Wanting. It’s a condition of the heart we are all too familiar with. Perhaps you’ve been wanting something for a very long time. Perhaps in all your waiting, you’ve experienced great disappointment. The kind that makes you question your faith. If so, you’ll find strength and comfort in the words of our guest writer, Koki Oyuke, who shares a bit of her Made for Brave story, all the way from Nairobi, Kenya.
There are times you know you should burst out crying. Times when you’re fighting tears as they stain the white of your eye because it’s not a good time. There are people here. It’s not dark yet. There’s always a reason to cover, but when tears don’t release they dive in deep.
And you can feel your heart getting heavy―insides too full, tinged with pain that wants to burst right out the seams. So you fight it. You cover it.
But your eyes betray you. And you watch your heart start to sink.
You walk away knowing very well it is a matter to be cried out and laid bare before God, but you don’t want anyone asking questions. Not before you spill everything before Him. You’ve done it too many times before. And your eyes are still swollen red from yesterday. But you do it anyway, hoping you’ll get cried out someday.
Someday… Does it ever come?
I have known the shape and arch of longing for many years.
It’s been the story of my life. I’ve wanted more, pushed for more, but somehow seemed to get less. Wanting is a hard friend. And longing can sometimes leave you breathless and heart-sick, pressing God for an inkling as to when things will change. A clue as to when the God of suddenly who colors the pages of scripture will show up strong.
You see, I’ve been writing my first book for the last three months. This is a book that God put in my heart in 2013. I kept it a secret, told no one about it except my boyfriend who’s now my husband. And when I wanted to quit a year later, God sent someone with a word for me…about the book and what He sees for it and for me. It’s taken all these years to trust and believe God again, that He would be faithful with it even though all I’ve known is a slew of losses from years past.
This year, I trusted in His goodness and chose to believe in the message He put in me.
As I started writing the book, my husband and I found out we were pregnant. We were overjoyed and I changed, my life and schedule to accommodate our growing little one. During those early weeks, God began to heal places in my identity that were broken. Psalms 139 became real to me.
And I remember where I was, in the middle of a hotel conference room right before worship, when He said to me, “With this child, you will be born anew.” I wept and held my belly and ached to see how that word would shape me. How my child would shape me. Everything was looking up. My faith, trust, and expectation of God grew stronger by the day with every slight change in my body.
But then a few weeks later, right in the middle chapter of my book, I miscarried. I remember the taste of the hot honey, lemon, ginger concoction I drank and the feeling of nausea. I remember the cold hospital room, the empty sonogram screen, and the tearful ride back home. My husband and I lost the baby and we were torn apart.
The first thing that came to my mind was the central theme of my book: all the ways we’re chosen by God even when we feel cheated.
It felt like a riddle standing before me, asking if I believed what I was writing. A test I was unsure I would pass. I began to wonder, “Did I do this?” With tears in my eyes, more broken than I’d ever been before, my heart questioned, “Is this You? Is this necessary? Wouldn’t the book be able to stand without this?” God remained silent. I sobbed quietly, and where words failed me, my tears turned into prayer.
It’s been almost two months now but I’m still in the heat of it. I’ve sought God like liquid-gold water in the desert. I’ve looked for Him to breathe on my valley of dry bones.
And right here in the thick of things, in the middle of longing for healing and redemption, restoration and completion, I have known Him as Emmanuel. He is and has been present, holding me and sticking around. He hasn’t spoken as much as I’d have loved Him to, but He is speaking in way not dependent on words. And I find myself learning to listen ever so slowly.
Sometimes, our love for God isn’t as deep as we think. It’s weak. It’s shallow. Pain brings that to the surface. And in my hour of trouble, I turned into a helpless little girl that didn’t understand what was going on but chose to trust. I chose to not dwell on whether it was Him, or me, or anything, but to try and learn how He was working through this. Because He was and still is ever so present. He is near.
Deep in the trenches of our longing, the thing that we desire the most is to know where God is in all of it.
What’s His hand and what’s not?
We wonder if He is good and if He can be found. Or if He will move, right where we are because Lord knows He can. And oh, how the when and how always lingers on our tongues. But it’s short-sighted.
Living for when is missing the glorious now that God is weaving into the moment by moment quilt of our lives. Share on XWe need to learn to live in our stories―as hard, mundane or painful as they can sometimes be because it’s in the now that we will find Him. It’s in the now that we’ll realize His goodness in the layers of life. It’s in the now that we’ll see and know how He moved, that He remains and will always abide.
Wanting, which is often accompanied by waiting, shapes us.
There’s no question about that. What we become at the end of the wait is determined by our willingness to trade our eyes for heaven-sight and see the path He is charting for us. And I can tell you this―it is lined with His promises. It is full of answered prayer and His goodness.
So whether you find yourself wanting answers, wanting a baby after years of trying, wanting your financial situation to change, wanting the fulfillment of a dream or promise, or wanting healing, I pray you see it all…THROUGH HIS EYES.
We may be delayed but we are never denied. We may feel cheated but dear God, perhaps that’s what chosen looks like this side of heaven. We may be slow or even last in life but that doesn’t mean we’re disqualified.
Be brave, wanting one. All the chosen ones have scars. Wear yours bravely. It’s not for nothing. It never is.
Koki Oyuke is a stargazer and story weaver specializing in the currency of words and ideas. She is called to teach, heal and inspire people to get a 20/20 vision of themselves in the rough and tough of life. Currently, she serves as the head of the restored woman fellowship (www.facebook.com/OfficialRestoredWoman or www.instagram.com/restored_woman) by infemi.org
She is married to the coolest, bravest, hunkiest deacon and radio junkie stud who gave her his last name that means “one who shakes” or “he has shaken it”. Together, they live in the beautiful city of Nairobi, Kenya. Koki is currently editing her first book that talks about all the ways we’re chosen by God especially in life’s thin and hard places.
You can find her and more details about her book below:
Facebook | Instagram | Author Website
Catch Up On Previous Made for Brave Stories…Here
Sisters, we are called to walk the way of hope instead of the way of defeat. We must claim more than our title of “Daughter of the King.” We must step up and also claim our position.
And we must claim these together. As a sisterhood; a sisterhood of brave women who stand strong in the promises of who God is and who we are.
- We all are Made for Brave.
- We are made to live for something authentic and brave.
- In living brave, we silence the past, transform the future, and take a front row seat to God’s wild and uncontainable love!
So, I’m inviting you to join this Made for Brave Sisterhood, each Monday as we share our stories and allow God to bring hope and healing. Let’s commit to being authentic and brave, one step at a time, side by side, holding each other up and nudging each other toward our true selves. And let’s claim the victory waiting on the other side of brave; for ourselves and our sisterhood.
Let’s celebrate our tears and our struggles as we peel away the layers of fear to reveal the beauty of brave.
Let’s risk everything that brave requires for everything that brave has to offer…
Becoming who we were created to be!
In living brave, we silence the past, transform the future, and take a front row seat to God’s wild and uncontainable love! #MadeforBrave #Hope Share on XDo you have a Made for Brave story to share? Get the writing guidelines and submit your stories HERE!
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