DEAR LORD

I write this because I really fail to comprehend the actions I must do to meet up with your expectations Lord. Now I feel I had done all in my power to make the heavens smile and proud. See Lord, see all around me, see the struggles my family encounters, see? Do you see the challenges I go out to face each day? Do you realize how those can influence the ideas of the mind? Do you see LORD? I know you do for you are omnipresent and omniscient. I had done all in my power to keep my head up high and believe in your words and your existence, but with all the struggle. My faith sinks in the bottom of a deep ocean. I had believed in you because I heard and read of how great you are and people who praise your name had succeeded in life.

My mother left this world, you took her away from us. She left behind a war. We can never achieve victory over without her. See Lord, she had the magic in her hands to keep our home alive, the power to keep my father sane and mostly keep me inspired for life. She is gone now, gone to the lands far, far away. We cannot retrieve her magic nor resurrect her to perform her astonishing doings. However, through all that, I had remained faithful and loyal to your name. I had this belief and confidence that maybe you had a purpose for your doings and that you had a plan.

I remained faithful and loyal each day. I remained with that belief father. I had done so in constant prayer and going to church, but my struggles had not weakened Lord, rather grew stronger. Still, I remained, holding onto that belief that someday you’ll redeem me and elevate me, Lord. Without my mother, I felt lost in this world. My home became a house of sorrow, shame and cries of the soul Lord. My father lost his sanity for he had lost what had been the mere reason for his wisdom. I realised the opportunity to lift my family from this with your assistance by my side. I worked hard each day Lord and there’s not a day I did not pray for a better outcome of my efforts. I felt like life was beginning to welcome me into the light, and all my hard work paid off in the end. But it was not long, I felt my faith being tested again, for a reason only your lord knows. 

My family was drowning in the struggles of the world, I felt the weight of the pressure aggravating on my shoulders. Was I cursed, lord? Was it witchcraft Lord? Was it you Lord? I ask because I am at a loss for answers or was I punished for sinning unconscious. What is it, lord? I look at my father each day. Ohh, he is proud of me! I see he is clueless about my thoughts and the fear growing inside of me. He smiles each day when he looks at me and my siblings are also clueless, they have no idea of what I go through each day to see them happy and proud. See I had done all lord, but I can’t anymore do it alone. 

Lord, I began to feel like religion had chains that had no liberation for my thoughts. I felt like religion was no field for my thought. Now I was equipped with the knowledge I had gained from books and about how “Christianism” came into my African continent and how it had been used for selfish ways. I then thought I don’t need you, I felt that you didn’t exist and that I had been fooling myself all along. I started comparing my current and past life together, I realised it all was the same. So was it all in my mind then? No, of course it wasn’t, you do exist, and you do nothing of my suffering, Nothing!! You had renounced me.

Why Lord, why? you had turned your back on me, left me to fend for myself just like mother did to us. When she left us, she said she’ll look after us in another life. I am sad and tormented with stress every day because I fail to see my future in a clear light with all these struggles and suffering clouding my eyes. How can I lift my family? How can I bring better to our lives? How can I become the best of me, how can I? I know I am not the only one, so many of us suffer each day, some go hungry all day or for days. They have tried prayer, calling for your help Lord and nothing.

However, I now feel that I must stop thinking that everything happens because of you and start looking at myself. I must be alone now as you wish to do nothing, let me be Lord, let me live free in my own thoughts and imaginations not being limited by you. Allow me to work on my own. At least when something bad happens I won’t look for a scapegoat, I won’t leave you to blame or the devil, but myself. I am not implying that I don’t believe that you exist, but that I am done believing that you can and will do everything for me, I am done relying on you, Done! It is time I took my own path now. I know everything is everything, nothing is coincidental.

Know this, I can’t praise you as others do. I can’t go to church and lie that I am happy knowing I left a hungry family behind. I can’t do that and if you wish to kill me for the decision I’m taking, do so, just know my family won’t be happy and my siblings will be sad and they’ll remain believing that you had a plan too, just like I did. Know that if you take me away, it will be because I had demanded my independence, demanded the freedom of my mind and the liberation of myself too. Know that I had no intentions of harming or upsetting you.

 

Yours sincerely

Rick Sphamandla Mthembu