The worst case scenario.

For a long time, way before I got married, I always fretted about life and the tough cards it could deal, the attendant "worst case scenarios" that tended to occur. You see, even though I was/am a believer, it still was in my subconscious that I hadn't exactly, up until a certain point, learned to cope well with emotional upheavals.

I remember sharing this with a girlfriend of mine who lived around me and who had been married at the time. She'd always ask why I was becoming reclusive, didn't go out anymore and always sounded alarmed whenever I mentioned I went to see a movie alone (I still don't see anything in that though) etc. At that point, I used to just fret a lot. Asides the love-hate relationship I was having with with alcohol which was making me quite the recluse, I was scared for reasons I didn't know, couldn't understand. I was scared about what life would deal me next and how I would handle it because I felt I didn't quite possess strong coping skills.

I would often look at my mum and wonder. A woman who had been to the labour room ten times and yet had only four children to show for her labours, a woman who lost an adult daughter to cancer- but not after having gone ten years living with the said daughter after the first sighting of this cancerous growth, I would often wonder, where did she get the strength to stay so positive and happy?

I used to be scared because I feared I wasn't like my mother, because I felt I didn't possess that ability she had to wade through life's battles believing the best would occur...

I started seeing a therapist after I got here and was told that the reason I'd often felt this way was because I really had not taken the time to LEARN ways to cope with life's disappointments. It was traced back to the heartbreak I had had at my third year, I had been 19 years old ( I got into school at 17 ), a vital developmental age at the time I'd faced the heartbreak but I'd dealt with it by drinking- and that grew to be a pattern well into my twenties. These oyinbo people can sha give everything a meaning. They can tell you how the pant you did not wear in second grade affected you psychologically which will then be the reason your adulthood was fraught with exhibitionist tendencies. #smh. Anyway, as laughable as it may sound, if you think about it, it does make some sense. By implication then, I automatically defaulted to what I had "learned" whenever I faced any trying time and though I strove, as a believer, to run to God always, I always seemed to fall eventually.

Lately though, with all of the challenges I've had to face recently and which I've been able to surmount rather easily ( in retrospect ) by God's grace, I begin to see that, I am a lot like my mom then, I just didn't have enough faith in myself. I actually have learned strong coping skills- and I cannot even pinpoint any one time this growth began or happened, I think it was simply happening as I went through life.... 

I've had to, at different times though, literally "go through" all the possible worst case scenarios that could occur in my life- in my head- and have actually "felt" through them and realised that life could throw anyone at you at any time but I really believe I've gotten so much insight at this point that I honestly never see myself ever derailing. Ever. So help me God.

Having been through the worst case scenarios in my head, I have now replaced those thoughts with the hopes I hold out in faith for and believe without a doubt that these which I now am believing God for and about will be the ones to play out in my life. But I will be always on my knees praying that mine and myself are always protected under the protective shade of the Most High God.

I will fight for what is mine to be safe, I will fight with everything in me and I will never give up because I already know that Jesus defeated the devil- for me- so I will fight.

THAT right there IS coping skills alright!

Until we meet here again,

Love Always,

Judgejudyjudy...

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