“Hi God … Yes it’s me again. I was wondering what exactly you meant by this year is going to be my best year because honestly it’s turning out to be quite the opposite. And I don’t know how much longer I can hold on for.”

This was the kind of prayers I was making during the hardest season I’ve just experienced. It seemed like everything around me was just trembling down. I was really struggling to hold on to the promises of God.

I was being attacked mentally, physically & spiritually.

As you may or may not know, I’m in my final year of university. Writing my dissertation was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, not because I was incapable but because I was in a serious spiritual warfare during the period. The enemy kept whispering to me “you’re never going to finish this dissertation, so give up”. It was sooooo bad, I allowed my joy to be robbed. I even had suicidal thoughts and thought about self-harming (which is extremely shocking because I have never ever had that before). But that’s how serious the warfare was. I would cry my eyes out and scream for God to help me. But he didn’t seem to be doing anything. I was really close to giving up, but there was always something deep within me that just couldn’t let go of what the word of God says. It was very hard to focus. I missed the deadline to hand in my work to my supervisor to be able to get feedback for improvement, and this made me even more upset.

I tried to go on a fast and stuff. But my body was giving up on me, I was sooo stressed that I started having severe chest pains and had to go to A&E. Oh and can I mention that during all this, I was also on my final placement. And of course that was affected too, because I had to take off days and I couldn’t concentrate when I was at placement. My mentor and ward manager noticed my bad performance for a third year student and they were very close to putting me on an action plan. But of course I couldn’t tell them I was battling spiritually.

I still managed to bottle up a bit of faith and prayed for favour and that I wouldn’t fail my placement which would’ve meant failing my course too.

By God’s grace, I managed to finish my dissertation but I was still in warfare. I found ungodly addictions starting to creep back in. Which made me even more upset because I felt like I was disappointing God.

But God drew my attention to Romans 4. Which says that “Abraham believed God, and God counted him as righteous because of his faith. And people are counted as righteous, not because of their work, but because of their faith in God who forgives sinners”. God really convicted me after studying this scripture because I realised that all along I’ve put my joy in how well I’m doing in the secret place or how long I’ve gone without sinning. Which is self-righteousness because in fact nothing I do is even close, scripture says all our righteousness are as filthy rags. It is only by God’s grace and by the death of Jesus that our sins have been washed away.

But hey, let’s fast forward to this week, I received my results for my dissertation and I passed, I didn’t get a good grade but I’m happy because I worked sooo hard to even finish it. And also, I’ve decided that I’m going to just rest in God’s love & just trust him in every season I go through.

Because in life there will always be trials & tribulations but this does not mean God doesn’t love us. Just like how at school, exams are taken before moving to the next class, we also have to go through tests in order to get to the next level. However during tough periods we must have faith and trust God that everything will work together for us. So I’ve gone back to spending more time in the secret place and I’ve seen a great change in every aspect of my life. Also, I’m doing well at placement now. So by God’s grace in a few weeks I’ll be a qualified nurse yay!

This season has been the hardest but it has certainly increased my faith in God. And I’ve decided that from now onwards I’m going to run with him and be who he has called me to be. No more waiting to be a ‘perfect’ Christian to be radical. My flaws shall only keep me humble and dependent solely on God throughout this journey.

So you can expect more blog posts and inspirational videos on my social media.

And lastly, I just want to thank God for the strength he has put in me, because although I was in this hard season, I was still praying for people crying to me about their problems on the phone. I was still helping others when they needed me, I was at a few events to show support to people. And a big shout out to the three people I confided in during this season, thank you for praying for me & not being judgemental.

As my birthday is approaching in a few days, I’d like people who truly care about me to spend at least one day fasting for me against any spiritual attacks & for an increased hunger and thirst for God.

I hope this extremely transparent blog post encourages you & stirs up a higher level of faith in you, no matter what you’re going through because God knows what’s best for you & he will never go against his promises.

Lots of Love,

Sharon.