yielded

I remember in school there were those special people who would worry the entire day because they had failed one exam. I wonder how they are handling life right now. I mean, yes, there is a disappointment that comes with failing when you were hopeful to pass, but there is also a bigger issue when one cannot overlook that failure and allow themselves to move on.

I believe 99% of the world’s population has failed at something. Be it school, a business, a relationship, an examination, or even something as simple as taking your first steps. Children, too, fail to take their first steps until after some time. There are, however, two kinds of people in this world: those who learn from their failures, let go and move on to do better, and those who never let go, so they never move on.

You would be shocked at the things people have failed to let go of. Eh! Like I said yesterday, we still don’t judge anyone, but come to class. Take a chair and let’s talk. If you read yesterday’s blog, you will find out that I struggled to let go of my favourite glass doll, Khethiwe. I did everything possible to fix her and held on much longer than I should have. In the end, she became a danger to me. That’s what happens to us when we hold on to failure for too long. It becomes a danger, particularly to our self-esteem and identity.

Peter failed to walk on water. Well, he walked a few steps, but he didn’t get to experience that moment without failure. Was it a good act of faith when he started? Yes! He actually attempted something nobody else did. Now, imagine if he had kept beating himself up daily, losing his appetite and even getting depressed because he started drowning and failed to walk all the way to Jesus. Refusing even to spend time with Jesus because he is too “stressed”

Today, we learn so much from his story, positive things. Personally, I love that story, and I consider his faith something beautiful, even more than the fears that kicked in. Even when he wrote his share of the Bible, he never mentions that particular failure.

Ask some of us to write one blog, and it will be full of that story about what happened last year and how we failed at something. We would talk about it until eternity. Given an opportunity, even on radio, we would want everyone to know that we failed and that they should feel sorry for us. We forget that even attempting to do something is a big thing, something we should be applauded for.

Listen, I have had many failures. You know I failed Mathematics dismally. Lol! As in, I got a very terrible mark. I can only calculate money, and funny enough, I thought I would pass it because, during the examination, it looked like I was actually calculating quite well. But to my surprise, lol, the results were soooo bad. Haaa! If you guys knew but when people talk about school, I don’t carry that on my head o, ah ah, I won’t.

I have failed at many businesses, after using all my money to start them. As in ALL. I have failed in relationships, in friendships and even in my spiritual life. People of God, many, many times, I have also had to talk myself out of the pity party of failure that leads to low self-esteem. It will scatter your confidence.

Today, I am saying, let go. Yes, you thought you would win that time, but it didn’t work out. It’s okay. It’s really okay. Someone would say, “No, it’s not okay because I would be far in life right now.” Do you know that the world never works like that? We work with facts. The fact is, that’s what happened. It’s the reality. What would have happened? Nobody knows. So, you shouldn’t base your life on what could have happened.

I’m not trying to be hard on anyone, but sometimes, to get someone to learn, you have to tell them the truth, even if it sounds like you are being insensitive. I’m not being insensitive. I’ve seen many people stay in one place when they could have moved on to greater heights, and they will tell you, “Oh, I can’t do it because last time I failed.” Last time? Who’s talking about last time? We’re talking about now!

Pack all your failures, all of them, every bit of them, and put them in a bag. I want us to throw them into the river today. Throw all that baggage away.

The disciples failed to heal the man’s son. Literally. The man said, “I brought him to your disciples, but the men couldn’t do anything.” He even told Jesus about their failure. That someone will tell people about your failures in life. You know African aunties and their gossip squads. They spread news faster than BBC! The man told Jesus that these people had failed. Grown men failed!

They will say, “Ah, a big girl like you!” or “A handsome boy like you!” They will hammer you with words. But this failure still led the man to Jesus. So, a loss can lead to a win, right. Darling, let go. Yes, I know you failed to live a holy life this year. Let that go, repent and try again. Yes, you failed to run the business. Learn from the failure and move on.

Imagine if doctors struggled with this. With the number of people who die daily, they would be wrecked, constantly thinking, “I couldn’t save that person.” But the next day, they are back at work, performing surgery on someone else, even though yesterday’s surgery wasn’t successful. Think about that analogy, and let’s meet again tomorrow.

With all my love

V.🌹

If you read my blogs but have never met this  Wonderful Jesus that I’m always writing about,  you’d love to get to know Him, Or you know The Lord but have found yourself drifting far from Him, I would love to talk with you. Please send me an email  on yieldedcwcenter@gmail.com or simply comment, and I will reach out to you

Hello, my yielded people! It’s been a while. This is probably the most inconsistent I’ve been on this blog. Your sister is juggling quite a lot, and I’ve learned that in seasons like these, you don’t do everything with the same energy and focus. You learn to prioritise. You list things according to importance and attend to them as you can.

I am sorry, however, to those who love this blog, for not showing up as much as I would have loved to. God has given me a strategy that works, and we will have blogs every day through that. I hope you didn’t think the title of this blog meant I was letting my precious baby go. I dey craze? No o! We stay here o. Na here I don build my tent! On a more serious note, how do you let go? How do you let go of things, people, memories, and even the things that haunt us, like failure?

One of the things you will need to learn early in life is the art of letting go because, in this life, you will have to let go of many things. When we were kids, we had a difficult time letting go of our broken toys. I remember I had a glass doll that my mom got for me. By the way, I played with dolls until I was around 15. Yep! And my mom knew how much I loved them. Even now, I have two because I gave the third one away to a little boy who came by my house and eyed it. I love teddies and dolls. Fun fact about me, I guess. I bet you wouldn’t have guessed, lol. And that’s the whole point.

Back to the story. My glass doll was such a precious thing to me. I held her as soon as I got back home from school and before I went too. One day, while my mom was cleaning, the glass doll fell. My mom knew how very special that doll was to me, so she really didn’t know how to break the news that, girlie, the doll had turned to pieces.

I got home from school, and she asked someone to bring the doll. She then said, “I’m sorry, but your doll fell.” My first thought was, “Ah ah! How?” That doll is glass. First of all, glass breaks. So, it’s not that I minded that the doll fell. Things fall all the time. But the fact that the quality of the doll meant that it would break when mishandled… Are you guys getting where I’m going with this story?

It’s not that you mind letting go. It’s the fact that when you let go, something happens to your heart, and that is heartbreak. So, she showed me the doll, and I cried. True story. I couldn’t let go, people of God. One thing about me, I love deeply and very loyally.

Guess what? I took cello tape and taped the doll. She was not the same anymore. I couldn’t carry her carelessly because she could now cut me, but because I couldn’t let go, I risked being cut. She was broken, and the pieces wouldn’t stay together. Sometimes, I’d have to put more cello tape on her just to keep her with me. You should’ve seen me dedicating myself to that project. HHe!

My mom suggested getting a new one. I didn’t want a new one. I wanted this one. I wanted Khethiwe. Weird name to give an English doll in a ball gown dress, but yeah, that was her name. If you laughhh? I kept Khethiwe for many years after that, still cellotaping her whenever needed. She wasn’t beautiful anymore. She wasn’t serving her purpose to me anymore. She was dangerous to me, and honestly, I couldn’t do much with her, but I kept her. It was the hardest thing to let go of.

You might think, “Ahh, it was just a doll. Throw it away already!” But that’s the thing. It wasn’t your doll, so you have no idea what that doll meant to me. See, maybe it’s because I’m a therapist that I think this way, but nothing is insignificant in therapy. If you tell me you need therapy because you lost your dog, I may not like pets, but I will not disregard your own uniqueness.

People struggle to let go of many things, and sometimes we have become so judgemental that we say, “But it’s been five years. Let go already!” It’s not for you to decide. Those of us who give advice to many people, be careful of imposing advice. Start by putting yourself in the position of the other person first. Letting go is a challenge for many people. From loss to grief, to addictions, to relationships, to failed projects, a whole lot! But it is very necessary.

I’m 30 now. Surely, I’ve grown to the age where losing a doll will not make me as sad as I was long ago. Maybe a bit, but definitely not enough to have me cellotaping a glass doll! There are things that you now find easy to let go of, right? But the fact that I feel that way about dolls doesn’t mean I feel that way about people. I hate losing people. I hate letting go of people but in some seasons I have to.

Some of us don’t mind letting go of people, so we judge those who do. Some get over things quickly, so we judge those who don’t. We hold people to our own biases. Almost as if we impose out emotional intelligence or dullness on each other. I eventually threw Khethiwe away when I realised that keeping her was costing us cellotape for school and that she was becoming a danger to my fingers. Listen, there is a cost to keeping what you should let go of.

That relationship that has made you so delusional that you want it to work by fire by force? You will pay with your sleep as you worry all night about whether it will work out. You no de sleep. You will live constantly on the edge. Those memories you have on your phone with that friend, and you know they are bad for you, but you refuse to lose the chat? It will cost you. The loss of many years, not letting go will cost you a longer period of pain.

I am an advocate for therapy, by the way. Not only because I help people in that regard, but also because I’ve seen it work. I see many things in therapy. Many. It gives me a strong feeling that many people should do it, for various reasons. I don’t need therapy for losing Khethiwe. You may not need therapy for losing a lover, but you may need it for losing a parent. Different experiences, different losses, different needs.

Let’s meet again tomorrow. This was a foundational blog to help us and bring us to the same understanding. There is a Khethiwe you must let go of. Deep down, you know this is true. And darling, Khethiwe can be anything & God cannot be excluded from this conversation . I love you, see you tomorrow. ❤️

If you read my blogs but have never met this  Wonderful Jesus that I’m always writing about,  you’d love to get to know Him, Or you know The Lord but have found yourself drifting far from Him, I would love to talk with you. Please send me an email  on yieldedcwcenter@gmail.com or simply comment, and I will reach out to you

Hey, my yielded people!!! You knowwww, while I was wrapping my head around the whole story of Jacob receiving a strategy from God to multiply his flock, I realised that God used dreams to communicate that strategy to him. Before we discuss today’s topic, I wanna say this: STOP GLORIFYING A BROKEN SLEEPING PATTERN! There are people who have insomnia or are sleep-deprived, and they have romanticised it so much. It’s not cute. YOU MUST SLEEP!

Funny enough, I used to be like that for years. I’m just not a sleepyhead, and I don’t sleep like I’m going to win a prize for it, but I REST. I am not sleep deprived. There’s a difference between not being someone who sleeps a lot and deliberately running yourself into the ground without proper rest.

For some people, your insomnia is because you’ve smoked or drank yourself into a disrupted sleeping pattern, or you have an insatiable addiction to social media, TV, or something else that keeps you awake when you should be sleeping. If God wanted to give you a dream, remember that this strategy was given directly to Jacob. If it were you, would you be in a position to receive it, or would you miss it because you’ve glorified sleepless nights?

I’m not saying sleeeeeep like a drugged person. I’m saying that some things need to be delivered directly to YOU. The man had wives! God could have told them, but guess what? This particular strategy had to be delivered directly to him. You like it when people tell you they had dreams about you? YOU COULD DREAM THEM YOURSELF! But when will you if you keep glorifying sleepless nights?

“Oh, some of us have insomnia.” GET HELP! We’re not going to clap for you. Please , if you need counselling, go for it. If you can afford to eat burgers every other day, put some of that money aside and deal with yourself. YES! Put some of those luxuries aside and deal with the internal noise that may be keeping you from sleeping. If you’re struggling with persistent insomnia, please seek appropriate medical help, too. This is not something to romanticise; it’s a health concern, and prolonged sleep deprivation can seriously affect your mental and physical well-being.

Structure your day in such a way that you can do your work, get enough sleep, and STILL have time for God. You cannot keep glorifying exhaustion and expect your body to keep cooperating with you . I feel like I just came with a whip this morning! But take it with a spoonful of sugar, and you will be okay. Let’s continue from what we discussed yesterday.

Here’s Mr Jac! He’s entered into a deal, in today’s business language, a business contract, with Laban, his uncle, who is also his business partner. They say, “Don’t do business with family.” Maybe when you read the whole story, you’ll understand why! But anyhoo, this deal seems to be unprofitable for Jacob because only a few lambs were speckled. The man was a risk-taker! They say business is for risk-takers. I don’t know, but I guess they are somewhat right.

Jacob goes to sleep and has a dream in which God shows him how to achieve the results he needs. How to multiply the lambs. How to grow the business. How to make a profit. How to succeed in the business and gain more from the contract than his uncle. How to turn the situation to his advantage. GUYS!!! The formula may look stupid to some of us, and we’d even wake up and tell ourselves, “I had such a stupid, silly dream!” Then we continue with our day, that’s IF we even remember our dreams.

Do you remember your dreams? Many people don’t, and they don’t even care! Do you see the risk? Do you see how God can communicate with you about the dangers around you, the direction to take, what to do, and even whom to marry, but you wake up, and the first thing on your mind is your debt? What if God was showing you how to come out of that debt? What if the very thing you dismissed as a silly dream was carrying an instruction, a strategy, or a warning you needed?

Forgetting dreams is a serious, serious problem! Imagine Jacob forgetting this dream. He might have left Laban’s house as a poor young man, with just a bit of this and that. But he woke up and vividly remembered what God had shown him. DON’T JOKE WITH YOUR DREAM LIFE! You don’t have to be a Joseph. Some people are dreamers by prophetic calling, but we all dream, too. Not necessarily in the same way, and not every dream is a message from God, but dreaming is a human experience.

Even people who do not worship God dream. Nebuchadnezzar had a dream, and Pharaoh had dreams, too. Why should YOU, as a believer, be careless about something that may be one of the ways God communicates with you? You have the Holy Spirit, and you can ask Him to help you remember and understand what you dream. WRITE YOUR DREAMS DOWN! The moment you wake up, before social media, before checking your messages, before allowing the day’s worries to flood your mind, write down what you remember. Even if it’s just a few details, WRITE THEM DOWN!

And pleeeeaaaseeee o , abeg , stop running to Google for dream interpretations as though every symbol has one universal meaning. Story for another day . Seek God, study His Word, pray for discernment, and test what you believe you have received. Not every dream is prophetic, and wisdom is required in interpreting them. I have SO MUCH to say, but let’s continue tomorrow!

READ JACOB’S DREAM BELOW. 👇🏽

Genesis 31:10–12 (KJV)

10 And it came to pass at the time that the cattle conceived, that I lifted up mine eyes, and saw in a dream, and, behold, the rams which leaped upon the cattle were ringstraked, speckled, and grisled.

11 And the angel of God spake unto me in a dream, saying, Jacob: And I said, Here am I.

12 And he said, Lift up now thine eyes, and see, all the rams which leap upon the cattle are ringstraked, speckled, and grisled: for I have seen all that Laban doeth unto thee.

If you read my blogs but have never met this  Wonderful Jesus that I’m always writing about,  you’d love to get to know Him, Or you know The Lord but have found yourself drifting far from Him, I would love to talk with you. Please send me an email  on yieldedcwcenter@gmail.com or simply comment, and I will reach out to you

I’d like to take a moment to thank each and every one of you for the beautiful birthday wishes and all the love you poured into me as I stepped into this big-girl age. I no be small girl anymore Sha. One of the things I did yesterday was reflect on my life, and something struck me so deeply: many of the people celebrating me are people I have, in one way or another, had the privilege of serving. Through counselling, leading the prayer group, writing blogs, or the many other things I do, a part of me has found its way into the lives of people around me.

I am grateful to be surrounded by such amazing people who would take time out of their day to send a message, make me smile, and remind me that I am loved. Not everyone gets to experience this kind of love, and I will never take it for granted. Thank you for making my birthday so special.

Now, I don’t know if you know this little secret about your sister, but I can almost effortlessly turn a picture into a story! Give me a beautiful piece of art or a random photograph, and my mind begins to create words, stories, and ideas around it. So I came across a picture on Pinterest, and it sparked a thought that I knew I had to share with you.

First things first, what is it that you do? What is your profession? What do you spend your time doing? What skills do you have? What are your hands occupied with? Imagine God wanted to bless you financially and said that the blessing would come through the work of your hands. Would He find something in your hands to bless? Is there a skill, a talent, a service, a business, or something you create that could become a channel through which that provision flows?

In other words, if God wanted to send money your way today through the work of your hands, would He find a channel through which that money could come? That is what this blog post is about: the work of our hands, the gifts we carry, and the channels we make available for the opportunities and blessings we pray for. So, I want you to look at the picture below and think about this question, what is in your hands?

Here’s a man who has entered into an agreement with his uncle that his wages will be the speckled and spotted lambs. Now, at first glance, this looked like a disadvantage because the non-speckled ones were many. I mean, I’ve seen more non-speckled than speckled lambs! Why would Jacob take such a risk? A money risk, guys? In this economy? Obviously, it was their economy, but my brother, you could work for all those years and walk away with just 20 lambs if you’re not careful!

At this point, Jacob has no idea how this will work out, but I believe God was about to show him something. And this is one of the things I love about God: He can give you an idea that turns into a source of income. It’s good to do business with God! In Genesis 31, Jacob recounts a dream in which God shows him what is happening with the flocks. God gives him insight into the situation, and Jacob acts on what he has been shown.

Now, imagine that! God knows how to help you develop a strategy that can turn things around for you. God knows how to inspire you to create a poster that will attract customers, but you’re a creative who has never thought to ask Him for help. God knows how to give you an idea that could transform your music career into something the world has never seen, but you have the best voice, so why would you need to ask God, right? So you sing for years and still be stuck with not even one original song, I’m not even throwing shade. It’s the truth.

This story of Jacob made me realise that sometimes, we may be limiting ourselves by failing to invite God into the work of our hands. We have a God who can give us wisdom, insight, creativity, and strategies even when the odds seem to be against us. Think about it: Laban was relying on what he could see and control, but Jacob had a relationship with God, who saw the bigger picture. While Laban thought he had the upper hand, God was at work in a way Laban could not have anticipated.

Your products can have the best ingredients, and people may love them, but have you asked God for wisdom on how to reach more customers? Those dresses you make? There could be a design you have never thought of, something fresh and unique that God can inspire you to create. That business you’re running? There may be a strategy you haven’t considered, a market you haven’t explored, or a different way of presenting your products that could make all the difference.

Jacob had a dream, received insight, and put what he had learned into practice. Before long, his wealth increased significantly. He was prospering through a strategy that, in his own account, involved God’s intervention. And I can’t help but ask, why do some of us seem stuck in business when we serve the same God who intervened in Jacob’s situation? Are we inviting Him into our work? Are we asking Him for wisdom? Are we making room for Him to inspire us, guide our decisions, and help us recognise opportunities?

My people, we need to learn to do business with God! Pray, yes, but also be willing to listen, learn, develop your skills, take action, and apply the wisdom He gives you. Don’t just ask God to bless the work of your hands; invite Him into the process of building that work. Jacob had a flock to tend, and we each have something in our hands. The question is, are we willing to let God show us what to do with it? Let’s continue tomorrow.

If you read my blogs but have never met this  Wonderful Jesus that I’m always writing about,  you’d love to get to know Him, Or you know The Lord but have found yourself drifting far from Him, I would love to talk with you. Please send me an email  on yieldedcwcenter@gmail.com or simply comment, and I will reach out to you