Speak Up!

I turned around and locked the door. The room was dark and small, cold and uninviting but I remember her sitting right there on the bathroom floor. Her tears bellowed in the darkness but between desperate gasps for air, she’d silence her cry enough not to bother those outside the room. I recognized her and I recognized this room. I recognized her tears of silence as my own.

I wrapped my arms around her in hopes that my embrace could be the place she could release the feelings of not being enough. A moment passed in my arms and then she looked up at me and said, “don’t be afraid.” I was surprised, or maybe confused is more the word of choice. But her eyes were so sure of what she was telling me that any follow-up questions I had I brushed off. I just wanted to be there for her. I laid her head on my heart and as I stroked her hair her cries blended into the silence.

On that cold floor, we sat together and allowed time to pass…  but now our time was almost up. I lifted her head from my heart, looked into her eyes again, and said “You are enough and you are more than able. You can do anything you set your mind to. You can.” She nodded sheepishly in response and I pulled her into my arms once again and held her tightly. I didn’t want to leave her here but it was time for me to go. So I stood up and waved goodbye to her, the little girl in me.

.

It’s amazing how our brain locks away traumatic memories in order to protect us, yet God works to bring them back into the light in order to heal us. I thought I was over the fear, hurt, and pain of my youth. I had forgiven my father for being the source of that pain- for not being there for me when I needed him and for criticizing me instead of championing me. I forgave him and forgiveness freed me to be here and now- right outside the gates of my promised land.

Why then, would God dig up this memory? Why now? When I’m standing on the cusp of a breakthrough. And I felt Him say “because breakthrough will burst when you speak up.”

Growing up as an artist born to West African immigrants (who were both doctors might I add!) wasn’t easy. I’m sure many of you can relate to the story. You didn’t feel like you had a voice. Even sharing your thoughts or your side of the story was considered an argument. It all didn’t mean anything unless you were a doctor, lawyer, or [fill in the blank]. (Exactly! So y'all know where I’m coming from!) But as tempting as it is to want to blame everything on our parents, we have to realize that they truly did the best they could. No one can ever give you something they never received themselves. Not love, not emotional support, not covering- especially if they never experienced it in the way we desire to receive it. Our parents are human and they’re learning just as we are.

For me, my high school to college years were the toughest- right after I announced to my parents that I wanted to be a Fashion Designer. My mother was in full support of my dreams. My father… not so much. And if you asked me today to tell the story of the events that happened after, I truly could not. My brain made sure to bury those years of our relationship far away. If ever I do think back to it, all I see is a gap- a space of nothingness. But what I can always remember is how I felt.

Silenced.

The Bible says that if we believe what we say will come to pass, it will be done for us. We can speak to a mountain and say ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and if we don’t doubt in our hearts then it will be done. (Mark 11:23) Here I am facing this mountainous wall of Jericho- obstacles in my way of getting a job, becoming financially secure, advancing in my life... But isn’t it interesting that it was the voice of the Israelites that broke through the mountainous wall of Jericho? 

The power is in my voice and I feel God beckoning me to take back my courage to speak again. I don’t know if I'll have 3 perfectly put-together points to share with you this time around, but what I do have (and have learned) I gladly share nonetheless.

1. DISAPPOINTMENTS CAN STEAL OUR VOICE

There’s an ad that comes on almost every time after my 5 minute morning stretch. The guy tells a story of a lady that manifested into her life prizes and free trips around the world. In mid-child’s pose, I’d roll my eyes and think “yeah right”. Then one of those mornings, I asked God, “God, does that really work?”

I realized I asked that question because I’d gotten to a place where disappointment after disappointment was becoming more real to me than His promises. The few times I built up the courage to speak a thing into existence it either 1) didn’t come to pass when I wanted it to or 2) didn’t come to pass at all. So I responded by not abandoning God, but settled for diluted prayers away from specifics and kept my desires inside my head where they would be safe from disappointment and rejection (and trust me, that’s not any better than abandoning).

Truthfully, I was afraid God would disappoint me again and allowed that fear to steal my voice. This was completely opposite from something Bishop T.D. Jakes did! There’s one story he shares about his mother. In the later days of her life, she was diagnosed with Dementia. For years, he pronounced life and healing over her (all of the promises of God) and during those years he spoke the same words of healing over others. Can you imagine the same word God sent forth through you manifested in other people's lives and resulted in their healing while for your mother it seemed to bear no result? In fact, she wasn’t getting any better at all.

The time came when she passed away and Bishop was heartbroken, questioning why God didn’t honor His word. Until God revealed to him that He did, just not in the way Bishop Jakes would have wanted. You see, in heaven there is no sickness, no sorrow, and no pain. In Heaven, his mother was experiencing the wholeness that he prayed for.

Isaiah 55:11 says God’s word doesn’t come back empty, “but will accomplish what [He desires] and achieve the purpose for which [He] sent it.” So to our question of “Does it really work?”, in faith, we believe that it does.

Nevertheless, it’s still hard, right? When God doesn’t come when or how we’d want Him to, it leaves disappointment and doubt in our hearts. Yet, Mark 11:23 says it’s when we have no doubt in our heart that what we say moves mountains. How, then, do we push past doubt in order to tap into the power of our words? The answer is that we set our face on who God IS.

Our faith should not be shaped by our past experiences and disappointments but by God and His character. Take another look at Mark 11: 22 and what does it say? “Have faith in”… our circumstances? Our disappointments? No! “Have faith in GOD.” God “is not human, that He should lie, not a human being, that He should change his mind. Does He speak and then not act? Does He promise and not fulfill?” (Numbers 23:19)

I can’t tell you why you prayed and your loved one wasn’t healed, or why you didn’t pass the exam again, or why the business fell through. God’s thoughts are higher than our thoughts, His ways are mysterious and we won’t always understand why He does things the way He does them. But if we allow our disappointments to rob us of the power and the authority God gave us in our tongue, then we release the opportunity to see miracles and mountains move in our lives. Let me encourage you that you are a child of God and no matter what, He is for you and not against you. His desire is to prosper you and not to harm you, so everything He allows is purposeful in building you up. We’ve got to learn to shape our speech around God's character and not around our circumstances. 

2. IGNORANCE CAN CORRUPT OUR POWER

I don’t think we know how much power actually lies in what we say. When we read that “death and life are in the power of the tongue” (Proverbs 18:21), I don’t think we realize as God’s image bearers that we hold the same power He has to create/destroy life through what we speak! That’s why the devil tries so hard to use our disappointments to either silence us or to speak death over ourselves and others. He even knows that if we tapped into our authority to create life with our words, his word is then null and void. In fact, in Luke 10:19 Jesus tells us that He’s given us the “authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy. That’s right, your word trumps the word of the enemy every time. 

Week 8 - Freedom Group Bible Study

But, here’s a wake-up call: “Every time we open our mouths to talk, we either advance the kingdom of life or we advance the kingdom of death.” That wake-up call came from Freedom Connect Groups, where I learned that my words actually weigh more than I thought. So even though I could be joking with my siblings, chuckling a “you’re so stupid” here or a “you’re so dumb!” there, it’s all fun and games until quite frankly... it isn’t. Because the enemy isn’t playing games. He for real is set out to kill, steal, and destroy (John 10:10) and any inch we give him he’ll use it to do so.

Now you’re probably thinking, “Ok Nyorh, that's taking it too seriously. A joke is a joke!” And I feel you! I was looking at my Connect Group hosts crazy too! But did you know that our brain can’t tell the difference between when we use harmful words as a joke or when we use it as the truth? So if I’m in an environment where there’s a higher use of negative words than there are positive words and my brain can’t define whether the negative ones are jokes or not, I’m going to have a higher percentage of negative words stored in my mind. Now, when the enemy wants to play around in there he has more words available to him and a higher chance of me believing him when he deceives me.

I don’t know about you, but once I realized this was not a game, I made it an effort to change my words. “You’re so dumb!” turned to “you’re so hilarious!” because I didn’t want to give the enemy any opportunity to advance his kingdom, especially not through me!

We have to realize that the enemy plays on our ignorance, and the more we think it’s not “that serious” the more room we give him. In the past, my father had no faith in my career and would often say I’d struggle in the professional path I chose. In his ignorance he thought he was correcting me, not knowing that his words were instead advancing death and not life. His words and the words of like-minded family around me brought self-doubt, pride, anxiety, and so many feelings of not being valuable enough. What’s crazy is that these weren’t the intentions of my loving father. Nonetheless, the enemy plays on our ignorance.

But he who “believes that the things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says” (Mark 11:23) Our words carry weight (and if you need some more convincing you can read it all up and down Proverbs!). When we’re not ignorant of that power, we’re no longer ignorant of our power.

3. WORDS CAN CREATE CONTAGIOUS FAITH!

I know exactly why God’s ending my year with this reflection. He knows that if it’s faith to think it, I got that covered. If it’s faith to see it, you don’t have to ask me twice. But if it’s faith to speak it, chiiiillllllleeeeee you might as well grab yourself a hearing aid to hear me! It’s the method of faith that doesn’t come as strongly as the others for me.

I know I’m not alone in this! You first think of a dream. Let's say, in this case, it’s a billion-dollar company that’ll transform the marketing industry. Then you see it- you draw it out, and maybe you even visit some marketing agency buildings or get a chance to speak with CEOs of top agencies. And now, it’s time to speak it- as in saying it out loud to friends, family, others, and yourself. Can we be real? How many of us shy away from speaking the dream in fear of what others will say in response to it? “You come from this background, how will you ever own a business like that?” “You’re too nice, you’re not going to make it in a cut-throat industry” “You’re a Christian woman. Are you even supposed to be doing that?” Speaking a thing makes it feel more real and surely real enough to be criticized! 

The bottom line, we’re afraid! We’re afraid of what people will think about us, what people will say about us, what we could lose, and who we could lose… just by believing what we believe so strongly that we voice it.

What is it about speaking a thing that makes the difference? Why couldn’t God make it so we could think a thing and it comes to pass? We could all be Matilda moving things around with just our minds. That would’ve been awesome! And we wouldn’t have to subject ourselves to the scrutiny of others who don’t believe what we believe.

To this day my voice trembles when I share my vision with others. I mean why wouldn’t it, right? With my father’s past words creeping inside my head and the nods of what seemed to be “approval” from family and friends but secretly were “don’t see how that’s going to be possible but that’s nice honey”. Speaking wasn’t my first choice. But I did it anyway, trembling voice and all. Because I wanted to actively detach myself from needing the approval of others to validate my God-size dreams. If God approved and said it was possible for me, then that’s all I needed. So I continued to speak vision as I continued to see vision, act on vision, and think on vision.

One day, my mom came to me and said “I finally get it.” Not too long ago she launched a grandiose business in Cameroon. For something big like that she needed bigger faith. So she began to do what I would do to encourage and uplift herself. This small trembling voice created faith contagious enough to get her to speak over her own dreams!  It then continued to spread to a single mom with 4 kids, and a 70-year-old classmate- I mean this trembling voice was more impactful than I thought!

Can I tell you why you need to speak up? Because someone else needs to hear it! Someone else’s faith needs to be revived! Someone else needs to believe in themselves again! That’s why you can’t just think it because nobody can read your mind. You need to Speak Up! There are others attached to your blessing, attached to your faith, attached to your voice. And when you say “I’m set high above all the nations”, “I’m a blessing everywhere I go”, “everything I put my hands to is blessed”, “nothing and no one can defeat me”, “I’m established by God”, “abundance and prosperity is my inheritance”, “I’m a lender to many nations”, “I’m the head, not the tail”, and “I will always be at the top, never at the bottom!” (inspired by Deuteronomy 28), you give the strength for someone else to believe it for themselves!

And when we are united, of the same mind and the same voice, we’re not so easily overpowered. If Ecclesiastes 4:12 says “ a cord of three strands is not quickly broken”, then imagine if all of us reading this blog, listening to the podcast, and watching on Youtube began to speak in one accord. Forget moving mountains honey, we could move nations!

I said I didn’t know if this blog was going to have three points, but somehow we made it there, huh? In this last entry for 2022, I want to tell you the same thing God told the little girl in me that freed her from that dark place- You are not alone. You were never alone. God was always there with you, covering you, loving you, and speaking life over you when no one else would or even could. And now He’s calling you into His light- into a relationship with Him because He wants you to know that for yourself- that you are loved, that you are covered, that you are more than enough, and that you are purposed for great things!

If you’re saying “Man, I want to know the God who speaks such life over me” and you don’t have a relationship with God, you can receive Him right where you are. That’s right, even through reading this blog! Just repeat after me,

“Lord Jesus thank You for seeing me, for loving me, for dying on the cross just for me. It was Your blood that purchased my freedom and my forgiveness. I surrender now to You and I give you all of me. Be my Lord, be my Savior, and use me for Your glory.”

That’s the prayer we share at my church home at Union and I know that they, along with so many others, are rejoicing in Spirit over you! I praise God for the decision you just made because I know your life is going to be changed in ways you couldn’t even imagine. Make sure to join a Bible-believing church near you so that you have the tools and relationships to continue your journey. Of course, you’re always welcome to join my church home online at Union! And last but not least, you have a home with us- your THFam! ThngsHopedFor is a family and we’d be more than happy to have you. Join us live on Youtube every last Sunday of the month from 3pm-4pm EST and feel free to connect with me on Instagram or Tiktok @thngshopedfor. Love you so so much and always praying for you!

2023… HERE WE COME!