Victory’s note: This piece is dedicated to beautiful Blandine, amazing Elliot and of course you, reading this.
Good afternoon beautiful, how have you been?
Did you unconsciously whisper fine in your heart with a smile slowly spreading across your face? Good for you.
If someone had asked me this same question some weeks back, i probably would have responded with a huge sigh. Or mutter a hastily cooked “fine”. Yea, that’s how “weighed down” i was. I was stressed, really irritable and generally not “the bubbly Victory”. There was the occasional forced cheerfulness, but my joy had been attacked.
Some things began to make sense some days back when the Lord opened the eyes of my understanding to this scripture: Isaiah 12: 2/3
- Behold, God is my salvation,
I will trust and not be afraid;
‘For Yah, the Lord, is my strength and song;
He also has become my salvation.’”[a]
- 3 Therefore with joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.
Note: It doesn’t say with speaking in tongues and prophecy you will draw water from the wells of salvation…with “joy”.
So wait, God is my salvation and He is deep, as in just close your eyes and picture an endless well, yea, that deep…lol, okay come back. So in order for me to access all the benefits and goodies inside God (the deep well), i need a fetcher which is joy. Chai!
The fetcher is joy.
Doesn’t it make perfect sense for the enemy to focus on attacking our joy? I mean, if you were the enemy and you knew that nothing could separate me from God’s love, but you also knew that i need a “fetcher” to benefit fully from all the blessings inside God, wouldn’t you make sure you steal my fetcher and bury it so deep until i forget that i once had a fetcher and i move around bland.
Exactly! That’s the spirit of depression, where joy gets buried so deep, you forget what it feels like to smile genuinely.
Now the funny thing is this, there is no absolutely terrible situation, until our imagination puts on a magnifying lens which expands it to the point of no return.
For example, stomach pain + magnifying lens= “oh my God, i have not been eating well, it’s ulcer, chai and i heard ulcer has no cure….hmm the internet records millions of death from ulcer last year. What if i die? My family, my friends, i don’t want to die…”.
Why not choose to put on that same magnifying lens and look to God in such a way that God becomes so big to you that every other thing pales in relevance.
You need your fetcher (joy) to have peace, to be enthusiastic about life and hence fulfill purpose. I need joy to catch inspiration and muster up strength to write.
Once he steals our fetcher, he replaces it with a weird looking, useless, good-for-nothing stone called depression. What in the world do i need a stone for in terms of drawing water from a well?
Oya Mr Devil, come and carry your stone and give me my fetcher back.
As you read this, there would be a swift replacement of the spirit of heaviness with the garment of joy, simply believe. This your new found joy would be so obvious that people would begin to ask you “if something happened in your life”. I’m talking from personal experience.
At the beginning of this write-up, i said i lost my joy…but then like i keep saying, God is bae!! He gave me a new fetcher in His presence. It was after a very small fellowship. A brother walked up to me and said “Victory, you would laugh, the spirit of depression has been replaced by the garment of praise…” He had not even finished talking when i started laughing. Lol i laughed so hard until my stomach and cheeks hurt. I laughed and laughed and started jumping in the room, as in ( it was so funny). Sometimes i look back at that picture and a smile spreads across my face cause it reminds me of the fact that God is attentive to the slightest beat of our heart. God is bae!
There’s a lot to tell you, so I’ll continue next week with “guard your fetcher”.
Check this out:
This would be added to our already existing segments soon. Be blessed.
#Bold steps: one foot in front of the other.
We are going to hear from young people who have stepped out/ are stepping out in faith to walk in purpose i.e. anything from starting a business venture to writing a book etc. We would get to know them, the challenges they faced, how they overcame and of course publicity for what they are doing. It promises to be exciting.
