These days I’ve been thinking too much about this struggle that I fell in love with. You probably wondering and asking yourself, how can someone fall in love with the struggle? It does not make any sense. This is a different kind of struggle, because it motivates me, builds me and pushes me beyond my limits. This is no ordinary struggle. I am talking about the struggle of losing sleep, putting in work every day, working overtime trying to preach the gospel to the people, making sure that I achieve my dreams and become who I am meant to be. Understand that your life is nothing without God because he grants you the faith to keep going even though you don’t know what’s ahead. Like I said, this is a struggle that builds me, because seeing someone’s life change and knowing that God has something to do with it and I led them to that path, makes me want to struggle even more, how bizarre?

I was chatting to a good friend of mine and he was telling me about his situation back at home. His exact words were “I just can’t wait to get out of varsity and get a good job, because my mother struggled so hard to get me where I am today. I just don’t want my children to suffer like I did growing up.” With a smile on my face, I said, look on the bright side, my friend. It’s the struggle that gave you that positive attitude. Remember this, your reaction to your circumstances will always determine the outcomes of your life. 

What I am trying to say is this, the struggle you going through today might make you a better person tomorrow. I was not always sensitive to other people’s emotions not until God put me in their shoes. 

“For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him but also to suffer for him.” [Philippians 1:29]

Two questions remain. Are you willing to suffer for Christ? Are you willing to suffer for your dreams? 

Allow the struggle to build and guide you. I have accepted my background and I have chosen to embrace it, by doing this I am trying to own my struggles, they can’t turn around and bite me no more because now I know how to handle them. The first step to handling them was acknowledging that they are part of my life, they are part of life itself, they are part of learning and growing. It all starts with accepting who you are and identifying your purpose. 

I feel like my struggles have influenced my life and made my faith stronger and yes, I learnt a lot from my mistakes, but I feel like I gained wisdom from my struggles. Sometimes you have to appreciate the challenges you face. Embrace the hardship you’re going through, embrace your problems and hopefully one day we’ll reminisce and laugh about them.

Helen Keller stated that the struggle of life is one of our greatest blessings. It makes us patient, sensitive and Godlike.

Have you embraced your struggles? Have you made peace with it?

For a very long time I lived my life the wrong way thinking it would lead me to the right one, you know what they say, “Fake it until you make it”.  

And another thing is that people don’t want to be different, we are scared to be different, we want to be part of a crowd, I guess it makes us feel secure. We are scared that people will judge us, we don’t want people to think we are weird, so we try by all means to look like them so that we can fit in. We deny our true selves like Peter when he denied Christ. It looks like we put our focus on what other people think about us and forget to invest in our own lives.