I was experiencing a downtime. Had lost my job not long before, was newly married and trying to adjust (forget those honeymoon stories 😊…there’s a lot to adjust to in the early stages of marriage), and was fresh from my own family drama (you know those things that families do around the wedding season 😂).

I had moved out of the Known (Singleness) into the Unknown; My center (my Family) has been shaken yet again (check out the back story in the Woman Without Limits video); and my security (my job) was no more.

To say the least, I had taken one too many blows from life.

I was exhausted.

When I look back to that season, I just drifted by.
All I could do was, at the very least, remain afloat.
Nothing seemed to make sense.
My whole world seemed to have collapsed.
Many times, when we talk about Being Hidden, we think about being hidden from other people, but it’s possible to be hidden from yourself.

It’s possible to be hit so hard that you temporarily forget your own Identity.

Sometime during that period, I lost a stepbrother; and travelled home for the funeral.

After the burial, as I sat outside, one of my cousins commenting on the state of affairs at home, made a remark to the effect that “you held your father’s homestead before you got married.”

Friends, that one statement was my kiss of life.
It was my wake-up call.
It was my reminder of who Judy was.
It was a reminder of my strengths.
This lady, not knowing I had totally lost it; literally handed me a life jacket.
That’s all I needed.
Someone needed to remind me who I really was.
I needed to remember my Identity.
It’s almost like I had to go back to my roots – for someone who knew a hidden version of me, to remind me who I was.

June 2017, the light within me flickered.

I started fighting to get Judy back.
The Judy I once knew. The one I had been reminded of.
I started to remember my worth.

Something began to change inside of me.

So many of the people around us, have been boxed by life, and can’t even see who they really are.

Just like Marietta, my cousin spoke life to me, I challenge you this week, to make it your business to resuscitate another.

That word of encouragement, that compliment, could be the life jacket someone needs.
You could be the reason someone’s hopes and dreams will be revived.

Let’s go ahead and make it our business to genuinely see the good in another – and then go ahead to celebrate them.

The soothing tongue is a tree of life, but a perverse tongue crushes the spirit. Proverbs 15:4.

This week let’s be about shining the light for others so they can see the good they carry.
And just so you know, you don’t look around for your own Identity.

It’s right there inside of you…buried by the vicissitudes of life. Safari Njema!