NB: This post is a continuation of a prior piece which you can access here
Forgive my dog, Cherry for being a nuisance with her barking 🤦🏽♀️
Should I punish her for disturbing us🥲 Gist today in the voiceover is plenty sha, I have no doubt that you'd enjoy it. Can't believe that I talked for 19 minutes straight though, my throat is currently parched💀
Okay guys, let's take a quick recap. In last week's edition, we spoke of practical tips to help you thrive through your waiting season alongside sharing affirmations, scriptures, and wallpapers.
In this edition, we'll be taking some more tips, checking out the new wallpapers that have been added to the collection, sharing scriptures, a specially curated playlist and an audio note or two. Someone scream loadedddd🤩🔥 Alrighttt, let's get into it:
6. Retrospection - Retrospection simply means a deliberate recollection of past events. Emphasis on the deliberate-ness because that's where the real gist is.
As human beings, we tend to forget about good deeds a lot. In the moment where the deed is done or we get wind of a beautiful act of service, we may be really grateful, filled with joy and happiness and profess our undying love for the originator of the action. However, give it a few days, months or years (depending on the magnitude of the deed) and the importance of that deed in our conscious would have been greatly watered down, if not completely forgotten. If that same person now stands in the position of an offender, it's all too easy to erase the memory of the previous good the person has done.
It's pretty simple, so let's take an example to illustrate better. Picture this with me. You wrote an exam and you know in your heart that it didn't go well at all. So anxiety worries you sick and you keep praying to God for mercy upon you. For supernatural favour.
Then God answers your prayers and when the results come out, you miraculously have an A. You're so excited when you see the results, you go about telling everyone that God is good, that God answers prayers. While that is good, it doesn't last.
Some months later, it's a new semester and by the time exams roll around, you're back on the jolly ride of anxiety again. You take the exams and desperately hope that God will come through for you. While you await the results, biting your fingernails and tapping your foot sporadically, you wonder if God will really come through for you. After all, you had a carryover in 100lvl first semester, after all you had a C in your favourite 4-unit course two semesters ago and all the other times that God didn't give you exactly what you wanted.
In the midst of all these, your first instinct is really not to remember last semester's testimony. If you do, your memory would have glossed over the fine details that made all the difference then. The way it was an impossible situation to get that grade. That you should have failed that course too and by doing so, been asked to withdraw. But God heard your cries and sent His word, and fulfilled His word when the time was right.
This is why retrospection is important for us believers. Most especially when you're in a waiting season and you're starting to doubt God's interest and intentions towards you, or even God's presence in the midst of the dryness. You have to deliberately look back on the scriptures and experiences that have shaped your knowledge of God's nature.
Remembering will strengthen your heart in the waiting. Your hope sef will be given Lucozade Boost to drink. That God hasn't brought you this far just to leave you here. He's not odindin Alpha and Omega for nothing o. He starts a thing and He finishes it. And He always always honours His word.
7. Introspection - The waiting is transformative. In the waiting, there is the pruning/prepping. You're no longer flitting all over the place, you're compelled to stay one spot and that is when the real work begins. While you're on the move and you're occupied with so much to do, you barely get to pay attention to the conversations happening inside of you; but now that you can focus a little more, here's your chance to do so.
Introspection is intentionally looking inward and conversing with yourself and the Holy Spirit (as Christians yunno, spirit-to-Spirit tinz). It is prodding at certain doors in your mind and asking why they work the way they do or why they're even there in the first place. It will help you become more self-aware and understand why your thought process is a certain way. It is an unbiased mirror of your heart, your motives, your intentions.
As you try introspection, you will begin to pick out ideologies that need to go and identify the ones that need to come in. You will wonder why you tarried for years in that relationship. By the help of the Holy Spirit, you will unlock deep secrets and principles that you will need for consequent seasons. You will uncover more knowledge about yourself, priceless wisdom gems to guide you through the rest of your life among many others.
To introspect, you will need to separate yourself from your emotions. Ask yourself when you're about to blow a fuse; why am I so angry? Is it because she didn't do what I asked her to or really because she made me feel stupid? Why did I feel stupid just by listening to her talk? (I gave a personal example of this in the voiceover).
When you're in a pit, you can't get a proper view of the situation. However looking from a higher plane will show you all the angles of the pit and everything to note. In this case, you are the one in the pit and introspection gives you a bird's view of what's on ground. In fact, you'd begin to see God working in you, through you and for you.
Advice: You might want to record the lot of the gems you get from it because they're really not ordinary. If you were to open my notepad app on my phone ehn, it's full of random wisdom nuggets that are an evidence of the conversations that happen in my soul. At different points, these nuggets prove to be super useful.
Finally,
Say this with me: I am choosing to be intentional about retrospection and introspection today.
Oh and yes, I haven't forgotten about the extra goodies I have for you.
Click here to access the special playlist I curated for you for this season. I believe that these songs touch on all the necessary parts and will strengthen your resolve to thrive even in your waiting season.
Click this link to check out the new wallpaper additions
This brings us to the end of today's edition. Funny story, this edition was supposed to be what I thought in my head as the concluding part. But turns out, I had quite a lot to say on the both topics of Retrospection and Introspection. Sooo, all things being equal, there should be one more part. I may or may not post it next week, or I could make it a double update week with something else *wiggles brows* Let's wait and see😗
I hope you've gleaned a thing or two and maybe even laughed at my experiences. I shared some extra stuff in the voiceover so if you haven't listened, here's me encouraging you to do so. It can play in the background while you do something else, so no worries.
You know how we do it already guys, please like this post, comment your contributions, lessons learnt etc as well as share this link to everyone you think would need it.
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Take care of yourself o,
You know I'm definitely rooting for you.
All my love,
Mofeoluwa💚
Well done Mofe🤩
I'm so proud of you
This one hit me 😌, But truly that's how humans are...Nice one