I once thought, remember)? What if I invited them to my home and they saw how meager we were living compared to their multiple six-figures? What if they figured out I was a fraud who was only pretending to know what she was doing in this field (imposter syndrome in overdrive)? I was actually afraid to make friends within my professional circle because I was deathly afraid of rejection and embarrassment.

Once again, I divided my abilities between my career and everything else. In any other aspect of my life, I fully acknowledge that I am an empathetic and compassionate friend. I show up for my friends as often as possible and I give the best of me to the people I care about. I know that God has given me enough personality, wisdom and compassion to be a blessing to as many as He will lead my way and I derive deep and genuine joy from making authentic connections. But for some reason when it came to professional connections, I was convinced that I had nothing to offer anyone. If it sounds crazy to you, it is because it is. And if it sounds familiar because this is how you operate as well, then pull up a chair and let’s work through this thing together.

I am finally ready to admit to any woman who has known me for years in a professional capacity but with whom I have always “kept it cute and kept it moving,” never escalating our acquaintanceship beyond the few laughs we share between courtroom sessions or networking events – it is not you, sis. It is me. I was afraid I was not good enough for you. I was afraid that you would laugh at me if you truly knew my situation. I was afraid you would deem me as unworthy as I felt. I was afraid that you would talk about me because I did not have this or could not afford that. And I was jealous. Because you had lawyers in your family to guide you and I had to figure this thing out by myself. Because you got the LSAT score for a scholarship and I was drowning in debt. Because you got hired right out of law school and the last 12 years have felt like I am not good enough for a seat at anyone’s table. Because your life seems so much better on paper than mine. I was afraid. I was jealous and I projected all of my insecurities on you without even bothering to learn your story.

It was not you. It was me.

But I am working through my insecurities. I have pinpointed the lies I once believed and I am dismantling them brick by brick, session by session. I am ready to connect now, if you will still have me. Pull up a chair, sis. Let’s talk this through.

Have you ever been in a really good place in life? Relationships flourishing, home life thriving and your chosen field of work giving you a relative sense of accomplishment? Then all of a sudden a quiet dread settles in the pit of your stomach? It could be prompted by nothing in particular but suddenly you cannot shake the feeling that something horrifying is soon to come? If you relate to this feeling then you have an idea what the bulk of my adult life (post-grad) has felt like. I have had incredibly fulfilling seasons of life but in the back of my mind – even in those moments of deep joy – is a thought/fear that immediately fills me with dread. I do not have words to explain it yet, but the best way I can describe it is this feeling of “I am running out of time/I’m gonna die doing this/I am never gonna make it out.”

It is terrifying and all-consuming. I have not always felt like this but the earliest I can pinpoint the feeling was my time in law school (circa 2004-2007). Over the years, I have tried to push the feeling aside by striving for excellence. When I am achieving and crushing my goals, all is well. But as soon as I start cruising, or things begin to take a downward turn, the feeling returns. “You life is passing you by while you do nothing. You are never gonna reach (insert any goal) like this. Look at everyone your age who has already passed you by.” And just like that my heart will begin racing and the feeling of doom and dread returns. I often felt this as a single woman thinking about my prospects for marriage. But the most pressing area of my life where these thoughts assault me has been my career. Year after year, I would struggle to find my footing and year after year it felt like I had lost more ground while trying desperately to make a living. Another year in the red and the voice gets louder. “Your life is passing you by while you do nothing.” Another year of working without benefits or retirement savings. “You’re never going to be debt-free like this. You’re going to die owing everybody.”

Getting married and having children was an opportunity to pivot away from what was failing and invest in what I knew I could do well. I poured my all into my family, hoping and praying that it would be enough; but every time I had to confront what I wanted to do with my career or how I could help support my family’s finances, the thoughts returned. “You’ve lost too much ground. There are so many people more equipped than you for this field. You are never going to make a living doing this work.” To avoid the dread, I stuffed my career into the furthest corner of my life and focused on what brought me joy. The people I love, my marriage, writing and ministering to others. If you measured me by everything else, excluding my career, I was living the life of my dreams.

I could only live that chopped in half life for so long before I realized that I had to do something to get my joy back. The first step of that process was my husband challenging me to step out of my comfort zone. The second step was taking a job I was terrified to do. The next step after that has been showing up every day to begin crafting a new beginning for myself. I am in the midst of getting back to joy. I wake up each day grateful for an opportunity to earn and add value. When it takes me twelve hours to achieve an eight-hour work day, I applaud myself for sticking with it instead of lamenting my lack of productivity. When I get constructive feedback from my higher ups, I make a note to be grateful for the opportunity to grow instead of beating myself for not being perfect at my job after only one year in a new field. I save $20 every pay period into one account, and save all the cash I have on hand into another account. I opened a retirement savings account and started a rainy-day fund. It may not be a million dollars, but it is better than nothing and the small steps in the right direction encourage me to keep going.

While working from home full-time and watching my children (side bar – I took them out of childcare for the summer in hopes of finding a summer camp but honestly, my children are at their happiest when they are getting ample time with mom and dad), I have come to realize that my workday does not look like anyone else’s. I hope for nine to five but between making meals, fixing snacks, wiping tears and breaking up fights – it can be anything from 10 to 6 or 12 to 8 and on really crazy days, 4 to 12. But here I am getting it done. My children are happy and thriving. My husband and I have time to invest in one another; and I can still give myself to the things that matter to me, like writing and supporting the women I love. I am getting back to joy. I am giving myself permission to have deep, soul-lifting joy that permeates every aspect of my life – rather than limiting my happiness to the things that are going according to plan.

My house is still a wreck more often than not. I clean it as my schedule allows but I have learned to grace myself when dishes pile up and toys are all over the place. It does not always get done immediately. My house looks more like a home with toddlers than a showroom but I have learned to embrace it. I no longer compare myself to my friends with pristine homes and young children. What works for them wouldn’t work for me and vice versa. I’m graced to live this life and no one else’s. Self-care means seeing a therapist every 3-4 weeks, getting my eyebrows waxed and a pedicure every 2-3 weeks, and saying “no” when people ask for favors that give me anxiety.

I am learning to respectfully voice my concerns rather than stuffing my feelings until I explode. I am drawing boundaries between relationships that require everything I have to give and associations that are for the time being or for convenience sake. I am getting back to joy. Prioritizing joy means shifting my work schedule one hour later so my kids can visit their grandparents and have ice-cream. Life is far from perfect, but it does not need to be perfect for me to find the joy in today. After so many years of sacrificing my joy because I was not successful enough, rich enough, married enough (singleness was an adventure), it is an honor to be getting back to joy.

How are you getting back to (or staying in) your own joy?

(Share with me in the comments! I would love to hear from you)

If you had met me three years ago, you would have met a woman defeated by lack and loss and hopes that never became reality. You would have met a woman who was still mourning the life and success she thought she would have. You would have met someone who felt like the last great thing she achieved was almost ten years behind her. Failing at what you thought you would master changes you. What should have built the resilience to get up and try again made me want to crawl inside myself and disappear. Recently, I am remembering vividly what it felt like to be living a life you deem a failure in your own eyes. To be honest, practicing law not only shaped my identity, it took it over. And eventually, it swallowed it. Until all I was, was an attorney. If all else, failed, at least I was an attorney. But when THAT began to fail – I had an identity crisis! Watching other attorneys flourish and make a living in this line of work filled me with a desperate sense of inadequacy. Everyone in this field seemed to know something I did not. How were they running solo practices and still managing to keep a roof over their heads, considering my venture into private practice kept me in poverty from Day 1?  How were they getting these cushy opportunities when doors kept slamming in my own face?

Feelings of inadequacy kept me from connecting with new people in my field. As far as I was concerned I had nothing to offer anyone, so why bother. I kept to the safe confines of the friendships forged in childhood and law school. I did not go out of my way to make new work friends, and at the same time, seeing the camaraderie among my colleagues from the courthouse or law school ate me alive. I did not belong. Nowhere was it more apparent than when I would venture out to social events for local lawyers and find myself wandering the room alone. Too many of these instances made me retreat further away from those that would be considered my equals but whom I had deemed were better than me because at least they did not face a foreclosure (in 2010), at least they were not driving their mom’s old car (till 2013), at least they knew what the heck they were doing with this practice of law. My thoughts ran in circles continually and defeated me before I could even try. When new law school graduates entered our field with all the hope and optimism that was already beaten out of me by unemployment, underemployment and lack, I was immediately jealous. They seemed like they had their whole lives ahead of them and were better equipped to succeed than I ever was. The last great thing I accomplished was passing the bar, and that was in 2007. Every year since then had felt like a constant battle of trying to prove that I was not as terrible an attorney as my fears would have me believe.

I cannot say my years were all bad. I did some excellent work. I helped some truly deserving clients and made my own impact here and there. But when I compared my successes to my bottom line, they did not line up to produce a life I would call a success. For so many years, it had been ingrained into me that being a lawyer meant being smart, successfully and rich. I was willing to work to be all of those things. Until my work kept proving to be less than enough. Eventually my ambition got buried deep beneath my fears of failure and success, and I comforted myself with the lie that career success did not matter as long as I was successful in other ways. I spent TEN YEARS hating what I earned (not necessarily what I did, because like I said – I made some impact in lives that will last for generations), but being too afraid to do anything about it. Every idea seemed like a failure waiting to happen. So i shrank into the life I hated, comforted myself with the love of my husband and children and buried my hopes and dreams in the sand. I avoided associations with other lawyers because their successes only testified more boldly of my failures. Conversations with loved ones about my career or chosen path always left me in bitter tears shed in private. This was NOT how my life was supposed to go. Graduate college with honors, go to law school, finish, pass the bar, find the job of my dreams and climb the ladder while finding love and marrying the man of my dreams and building our family. THAT was the plan. Everything that deviated was a constant reminder of my failure.

One day, my husband pushed me and kept pushing me until my comfort zone was a distant memory. I stopped believing or caring whether people were judging me by my lack of career success and decided to pivot my life. Stop getting up every day for a job you hate because it doesn’t pay you, FIND ONE THAT PAYS YOU! It did not matter what job it was. As long as they would have me and they would pay me reasonably for my time. After six months of effort and calling fear a liar, applying for jobs even when I did not feel qualified, going on interviews (first ones in 10 years) even though I felt terrified and ill-prepared, I got a job. Not just a job. A job that pays me in a day what I didn’t earn in a week as a solo attorney. A job that gave me supervisors and colleagues who care about me as a person as well as my work product. A job that finally healed the sense of failure and brokenness that I had been carrying regarding my career for almost 11 years. I love my job. I love the opportunity I have to do it. I love my direct supervisor and I genuinely enjoy the company that employs me. My life was a failure in my eyes because I did not have a job. Getting one, a good one with an ethical, professional and trustworthy employer has healed me in ways that practicing law never did.

These are my confessions.

Thanks to the hardship that comes with practicing law, I am being forced once again to examine my heart at it relates to the success of other attorneys. The truth is a part of me is angry. I am angry at the colleagues who saw me struggling and took advantage of me (shout out to my first commercial landlord). I am angry at the ones who made jokes about who I was and where I worked (being humiliated in court was not fun). I am angry at the people who saw my resume and decided sight unseen that Omowunmi was just too ‘ethnic” of a name for their company. I am angry but it will pass; it always does.

Truth is, I am also grateful. I am grateful to the clients who hired me based off one meetings and met their obligations to pay me. I’m grateful for the countless numbers of people who now have legal status in this country thanks in small part to my role in their story. I am grateful for the countless numbers of juveniles who have avoided a life altering criminal record because they took my advise, both legal and informal, and changed their entire lives. I am grateful for the mentees who entrusted me with their journeys because “she’s a lawyer” and have gone on to graduate college, medical schools and law school and are thriving as productive members of society. I am grateful for everyone who tried to introduce me to one form of employment or another when they heard I was struggling, and I am ESPECIALLY grateful to the colleagues who have become family who sat with me as I poured over new cases, making sure I understood the nuances and could get the best results for my clients. Thank you! I cannot thank you enough.

My life was a failure in my eyes because of the shame of lack and poverty. But God has redeemed my failures and I am happy to report that success feels more familiar than ever. I will not go back. Sometimes you have to fail into the life of your dreams. Because honestly, without my past failures – I would never have had the courage the change my mind and pursue the life of my dreams.

These are my confessions.

 

Lately,  I have been focusing very hard on putting work behind my passions. I love writing and producing creative works that others can consume and enjoy. I have been working on a new project, collecting my best thoughts and insights on every area of life and putting them together into a book. If I put the right kind of effort behind this work, I know it can be a great product. I am already proud of the work it has taken to get to this point.

A part of me pictures this being the work that introduces me to the women I hope to reach and connect with – the audience who would find and build community through my writings whether they are blogs or books. The other part of me does not want to worry about “reaching the masses” with my work. I just want to invest my time in doing good work and doing it consistently. At this point, I rather be a great writer than a popular one. One leading to the other would be welcomed.

Recently though, I have been shrinking away from the thought of being known. Over the last ten years, I can credit the majority of my growth to the privilege of making my mistakes in private. I am not sure I am ready to give up that privilege and trade it for a new reality. The ideas in my head and heart are not only meant for my living room. They are designed to benefit as many people as I can impact but reaching the masses means giving up the comfort of knowing that my decisions only affect those in my immediate community. It means being held accountable to the raised standard that comes with public platforms. For someone who has been so focused on putting my best writing out there, it seems I am now rethinking my methods. All year long, I have exerted my best effort in laying the foundation for others to find me (writing more blogs and short stories, revamping my websites, creating new social media pages, paying for online ads, etc). Now, I’m reconsidering and wondering if this season of not being “seen” has been purposefully orchestrated by God to prepare me for the life I hope to have some day.

What if the years of being in the dark and seemingly buried were just my time to be planted until I grew strong and deep roots? What if the ideas that I am so giddy to share with the world are still so tender and vulnerable that they can easily be destroyed by thoughtlessly uttered words from outsiders? What if I am trying to share the things that God is still desiring to perfect? [If you haven’t, please listen to Pastor Michael Todd of Transformation Church and his sermon series for “Planted, Not Buried” and “Marked” – they changed my life].

To allay those fears, I am committed to listening intently for God’s voice and direction in all things. I cannot tell you how many blog posts I have drafted and deleted because although they were easy to write, they did not reflect what God has instructed me to share. I am committed to doing exactly what God asks of me when He asks it of me, and not a moment sooner or later. For too many years, I have let the approval of man replace obedience to God. I thought being celebrated by others would fill the void that was created by a life lived without purpose but now I know better. Knowing and walking in the will of God for my life has been the best antidote for every emptiness I have ever felt. So in this present reality, even when I feel hidden because there are no audiences to speak with, no readers to engage and no groups with whom to share my gifts, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that being hidden does not make me any less treasured.

Being hidden is a blessing. There are less demands on my time. I am able to learn what is relevant and specific for this season of my life as well as prepare for the coming one. Being hidden allows me to rid myself of any part of my soul that still longs for public accolades more than the private approval of God. Being hidden allows me to know my own heart so that my darkness is not being exposed to me and the watching world on a stage. Being hidden gives me the quiet solitude necessary to ask God to hold a mirror to me  and show me who I really am, away from the smoke and lights. Being hidden feels a lot like being forgotten but they are vastly different. Common things get forgotten. But treasure is hidden. And when such treasure is finally unearthed, there is more joy in the discovery than there ever would have been without the adventure and hard work of digging up and unlocking what the world did not even realize was missing. 

You may be hidden, but you are still treasured.

In 2005, I started blogging publicly. Before then, I had been keeping a private online blog for my own amusement. But in 2005, I discovered the ability to make people react just by sharing what was going on in my life. I would often share specific private details to get a reaction (like the time when I was figuratively bleeding out from a recent breakup and decided to share a play by play of my emotions from one day to the next). To have friends and even virtual strangers tuning in and following my shenanigans online gave me a thrill. I felt important. I knew it was dangerous to share so many intimate details of my life and journey but at the time, I did not care. I liked the attention and most of my writings were in revenge of those who have hurt me. I probably gave access to people who did not deserve it and gave ammunition to those who did not mean me well, but I was too hell bent on being heard that I said forget the consequences.

I did not realize that my oversharing was a perverted version of what God intended for me to do. Without proper relationship with God and the wisdom that comes from Him, I thought my gift of writing was just a way for me to get others to see me, and simultaneously give a not-so-friendly finger to the people I considered my enemies. As soon as I came to Christ, the script flipped. There was so much in my heart to share with people about what Christ had done for me. I had this hyper-awareness of feeling so desperately alone in all my past struggles. It seemed there was no one who understood what I had endured. Being in Christ and having found healing, I desperately wanted to be for others what no one had been for me – a transparent example of God’s redemption.

For someone who had been so secretive about her real struggles, coming to Christ and having Him give me the green light to share my heart with others was absolutely freeing. There was no shame attached to anything I had to share with others. The wounds were healed. Anytime I would share another part of my story and it would resonate and give hope to a young woman whose past resembled mine, my heart would flutter. The satisfaction of walking in purpose never gets old. Sharing my life gave me such satisfaction that I knew I would do it forever. Having others connect with me because my words touched them, helped them or gave them hope made me feel like I was exactly where God intended for me to be. After that, I made the most of every opportunity to be transparent with others.

The first time my openness came back to bite me is still the most painful experience of my new life in Christ. I was called everything from a homewrecker to a hypocrite for attempting to write about my life. Telling your truth and being belligerently  misunderstood is traumatizing. It’s been seven years; I am still working through it. The experience was the first time I questioned my gift and my approach to connecting with others, but it will not be the last. After that, I questioned any of my posts that were too transparent. Was I sharing too much? Who was going to misunderstand my intentions and vilify me for speaking about this? Writing, which had always brought me joy, began to make me nervous. I retreated. I went back to locking my writings up away from the public eye. I almost deleted a 200 page manuscript because the fear of being misjudged and misunderstood if it were to get out (be published) was debilitating. It was the closest I have ever came to abandoning writing forever.

Eventually, God reassured me. Being THIS open and THIS vulnerable on a consistent basis takes wisdom. I know my journey helps other women. I have had that confirmation over and over again. But as I mature in Christ, I have learned that all of my truths are not for everyone. There are some truths that I have shared in my text messages or in front of a live group of women that will never make it online or into a book (unless God says otherwise). Those moments of speaking about my darkness were absolutely terrifying in some cases, but they were God-ordained. And because of that, I have never suffered any loss.

Transparency has been a gift to me. It has allowed me to build the community of sisters that I have today. Transparency requires a consistent commitment to examining your own heart and the willingness to have others hold you accountable to the standards of God for your life. Transparency also requires wisdom. You are not meant to bleed all over everyone who crosses your path. There are specific places – sacred spaces, safe places – that God wants us to go when we are hurting and bleeding out. Those spaces are filled with people God has specially equipped to bind up our wounds. Perhaps through their own experiences or maybe just the wisdom that only comes from Heaven, these ones are especially equipped to help us heal, without judgment.

I have found my save spaces (thank you Wives in Waiting, thank you Stephanie and Chloelle, thank you Maude, thank you Jessica my one and only Beauti Therapist, thank you Tierra Lebbie, thank you to every woman in my church, small group, community and even ONLINE who consistently lend me your ear and your shoulder). When a truth is too raw to be spoken without tears, it goes to my sisters’ inboxes before it goes public. When I have found a semblance of healing or God gives me something to share about my process, then it is my joy to transparently share it with the world around me. It has been a journey getting to a place where my desire to connect with others does not undermine the work that God wants me to do, but I am eternally grateful to be here now- writing, speaking and sharing – and suffering absolutely no losses because of it.

Transparency is my superpower. What is yours?

After I had been in Christ for about four years, I had my biggest set-back as a woman of faith – I lost a friend to a misunderstanding and no matter how hard I fought for it, we never recovered. To say I was devastated would be putting it lightly. Having someone who knew all of my darkest secrets and up until the point of separation, cheered every single milestone (from law school graduation, to salvation in Christ, to my engagement and more) broke my heart. My foundations were rocked. All of my secret fears about not being good enough to love came roaring back to life. My thoughts ran haphazardly from guilt and shame (“I ruined our friendship/I am a walking mistake”) to anger and dejection (“I can’t believe she thinks that of me/how could she do this to us?”).

Forgiveness came easier than healing. I still have to submit and resubmit my feelings of rejection to God. It has been almost seven years, and even now, there is still a pit in my stomach when I think too long or too hard about how our friendship has changed. In the years since our fall-out, I have had time to put the situation in context.

This was someone I cherish (and I still do even if it is from a greater distance than before). Although we had history, we also had two different views of the world and our journeys as women have been drastically different. There are some experiences that God has redeemed in my own life (long-term abuse, destructive relationship with women and years of self-loathing) for which she has no context because these were not her experiences. Although she could sympathize with the pain I was trying to process, she did not have the tools to empathize with my process. Speaking about my pain (in an effort to find healing) to her likely looked like digging up old stuff and stirring up drama. If she did not want any parts of the chaos that was my process, who could blame her?

Losing my safe place (with women who I was able to share my heart freely and without judgment) forced me to re-evaluate my why? Why was I feeling compelled to speak about my past sexual abuse and trauma? Surely, I am not the only woman who has ever endured such a thing (1 in 3, as a matter of fact), so why was I the only one in my circle (friends, community, church) who was so vocal about the topic? Why did I really want women to know all of the pain I had endured from a young age until adulthood? Asking myself these questions meant examining my motives. Was I trying to encourage others on a similar journey or was I actually trying to prove something to all the people that hurt me? (“You did not break me/you lose!”)

Did God actually ask me to share these things? Or was I addicted to the sympathy of others and therefore perpetually sought to play the victim? (“Please feel sorry for me and then maybe you will stop rejecting me.”)

As I combed through my motives, I found that they were mixed. A large part of me wanted to share my life in order to offer help, hope and encouragement to any kindred hearts that were listening. But a part of me was still  very angry. I did not deserve the abuse I endured and the people who hurt me needed to know what a mess they left for me to clean up. Also, those that insisted on misunderstanding me needed a reality check so they could cut the crap and stop putting me through so much heartache.

So, who deserved abuse (since I already decided I did not)? Who would I wish trauma and dysfunction and brokenness upon? The answer was no one. No one deserves abuse. God did not write that into any of His plans for our lives. He can use it, certainly. He can redeem it, absolutely – but it is not His desire for His children to be mistreated.

Had it not been for the rejection I experienced earlier on in my attempts to speak the truths that have shaped my life, I would be walking in a perverted purpose right now. Rather than sharing the story of God’s redemption, I would be on a “revenge world tour,” speaking to multitudes about who hurt me and why they suck. Your purpose is in you, from the very beginning – just like writing, teaching and speaking have been my gifts and passions for as long as I can remember. But without clean hands (pure motives) and a pure heart (directed by, and in communication with God), purpose will become perversion.

If I am willing and obedient, rejection can be just the redirection I need to get to the expected end that God desires for my life. If I am stubborn and stiff-necked, however, rejection will embitter me. It almost did. In the beginning it was a constant battle between “forget them; they are blind to what God is doing in your life; you don’t need them,” and “I forgive them, Lord; I repent for every part I played in this misunderstanding; help me to love them for real.”

I had such a chip on my shoulder because there were so many people I wanted to prove wrong. I wanted to succeed to spite them, not to glorify God. If I could be blunt, my success was gonna be the big middle finger to everyone who ever doubted my ability or my intentions. I am so grateful to God that He loves me too much to let me continue in such a perverted state of mind. When I see it in other people now, I cringe, because there – but for the grace of God – goes I. I could be the one marketing and selling shade and calling it ministry. Or packaging my hurt and rejection and calling it a “how-to” on success. It could have been me. But healing made the difference. Wholeness (although a process, even today) changed me for the better. Rejection redirected me to purpose. Without that redirection, all the efforts I am putting into the world today would be tainted with the stench of offense and unforgiveness.

In the book of Exodus 1, it is noted that the more the Egyptians oppressed the Israelites, the more they grew and multiplied. If the Egyptians had welcomed the children of God as a part of them, they would have intermarried and the nation of Israel would have completely assimilated into Egyptian culture. Egypt’s fear and racism allowed Israel to remain set-apart as God intended for them, and ultimately became the catalyst for their growth and fruitful multiplication in a foreign land. When you are a child of God, affliction is the best soil for your fruitfulness. The more we are afflicted, the more we grow. But when we do not have the mind of Christ, affliction just feels like God is picking on us. It makes us resentful, bitter and short-sighted – we overlook the providence and sovereignty of God in our challenges.

Some of the worst rejection I have endured has redirected my life in the best ways. The friends who temporarily damaged and walked out on me were actually incompatible with my life. I loved them so I wanted to keep them, but had we not gone our separate ways – my marriage, my God-given purpose and my sense of self would have suffered. I thank God for their ‘no’.

The romantic relationships that proved dysfunctional and temporary were heartbreaks at the time, but without those “no’s” I would have never sought to do anything different in my approach to romance. I would have rode the Ferris Wheel of dysfunction over and over again for the entirety of my lifetime. The rejection I experienced in relationships made me sit down and take stock of my life. It made me acknowledge the reality that I had always done romance on my own terms – based on what I liked and whatever my feelings dictated. Never once because of what the Bible commands or what God desires specifically for my life and who He has created me to be. Facing that truth made me change my ways. It made me study what, if anything, the Bible had to say about relationships between men and women. It made me ask questions of the couples I admired, and it made me count the cost of building the kind of relationship and marriage I said I wanted. The ‘no’ from men forced me on the path of sexual integrity (sexual integrity is the practice of aligning your sexuality and it’s expression with your beliefs and ethics – practicing what you preach when it comes to sex). Without their no, I would have continued on the path of “trying everything” even it if violated my conscience, just because I wanted a ring.

Rejection has been a blessing. I am not going to lie and say it feels like a blessing while it is happening. It is one of the most emotionally agonizing pain I have endured, but regardless of how it feels, on the other side of it, I am able to see what it has accomplished. A ‘no’ from man is not the end of the world, especially when it has led to to the “yes” from God.

 

This week I felt forgotten. Not by my husband or loved ones, but largely by God. My reality is not matching what I know God has promised me and I started struggling to merge the two. For the fifth year in a row, I’ve had to miss a conference that I attended faithfully for nine years because responsibilities at home and finances no longer allow. It’s one thing to spend $200 for me to spend a weekend away and be immersed in all the things that feed me spiritually. It’s quite another to take $600 out of our household budget and pack up my two toddlers for a weekend away, with no help and no guarantee that I will be able to take part in any of the activities that feed my soul because I need to keep a watchful eye on my children.

So, I’m struggling at home and I didn’t get to spend time away to take care of my inner man. It was a double whammy of discouragement. I honestly do not like who I am when my emotions are in turmoil. I did more yelling at my children. I had more quiet resentment towards my husband. I resented the friends who have drifted out of my life because it would have been nice if someone had checked on me this week. I did not take joy in any of the things that typically bring me joy – a well-made meal, a house I didn’t have to clean, or playtime with my children. In short, I threw myself a pity party.

When it feels like God doesn’t see me, life loses a lot of joy. It feels like I’m doing life in my own strength and it is completely overwhelming. I waver between joy and despair as if there are two women living in my one body. But at the same time, I did not give myself permission to feel what I felt. With the agony of emotional turmoil was the guilt of feeling bad in the first place. My life is good. My family is healthy. Our needs are met.  Being unhappy (or even *gasp* miserable) feels like the epitome of ungratefulness.

One of the best things I read this week said “God is not intimidated by my emotions.” I’m not too much for Him to handle. Nothing in my life takes God by surprise and that thought is infinitely comforting. In my head, I know God sees me. His word confirms it over and over again. But there a lot of times when what I know vehemently disagrees with what I feel. So, when I’m feeling unseen, unheard, unloved or unwelcomed – I will endeavor to believe my Creator more than my emotions. I pray you do the same.