Pain is a strange teacher.

Pain is a strange teacher. It transcends and makes you understand people who have gone through the same.

I am patterned by the pain in my life because it has done more to me through my struggles than success has. My struggles have been the pathway to my success. I can boldly say that our preaching has to be counseled by failure for us to be able to deliver and minister effectively. Just because you took some book and went through some psychology class does not mean you are ready to understand my struggle. I do not say this to nullify those that offer counseling psychology, I am a Psychology student myself, but I say this because unless you have worn my kind of shoe, you wouldn’t know where it hurts. Tell me, what do you when you feel you do not have the time to do things all over again? What do you do when those you love walk away from you and even if you have tried to make things work it has proven to be irreversible? I besiege you friend, when people can walk away from you, let them go! Because your destiny is not tied to those who left! I have the kind of faith that strongly believes that nothing just happens. Matter of fact I hate to think, I hate to think that anything just happens.

And in that moment when I was at a crossroads, when I was in the pain of being who I am, of not knowing what I want, I know of only one thing I wanted: Count my blessings and name them one by one. I do not want to measure myself with the things that only went right, because God balanced me with the things that went wrong. I am alive! I am still in God’s will…be it perfect or permissive, I am still under His will. I can see, hear, taste, touch and smell. I am a woman. I can feel love and hate. I can laugh and cry. I have been forgiven and covered from my iniquities. I can celebrate and tolerate. For each day I can account for what God has done. I can serve God at whatever capacity, the noticeable and unnoticeable altogether, and He will still be glorified. For whatever God has predetermined to happen in my life will happen! He is in charge! He runs the universe! My mistakes, my troubles and pain were all still in His will. Every tear that I have shed in the past year, were still in His will. Nothing just happens, I trust that God is up to something.

Truth is successful people never like to admit that they do not have it altogether. But yes, I have not had it altogether in my past year. It has not been a walk in a bed of roses…drowning in the scent of sweet things…sipping wine…and eating chicken…not at all! But look at me! I wouldn’t have been a better woman. I have grown in the balance of joy and pain. My life on the pendulum of faith as I swing from one extreme to the other. Shifting from the friends that have come and the dear ones that have left. From the success that was and the failures the same. But still I stand! For all that has happened, nothing has risen above me! god would not allow the things that happened to happen if He had not given me the grace for it! I have sufficient grace for every moment of my life, good or bad! Because nothing, nothing, nothing just happens!

Inspired by the preaching of T.D. Jakes. The father, brother and friend I never had.

The drying tears of a soiled woman.

The drying tears of a soiled woman.

“Therefore there is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus”

Romans 8:1

Like every Friday night,

they congregated and cuddled in her room to ponder on anything(s) and nothing(s).

They went on and on, and with each utterance she felt more soiled. Matter of fact it felt as though they were trashing soil at her, but she is keen to mention that it was very unintentional of them.

She let her mind wander.

She cannot blame them for the undying desire they harbor. It is the innocent desire of those who have not trailed this path.

The virgin women.

But then, who speaks out for those without a voice?

Who speaks out for the soiled woman in the church?

Who leaves his arms open to this woman who needs constant assurance of her place in the church?

Who understands that what happened to her is not as important as how it affects her now?

Still, she listens to them.

She listens to their a little far-fetched fantasy,

 and, with a smile she silently wishes them portions of the same intensity of fantasy and more, just to quench their ignorant virgin bodies after they walk down the aisle.

But then, once again, like a dose of bitter herbs,

her encounters rewind in her mind. Her tears begin to flow on the cheeks once pampered. She cries because her tears somehow off lift the burden gravitated in her heart.

These are the tears of many. These are the tears of a whole crowd of those women who smile their days and cry their nights. Tears of the soiled women.  Tears of the abused. Tears of the broken hearted. Tears of the judged. Tears of the accused, of the forsaken. Tears of loneliness and aloneness. Tears that only Christ can take away. Tears of the soiled women in the church…they were her tears, but somehow, the flow of the flood of them told her she was crying for multitudes of women outside this dim lit room, outside that mahogany door.

She opens the pages of her Bible.

To seek something she did not even know. To seek a voice she could not even identify. She just wanted something, anything that would trigger transformation. That would comfort the formation of the woman in her.

She was never forced to sleep with any of those men. It was never a case of abuse. All she did, she did consciously and willingly. She was never a victim. She actively participated. She acted on the naivety she carried and the lustful thoughts birthed from lustful content. It is not pity she needed. Neither was it false acclaimed understanding. She just needed another experience with a supreme being. She needed another experience with her creator. She needed to know, from Him, that when all emotional hell breaks loose, she can still stand.

That when all is said and done, when men take advantage of her vulnerability, when condemnation strings her sleeves, she needed to know of a God that remains long after. Long after the men rumble her heart. Long after victimization. Long after she wipes her tears. All she needed to know is that as she falls and rises, there’s a God who can be trusted. A God that remains the same yesterday, today and tomorrow.

And she interacted with this God on the pages of the Bible,

 As she met this God, this God who is the Word, who is with the Word, who was there from the beginning, her illumination becomes evident, but the girls in this room don’t seem to notice.

She stood up…walked to her bedroom window and drew the curtains. She watched the raindrops trickle. Each of them seemed to silently signify that the gravity of her freedom had to felt by all that it touched. It was a beautiful feeling, this feeling of freedom. It was a quenching drop, this drop of rain. The ambiance of the moment was indescribable.

She wanted to converse with this God.

His goodness was just unfathomable!

She wanted to ask Him…

To ask Him how He can reach out to her imperfect being and love her still.

To ask Him how He can breathe grace into her soiled womanhood and call her pure.

To ask Him how He can allow her to shine in her generation despite of her failed past.

To ask Him how He can still call her His ‘child’ or ‘princess’ or ‘precious’ even at the bottom of her pit of sin.

She loved this God!

Because He has remained the same when everything is changing.

He has remained the same when people keep changing.

He has remained the same even when she herself changes from time to time.

He has been the God of yesterday, The God of Today and The God of Tomorrow.

And none can compare!

Not even the beauty of the raindrops on her bedroom window in this calm night.

and as she smiled again, those were the drying tears of a soiled woman.

Cheptoo.J. 

Note from me: It is not always that the woman on the pulpit will have her life all figured out. It is not always that past pain will not recur. We too, need the constant still voice that whispers "It is well, I remain the same yesterday, today and tomorrow, I remain constant in changing times." 

With love.