Career advice Mavis Braga lives by

 This is a feature that was done by MonoChrome Magazine, a Namibian based magazine in January 2015.  For more follow this link: https://monochromemagazineblog.wordpress.com

Mavis Pombili Braga Elias is a Co-Founder of Ehaveco Events, a Namibian based initiative focused on charity, woman empowerment and at helping people and businesses realize their full potential.  She serves as Executive chairperson of the board.

She also works on a charity project called “Love is Charity” founded in 2014. In the year 2011, she joined Radio Energy whilst pursuing her studies at the Polytechnic of Namibia (now known as NUST) towards a Bachelors in Civil Engineering. With this all simultaneously at play, she also holds a part-time job at Denchi Consulting Engineers.

We wanted to know why and how she manages to keep so busy. This is what she had to say: 

“The one thing our First lady said on her Masters of Success interview, was that “A high performance individual, ensures they lead a high performance lifestyle.” This is to say that if you want to be set apart in your journey and attain success, what are you doing every day to ensure you get the results?

Now, I hate mornings with every part of my soul. Every morning I need to fight myself out of bed, such that I sometimes have thoughts like, “do I really need this job?’ I have this theory that if life started at 10am I would be the hardest working citizen in this country. Nonetheless, it is during these times that I am reminded about what Madam Geingos said, “I am a high performance individual”.

I always have my vision in sight and I love looking forward. I have cast out my vision, written it on paper and every day I do bit by bit to get to my dreams. The lesson I learnt along the way is to enjoy every minute of it. There was a time I was so knee deep in work, I had no time for friends or family. I had a routine that literally comprised only of work, school and sleep. It resulted in a nervous breakdown during the worst time possible, the end of semester (exam time). I could not afford to be in bed resting, but my body was exhausted. It is from then on that I decided that success is not worth my health, and I will have fun to get to where I envision myself. I think that I worked as hard as I did, because I feared mediocrity. The thought scared me and in turn I worked myself to sheer exhaustion. It is important to strike a balance. It took that breakdown to fully understand and see that family is important, if anything it is more important than your dreams and ambitions.

If I am to give someone career advice, it would be the simply, ‘no condition in life is permanent.’ You always have the power to change any situation in your life. Knowing and understanding the power you have is essential, because fear of the unknown can sometimes cripple potential. The fear to; start that business, or quit that job that makes you unhappy, or go back to school. Life is too short to not see out your dreams. The beauty in it is that you can set small goals, that lead you to the bigger goal. This ensures that you feel like you are moving forward, because all too often we feel like we are pushing and working yet there are no results being yielded.

The one thing that my father told me in the year 2014 is that, ‘Do not be obsessed with success, but rather become obsessed with what will make you successful.” This quote has become what I live by, such that I make a conscious effort to forget about the perks that come with being successful and rather make an effort to enjoy the work that will lead me to the said success. It ensures that you enjoy what you are doing, without focusing on the rewards. I have come to realize that the more I simply enjoy the work, the more reward comes as a result. Far too often, we spend our time slaving away and not enjoying what we are doing, and wind up living miserably. Under the illusion that one day it will all be worth it. For the most part it is true, because you will most likely achieve the set out dream, but what happens when you don’t? All that labor, hard work and misery for nothing? The least you can do is enjoy the journey.

What I will be trying out this year, thanks to Afra Shimming-Chase is what they call a vision board. This is typically a board where you creatively lay out what you will achieve, whether long term or short term goals.

Why we love Mavis?

Style- I want to laugh so hard at this. My style is so basic, I am your Mr. Price girl. I literally live for the Stuttafords 25% sale. In truth though, I am currently working to revamp my wardrobe so that it goes in line with the image I am building. Growing up I had a love for skirts and anything short, as it was what I was most comfortable in. However, age doesn’t allow you to gallivant in town in shorts and a tank top. The greatest struggle is that I look so different on stage, to what I would look like on an ordinary day, almost as though I am selling dreams.

Passion – I love doing charity work. It gives me the greatest satisfaction in life. I cannot begin to express the feeling that comes with knowing that you helped make a difference in someone’s life. Reading, goes among my top passions. I read passionately. I recall back in school, I read so much my teachers would confiscate my novels before each class period. Unfortunately, I no longer have much time to lounge around with a novel all day. I recently read a trilogy I thoroughly enjoyed. Not to mention the books I recently got from Uncle Spikes book exchange – I read this particular trilogy called “The girl with the dragon tattoo” by Stieg Larsson in high school and just could never find the books. Until recently, I was so happy!

Activities – does sleep count? I rarely get to sleep. I believe that I can sleep a week straight. Wait, I need to stress how much I love sleep. Such a luxury and commodity that I cannot afford. Else, I am a religious church goer. Religious, because I ensure I do not miss a Sunday. It does something for my spirit that I simply always have to go back. This actually got me thinking, what do I do for fun? I can honestly say I do not know. I enjoy MCing, but that’s still work. Oh, family game nights! Epic fun! When I am home, game nights are simply too much fun. The beauty is that I do that with the people I love most.

Advice – The greatest piece of advice I ever got was from Daisry Matias. She said, ‘Your feet can not take you where your mind has never been.”

Learn a little bit more about Mavis with this quick quiz!

Motivational Speech

Upon compiling this speech, I felt a great surge of fear, inadequacy and an emotion I cannot put a name to – a great feeling that was both overwhelming and fulfilling. I disclose these things here because I am not to create or fabricate an image of someone who understands what I am doing standing in front of you, because truth of the matter is that I do not.

I do not have a story that speaks of the struggles I endured trying to pay for my own school fees, I do not have a story of drug addiction and victoriously leaving the life style behind, I do not have a story of an abusive parent, because these are the stories that most inspire and liberate, because these are the stories that are most related to. These are the stories that make the heroes of our nation. I look on with great awe at people who have beat the odds and have come up on top despite having had the most difficult circumstances to grow up in. It is with this that I came to the conclusion that I have absolutely no excuse to not  make it in life and it is from that that I derived the topic on which I will share with you tonight.

The real you versus the you people see

See all too often the judgement placed on our lives becomes what defines us. Such that what people say about you becomes your reality. Allow me to be absolutely blunt but when people call you worthless, inadequate, born to become nothing, a slut, a whore or simply lazy. The more these things are spoken into your life, the more they start to become your reality. It is the same with having someone compliment you and tell you that you are absolutely talented; you start to see yourself in that light. When people give praise to your achievements, it creates a level of pride that in turn boosts your self esteem.

Growing up I was looked at as the girl that is far too outspoken and has a personality that screams ‘will fall pregnant at 16’. I am not even entirely sure what about an eleven year old can make one believe that they are prone to fall pregnant at a young age. Here is what is interesting about the fact that people constantly told me I look like I would fall pregnant young. I believed them. I started to believe that I was a wild teenager who was far too experimental with life, and far too outspoken, but what about being experimental and outspoken directly equates to actually ending up in bed with someone? It was not until I was in grade 7, when Mrs. Brandt from this very Oranjemund Private School told me that I should one day return to thank her for having believed in my potential that I started to view myself differently. Let me give you a background on Mrs. Brandt, she is a woman who was feared by most scholars and was as tough as nails. She taught math and would reward you for good work. Being rewarded by her must be what a noble peace prize winner feels like, because she made you feel special. Now, for a 12 year old me to be told that she believes in me was huge. It was like getting both a Christmas gift and a birthday gift in one year, in a black house hold. That was the turning point in my life. I started to believe that indeed I do have potential. It was from where my love for math was born and it was from where I never quit no matter how hard it got.

When I went to high school I become rebellious as a defence mechanism. Again I was seen as anything but intelligent. I was too mature for my age and in turn I was prone to get into tussle of words with girls far older then me which earned me a name that no one can be proud of. I used it as a shield so that people could not get close enough to hurt me. While they so eagerly believed I was good for nothing, I went on to lead societies, I was a leader in Delta for Christ (ironic right) and I become the chairperson of the history society and excelled in my school work, all the while letting the outside world believe that I had an attitude, which was not exactly false. I recall a day in my maths class in grade 11, when the teacher was telling us to drop maths higher level and simply do ordinary level because we weren’t good enough. She then asked us to tell her what we plan on studying in university so as to decide whether we should stay on higher level or move to ordinary level. I told the class that I want to study civil engineering, the class laughed and said I was far too girly and not nearly smart enough. Now, my character is such that if you tell me I cannot do something, I will go out there and show you just how wrong you are.

Only, when I told my biological father this (I have two dads, biological and step) he told me that I was too girly for something like engineering. So when someone who is that close to you does not believe in your dreams it tarnishes the confidence in you. It breaks down something with in you, because this is someone you trust. This is not a class mate who wants to poke fun at me, this is my father. But since my character is such that, if someone tells me I cannot do something I go out and I show them just how well I can do it, I went and enrolled at the Polytechnic of Namibia as an engineering student. The doubt people had in my abilities was the first hurdle, the second was believing in myself, because once people have such a perception of you, you tend to do double the work to prove both yourself and them wrong. First year as an engineering student was both hell on wheels and sheer heaven. A paradox yes. I loved the challenge, but the challenge was far more difficult than I expected. However, having passed grade 12 with flying colors I grew cocky and underestimated just how difficult it really is. So yes you guessed it, I failed math!

The one subject I was so sure I could pass, well there is grade 11 math and then there’s engineering math. Two worlds apart, but having failed math was the greatest blessing I ever received. It knocked me straight back down to earth and showed me that, it is not ambition that makes one pass grades, but hard work. I had to go through that, sheer embarrassment because for a minute there my dad looked as though he may have been right and also it made me realize that it was not about what people say you can and cannot do, but about how much you want something regardless of what people may say.

I had a complex that too needed altering, I for so long lived behind a shield warding off people, that it almost became exactly who I am. I struggled to get people to see the real me, because what I portrayed became more evident. My closest friends hated me at first until they got to know me. What good can one drive from being disliked until you let people in. So the real me became a shadow if what people saw on the outside. It started to outweigh who I really am.

The best of ourselves is usually masked behind layers and layers of protection. Then we grow offended when people label us things we are not. I am by no means saying that you are to be so consumed by the world and what they say about you, but wouldn’t it be great if people didn’t always get the wrong impression of you. Such that, a girl can be wearing mini-skirts and crop tops and will get offended when guys do not want a serious relationship. The way you dress is not to define who you are, but it is a reflection of your character. Men will speak about women with derogatory terms and expect to find a good woman, yet good girls tend to look right past them. The same analogy applies to those who are simply ill judged. That you can be an A+ student, yet people simply assume you ate boring and discard you as a nerd.

Truth of the matter is that one cannot dictate how people relate to you, or how they judge you. What you can dictate is what’s on the inside. What potential lies on the inside is completely up to you. Regardless of what people may have said or how it is they perceive you. If you want something, go and get it. If you believe you can be something, do it. Impossible has the word possible in it. Let me tell you a story:

There was a couple who got married and the man promised his wife that he would be wealthy one day and that she should just trust him.

Lesson 1: Believe in your dreams.

He told her that if he didn’t get to a place where he can provide for her well, she should leave him. This man went from interview to interview, pitched ideas to banks for financing and near some did all he could to see out his dreams. He wanted success so much, he went with everything he had.

Lesson 2: Tirelessly working for what you believe in.

His wife stuck by his side and loved him. She watched him slave after his dreams day after day. I bet you are all expecting me to tell you how his dreams came true because he was diligent. No, one day he came home to his wife. He asked his wife to leave him because he wasn’t going to see out his dreams and couldn’t see them materializing. He believed she deserved better, because he was ready to give up. His wife, stayed. She told him that she refused to leave him, simply because of something as petty as wealth.

Lesson 3: Money isn’t everything.

To cheer him up she decided, let’s play a game.  The game was to incorporate his visions and dreams. They decided to get houses involved, because his passion was property. They got money involved so that they could trade the houses. They added property, so that one could buy the property to build on. They got a bank, they got a dice. They involved taking chances, and they involved going to prison to ensure that there were consequences for ones actions. They ensured that you derived a 20 000$ income if you could pass begin. They played this game and realized that it was actually fun and embodied everything he wanted. They decided to get funding and get it played around the world.

Lesson 4: You need a team who can restore your faith when its down.

They were turned down by potential investors, because apparently the game was too difficult to understand. They didn’t give up and searched for funding till eventually someone bought into their dreams. Today the game is played all over the world, and most of you have played it, some of you even have it in your homes. It is known as monopoly. Today Mr. Charles Darrow is to whom we owe a lot of families coming together to play.

Lesson 5: your dreams will come true, sometimes just not in the way you envisioned it.

I decided to tell you this story because most of us are down in our luck, simply unbelieving and have somewhat given up the possibility of ever seeing out our potential, because we have been led to believe it is impossible. Yes, you may be unable to pay for your education. Yes, your parents may not want you to go study what you are really passionate about. Yes, you have wasted opportunities that were given to you. Yes, everyone around you is doing well and you are not. Or maybe, yes you are doing well but the weaknesses in your personal life affect your career. Yes, these are all issues that we face. But these are only limiting factors, the hurdles in the way. Everyone has the things that set them back. But here’s the good news, you have identified them. Now you can work on them and past them.

The lessons I leave with you today are:

Lesson 1: Belief in your dreams

Lesson 2: Tirelessly working for what you believe in

Lesson 3: Money isn’t everything.

Lesson 4: You need a team who can restore your faith when its down.

Lesson 5/; your dreams will come true, sometimes just not in the way you envisioned it.

Above speakers at the night of inspiration from left: Mavis Elias, First Lady of the Republic of Namibia Madam Monica Geingos and Vincent Shimutukweni 

Speech: Night of Inspiration (Oranjemund)

Good Morning Her Excellency Madam Geingos, The Principal Mr. Neiwoudt, honourable guests, protocol observed and last but most certainly not least, ladies and gentlemen. I come from a time when Mr. Meyer was the principal, when Mr. Neuwoudt taught wood work and was vice principal. A time where we did not have a fence around the school, yet we were obedient enough to not simply walk out, a time where being scholar patrol was like getting a gift from Santa, a time where being the one to blow the whistle at scholar patrol duty, was pretty much the same as making president I presume. A time where being on the A team of the netball team was a great achievement. A time where school tours to cape town where what we lived for.

A time where going to buy 3 dollar chips from the place behind Nightcall was a daily routine, buying wilsons from Savannah was a must and having money for the game shop was what life was really about. Coming back to Oranjemund takes me back several years, enough to have me reflect on the journey life has taken me and the journey I know you too will take. Oranjemund is a small town, but this is the greatest blessing you will encounter. A factor you will come to appreciate long after you leave and a factor that teaches you one of the essential life lessons, which is family.

When I speak about family, I do not only speak about your immediate family, but about each and every person who plays a role in your life. Your friends, your teachers and each and every person who influences your life. I want to teach you of three concepts that one of my mentors TD Jakes taught me, your destiny people, your journey people and your road people. In life you will come across these three people, and it is essential that you learn at a young age who these people are to ensure you walk your life journey.

Your Destiny people are the people you will need to see out each and every one of your dreams. These are the people who will help you reach your destination. These are what we call today your ride or dies. These people will stick by you when the weather is sunny, when it rains and hails. They will pick you up when you fall, wipe your tears when you cry and hold your hand when all is dark. These people are essential to meet, each and everyone of us need to meet our destiny people because they will help you go where you need to go.  These are the people who will tap you on the shoulder and say “hallo, wrong direction. I think you are going the wrong way”. These people are sometimes already in our lives and we simply need to identify them. These people we call your destiny people.

Then you find your Journey people. These ones one can easily mistake to be your ride or dies. They will be with you when you get that promotion. They will be there when all is beautiful and light. They will want to be associated with you and seen as your friend. These people are what we call “here to party with you, but not here to cry with you”. Because they spend so much time with you, because they would like to see where you are going in life, they start to look like friends. And in most cases they are, but you need to be careful to ensure that you do not mistake them for your destiny people. The journey people tend to disappear after sometime. Their interest goes away, and when you need them most they are nowhere to be seen.

Then you find your Road people. These are dangerous, because they secretly route for your failure. They do not want to see you do well. They will smile with you, and even keep you close because they want to see what you are doing, with who you are doing it and are you doing well at it. These people are usually jealous of you and wish they had what you have. They speak badly of you behind your back. They usually don’t last long. They can also leave great damage and be the worst influence in your life. These people are what we call your road people.

In life we all have to travel a journey. On that journey you are guaranteed to meet 

1. Your destiny people 

2. Your journey people 

3. Your road people. 

It is extremely important that you find out which category the people in your life fall in, because this will determine how far you go in life. The people you hang with are very important. They influence many of your decisions and can either break you, or build you. When you look at your friends, are they the kind of friends that encourage you to study and do well? Or are they the kind of friends that do not do their homework? When you look at the people you spend most of your time with, are these the kind of people who tell you, you are smart, or do they break you down and tell you, you are lazy? Stupid?

You need to take a close look at the people you let influence you, because they become your family outside home. The same way you have a family at home with brothers and sisters, and parents who ensure you are fed and taken care of. Is the same thing you should have when you come to school. People who care about you and are real friends.

Choose them wisely. 

Just in case I don't make it

I used to believe that if I wished upon a shooting star that everything I wished upon would come true. That all I need to do was close my eyes and make a wish, “I wish I wish with all my heart that I can pass all my grades and not fail one single grade”. I believed that these wishes would come true and when I passed grade 12 without having failed a grade, I believed I was invincible, as my wish had come true. It is these exact stars that I used to look at when I was grade 3 and my mum told me that if you count the stars at night you would pee in bed. I held on to this myth for the better part of my child hood, and when I walked with my mother at night, hand in hand I made sure that when I looked at the stars the number 1 2 3, were forbidden and I would not pee in bed. What is amazing is that these stars I had come to believe in at age 14, were the very things that were my worst nightmare at age 7. This is how life works, sometimes the greatest fears we have can become our very own wishing star. The areas we dare not go, dare not look, could very well hold our greatest potential.

Good Evening ladies and gentlemen, my name is Mavis Elias a third final year civil engineering student, part time radio personality at energy 100fm, engineer in training at Denchi Consulting engineers, founder of Love is Charity, Co-Founder of Ehaveco Events Management and last but most certainly not least, the greatest dreamer you will ever encounter. It gives me great pleasure to greet my First Lady Madam Geingos, Honorable guests and last but most certainly not least ladies and gentlemen.

I used to believe that playing small was the only way to ensure that I didn’t get hurt trying to reach my goals. I believed in playing small, because it ensured that just in case I do not make it, I did not give it my very best anyway. The thought of giving everything I have only to then fail, was terrifying. Because if I didn’t give everything of myself, it ensured that I was not a failure and I could walk away knowing that ‘I could have tried harder”. So in the year 2011, I walked into the gates of the Polytechnic of Namibia, with 50 points attained in grade 12 feeling smarter than Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton and Angela Merkel put in a pod. I thought that after the way I passed grade 12, no one and nothing could stop the greatness that I am. See, this is when life gives you a kick in the stomach, to get you back to your level and a punch in the face to have you fall to the ground and eat dust. I was to be studying civil engineering and I thought I had arrived, I mean what could go wrong at this point in time. Well, nothing much except this is engineering and you fail math when you get too cocky. So, I failed math in my first semester at school. Imagine the disappointment. Only, I knew that I had not given it everything I had so I was okay. But I had given it 95% of everything I had, yet I still failed. This begged the question, am I able to do engineering? What if I am too feminine? What if I just was not smart enough to pass the modules? I had a dozen questions every day I went to school. I recall that things got so bad in my first term at school that I studied every nights at the school library till 11 in the evening and when I got home, no one at home even tried say a word to me, not hallo and not good night, for so stressed was I. I was always sulking and knee deep in my school books. My parents looked at me with pity, I grew circles under my eyes, and still I did not pass math. One day a friend of mine who saw how much school was draining me, and asked, “Mavis, are you sure you are cut out to do engineering? Maybe you should do what you are good at and change to communications.” I walked around for weeks, pondering that perhaps indeed I was not smart enough. After all engineering is a male dominated field, with the countries smartest who make it. I felt inadequate, and the truth is I wondered whether my friend was right. What if my best was not good enough?

This is the question that many of us face when deciding which path to walk in our lives. What happens when your dreams are too far too reach and require more then you have?

The answer to that lies in each and every one of us. I cannot tell you anything you do not already know, because the truth is that we are all cut out to do exactly as we are destined to do. "You are perfectly created to see out all that you may put your mind to." I failed math, but I didn’t quit. Only one thing changed, my attitude. I realized that for so long, I used to give 80% of myself in my work, I would study, but not with all I had just in case I failed. I would write exams, but not with all I had just in case I failed. Just in case I failed became my worst enemy. "It started to paralyze my potential."

The first time I fully understood this was at a time that had nothing to do with engineering. I woke up one morning and decided that I was not going to say that I want an orphanage one day. I have a passion for charity and my entire life I work as hard as I do to ensure that I am one day wealthy enough to afford an orphanage. Then it occurred to me that how can I one day at say age 35 say I want and orphanage when I have no background in doing charity work. Is single handedly raised money for over 120 children and organized a fun day for 2 months. I for the first time gave everything I had to something and it was a tremendous success. After that I went to an interview to do the Namibian annual music awards, at age 21. I was way too young, and didn’t have nearly enough experience to qualify for them. The presenters were required to be 26, have experience and be skilled. I actually did not stand a chance against the people who have been in the industry for years. But I prayed before I entered the audition room and told God that however this goes, I will give it everything I have. I did, and I got the part. It near some looked impossible, and between school and the jobs I do and the constant rehearsals, it almost looked as though I was not going to make it. Such that I was writing two exams every day the week before the NAMAS. I worked tirelessly and NBC was so accommodating, I was supposed to travel to Swakop the Monday to start preparing but my lecturer changed the exam date to Wednesday. I hadn’t been on a stage since the audition and the directors were becoming edgy and wanted to replace me, but when God has placed a destiny in your life, no circumstance and no situation can take it away from you. No one. So I traveled the Wednesday and was scheduled to rehearse at 11 but I was 4 hours late. Later that night after not having rehearsed, my partners told me we are to go home and that we are not rehearsing that night. As I get to the hotel, I get a phone call and they ask “why did you leave? Do you want us to replace you Mavis?’ I was constantly being told that I am replaceable. But I knew my destiny, and so I hosted.

:Whenever the odds are against you and you feel inadequate and fearful, it is in those times that you are to push harder, to push against the odds." The men who built the world we know today had to dig deep. We speak of men like John D. Rockefeller, a man who looked at the lack of light and wondered how he could provide light at night and invented the use of lamp oil. Men like Thomas Edison who figured out how to generate electricity and invented the light bulb. Men like Cornelius Vanderbilt who built the first railways connecting the whole of America. Men like Martin Luther King who saw that the black man ought to have the right to vote. Women like Princess Diana who had a heart for charity. Women like Margaret Thatcher who showed that a women can lead and take stance. Women Angela Merkel who lead on of the world’s most powerful nations. Whatever you art is, wherever your talent may lie, you need to find your niche. What sets you apart, is it your thinking? Your passion? Your drive? Whatever it is that pushes you beyond the limits of your imagination. It’s said that the greatest people to grace this earth are those that look at life with a different perspective. Many of us have so many brilliant ideas that we put in the back pocket. We place them there because we believe a time will come when we can become great? When is that time when the time for you to be the greatest you is now? Why do we limit ourselves when there are so many resources at our disposal.

The saddest thing I have seen to date is how our youth waste away their potential. You read the papers and see that more than 50% of our children are failing grade 12? When we are supposed to be teaching them that they can be whatever they want, that a degree is but a stepping stone. That you can go on to do your masters. Get a PHD, become a professor. Why do we not mold scientists, inventors? Why do we program our kids to become wife’s and husbands and have a house and car? When life has so much to offer. Yes We cannot all be the Sam Nujoma’s of our generation, or the Monica Geingos or the Harold Harold Pukewitz of our generation. But can you imagine the revolution that would take place if our people would see out their destiny. If you are meant to be a great teacher, teach with great ambition and become the greatest teacher this generation has ever seen. If you are called to be a boiler maker, become the greatest boiler maker that this generation has ever seen. If you are called to be a house wife, become the greatest mom and wife that this generation has ever seen. Not everyone is called to be at the fore front but each and every one of us has been called to be someone? "Find your purpose and work on it, perfect it." But whatever you do, do not give half of yourself, you waste away great potential, and you waste away and asset to our community and you waste away what you and I both know you can be, a great you. A 100% of you.

He just isn't

There is nothing in the world that can prepare anyone for the kind of pain that comes with love rejected. It is not something that you are taught at school, it is not something that will be easier to take in because you have heard of people who have gone through this, it is simply something that hurts in ways that are indescribable.

Love is beautiful, it comes in the form of sunshine and rainbows. "Promises painted in caramel chocolate and dripping with possibilities." It is simply beautiful. When it knocks at your door step it will tear down all walls of protection you have built. It will tear down insecurities of having your heart stripped and played. It will ensure that it is dressed in exactly the kind of way beauty is dressed. Showing only white, without a trace of a smudge and sometimes the smudge will be there, but as is human nature, a blind eye is turned. For they say love is blind, they weren't kidding.

This is how love found me. Wondering about my business, paying no mind as to who wants to enter my life and sure that no one would unless I allow them to. It left me believing that I was in control. That I made the calls on when my heart would surge with an unwavering love. Pouring out into the person I believed I would not come to love. He looked like a friend, smiled like a friend and listened like a friend. I made it clear I was not ready to love and had been sufficiently hurt from previous relationships. He smiled and was all for it. Only I didn’t see his hands reach for my heart, didn’t see his eyes melt my frozen heart and his words strip me of all restrain. I didn’t see how his promises started to carve a future I neither knew I wanted or craved to have. He called it the vision. The pathway to where we could go, the road that was to be traveled with the promise of forever and the road that would one day cause me more pain then was bearable.

He caressed my heart, until I gave in. With all of me and with no restrain - I loved in a way I have never loved. He entered my heart and made himself comfortable. Only there is comfort vs. commitment. Comfort came, commitment never followed. 

For as long as you are gone. I will write.

Corinthians

When I was little I used to look at the sky and I wondered, who was the man who colored the sky so well that they left no open areas uncolored? I wondered what type of large paper was the skies that you could draw in the clouds so perfectly and get the shading of the blue skies so perfect. I would look at the sky with absolute wonder and it was magnificent. I did not understand how anyone could be so artistic.

"I grew up to realize that that magnificence is God."

That only He could be that good an artist that can get the shading of a white cloud to that level of perfection. I started to understand that only God could draw the mountains and make brown look beautiful. That rock could look solid and not hurtful, that the brown shrubs you see out the window of fast moving car can indeed be beautiful. That nature is just a drop of the magnificence that is the world and its creation. It was not long before my mind started to wonder how the world had no end. I could not fathom how the world worked. That it could go on for all eternity with no end. So I would place my hand up in the air and look at it. That I can say this is where it ends and indicate it with my palm, but on the back side of my palm was more space. So I would try to think that maybe after some place in the galaxy, there just ceased to exist space after that. That you could travel the space and at some point there just was no more space left and the world came to an abrupt halt. I could not for the life of me begin to understand it. This is how I came to believe in God. That there had to be a force so much larger than me that earth was just another planet. That something so large could create the sun.

When I heard the song redeemer, it just put my thoughts in words. That someone out there could tell the sun where to stand in the morning, told the ocean you can only come this far and showed the moon where to hide till evening. That the complexities of life and the things our minds cannot wrap itself around must be created by God.

2 Cor  4:18

As any human I doubted and questioned. As any human I read the Bible and sheer disbelief would rock my world, and it was not until I realized that if I cannot understand creation, I surely cannot understand the God and His complexity. That there must be a revelation that takes place that only God Himself can descend upon me. It then started to unfold and I realized that as small a human as I am, that I cannot begin to understand all of it, because it is larger than life. Only, that is looking at the world. Upon closer inspection and looking at my life. My life is a living testimony, so great I cannot begin to place anything in a mold. There are things I have gone through and got through that have Gods hand written all over it. There are things I have survived that have Gods hand written all over them. There blessings in my life that simply have Gods hand written all over it.

The lessons and journey of getting to know God is not easy. Then I relate it to all relationships, none are easy. The thing is, as is with any relationship, it requires work, dedication and a want to have it work that in turn has one put in the effort and energy required to see it through. Nothing worth having comes easy and as is with a relationship with God. The one ultimate relationship that changes lives and renews minds. The one relationship that will stick with you through your entire life. People will come, people will go, but one factor is unchanging. God. Unmovable. God. Unshakable. God.

"My walk with Christ has been one heaven of a ride."

It has been tough, dark and simply soul wrenching. I find myself fighting the Lord, I find myself fighting myself. And in the midst of it all He loves me regardless of how disobedient I may be. I have gone through life, pretentious perfection on the outside when there was a war inside. I have gone through times when all I wanted to do was be left alone, to live my life of sin, because Christianity was simply too hard. Each and every time without fail, God would wait on me. Patiently wait on me to come to my senses and with arms wide open, He would welcome me back. With a smile and warm hug. The intensity of how great God is must be a reflect in all our lives. No earthly relationship can withstand so much with an unchanging of feelings, Gods love is consistent. 

No longer running from self

For so long I have been running. Running as though through a maze, never able to find the beginning nor the end, because the truth is I too do not know how this all started.

How one is able to bear a bright smile and wear my non-existent feelings on a sleeve. Always smiling, nodding and pretending that everything is okay. Like books on a shelf, I dust the cover, having you read my book by its cover. Yet, if you are to open the pages and read between the lines you will realize I am everything, so many things, but okay is not one of them.

I am more then happy to tell you about how hard working I am, how I believe that ambition is not inborn but worked for. I am more then happy to listen to you and motivate you from the thousand things I have been through. Painting pictures of embedded hard work and drawing images of the life I wish to have, long to be and can't wait to live. Yet, at no point in time am I ever open to letting you know what really goes on inside. That I would rather curl up in a ball and go back to sleep then tell you that I have childhood issues, that I have a void inside that I can't seem to fill or that I run from myself more often than I wish to admit.

I will never tell you of the childhood fears I faced. That never wanting to be alone and running from myself is not something that developed in my teenage years, but something that became apart of me at a tender age. That I as always so afraid of being alone that my mother thought I pretended. She once locked me in a room and I ended up tearing my clothes. It was then that she realized I was truly terrified of being with my own thoughts, that they tormented me with images I never want to have to utter for fear that they may come true. This continued into my teenage years, such that I would bribe my little sister into sleeping in my room, anything other than me being alone. I used to think it had something to do with having my male cousin creep up on me at night, almost raping me. See, when you run from self, you believe it to be anything external, other then internal. You will yourself to believe that there is nothing wrong with you on the inside, but it is all on the outside. Such that when in finally dawns on you that you are flawed, it leaves you wanting to run to the ends of the earth in the hope of never returning again.

I am flawed. I have issues on the inside that I wish I did not need to address. I have a void inside that grew by the years. It is there, plain as black is from white. Vivid, staring and engulfing. It threatens to tear my life apart. Crushing relationships, taking friendships and ruining opportunities. This void can send me back to bed at 10 am, anything then face myself. It will have me text up anyone at 1 am, anything but face myself.

"Knowing better, wanting better, yet never being able to grasp the said better. "

I always wanted to be perfect. Humanly perfect. Do well in school, date my childhood sweetheart till marriage, go to church and just make myself proud. Live a life that is a reflection of what is going on on the outside, as is equally on the inside. Yet, I am anything but..

Today I start this journey of sheer honesty. Today I will teach myself and will myself into being better. Journeying towards the person I not only want to be, but the person I will grow to be. I am broken, but I can be fixed by me.