This is a gentle reminder to book your seat at our upcoming breakfast event! Limited spaces are available, so go ahead and secure your booking at http://qkt.io/1LBlw3 asap. Bookings close this Sunday, 30 April.
You can look forward to:
Getting to know your fellow sisters better;
Some soul-searching around our personal struggles of feeling left behind;
A personal testimony from a young woman who went through a humbling experience of struggling with getting her career going until she was 30-something, while her peers had elevated in their respective fields;
An opportunity to be encouraged and to encourage another sister in the journey of accepting where we are in our respective lives;
A delicious 2-course breakfast with tea/coffee;
And a chance to form a bond of sisterhood going forward as we seek to walk through our life’s struggles.
As promised, this year will see a number of events on our calendar as we seek to cater to the needs of the bAw family. We really appreciated those who took the time to fill out the surveys as they helped us to prepare for the functions, programs and initiatives that we will run.
This is our 2nd event of the year! And one that is dearly close to my heart because God first deposited the idea for it in my heart about 8 years ago. It is the first of a series of similar events where we come together and remember the pain we have walked through and relate it to fellow sisters so as to uplift them. To also give each other our listening ear, our words of encouragement, our prayers and hearts. The aim is to walk towards a place of healing for the various struggles we may face as women, and to be each other’s keeper. This is based on Galations 6:2 which says, “Share each other’s burdens, and in this way obey the law of Christ.”
This specific event on the 7th of May is an intimate breakfast conversation on the struggle of feeling left behind, inspired by a blog post I shared not long ago which a number of you resonated with. Whether you feel or have ever felt as though you’re behind in terms of your career, your relationship status, your financial standing, or any other area of your life, and it feels like you’re the only one – this is the event for you.
Please note that there are only 15 spaces available and the ticket price of R140 includes a two-course breakfast at Buitengeluk, tea/coffee, gratuity, and a chance to form a bond of sisterhood with other women facing similar challenges to you. So rally your girlfriends and go book your spot online until the 30th of April.
I am so looking forward to spending this quality time with you.
For the longest time now I have struggled with feeling left behind by my peers. It seems like in my life, things happen way after everyone else who has begun a journey with me. Over the more recent years, God has led me to appreciate that everyone’s story is different and there is a purpose behind one’s journey including its length; the course it takes and; the pain that it comes with.
Yet. When you’re going through it, it can be so tough to hold on to such a profound truth.
I realized that God allowed me to remain behind in many aspects that are important to me for several reasons. The thing is, we often can’t understand why we’re going through something until we wade through the muddy terrain before us, and cross over to the other side so that we are looking down at where we once were. Sometimes He allows us to get glimpses of why but rarely does that happen.
To be honest, I have felt like I’m running behind my peers and friends when it comes to these things that are important in my life: my career and purpose; my relationship status and; my financial standing.
It has felt like people figured out what job they wanted to do within about a year or two of leaving varsity and now they’ve surpassed their goals. They have established themselves in their industries and are making inroads in their purposes. Then when it comes to relationships, most of my peers found their spouses in their early-to-mid-twenties and are settled down now – some even with children. It hasn’t been all roses for them but generally they have received their heart’s desires. And finally, with finances I have seen my peers grow their personal wealth and assets from cars to homes to investments on markets.
I think for the longest time I felt cursed. I felt as though there was some secret everyone else was in on that I was excluded from. I played the victim for yeeeeaaaaars. I wallowed in self-pity and quite honestly was not the happiest of people for others. It was horrible.
But. God.
I thank Him for keeping me “behind”, so to speak, for all this time. I shudder to think what kind of a person I would be now if I had gotten all the things I wanted in my immature state of mind. Today, I recognize that my perception of myself, others and life was fundamentally flawed. To begin with, I was too much of a victim and didn’t take responsibility for my life. To succeed in what God has for you, you cannot think as though you are helpless because that is all you will ever be.
I also struggled with believing that I truly was valuable and worthy of the good gifts and blessings God promises us. As I have mentioned in a previous article, I readily saw it for everyone else but couldn’t grasp that vision for my own life. And so I would end up whining and complaining about how everyone else is lucky and God doesn’t really care about me but truth is I was blocking the process for myself. The mind is extremely powerful. And mine was hell-bent on believing the worst for my life regardless of the showers of hope and goodness sent my way! I needed to change my mind-set because God honours what you believe.
It was imperative that if I was to attain fulfilment of all God called me to receive and attain in my life, I had to be in sync with Him. I had to receive His love in its entirety so as to cast out all fears about my inadequacies and victimhood and my feeling left out (1 John 4:18). Although I knew God loved me, I had not fully believed and received it in my spirit and my mind. To be able to operate in and receive what is meant for your life you cannot have fear rule you, and fear had been my master for twenty-something years.
I needed to realize that I could not be sloppy in my preparation and execution of tasks and responsibilities in these three areas of my life. I couldn’t just wait around and hope I would have brilliant ideas about my career and purpose or that God would wave His “magic Hand” and make things happen for me. I needed to spend time researching and educating myself and taking initiative. I had to overcome my fear of people and ask for help. I needed to work with diligence because I am representing an excellent God. He wouldn’t just lay it all on my lap.
I also couldn’t expect that God would just hand me one of His Princes when I was still a “pauper” so to speak. I needed to go through the diligence of being transformed into His Princess. Making tough decisions about my lifestyle and choices was imperative. Changing people, places and things so that my royalty would be cemented in my soul had to happen. I would attract the man that resonated with what I believed about myself and what I had invested in to be the woman I was. So I had to have high standards about myself so that I could receive the best in love too.
Finally, I had to get over this ignorance of finances. I’ve always prided myself in being more people-oriented and not really getting the numbers side of life. But God is excellent in all His ways. That means He doesn’t slack off in an area just cause He’s not inclined to it. Thus, I have to learn to make tough decisions. Fight for what I desire. Make sacrifices and change my mind-set about money because no one else can do that for me. God cannot bless me in this area when I’m making a shoddy mess of it with the little I have. Because were He to give me more, I would make a HUGE mess and tarnish His Name.
In a nutshell, if like me you have felt as though you’re running behind others in life, I hope this encourages you to know you’re not alone in this feeling. It’s normal. Actually, more people than you realize also feel this way. What’s more important though, is learning from the state you find yourself in. Ask God to show you what He’s trying to teach you in your feelings and circumstances of being “behind”.
You will find that it’s not necessarily that He wants you behind or is punishing you, but He actually has a great work for you to accomplish in your life and He needs you properly equipped to fulfil it. He needs you to learn some things and be transformed. He can’t take a chance of you being “half-ready” before He endows you with the wonderful things He has in store for you. I mean, David had to wait a good 15 years between being anointed King and actually becoming King! God needed to work some stuff in him and to test his commitment to, and his belief in the blessing.
God’s got your back so trust Him. You’re not behind. You’re just taking a more “scenic” route 🙂 And hey, you actually don’t know how long it took the person next to you to get to where they are now. Not necessarily in terms of time, but even in terms of the challenges they had to endure to receive and become all they have and are.
