My Journey From Creative To Entrepreneur.
🎬 Episode 9- Blessed and Highly Favored by God and Men. 🥹🫶🏽❤️❤️❤️
It happened suddenly! My entire life changed in a split second. You know how seconds ago, you were a particular person with a particular reality and few seconds afterwards, you’re a different person with an entirely different reality? Yes!😭
TheStylishPriest was no longer existent in my radar. It is someone that is alive and well, that can think about serving other people, or making money. All that mattered to me was making it to the next day alive.
I couldn’t wear clothes, or wigs. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t read, I couldn’t pray, I couldn’t focus or concentrate on anything, I couldn’t leave the house myself. Just like that, I had become someone who depended on people for every single thing.
In one week, I lost all the weight I had gained. I become a shadow of myself. It all felt like a dream! only that when I closed my eyes and opened it, reality stared me in the face.
First it was shock, then I responded with the word, then I entered panic, then deep fear, and eventually, confusion. I had so many questions… “What is going on? Why am I going through this? Why is this happening to me? What did I do wrong? Where did I miss it? What did I touch in the realm of the spirit, and how? Why didn’t God warn me about this? Why didn’t He prepare me for this? Why didn’t He protect me? Where did I get it all wrong? What did I do wrong? Why is God just looking at me and letting me go through so much pain and discomfort? Through what spiritual technology is all of this happening? 🤣😭
If you know how inquisitive and curious I can be about things, then you already know I had so many more questions than I can remember right now😂 The lack of answers and explanation got me bawling my eyes out.😭
In retrospect, I believe God had actually prepared me for it.
Few weeks before it happened, I was led to read “Life’s challenges your opportunities” by John Hagee. Plus even though I wasn’t in Lagos few weeks to “Deeper Lagos”, I felt a press in my spirit to leave where I was, and come back to Lagos a day before, just so I could attend it.
The tug in my spirit felt something like, “go and drink for the journey ahead.”
At Deeper Lagos, Pastey had spoken about things like “hypertrophy in prayer, the role of the mind in building spiritual convictions, as well as not being ignorant about the devil’s schemes.” At some point, I remember him saying something like, “pray! Some of you are going to need this in the coming days. Your life depends on this prayer.” In my spirit, I knew He was talking to me! I could feel it in my bones that Deeper Lagos(July, 2022) was for me. Also, few days before the incident, my heart was stirred towards reading “when God doesn’t make sense” by Dr. James Dobson.
I had soaked myself in all of these different experiences like my life depended on them. And I’m truly grateful that I did, because I had no idea a storm was coming.
It was the craziest experience of my life. One that I really look forward to sharing all the details about, as soon as I get the go-ahead to!
In summary, I’m either supposed to be mad- like the roaming around the streets of Lagos stack naked, kind of mad. Or maybe dead, by now! But thanks be to God who always causes us to triumph!
“Greater is He that lives in me, than He that lives in the world”, has never been more real to me. “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me?” I’ve lived it! 😂
If living, breathing, walking, talking, miracle, were a person, it would be me. 🥹
My entire life is literal proof that the word of God is true. And to think that “my life is proof that the word of God is true”, has been one of my confessions since my university days, is just mind blowing. 🥹
All I can say is that the word of God is true. It works! And God is such a good, loving, kind, and intentional father💯 The one who works in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure. 🫶🏽
In all honesty, I believe that the only reason I didn’t lose faith, still held on to God’s word, and still believed in Jesus amidst all I went through, is not by power or by my might, but by the help of the Spirit. I believe it was the grace of God at work.
Just like my name(Maura) implies, “I am the blessed and highly favored one of God. The one the lord has shown mercy!”
I believe that God has set me apart for Himself, and said “this one belongs to me. This one will be used to herald my glory. This one will tell the world about my love, about my power. She will birth my dreams and visions for her life, and show the world what is obtainable in and through me. Through her life, people will know that I am real, that I am God; the one who fights for, and defends His own. That I am truly a rewarder of those who diligently seek me.”
Please help me take out time to say a big thank you to God for my life. Like actually do it oh! 😑 Thank you for doing it. 🫶🏽
By faith, and with the help of God and those He put in my life to help me, I started to take baby steps, till I began to do everything I couldn’t do before.
At some point in October, a friend of mine; Okenwa Igbokwe, convinced me to go with him for a believers hangout. That was my first event since the incident. I went, literally looking unto Jesus.
I remember telling God something like, “you know we’re in this together. If I go down, you go down. So please help me. 🤲🏽 Don’t let us go and disgrace ourselves at this event.” 🥹
“Before we would just see a headline that reads something like, ‘A beautiful girl who is known to be very loud about her faith, suddenly begins to display madness’🤣😂 God forbid bad thing oh!” 😭
I successfully went and came back without any drama, and I had a really great time too! This made me start to see the possibility of being able to go out by myself.
Sometime that same month, my friends, Oluwanifesi Adefila and Adepoju Bakare started to bring up conversations about TheStylishPriest. They separately began to talk me into putting out content so that people could remember that we exist, and we could stay top of mind.
I was reluctant about posting, because I didn’t think I was well enough, to handle the planning and execution that came with styling people. They were convincing, so I put out a post on our twitter page, and almost immediately, Folashade Daini saw it and reached out to say she needed a stylist. 🥳💃🏽🎉🎊🎈🍾
To be continued in the next episode!
I just want to use this opportunity to say a big thank you to the rest of my friends and family(who I couldn’t mention here), who stood by me and came through for me during one of the toughest times of my life. I deeply appreciate you, and I really do hope that I’ve truly been able to communicate how grateful I am for you! 🥹
May God bless and keep you, and may people show up for you even before your needs arise. When you call one, ten will answer. May God truly bless you for me, for real! I’m blessed to have you in my life, and I really do love and appreciate you. 🫶🏽
If you read up to this point, please help me say a word of prayer for them. Thank you so much! ❤️
Did you enjoy reading today’s episode? How did it make you feel? Was it helpful? Did you learn anything? what stood out for you? Let me know all of these, and more, in the comments. Also please like, share/repost for more reach!
If you have missed out on previous episodes, you should totally catch up below⬇️
