Two years on??i

You may not know me, but I am one who suffered from a condition. It happened in an instant but its effects lasted for a number of years. Despite the condition clearing up, the scars from it still remain. I suffered from a broken heart. It hurt. I cried. I dwelt in darkness, thinking that I would never see light. And the pain, my my the pain. It gripped my heart suffocated my soul and stamped out my smile. One would rather long for physical pain, as at least that would cease after a while. Did I think I was going to overcome. Nope, not initially. But it was through faith and the belief that; 1. My lord heals the broken hearted and binds up their wounds 2. Time is a healer! And with these convictions I weathered the hurt, I rode the storms, I blogged, sung, wrote poetry on it. Until finally, the darkness was overcome with light! I feel joy again and I feel peace. I defined Gods purpose in that particular season and tbh it was worth it. He was not mine. Therefore, God closed that door with a slam. I didn't want to let go, considering I am such a fighter, God knew that the only way to save me from that situation was to drag me out. Em yh. Next time I think I will walk away if and when He tells me too! At the end of the day, in the midst of the mess I now see purpose. I have grown, changed & been redefined. I have a testimony to share. Especially with you, whose heart longs for healing. You will get there. No, it will not hurt like this forever. One day you will heal.

Funnily enough... I don't even remember when it happened! Even funnier I sincerely wish them all nothing but hapoiness , love and candy floss :)

Lesson 4: it WILL get EASIER!

Howday!

Today is officially one year from the day when my world stopped (my introductory blog post explains why, how, what and where!)   Well, I thought it had stopped. But one year has passed, and despite the tears, pain, constant hurt, anger and shock.... I am still standing! The persistent feeling of emptiness that I thought would never go away has faded, and the smiles and laughter that I thought I lost for ever, returned with a vengeance!! I am LOL'ING all over the joint mate! :)

On this day a year ago, I couldn't see how I could live or go on without him, or what in fact would happen to our future. But I am still breathing, and my future is 100% in Gods hands. It is the danger of making man your all and everything, when they disappoint you, your whole foundation crumbles as it was founded on them and NOT on God.

It has taken LOTS of prayers, a whole load of soul searching, time alone, encouragement and words of wisdom from AMAZING friends and a lot of crying, but to God be the glory, I have made it this far.

I am still healing, I am still learning, but I know now that God has a much better plan for me and I am ready to move in accordance to His will and not my own.

Whatever hurt you are feeling right now, just know that it is temporary. I am sure people have reeled of numerous clichés to you, such as; 'time is a healer' etc, but trust me, it truly is. Things will get better, and after a while you will realise that your heart does not hurt as much as it used to, and you will find yourself laughing and smiling more and the empty feeling you feel now will eventually disappear.

Be patient. 

Please do not rush your healing process, please do not shut away your pain. Pour it out to God! Also, you could try starting a journal where you express how you are feeling, or even writing a poem or if you are musical, write a song!! Release the emotion, please do not store it away! I'll be praying for yall :)

It is well.

Ife Okan


To you, 
If you ever happen to read this just know that I have forgiven you, and I wish you all the best.  

xx 

Lesson 3: This isn't a basketball game, so don't go for the rebound!

Ladies, unless you are 6ft tall and playing in a basketball game; say NO to the rebound!!

Memo: that cute looking - nice- funny -attentive guy that has suddenly materialised as a potential boo thang a few weeks/months after your big Break Up (BU), is very likely to be a 'Rebound'.

 He may make you smile, he may make you feel better than you have been feeling in a long while and you may have been advsied that the best way to 'get over the ex is to move on to the next', but it does not change the fact that entering into a relationship with him so soon will be detrimental to your healing process!

Rebound relationships are a distraction from dealing with the pain from your heartbreak. It is understandable that you would want to avoid going through the healing process required post BU as it is such a painful, difficult and often long process. However, rebounds are not a cure for dealing with the pain, they simply assist in surpressing it. One day, the cracks will begin to show, and suddenly what you thought you had dealt with or the feelings you thought were gone will emerge, often causing hurt to others, maybe even affecting your marriage in the future *clicks fingers over head* God forbid!

"A wise woman knows that if she got into a relationship now, she would mess up someones life" (Heather Lindsay)

I decided post BU that I did not want to get into a new relationship. The only relationship that I wanted to develop was my relationship with God! I wanted to heal properly as well as have some much needed me time. Plus, I prayed and promised myself that the next relationship i entered into would not be with a 'random', but rather with the person who God wants me to be with for the rest of my life! I am not looking to go through this whole heartbreak thing again, no thanks!!

By Gods grace I did not enter into a relationship, but it wasnt easy! I aint no Nia Long or Hallie Berry, let me tell ya, but for some reason after I had decided to commit myself to God completely, I was getting propositions left right forward and centre, from some really 'decent fella's'!

Admittedly, I did entertain one or two of them, a couple of lunches here and there (i couldnt resist the lure of free food!), and engaging in daily conversations.  However, after the 'friendship' drifted apart, and I was alone once again, all the pain came rushing back and it was worse than it was before. I had not progressed with my healing whilst entertaining these 'friendships' rather, I had just put it on hold.

Even if you think the guy isn't just a random, and he may in fact be "the one", the man of your dreams *fill in adjectives here*, I would still advise you to wait. Allow yourself time to heal completely first, let God take away the pain and restore you fully, and teach you how to love again without fear. Do not feel pressured to get into a relationship with them, as you feel like you may miss out on the love of your life, or they are promising to love you forever and to make it all better! If he truly does love and respect you, and it is meant to be, then he will wait for you. Jacob served Rachel's father for seven years, but to him it felt like a "few days, for the love he had for her." (Genesis 29:13) - swoon.com! I do love a good romance story! ;)

What is important to know is that filling the holes and gaps in your life with another will not make you better or complete you. "Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help" Psalm 146:3. I have learnt that those empty places should be filled in with God. If you want to be loved and you feel alone, then seek Him more, as He is the lover of your soul and he cares about every thing about you, so you can talk to Him about your worries and concerns like you would talk to any other person.


It is painful, I know, to try and go through the whole healing process 'the right way', but continue to offer your heart up to God daily to heal and restore you. When the time is right for you to be with your Adam, you will know.

In the meantime, keep busy. Spend quality time with God, your family and your friends, and develop a relationship with yourself.

Ife Okan

Lesson 2 : Dont Wait For Karma!

*Sings in the style of Alicia Keys*

"What goes around comes around what goes up must go down!!!"

(now this song is now going to be stuck in your mind for the whole day! Lol!)

The term Karma* in its colloquial sense, is used to define a concept where the things you do to others will one day come back around and affect you.

The bible also speaks about this concept,  in Job 4:8 for example which says that "those who plow evil and those who sow trouble reap it".

After being hurt by someone, the idea that one day they may feel the same pain as you did/do, may provide you with some form of satisfaction. I know it did for me!

I mean, lets be real;  for the past week you have been in the foetal position in a darkened room, listening to the slow jam playlist you made on YouTube, sobbing your heart out whenever 'End of the Road' played, just because of that guy, who you thought would love you forever, broke your heart!

Why wouldn't the thought that one day he would pay for what he did to you fill you with a sense of satisfaction that justice will eventually be served! It is one of the worse feelings to think that someone who caused you so much pain is living life deliriously happy, whilst you are still trying to heal from the wounds that they caused.

So, you wait with baited breath for the day that they finally 'reap what they have sown'. I was there. I was stuck there. In a place where I couldn't move forward because I was waiting for the day when I would receive 'justice' for the hurt that I suffered. The day that the ex and his new boo would break up so I could say AH HAH! KARMA GOTCHYAA!! Crazy? Yes. Human? Very much so!

It took me a lot of soul searching, praying and admittedly private investigating (i.e. looking at instagram/facebook/twitter photos feeds etc...don't follow my example, its the worse thing to do!), to realise that;

1. It was not Christ like for me to be waiting plotting and praying for the downfall of others! In doing so I was also sowing evil with my thoughts, and therefore I would eventually reap evil too. Thus short circuiting my own blessings!!
2. Waiting for 'justice to be served' meant that I was stuck in a place of hurt that I could not move on from. I was therefore holding myself back from healing properly.
3. I failed to realise that; God has a perfect plan for everyone and that includes the ex. Thus this girl may be the person that he was always meant to be with, they may never break up and they may even get married and live happily ever after. Therefore, 'justice' in a form that i wanted it, i.e. them breaking up, may never actually occur!! Reality can be a bitter pill to swallow! But don't be disheartened!
4. Psalm 126:5 promises that "Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy!" Therefore, through all the tears you have cried you have been sowing seeds and when the harvest eventually comes you will reap joy, happiness, love and peace! What better justice can you ask for!!

I have learnt that I have to leave vengeance to God. Trust me, He loves us so much, that He will grant us the sweetest justice by sending us our own Adam who will love us in ways that we can't even begin to explain, imagine or list! Everyday will we wake up and give thanks to God for the blessing He has brought into our lives, and the English Breakfast that the blessing prepared and served to us in bed! hehe! :)

So let us stop waiting around for Ms Karma to strike, as by doing so we may be sowing bad seeds ourselves! Instead, pray for the person that hurt you, sow seeds of kindness, peace and love, so that when the right time comes, this is what you will reap.

"The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”

Galatians 6:8-19

*It should be noted that Karma in it's real sense is a "...theological concept found in the Buddhist and Hindu religions. It is the idea that how you live your life will determine the quality of life you will have after reincarnation" therefore as the bible does not support the idea of reincarnation, therefore it does not support the concept of Karma. (see http://www.gotquestions.org/karma.html for more details).

Uh oh!!

Once again, I have slacked on my blogging skills!

I have a few posts that should be plonked on here sometime soon!!

Watch this space :)

Lesson 1: All things work together for good

All things work together for good to them that love God (Romans 8:28)

I am a Christian, therefore I strongly believe that God is in complete control of every aspect of my life. This meant that the first lesson I had to come to terms with post the Break Up (BU) was that; despite all the hurt and pain that I was feeling; all things would work together for good!!

 Now, I had people repeat this verse to me constantly to encourage me, but honestly at that time I simply was not feeling to hear it. I could not comprehend how it was possible for all the drama and emotions I went through to somehow work together for good. However, it has been a few months since the BU and although it is a lesson that I am still learning, I am slowly starting to see how all that I went through is coming together in accordance to Gods will for my life.

 Romans 8:28 is a verse that is applicable to every single difficult situation that you or I may face. I have started to apply it to even the smallest annoying things that may happen in my day. For example, if I miss my train (after making a Usain Bolt dash for it, it happens tut)instead of getting angry I just consider that there may have been some good reason for me to miss the train, therefore, glory be to God. I know it is so easy when going through, what I call the 'initial pain stage' to ask God 'WHY'.

That was me oh!! I am a rather dramatic individual. There I would be in my mums old African dress wailing 'Lord whyyyy Lord whyyy' hair in 'doodoo' plaits and legs akimbo...sigh memories lol.

I am sure God was just looking down at me and shaking his head bemused at my ungratefulness, knowing full well of what he had just delivered me from! And the better plan that he has in store for me. In response to one of my dramatic wailing sessions one of my male friends quipped - "I don't know why your acting like this and you are so sad over it!! I mean, God has saved you from something! If I was you I would be rejoicing" whilst another friend suggested that we should be doing a praise dance!!

At the time I couldn't comprehend how people could be so harsh and seemingly unsympathetic to my plight when I was hurting so badly. However, I have now realised that God truly always knows best. He knows the reason for why me and 'Charles' did not work out. Only He knows what my future with Charle's held, I only saw what I believed our future would have been like. Imagine, I never anticipated the Break Up to be as it was... so imagine the shocks and surprises I would have encountered if God permitted me to follow my own stubborn self will? Hm... I do not even want to imagine it...

I learnt from this that I had to stop leaning on my own understanding and believe that God, my heavenly father who knew me from when I was still a foetus in my mothers womb, who hears my every prayer and loves me unconditionally, has got my back and He is in control of my situation.

 All I need to do is trust Him, learn how to love him more and increase my faith in His word. It is so not easy, and some days I falter when the painful memories resurface. But I am working on it...

Love the Lord, and ALL things will work together for good.

                            Okan's Ife

Introduction to Lessons From A Mending Heart...

'He heals the brokenhearted And binds up their wounds.'

Hello, You may have stumbled onto this blog by accident, or maybe you were intentionally looking for a blog that is about a young lady spilling her heart out about the lessons she has learnt through heartbreak, and what she continues to learn whilst her heart is 'on the mend'. If the latter reason is the case, then hey :) you are in the right place (unintentional rhyme, i'm a poet and I didn't know it! Annnd I regress! lol) The inspiration for my blog comes from the bible verse Psalm 143:3, which states - 'He heals the brokenhearted And binds up their wounds.'

I recently experienced the unexpected pain of an ever so dramatic 'heartbreak'. To provide you with some context, a brief run down of the facts of my former relationship are as follows :

Literally, from the first day I saw him I felt in my soul that this guy, (i shall call him 'Charles') was going to be in my life for a very long time. And he was, 5 1/2 years to be exact. I thought he was the one I was going to marry. He was my best friend, my buddy, homie, cooking partner, partner in crime, business partner, number one support, constant encourager, confidant etc. We were in Love, with a capital L.

 Charles left London in order to study at a University in another country, whilst I remained in the UK to attend University. This meant that for about 3 1/2 me and Charles were in a long distance relationship. They were some tough years! However, amidst all the hard times, we had some great times, and we worked hard to stay together.

 Anywhoo... some time in late 2011 we both decided that it was time for us to break up and take time to pray individually for Gods guidance concerning each other and our relationship and to allow God to work on us individually. We had been together since we were 16/17, and we never prayed about our relationship before we entered into it. This was something that always concerned me and I always wanted time out to pray to see if it was Gods will for us to be together.

 Now we have been on breaks in the past. I am talking break ups, downs, break ins and outs, on a number of occasions. The longest lasted a month. However, this time it was meant to be 'official' but we were still talking every day, carrying on like we were still together... All the i love you boos and all that jazz included.

 It is necessary to backtrack a little to provide a little context here...and to introduce the third character to this story...

 Charles has a 'friend' lets call her 'Rachel'. She has been his friend since he started University. Now Charles and Rachel constantly chilled together, had sleep overs, study sessions, jamming session worreva u wana call am they had it... then there were pictures... in varying locations, and poses, when they were out and about with friends etc. I was also hearing through the grapevine, that stuff was going down. Even my girls were telling me that Rachel was shady, and she clearly had a thing for Charles. However, I like to give people the benefit of the doubt, call it naivety or whatever, but that's just me. It did cause a few issues, but i always received the response 'we are just friends'...I believed him.

 Now, fast forward to the15th December 2011...

Now, remember I thought me and Charles were taking time out to pray and work on ourselves as individuals and pray about OUR relationship... there was no notion or indication of anyone else popping up, especially from his side, as he was always adamant that he didnt want no one else but me bla bla... However, to cut the long story short, on this day, Charles admitted that he liked Rachel... and Rachel said she felt the same way.

Well, there it is, where it all started. My heart shattered on the floor of the Nigerian Embassy waiting room. Heart break.  

This boy was literally my life. The guy I still wanted to marry, whom I clicked with like no one else in the world, he had my trust and all... I even made the mistake of even putting him before God at times. Shame on me, I know.

The pain that followed was immense. The heavy weight of pain that crushed my heart day in and day out for weeks after I found out. The constant tears that unexpectedly forced itself from my eyes. The anger, hurt, sadness, distrust and plain craziness that followed, I can write memoirs documenting the tormenting thoughts that plagued my mind in an attempt to calculate the how's, but's, when's and WHYSs?? I am sure if you have experienced heart break, you will definitely know the feelings and thoughts that I am referring to. It was pure pain. Ish...

Quite frankly, I wont even going into any further details as I do not want to use this blog as an anger/cussing/she said he said arena, because I am not that kind of girl and this is not that sort of blog. The only thing I will state is that; I tried to respectfully close the situation as peacefully and respectfully as possible, and more importantly I wanted to obtain personal closure and move on. I simply wanted things to end on 'ok' terms... Unfortunately, I was not given the same respect back. But, sha, its Baba God noni that will sort those things out, as Lord knows i tried... :)

So, that is my break up story. At the time, I felt like my life was over, but I have realised now that it is only the beginning... I am now at a place where I can say that; although the pain is still there, 'I am still breathing'. Trust me it is all by the grace of God.

I am still on my journey and my heart is still being mended.  

This blog as a place where I can share the Lesson's I have learnt over the past few months and the lessons that I am sure I will continue to learn. Please join me as I continue to learn the lessons required to be a Proverbs 31 lady... and by grace one day, to reach a place of complete restoration. I sincerely pray that somehow that through my incessant ramblings someone will find the strength to keep on going. I also pray that whether it was recent, or old wounds which are still sore... that God Heals the broken hearts and binds up their wounds... Amen...

Okan's Ife (Heart's Love)