Letter to ‘Me’… From Me…At the War Front!
Dear Warrior,
What happens when you fight silent wars? Wars that you cannot fight with anyone else, that you dare not share with anyone else, that you even shrink to admit to yourself that you’re fighting . Wars that seem to last forever, its like an ever constant torture at night. At times you wish everything would just go away! It even seems at some other times that they’re no longer there. But what about the heavy thuds of your heart? And the lone tears that stroll from eye to eye, then down to your temple while you lay in bed pretending to be asleep? Or the bleeding, and the tearing of your heart that usually releases in a loud, careless and cacophonous laugh! You dare not make a true sound!
For your children, you must rob your tears of the tearing noisy cry it actually craves for those nights your husband ‘club’ you and tell you you’re worthless and ugly. For the love of your job you must keep quiet and convince yourself that you’re oblivious of the fraudulent papers that keep passing over your table . For your fiance to stay, you must pretend you’re not hurt, that you were not raped, and that you are as whole as your sonorous voice on Sunday suggests. For your mum to maintain her boasts to her friends, and because you love her so, you must stiffen your smile and dare not utter a word about how sickening medicine is, and how you would rather spend your time in music classes. For her to agree to marry you, you would rather keep dying the slow death that your silence, more than your HIV, has inflicted on you. So she can have the luxurious life you think you can never afford, you must pretend you don’t have as much love in your heart for her. You must…I must… We must… Life, it seems, enrolls us to fight wars without our very consent. We are only awake to find ourselves right in the middle of a battle we have not bargained for!
Wars! Wars!! Wars!!! Like I just learnt, we all are warriors – sleeping, dying, fighting, injured- it’s who we are, warriors! Many a times though, we use the wrong weapons, or fight the wrong wars, or we do not even fight at all; it still does not change who we are. So, let me go back to the initial question, what happens when we fight these especially quiet yet fierce ones? …
It’s simple, ‘Go to God’. Ok, this is where we have challenges. When simple solutions are proposed to those seemingly serious and twisted situations of ours, we find it rather tasking to yield. I mean, it seems like a mockery of whatever situation we have found ourselves. It’s really ‘hard’ and it seems no one would ever understand how hard it is. Well, no matter how shameful, or shy, or discouraged we become to share our challenges with men, we should never let the devil rob us of that always open cheque to share it with God. The truth is, our wars are more spiritual than we are willing to admit! Learn the art of war from the very one that has fought those same wars and has conquered! The wars would never stop, but allow me to hint you, accept the life that Christ offers, then can you be of good cheer, ‘cos He has overcome the world! Its either altogether a fight OF faith (like Paul fought), or a fight FOR faith ( like we blindly fight).
As I write this, I write not as one who has fought to finish already, but as one who was awoken with a lot a pain and hurt, and hope in her heart this morning; as one who is still mending, and weeping, and praying; as one who has found joy in her wars, and laughter in her tears; as one who would not stop fighting for the hope set before her. We all deserve the joy that the Holy Spirit brings (even in our wars), Christ made us deserving of it; in fact, we all need it. There is an eternity in all of our hearts that no one can yet fill, until we accept the life of the one who put it there. It’s a long way to fighting those wars (a route that I most definitely don’t know). But then, I know the first step to it all is accepting that the love of Christ can heal, and then in reckless abandon, deciding to follow whichever way he might lead; then every other thing will follow (Matt 6:33). Let’s take this one step at a time, one fight before another, knowing for sure that victory is certain!
Yours in the militia,
Feyi Soetan