1. Childhood
A storm in a teacup is how I was described by my Dad much earlier in life. Something was always going on with me. My parents and siblings were always a little bothered by my energy and the amount of noise I could make. I remember hearing Mum on the phone with a friend tiredly stating how since I had started crawling they had no peace. And I could understand her plight. Sometimes even I was bothered.
I was not the healthiest of children but I was always up a tree or down some hole or even up some vent looking for adventure. I was sure of one thing though. I wanted to be a boy. I talked to everyone about it especially during my questions stage when I was about 5. My Nanny had a ball with me. Telling me all kinds of things I could do to change my gender. So I sat in baskets ate boiled eggs though I hated them, ate standing up… so many things I tried. When I finally discovered George of the famous five I found a kindred spirit. Because boys seemed to have it all… no one worried when they climbed trees or slid down a balustrade or sat like a pirate or played with fire. And somehow I was surrounded by boys. Hence the need to belong.
2. A Whole New World
One of the books I first read as a child was the Lady in the Lake by Perry Mason and from then on every day was an adventure. A Case to solve. But my greatest confusion came from the little box of motion pictures we called a TV. It blew my mind the possibilities that were there. When I think of the fact that there was only one channel and that it started at 6pm and ended at 10pm it’s hard to imagine that it had much of an impact when I think of what we have in form of entertainment now.
All I remember is that that little box was filled with adventure and I could experience all of it. I was Bonny M on the Golden Oldies dancing with the mike stand, I was one of the kids in Sound of music hoping for Maria to marry our Dad and sing us into the future, I was on one of Perpenheimers’ adventures, or a cousin to the Cookie Monster on Sesame Street. Name it, I lived all these things. Je Je felt like a brother in Good Times and George Jefferson felt like that funny uncle we all have in the Jefferson’s. And then I discovered books. Anne of Green Garbles convinced me I had a twin out there and Sherlock Holmes taught me science and sarcasm.
3. An Identity Crisis
Anyway, I digress. In a nutshell, with my wild imagination and over active little body and tendency to verbosity, I did not fit in. Everyone seemed very good at sitting still, at being good, at remembering all they were supposed to do except me. And I was constantly reminded of this. So if you have a child that seems like I was, please remember that that might mean they also wonder why they seem different.
Sometimes it made me sad, and when I lost my temper which was often and epic then I told my parents to return me from where I was adopted ( that was my coping mechanism; believing I was adopted from a family that was just like me). I got sad when I forgot again and again not to play with my Dad’s bike and ended under it. I was miserable every time I climbed the coconut tree and my dad had to get some man to bring me down. I was sad every time I returned home and realized I had lost two hours day dreaming. I was sad because it meant I wasn’t good. And that saddest thing was that ironically I was a people pleaser.
Later on being different became a refuge, it helped me accept rejection, it helped me develop into the loner teen I later became because I accepted myself, grew into my skin and started to have fun. But that’s for later.
4. Hello Snowflake
What’s the point I am making? The point is you are a snow flake. A lot will make you different and people fear different. This sometimes leads to you experiencing a lot of rejection and then you begin the journey of hating and rejecting you. The snowflake God designed with so much love and so uniquely that he had you on His mind when he brought your parents together. And much earlier when He died for you. Dealing with who you are and who the world prefers you to be can be a stormy existence. A very stormy one. And my first real experience of some calm was when I was ten years old.
5. I Meet Jesus
All my life (yes all ten years of it) I had tried to be good but faced condemnation when I knelt to pray every night because someone in Sunday school taught me that my sins would add nails in Jesus’ hands.(I can see your eye roll) But one day, while taking a very unauthorized detour from my way back home from school I found a crusade at St James Church in my Jinja town and a man in a plaid shirt made a profound statement, “if you come forward and accept Jesus in your life He will come in and change you from the inside out”
To my young ears this meant that Jesus could change me from the inside, without any help from me! So I stepped up to that podium and that man (I later learnt he was a young Pr Robert Kayanja) led me through a prayer and gave me a Gideon’s Bible.
My ten year old self was elated, convinced of my transformation. I started reading that Bible… and soon asked my Mum for hers because it had the Old Testament and I discovered even richer better stories than my novels. Because these were true and they were about Jesus, who I was fast falling in love with, and how He transformed lives like mine. Needless to say I was less destructive and more distracted and meeting some Jehovah’s witnesses who I stressed with many questions deepened my journey. This transformation was very gradual... and more internal than external as Pr. K had promised. But it did happen.
6. A New Unfurling
As He says in Mathew 10:39 it is only in losing oneself in Him that one can find themselves. There is no truer statement. In Him I found compassion love and acceptance. And then it started welling on the inside of me. I remember I started volunteering in Sunday school and would stay behind to help the Vicars' wife organize just to hear more stories about her and her walk with Christ.
Every one of us has grown up with labels and masks. We need to take the time to pick them off us one by one and examine where these labels came from. When we mess up or make a mistake or act different we almost always experience rejection. When we do we respond either by brushing it off it we have a stellar self-esteem or by embracing that rejection and making it a label or a lens through which we see everything. Then we begin to respond that way. So what are the labels you have accepted about yourself? I am here to tell you that that may just be the lens. Step up to your Father and let Him show you who you are.
When Adam and Eve sinned their guilt labeled them naked. And they saw themselves naked even before God. When I would make a mess or fail to meet my parents’ expectations I would lash out, so I “had a temper” or I would respond in self-condemnation and denial by pretending I was adopted… hence labeling myself different. And doing a very good job of convincing others that I was indeed different. And not in a good way.
The Devil is such a liar but we sometimes help him stretch the tales.
Hannah Hannard in her Book “Hinds Feet on High Places” speaks of Much Afraid, the little cripple who longed to go with the Good Shepherd up the mountain. However when you read the book you find that most of the obstacles she experienced were those she had learnt to shelter within her. Starting with her name Much Afraid. Her greatest obstacles were her habits and companions.
Are your companions, fear, rejection, sorrow? Have you let them define you? Or is it even your name? Your identity that you believe should also be your destiny? What labels are those that stand in your way? That you have to let go of? Yes it is hard to do that and for every label you remove you must wear a new one and there is only one place you will get new ones that do not scar you. In Christ’s love.
In His Word, where He says that
“Because you are precious in My sight and since you are honored and I love you, I will give other men in your place and other people in exchange for your life.” In Isaiah 43:4
He says
“I have engraved you on the palms of my hands, your walls are ever before me” Isaiah 49:16
In Jeremiah 31:3 He says
“I have loved you with an everlasting love, I have drawn you with everlasting kindness.”
There is much more where that came from. So why not take a delve into His Word and start doing some label swapping?
7. An Adventure with Him
After just a bit of this in my own life ( and I am not saying that I have perfected it) As I have grown into loving who I am and even celebrating it with my mum, we have discovered that I am almost a carbon copy of who she was as a child! And the same happened with my Dad and brother! And it was the unconditional love of Christ that did that! I was already like them, but it is only seeing things through the right lenses that gave me the right perspective. I am not saying that you have to look for your parents in you… it might be the opposite desire for some… but that your identity gets clearer as you start to peel away the layers of unnecessary baggage.
So get your Bible, pen and paper and let's get peeling!
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