Thinking out aloud – do babies have anything to worry about? I do not know – I would think not! They should be the happiest little beings in the world. Everything is done at their beck and call. So then, why was I so worried? My mom tells me I was unusually quiet as a baby – the type of quietness that bordered on me being troubled. It was as if I was carrying the world’s problems on my shoulders.
I would scream bloody murder if you dared to pick me up – and you were not Mom or Dad. I would wail in the arms of strangers. I naturally graduated to becoming an unusually quiet toddler. My poor mom had to tickle me senseless just to get a squeak or giggle out of me! Photo time was a sport for the poor woman. What contrast to who I have become. I laugh at something as silly as a fly hitting the sliding door! My youngest sister thinks my sense of humour is one to be concerned about, simply because I find slapstick comedy hilarious! (Has anyone watched the movie “The Pink Panther?”) Inspector Clouseau is a legend!
I have learned that brokenness comes through many doors. In the blog, I share the different doors brokenness used to gain access to my life.
We migrated to South Africa from Malawi when I was 12 years old. I was sad to leave all my friends and cousins behind, but seeing what lay ahead was exciting. After all, we were coming to “Canaan”, the land of milk and honey!
We finally arrived! It was everything I had expected it to be and more! I remember looking at the skyscrapers as we arrived in Johannesburg. I was blown away. Is this where we were going to live?! I could not contain my excitement. We settled in Yeoville, Johannesburg, in 1996.
My parents enrolled me at an all-girls High School. Not dealing with boys was music to my ears – they were mean! I was so nervous about going to my first School in South Africa. I found comfort in the fact that it was an all-girls school so it couldn’t have been that bad right?! New Country, new neighbourhood and now new School. It was a tremendous change. I was 13 years old when I got enrolled – my first year as a teen, and I was impressionable. I expected everyone to be nice. It was all I knew where I came from.
Did I say that I expected everyone to be nice?! Yeah right! I soon got a reality check. Early High School was a horrible experience. I was teased constantly and extensively by a few mean girls because I was foreign and was unable to speak a vernacular language. Making friends became challenging, so I hang out with other migrant kids. If it was not the language issue, it was that my shoes were ugly. Give me a break – my parents could not afford the popular shoes of that day.
There was always something they picked on me about. I soon started dreading going to school. It was the first time people were mean to me, and for no good reason. I had no clue how to process it. I felt a deep sense of rejection. It was the first time my soul was hurt, unbeknownst to me off course.
That experience started the process of turning me into a people-pleaser and became a stronghold in my life. I placed so much value on what people thought of me – especially when I had to face other girls or ladies.
A year later and we moved houses. My parents enrolled me in a mixed High School this time around. I finally had to face boys, good lord! I was beyond petrified. I had no interest in boys. It would remain that way until the age of 18. I bet it would have gone on a little longer had the boy who would later become my first boyfriend not have approached me. I thought any school would be better than that hell I had gone through at the all-girls school!
Making friends at the new school continued to be a challenge. I had to work extra hard to make friends. I joined a group of semi-cool girls, and I was not cool at all! They had their own agenda for admitting me into their little clique. They were the type of girls that talked behind your back, but I persevered. Fake friends were better than having no friends at all. The thought of having lunch all by myself terrified me. I was the watchman who watched their school bags while they went off to talk to boys. With my fear of boys. The Lord knew I was not going with those girls to go speak to boys.
Voila! And there it was, the reason they admitted me into their clique. It was to be a school bag watchman! I was about 16 years and uninterested in boys. I remember seeing girls my age going up and downs with boys, but zero interest was detected on my end. I grew up but my relationship with other girls still suffered or at least it was tainted. I tried but I still sensed some rejection every now and then. I had rejection issue. I ended up catching the case of “chronic people pleasing”.
I would have done anything to be liked and this attitude seeped in to my dating relationships. I had always known in my heart of hearts that the Lord had called me to keep myself sexually pure until marriage. My relationship with God was not deep at that point so this desire to keep myself until marriage was something innate – placed there by God. I knew I needed to wait for marriage but I also wanted to keep boyfriends happy so I agreed to going against my values of keeping sex for marriage. I blatantly disobeyed God and caved into the pressure of premarital sex for I did not want to risk loosing a relationship. It was the greatest regret of my life but I thank God for His Restoration, Grace & Mercy.
I went on to get married and came into marriage with pre-existing rejection issues. I thought this marriage would fix everything, after-all, I had married the love of my life and we would live happily ever after. I was unaware that I was broken and that I was desperately looking for someone to complete me. So you can imagine my horror when the marriage failed 3 years later. My sense of not being good enough was amplified. My broken marriage was proof that I was not good enough and so the rejection issues became a stronghold and I would continue to seek approval and validation from people post-divorce.
Jesus stepped in after I surrendered and fully said yes to Him. Let me tell you that it was a quite an experience #therapywithJesus. It was a painful exercise to go back down memory lane. I dreaded re-living the trauma of my past. God sometimes needs to take us back to the young unhealed places in our lives to show us the underlaying cause of our brokenness in our souls. He thereafter proceeds to healing those emotional wounds in our souls. Many tears were shed as He took me back to the past to address the things that hurt me. He begun to bring about wholeness into those areas. God began a healing work in my life after showing me the deep rooted cause of what had gone on in my life. He healed all those areas, filled all the empty spaces, gave me my identity, validation & calling. And I am free in Jesus from seeking approval and validation from people. If He can do it for me He can do it for you
God desires to set us free from ALL brokenness caused by rejection so we can walk in wholeness. God desires for us to prosper in our souls. I leave you with this text: 3 John 1 : 2 “Beloved, I pray that all may go well with you and that you may be in good health, as it goes well with your soul.”
So be encouraged!
STAY BLESSED X!
True. What we go through in our early years does have some bearing to how we process what goes on around us in later years. The big question is do we use the lemons and curve balls in our early life to help others deal with hurt or do we curl into that ball of self-pity and allow the memories of the sorry years to deprive us of the joy of discovering what life has to offer?
Good Lord! Thank God, the treatment you went through did not hold you back. Here you are, sharing with the world on how you managed to come out it. Painful as it was, God was on your side.
Congratulation Bee! Keep it up.
I can totally relate couz, l was also the so called guard at high school and l was considered the shy not so desirable girl. But am glad that in all that l went through no matter how hard it was the Lord Almighty ushered me through and am glad He did that for you. It’s a journey that we go through as humans and sometimes sadly the very things we go through in our early days, has a way of resurfacing up again in our adult lives. And when that happens we need to focus, be clear and listen very attentively to what the Lord Almighty would be saying to us.
Am inspired thank you my sis
I am so glad you can totally relate to being a guard sis, lol, yip unaddressed hurts have a way of creeping up on us. I happy that God ushered you through it. God has so much to tell us if only we can be still enough to listen. xoxo