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By Mrs Maria Nsiimenta

“You find healing when you verbalize what you’re going through to someone you trust.” Why didn’t I know this sooner!

You see, I have never really been one to articulate my feelings. I would always tend to go quiet and suffer in silence. It’s just easy to say “I am okay” than have to explain my feelings or “burden” people with my problems.

In 2016-2017, I experienced a loss like no other, it broke me. It’s like everything I ever knew was thrown out of the window and I had to rebuild. But how does one do that? The grief that followed this loss is one I’m yet to explain.

I remember not allowing myself to cry or letting people see me cry. It was really easy to pretend, you know! Everyone likes easy. Grieving loudly made me feel like I was a burden to others. It felt like I was creating situations that people didn’t know how to handle. You know, grief is strange, one minute you’re happy, the next you want to curl up in a ball and cry your lungs out!

Keeping it all in came with a magnitude of pain. I needed help; I need to heal. This meant I had to let it out. When friends reached out, instead of my usual “I am okay” I started to slowly share what I was dealing with. How I really felt at that moment. I found myself voluntarily sharing my feelings without being asked. And this slowly made me feel better.

I honestly can’t say it was easy sharing, but it was worse bottling it up. I couldn’t keep it in any longer.

On 23 January I listened to a sermon than spoke to me. It was a sermon by Holly Furtick titled “Say yes to simple.” Let me share some of the things that stood out to me:

1. No one is exempt from suffering, but the people who suffer the most are the ones who suffer alone. Those that pretend that everything is okay.
2. When we pretend, we delay our healing and prolong our suffering. Guys, this was me!
3. Accepting is identifying what the problem is. Accept and ask for help or isolate and suffer alone. I had to accept that I was not okay and that I needed help.
4. Sometimes asking for help means talking to a friend, a pastor, counselor. Asking for help is simple, pretending you’re okay is easy.

To say that this sermon spoke to me is an understatement. You can never really heal from a loss, but you learn to live with it. And trust me, the more you talk about it the better it gets. Do not suffer in silence. The people you think you’re burdening are right there waiting to walk with you, to listen to you.

“You don’t have to suffer alone, ask God to show you simple.”

With love,

Maria

Here is today’s sermon