I looked at T, the young man who has been helping me with my hair loss treatment at the gentle touch office for some weeks now. He was standing behind me but I could see us both in the mirror.
I had anxiously asked him if there were any signs of improvement as he assessed my hair. “What happened to your hair happened gradually and over time. You also have to give it time to show the obvious results you seek”
“Of course. Your hair is improving”
“How come I can’t see it na?”
That was when he said what he said and even when he’d moved the quiet conversation to other matters, I was still stuck on that statement from before.
Gradually. Over time. Results. Time. Those words ran around in my head playing a game of hide and seek.
Earlier during the week, I had listened to a TD Jakes message “Delivered but Damaged.” He talked about how we often make the mistake of thinking that being ‘delivered’ or saved automatically translates to becoming instantly perfect and flawless. How we expect people to behave a certain way and get disappointed when they don’t. The most dangerous part is that where someone has actually successfully dealt with the outside and they appear all perfect and sanctified but they are veeeeerrryyy messed up on the inside so no one notices until the bubble bursts and everyone is shocked.
How could the pastor do that?
Isn’t that the sister that prophesies at every service?
How come the deacon’s child turned out like that?
Why won’t my child behave like me?
Sometimes, the standards we demand are from ourselves, our children, our partners, our business. We want to behave a certain way and expect to see certain results but keep falling short so we give up and agree with the voices in our head that there’s something wrong with us. What’s wrong with wanting to be perfect eh? Nothing, absolutely nothing.
The question is, where are you coming from? And for how long have you been coming from there?
That lady who won’t quit sleeping around, since when has she been carrying around the notion that she’s an item of use and abuse? You just got to know her last year and you already have an epistle about how lose and unrepentant she is?
You, who can’t get over the fact that you keep making the same errors and won’t forgive yourself because you just can’t seem to rid yourself of a bad habit, have you considered how long ago since you’ve imbibed the habit?
Your child is so spirited and seemingly uncontrollable, but have you paused to take a good introspective look at yourself and your spouse and asked “what kind of gene is my child carrying” or “what values did I bring him/her up with”?
Here’s the reality of it all, where we are today has been a long time coming. Nothing exactly springs up out of nowhere, it must have been gaining roots over time and like an iceberg, we often only see the top but ignore what’s built up underneath the surface. This is not to say that everything one goes through is entirely their fault. Some things, life casts our way without warning, but how we respond is entirely a matter of choice. This is why lifestyle cannot be taken for granted because today’s lifestyle determines tomorrow’s realities; that regardless of your heartsong.
So when you meet the next person who just isn’t ‘good enough’ for you, make an effort to take a deeper look at what’s beneath their exterior to see how far they’ve come and when you’ve fallen short of your moral standards one more time, remember first to be grateful for how far you’ve come, then dust up and try again.
It’s not where we are that matters but the fact that we stick consistently to the path to where we want to be.