Okay so let’s not talk about my 10 month leave of absence from this blog?
Funnily enough, at the start of the year I made some New Years Resolutions and one of them was to start writing on here more regularly. But just like the rest of 2020, that didn’t work out.
Anyways, let me begin.
I love making lists. I find it to be quite therapeutic and it helps me to order my thoughts. Although I had to rip up one of my favourite lists earlier this year (s/o to Pastor Mike for the A1 trigger session), I generally still do refer back to my lists and use them as a kind of reference. I use them to monitor my progress in reaching my long-term and short-term goals.
For those that aren’t aware, I’m in the process of finishing off my masters and WOW. I feel like using the word ‘hard’ to describe it doesn’t even scratch the surface of how disgustingly difficult this year has been. To put into, it’s almost like I’m in the middle of a tornado which is on fire and the more I try to fight back (which btw I’m not really sure how one fights a tornado that is on fire, but yeah) the more intense it becomes.
So there’s a part of my degree that is 100% exam based and in February, I had quite a lot of exams. Not long after lockdown started (the first one), the results for these exams came out and I saw that I had failed a few of them. And for the record, I have failed exams before – but wow. This time I FAILED. Knowing that I would have to do re-sits completely messed up all that I had planned to accomplish and how I had planned for this year to go.
It’s amazing how failing one thing (or several in my case lol), can create a domino effect of how you begin to view yourself. At first, I just started to feel like I didn’t belong on my course, and then subsequently at my uni. And without being at uni, that would mean by default, I would be out of a job. This was all hypothetical thinking at the time, but it became so easy for me to spiral and to actually believe that failing these exams meant that I was no longer capable of doing well in other aspects of my life.
Seeing as I couldn’t even accomplish my short-term goal of passing all of my exams, I started to question my ability in accomplishing the rest of the goals on my list. I lost a lot of confidence and grew comfortable in the fact that lockdown gave me an excuse to do nothing. Imposter syndrome had me feeling like I wasn’t the right person to be doing different things, including writing on here. To be completely honest I wish I could tell you that my mental health is now back at 100%, but that would be a lie.
However, recently (like everyone else) I’ve had a lot of extra time to think. And one of the thoughts that crossed my mind was actually a preach I heard one time that was based on this Bible verse:
Psalm 23:5, “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.”
Basically the preach was based around how in the midst of our chaos, God has still prepared a seat for us at his table. Now I always imagined that ‘my enemies’ would be other people, like literal human beings, but that’s not necessarily the case. Sometimes we create our own enemies, and find ourselves surrounded by them more often than we realise. These “enemies” can be things like insecurities, self-doubt, shame and guilt. They can literally make you feel that you don’t deserve a seat at the “table” – whether that be feeling like you don’t belong on your uni course, you don’t deserve to be in that club or you’re not good enough to play that sport. Before you know it, you’ll find yourself drifting away from the seat that is LITERALLY reserved just for you.
I’m not trying to say that it’s easy to just brush off all these ‘enemies’ but a really comforting thought I’ve had is that God has still reserved a seat just for me. Even in the places where I don’t feel like I belong or I don’t feel like I deserve to be there, this in itself is overridden by the authority in which God has placed me there. The reason that He calls us to sit at His table is so that we can re-direct ourselves to focus solely on Him – and when I’ve done this, I’ll suddenly feel less like a stranger in certain spaces. Ultimately I’ve had to stop listening to my own voice and start to focus on His.
Like I said earlier, I’m still not at 100% but I’m starting to find my balance again. For anyone that might be in a similar headspace, just know that this is seasonal. Don’t let your own voice of self-doubt push you away from doing the things you love or fulfilling your God-given purpose. You are doing amazing and you are VALUED. Don’t fool yourself into believe anything less than that.
Psalm 30:5 (NLT) “… weeping may last through the night, but joy comes in the morning.”
simplybertha 