Hi everyone 😀. It’s been a really looooooooooong time here 🙈 and I miss you all 😭😭.
How have you been and how’s been everything with you? How did the pandemic treat you and how are you fairing now? I really hope you’re doing fine and well in this time🤗🤗.
I’m not going to act like I didn’t just zoom out without any notification 😥😞😔. I’m really sorry 🙇♀️🙇♀️ I left you hanging and expectant; because I promised you a continuation of the finance series. My mind played games with me all these while and guess what I played along and saw no reason to respect your love and commitment to this community. I’m sorry a million and one time 🙇♀️. God helping this won’t happen again, and if it would, it would be with your permission 😆😆. Please find a space in your heart to forgive me 🙏🙏. Thanks in advance for your forgiveness 😘.
In today’s blogpost, I’d be sharing some of the reasons why I took this long break and the lessons I learnt while on the break. It’s really going to be a long read that will make up for all the time I was away 😜😜.
Here’s the backstory:
After making the last three posts on the blog, I realised that there was an issue 😭. The number of readers on the blog had reduced drastically (like from 345 to 12)😭 and I was getting messages from people that the links were either not going through or redirecting them somewhere else. For someone who relies on results for motivation, this became an issue for me 😧😧. I reached out to people to help with the site and everyone kept saying there was no issue with it 😲. This further bothered me.
All the while this was happening, you know what the Devil kept whispering to me: ‘’Are you really sure it was God who told you to start this journey? Are you exactly sure you even know God? Are you sure you really know his voice and you heard Him correctly?’’ (It’s so funny that we had talked about hearing God here 😂😂). These were the questions the Devil plagued me with. To crown it all, beyond the blog, I had other personal issues that seemed not to be working as I thought at that time and little by little I found myself questioning my relationship with God, His words concerning my life, everything and everyone around me. It didn’t take long before I slipped into depression 😔. While battling with depression, I got sick too 🤒. After a while, I got better but I still couldn’t put my thoughts together to write anything. I was drained, tired and frustrated 😠. When I thought I was ready to come back here, I didn’t know where to start from because I was lost 😵; almost completely.
Then something happened. I started to get messages from people as to why there hasn’t been a blogpost. A lot of ‘’Are you okay? Are you fine? Are you shutting down the blog? (Well, I got to the point where I considered this though 🙈🙈). Is there something wrong?’’ and all. As the secretive person that I’m, I normally would’ve shoved off the question with some excuses but somehow, I found myself telling everyone I was depressed. Me ke (the goofy, troublemaker) how can I tell the whole world that I’m depressed 😏. Well, I did and I got a lot of encouragements, prayers and advice. I didn’t automatically feel better, I still don’t feel completely better but I’m much relieved, lighter and healing.
Here’s a few things I learnt from this experience:
1. Anyone can fall into depression. It doesn’t matter if you’re a Christian or not. Yes (I know some people will come for me for this statement, but I’d still say it). That you’re a Christian doesn’t make you less emotional or with less issues of life. What matters is what you do with the emotions and troubles you face and who’s in your boat with you.
2. The next time your friend tells you that they’re depressed, don’t be quick to condemn them, castigate them, shove their issue aside or decide to ‘’pray’’ for them. Pay close attention to them. Get them to share with you what’s bothering them until you get to the root of the issue. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying you shouldn’t pray for them. Pray very well for them but don’t leave their healings to prayers alone. Sometimes, all a depressed person need is a listening ear and a helping hand.
3. Even when you can’t see results, keep pushing. Sometimes, the results of your labour might not be evident but you just need to keep pushing. Here I was, paying attention to metrics from the blog thinking I wasn’t doing anything, meanwhile, the community was growing and I couldn’t see it. I was depriving people of relationship/community while wallowing in self-pity 😔.
4. If you find yourself in any troubled situation or circumstance, pray and seek help until you feel better. Open up to the people around you. Seek professional help if needs be. Don’t leave your situation in the hands of prayer alone. God gave men gifts and gave you the gift of men so that you’ll not be stranded. Just ensure you don’t keep to yourself 🙏🙏.
5. Consistency is KEY. I think I’ve heard and said these words to myself too much that I’m not getting its message again 🙈. The more you do something, the better you get at it. I stopped writing the blogpost ahead of time and so when this experience started I had nothing to fall back on and couldn’t pick up easily. Part of why I’m informing you ahead that, the Zoe you know, might not resume early 😂.
6. The community of people you’ve around you is very important. Sometimes, it’s hard to pray and all you just want to do is talk to a friend, get a warm hug/cuddle (not now though, there’s Covid-19 😂😂). If you don’t have the right set of people around you, you may be misunderstood, ill-treated and might not get the right help you need; things might just get worse. I’m grateful for everyone around me; my family, friends, loved ones, Zoe team members and readers. You’re all amazing and I really appreciate you 💕💕.
7. God’s word is always true and doesn’t fail. Even when you can’t understand it, even when you can’t see the expected result, even when you don’t know when it’ll happen, just keep trusting His words. It took me about a month or so, before I was able to pick a little understanding from this experience. That bit, I picked was enough to encourage me to keep pushing.
8. Your relationship with God has always been key and is still key to your success in life. During this experience, at some points it was so hard to pray, until I almost completely forgot to even share whispers and random conversations with God and this almost cost me my relationship with God. No matter how hard it gets, keep pushing; even if it’s a whisper or a random conversation.
All things happen for a reason and we keep getting stronger with each experience of life 😊. Thanks so much for reading till this point. I really appreciate you and do not take you for granted 😘😍. Thanks for your love and support 🤗.
Zoe is back; Bigger, Better and Stronger 💪. I love you and hope to see you next week 🤗.
P.S: I didn’t forget my Bible, I wanted to write this straight from my heart 😜.
