Hiii broski,
For a long time now, I have been having lengthy and sometimes endless conversations with myself on different topics and I just found myself recording long voice notes to myself and a few friends who I won’t mention names, but said that they are not going to listen to my podcasts🤧. So, after I had prayed not about it (I was just in my usual morning prayers and the thought just popped into my head, so why not). Sometimes, GOD wants us to move even in our not-what-I-had-in-mind-but-why-not type of faith rather than wanting all things to align, the heavens to call out our name, and as we hear angels singing to confirm what is in our minds and hearts, then we move ( maybe that’s a bit too much sarcasm but you get what I mean😁). That early morning as my mom came to bid me goodbye for her trip, I created a substack account and here I am.
Well, I should give credits to the one who actually allowed the space for me to even think of it, dada Justina 🤩. I have been reading her substack for a year now (go read her substack it’s called Justina's substack ) and it has always been a good read.
Without further ado, today’s pondering has been on trials and tribulations. These past couple of days I have been listening to an episode of the Wisdom and Wellness podcast where Mpoomy Ledwaba( the host) is interviewing Connie Fergurson. Now if you don’t know this lady (I mean Connie), that was me a couple of days ago. I didn’t know what she did for a living, I just knew she was on Forbes magazine, lives in a ridiculous mansion in Jo’burg, owns a collection of classic cars, and has abbs in her fifties. Turns out she’s a billionaire and in the episode (which I have shared below), she talks about what she does to live the life she does and all she has gone through. When you get time, it’s a good listen.
So, apart from all she’s explaining in the episode above, she talks about the expansion of her skincare products and into face products which include collagen and the likes. This took me back to what I had learned during my research into what skincare products would be suitable for my face when just using warm water and Vaseline proved to not be setting me up for a glowing face in the long run. And I remembered the actives. Actives are simply products that help your face glow by technically working their way into your pores somehow. So these include products like retinols, vitamin C, niacinamide etc. Now the thing with these products is when you start using them they can cause skin irritation, like they are good for your skin but you have to incorporate them into your routine slowly. Once a month then once a week then as often as your skin can tolerate. Also, once you start using them things tend to become worse before getting better. Your acne can flare up so bad that you might want to stop using them and sometimes even if you were acne-free, you may start experiencing breakouts. This broski is called skin purging, where the actives basically pull the dirt from your pores that need to get out.
Now, stay with me, I know that has already been an essay and a half but waittt! So, the same is true with trials and tribulations. They are the actives in our lives. They purge things that are not required in our hearts and minds. They at first seem destructive but after some time we realize how we’ve grown from them, how they were necessary, how we could not have the faith we have if it weren’t for the valleys we’ve been through, how the deserts increased our endurance, how the deep waters taught us how to swim or at least float and how the dark cold nights taught us to value the people we love and keep them close and check up on them because happiness is only real when shared~Chris McCandless. And it hurts to know that, it hurts to know that for our faith muscle to grow, the weight of trials and tribulations need to be used and in some cases to avoid plateauing in our faith walk, the dose needs to be increased. That’s why the apostle James in James 1:2 says, ‘Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance’. So technically they are inevitable, what then? I am learning to view them as how I view working out. It’s painful but I won’t die and I want to be healthy so here we are. It’s also surrendering to GOD even in that season and trusting that He won’t let it kill you.
What do I mean, let me give you a funny analogy-sort-of example. I once tried to bench press a heavy weight (I won’t say how much, so many opps 😔) and I wasn’t there with my usual once-workout buddy, Nyah. I could do a couple of reps but after that, the bar hit my face and I honestly thought it was going to scrape my face but thank the Living GOD, a friend who noticed my defeat helped me out and my face was spared (but my ego wasn’t😭). Another day (this was before the one above), the weight wasn’t even as heavy as I would normally lift but Nyah was there with me and she made the weight heavier by simply pushing it down towards me and knowing that I might start whining like a child, crying that I can’t do it but she knows I have it in me. And I need not rush through the rep because it’s the mind-to-muscle connection that’s important which I wasn’t considering in my egolifting attempt. However, being my friend for a minute and also being in the gym for an hour (I hope you get it😂), she knows when I really can’t do it no more and she would take the bar from me. Trusting GOD as we walk in trials and tribulations is akin to that and is surely our best bet, lest we die in something that was meant to grow us.
Let me not prolong this than I already have, I believe you’ve understood my pondering plus I don’t want y’all to be reading a whole EE on a Sunday afternoon and obviously laughing your ribs out😌.
🎉Till another pondering broski… (before you leave, don’t be selfish, tell your friends about this substack, so that they can also laugh sometimes and we can learn together🤓)