Living and Forgiving

We live in an imperfect world filled with flawed people. Some folks will never be sorry for the wrongs they do while some will never show appreciation for the gifts they get. If everyone on earth is perfect, there won’t be any need for tolerance and love.

Love is the fragrance that creates a balance in a world that is polluted with ignorance, arrogance and imbalance.

We cannot survive or thrive without vital relationships. Since everyone on this planet is created for connection either directly or indirectly. However, one of the things that come with connections is conflict.

No matter how much we try to cultivate love and relate responsibly, there will always be offences and arguments.

Conflict does not always indicate the absence of love, it’s sometimes a sign that someone or something is broken and needs to be fixed.

We all are imperfect, as much as we get hurt by others, we also hurt others too whether it’s intentional or not. We all need forgiveness at one point or the other in the journey of life.

However, one of the hardest things to do is to forgive someone or ignore the pain they inflicted. It becomes even more difficult when the people who hurt us refuse to show any remorse or apologise for the wrongs they’ve done. Yet we must strive to live free of hurt

Forgiveness is not a gift you give to those who hurt you, it’s a gift to yourself. Forgiveness gives us the freedom to move forward, live free and fulfil our divine purpose with joy.

Forgiveness helps us to release toxic people and the pains they caused from our living so we can receive the peace of God and lead a cheerful life.

Forgiveness is sometimes a painful process. It becomes easier to forgive when we surrender our hearts to God so He can take away the pain, heal our heart and give you His peace.

God wants us to live our best life. anger, bitterness and sadness are undoubtedly major obstacles to peace and progress. When we take the first step to submit to God, He gives us the grace to forgive freely and help us to make wise decisions going forward.

Meanwhile, forgiveness does not mean that it is okay for you to be mistreated. It doesn’t mean you have to remain in a toxic relationship or let a bad person hurt you again. One of the benefits of surrendering our hearts to God is that He gives us the wisdom to let go and also love toxic people from a safe distance.

It is POSSIBLE to forgive some people completely and still choose to stop doing life with them so that they won’t drag you into the pit of pain again. Forgiveness does not mean you have to give someone another chance to hurt you, it means you give yourself another chance to heal and have peace.

Love without forgiveness is like a bird with one wing, it can’t fly. Love enables us to give cheerfully and forgive freely.
Forgiveness is not an option, it’s the only lifeline we have to live, love and lead a beautiful life. Unforgiveness is the coffin where peace, joy and progress are buried.

Intentionality is the key to true forgiveness. Start the process today. Pray for grace to let go and let God. Bury the desire to revenge. Be humble enough to acknowledge your role (if any) in the conflict. Acknowledge the fact that those who hurt you are hurting too, only a broken person will break another person. Shun blame the game. Seek counselling if you must. View offences with the lens of love.

It’s time to stop burning with bitterness and unforgiveness. Cancel your agreement with anger and animosity. Embrace the freedom, peace, love and joy that comes with the package of forgiveness.
I pray that God will give you the grace to forgive yourself and others and, heal from every pain they brought to you.

© Adeleke Adeite

Have you been hurt by someone and you struggled to forgive them? How did you deal with the dispute and heal from the pain? Kindly share your story in the comment section. I love you my dearest family ❤❤❤

Say this prayer
Dear God, You are the author and anchor of my life. I acknowledge that you love me and also command me to love others.
I pray that You grant me the courage I need to forgive the person who has mistreated me. I have been struggling to heal and move on.
Lord, please strengthen me. I am afraid that if I forgive this person, I might get hurt again. Wipe my tears and increase my faith.
Give me the wisdom to see those who hurt me the way you see them. Guide me to sort things out amicably and move on.

Help me to let go of bitterness, but at the same time, protect myself so that I won’t get hurt again.
Give me more grace and strength to live in love, give cheerfully and forgive freely. Amen.

Love Won’t Let Me Breathe – A Poem

I have poured out my heart
on several stages and pages
but love won’t let me be,
it never departs or diminishes.

I have bailed my heart from the
bars and battles of passions
but love won’t set me free,
It holds me tight with delight.

I sometimes choose to lose,
refusing to wake up and show up
but love won’t let me fail,
it nullifies my flaws to qualify me.

I sometimes give my heart away
to be crushed on thorny altars
but love won’t let me bleed,
it seals and heals me eternally.

My heart has been poisoned
with sweet lies and deadly truths,
but love won’t let me die,
it detoxifies and fortifies me.

Whenever I choose to live out loud,
faking happiness and flaring hope,
love won’t let me breathe,
it buries me till joy blooms again.
© Adeleke Adeite

Thank you for visiting my blog again dear friends. ❤❤❤ Have you ever felt restrained by love? Kindly share your views and experiences in the comment section.

Happy weekend to you all.

Heartily Single Happily Married

I was having an online conversation with a beautiful young lady some days ago, she aired her views on marriage and relationships. Then she made a statement commonly expressed by some single ladies in this part of the world “marriage is not an achievement”. It was a good opportunity for me to give her some lectures on life and love.

When a person exerts a lot of physical, mental and emotional effort to make something work, it would be wrong for anyone to say what the person has done is not an achievement.

Don’t be misled, marriage is an achievement especially when two people work together to build a lovely, peaceful and beautiful family.
If an achievement is a thing done successfully with effort, skill, or strength, then a working/growing marriage is an achievement.

A great union is a medal of honour. In a world where families are failing, children are derailing and vices are prevailing, good relationships and godly homes are the antidotes to many of the troubles in our world. Family is the factory where world peace and prosperity are produced, packaged and dispensed.

However, singleness is also a great achievement. If you are single, sensible, self-reliant, serving God and humanity and not sleeping around, it’s not wrong to say that you are an achiever.

As a Christian, I believe strongly that singleness is not just status or season of life, it’s a symbol of emotional strength and social stability. Not everyone will get married – a bitter truth people fail to taste and digest. Singleness and marriage are major life choices.

Good or bad marriages don’t just happen, they are products or manners, mindsets and motives. Nothing works by itself. If anything is working, something or someone is making is work.

It takes a lot of dedication and discipline to be heartily single, it takes a lot of sacrifices and compromises to be happily married too. The prevalent high rate of divorce has proven that marriage does not guarantee happiness or fulfilment. Singleness does not confer loneliness or sadness on anyone. What makes marriage and singleness work lies in every individual.

Are you happily married or heartily single? I’d love to know your story. Share your thoughts in the comment section. Thank you for reading.

You are loved. ❤❤❤❤

Declaration of Victory Day 36

Now may the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times in every way. The Lord be with you all. 2Thessalonians 3:16 And may the Lord make your love for one another and for all people grow and overflow, just as our love for you overflows. 1Thessalonians 3:12 Declare this I am a […]

Declaration of Victory Day 36

Declaration of Victory Day 25

Blessed be the Lord, who daily loadeth us with benefits, even the God of our salvation. Psalms 68:19 Commit to the Lord  whatever you do, and he will establish your plans. Proverbs 16:3 Declare this I walk in blessings and goodness everydayThe right doors are opened and the wrong doors are closed for me The works […]

Declaration of Victory Day 25

Declaration of Victory Day 23

I can do all things through him who strengthens me. Philippians 4:13 For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control. 2 Timothy 1:7 Declare this My mind is sharp and focusedI refuse to let anything distract me from my goalsI am courageousNothing will ever stop me Get […]

Declaration of Victory Day 23

A Letter To My Crush

Dear crush, it seems we have been avoiding deep conversations since we started catching feelings for each other. There are a lot of things I wished I could say to you directly but I am afraid that you will cut off this beautiful bond between us.

So, I am breaking this silence with my keypad and notepad, attempting to tell you that I love you, and my love for you is pure and perfect – a slice of paradise.

However, there are things I may do or say that will hurt you temporarily, and there are things I may refuse to do or say that will make you doubt my love for you.

I am an imperfect man on a quest for perfection and full resurrection, yes resurrection.

My heart was broken, burned and buried by some of the ‘friends’ that occupied it in the past

I have lost touch with the reality of romance because the fragrance of my heart was polluted with the flame of falsehood, betrayal and deception.

I have loved the wrong people the right way and loved the right people the wrong way because my emotions were bereft of purity and godly purposes.

My love was blind because it lacked the Light of God. My love was dead because it lacked the life of Christ. I was looking for love in the wrong places – filling the God-shaped hole in my heart with the pleasures of this world.

All my previous displays of affection were born out of a distasteful desire – to fulfil the lust of the flesh. Although I tried to do what was right, but I was on the wrong side of morality and far from divinity.

At a point in time, depression began to set in, I drowned deeply in the ocean of frustration. While jumping from one random relationship to another, I found myself in the valley of the shadow of death, but the love of God was reckless, excess and limitess enough to find me.

God came running after me to rescue me. He lighted up every shadow, and whispered to me, “Dear son, death is swallowed up in victory”.
He transported me from the valley of the shadow of death to the mountain of the rainbow of life.

God added flavour and colour to my life, and now I can boldly say that I am salt and light to my world. I was rescued for such a time as this and ransomed for a treasure like you.

Dear crush, I am growing and healing fast, and I am trying not to go back to the pit God pulled me from and the sins He saved me from.

So, I may not say all the things you want me to say or do all you want me to do but I can guarantee you that if you allow God’s love to find expression in your heart and our friendship, we will do life together and love each other as Christ loved the church…

In the meantime, let’s flow in faith, fun and friendship. I hope this is not as complicated as you thought it would be.

– Adeleke Adeite

What’s your take-home from this piece? Share your views in the comment section. Thank you.

Love, Lines and Landmarks

I have never been this emotional while writing a piece. It’s been 7 years of sweet moments and memories as a blogger. Yaaaaay! It’s also my first time of making a special post to celebrate the sweet souls who make WordPress a sanctuary of sort for me.

I have shared how rough and tough 2020 was for me; how I was hopeless, helpless and homeless for months, but I must say that the amazing family and friends I met here made me sail through that stormy season without drowning in depression.

During my downtime, I read a lot of inspiring and uplifting pieces that made me discover the beauty and blessings of adversity. It’s comforting to know that someone is here to read my teardrops in word.

I started 2020 with over 100 followers but now, my WordPress family has gotten bigger and stronger.

With every notification of a new follower I get, I see an amazing being with distinct skills, expertise, experiences, ideas and viewpoints, having something valuable to lend and learn. This is not about having stats and figures to flaunt, but a family to do life with.

I started blogging to share my heart and art with others, to inspire and encourage them. I never knew that it’s going to be a safe space that will give me solace, succour and strength someday.

I’m grateful to you all for being a part of my blogging journey so far, especially those who gave me their shoulder to lean on. I’m grateful for every single like, comment, share and reblog. I feel encouraged by your engagements with my blog and every single post.

This platform has helped me to achieve the following:

Be a blessing to people through written and spoken words.

Connect with fantastic people from different countries and co-write articles with great minds.

Be a better writer, content creator and communicator.

Share of the wisdom, wonders and wealth of fellow bloggers through their contents.

Thank you all once again for your engagements and encouragement. As my way of celebrating you all, I am giving out a free copy of my new book Whispers of Winners (Daily Edition) to all my friends. Download it here.

Feel free to share your thoughts about my blog in the comment sections. Cheers to many more love, lines and landmarks. Thank you.

A Slice of Paradise – Poem

Your heart is a slice of paradise,
of course, I see stars in your eyes.
Your soul is a garden of grace,
it’s obvious in your warm embrace.
You’re a blend of bloom and bliss
a flawless flower I’ll forever kiss.
Help me unravel this contradiction,
stop inhabiting my imagination.

© Adeleke Adeite

Every lady with a beautiful heart is a slice of paradise. Share with all the slices of paradise you know…❤❤❤💕💕

Photo credit: Canva

Moments and Memories

Do not cry over the past, it has gone;
Forge ahead, the deed has been done.

Worry not over the future, God holds it;
let not present pains make you quit.

Today’s skies are bright and beautiful,
maximise it to make your world wonderful.

Worthless is the rainfall of yesterdays,
you cannot use its sunshine to make hays.

The future is but a mansion of mysteries,
worth the wishes but not your worries.

Yesterday is a hall of hopes and history,
it is gone, only to be told as a story.

All you have is this moment, be happy,
smile away your sorrows, make it snappy!

Today will never come again my dear,
fill your heart with faith, shun fear.

Each moment in life turns to memories,
use this moment to leave great legacies.

Poem written by Adeleke Adeite.
Copyright 2014.