I slip into this rabbit hole of existential crisis, and it takes so much confrontation to climb out of it, if I ever really do.

Recently, I watched someone I love reach one of the biggest milestones of their life while carrying unimaginable grief. It was beautiful, but it also forced me to confront something I’ve been running from for years: my fear of losing the people I love.

A long time ago, I had a dream about my mom.

A few days before the dream, I’d read an article about how vomiting what looks like coffee grounds can be a sign of internal bleeding. I don’t remember all the medical details anymore. I just remember learning that it was serious.

Then I had the dream.

My mom started hyperventilating. Then she started throwing up.

I remember holding her, crying uncontrollably, desperately wishing there was something I could do. But I couldn’t. I wasn’t a doctor. I couldn’t save her. All I could do was hold her while everything seemed to fall apart.

Then I woke up.

I remember running to hug her and telling her that I loved her. She looked at me, slightly confused, and asked if everything was okay. I told her about the dream, and she laughed it off with a “God forbid.”

It was only a dream.

But the fear stayed.

I’ve realized that every time I hear someone I love is unwell, even if it’s something small, my mind immediately races to the worst possible outcome. A headache becomes something life-threatening. A hospital visit becomes a tragedy waiting to happen.

Part of me knows that’s anxiety.

But another part of me wonders if this is simply what happens when you love people deeply enough to realize they’re temporary.

I hate the fact that everyone we love is mortal.

I hate that one day there will be a “last” hug, a “last” phone call, a “last” ordinary conversation that none of us will realize is the last until it’s already over.

Maybe that’s why I find myself asking the same questions over and over again.

What’s the point of all of this?

If we’re born knowing we’ll lose the people we love, and one day become the people someone else loses, what are we supposed to do with that?

And then my mind drifts somewhere else.

Christians have been waiting for Jesus to return for nearly two thousand years.

Sometimes I wonder what we’re supposed to do with the waiting.

Sometimes, if I’m being completely honest, I wonder: what if we’re all waiting in vain?

I don’t have neat answers. Or any at all now that I think about it.

I’m writing this from a place of exhaustion.

Maybe it’s the long shifts. Maybe it’s everything life has thrown at me over the years. Maybe it’s simply that loving people is terrifying because it means accepting that none of us gets to keep each other forever.

I don’t know.

What I do know is that every day or two, I ask myself what the point of all this is.

And every day or two, I get up anyway.

I call the people I love.

I hug my mom when I can (I haven’t seen her in ages omggg i miss you mommyyyy).

I tell my family I love them.

Maybe that’s all any of us can do while we wait.

Maybe loving people, despite knowing they’re temporary, is the closest thing we have to an answer.

Talk soon,

Narin<3

Not forever, just long enough that I wouldn’t have to touch the knob again until I was ready.

My dad lost his best friend last year. I think about it sometimes. I hadn’t in a while. I think that was intentional. But today, the door opened, and now we’re here.

We were with him often before he passed. I remember the first time I noticed the weight loss. I remember how he was in and out of hospitals, different countries, different doctors, the same quiet hope that maybe this would be the one that worked.

Shortly before he died, my dad stopped letting us see him. We later learned it was because he didn’t want us to see him like that. And because even he couldn’t sleep after seeing his friend in that condition.

Then there was the day my parents rushed out of the house. I didn’t know what was happening, but I felt it in my body. You know that unease? The one that doesn’t need information to be certain. I went to my room and prayed for what? Ten minutes?

“God, please.

Not today.

Not again.

Not this time.

Not him.”

I texted my mom.

Where are you?

She said they were at Uncle Victor’s house.

I asked how they were doing, him and his wife.

She replied, “Uncle Victor has gone to heaven ooo Narin.”

I cried, and I don’t even know what I was crying about specifically. I just know that everything felt heavy all over again. I had been at that same point barely two years before that.

I think part of what broke me was seeing my father. He has lost enough. He has endured enough. And I hate that death keeps finding its way into the lives of people who have already paid too much.

I hate death. I think it is disgusting. I think it is violent and invasive and cruel. It tears without asking. It interrupts without permission. I have never known how to reconcile it with the goodness of an all-loving God.

Death feels irreconcilable with love.

And yet, I know death was never love’s idea. Death is the consequence of a world fractured from its source of life. Love did not create death. Love entered a dying world to undo it at great cost to itself.

Death is vandalism. It is wrong. It is traumatic. And even though I know it is not victorious in the end, it feels victorious right now.

I’ve noticed something about myself: every single person I have had deep faith for has died. And I hate what that has done to me. I now associate hope with disappointment. Prayer feels like anticipatory grief, like I’m bracing myself for loss before it even arrives.

And then I think about his wife.

How she stayed.

How she cared for him so tenderly.

How she loved him faithfully until the end.

Her name is Grace. His name was Victor. They had an inside joke — that anyone who has grace is victorious. She had so much faith. I know she believed he would make it.

At his service of songs, when I hugged her, she held me tightly and said, “Your Uncle Victor is gone.”

I told her I was sorry.

She said, “No, it’s okay.”

She was the one comforting me.

I don’t have a neat ending for this. I don’t have a lesson that makes death feel reasonable. I just know that love stayed. And maybe that’s the quiet defiance, that even when death takes, love refuses to leave.

And somehow, I’m stuck. Not in the triumph of Sunday morning, not even in the grief of Friday, but in Saturday. The silence. The in-between. The day where nothing happened and nobody knew if anything ever would.

I can tolerate Friday because Friday at least feels like a test of faith. There’s movement in Friday, there’s weight, there’s drama. But Saturday? Saturday feels like finality. Like all hope lost. Like the silence of God. Like waiting for someone who said they’d show up, and the clock just keeps ticking. And then you start to wonder if you imagined the promise in the first place.

I want to be honest with you today, because I think you deserve that more than you deserve a performance or a perfectly crafted theological write-up.

I understand the weight of Easter. I know what the resurrection means. Not just religiously, but theologically, personally, deeply. I understand salvation, I understand the cross. I understand the cost. And if we’re doing proper exegesis of John 3:16 — “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son”, scholars would tell you the more precise reading is God loved the world in this way. Not just how much, but how. The manner of the love. The method of it. A love so specific, so particular, so costly that it sent a son to die.

And maybe that’s part of why I am still angry… because I know what He’s capable of.

I understand that it is not just a verse but a magnitude of love I genuinely cannot quantify no matter how hard I try. I know all of this. I have repeated it to others and I have meant every word.

And I am still angry.

I am angry at the way scripture played out. I am angry at the prayers I have repeated until they stopped sounding like faith and started sounding like begging.

Angry at the silence that follows things I know He is capable of answering.

I have been questioning God in ways that feel uncomfortable to even admit out loud. Not because I think questioning is wrong, but because it is vulnerable. And vulnerability is terrifying. And yet, there is a part of me that cannot let go of Him. I cannot unlove God. Even in the anger and the questions and the exhaustion, something holds. And I cannot detach that stubborn, unshakable something from the very reason Easter exists.

So this year, I’m not going to pretend I made it to Sunday. I stayed up wondering if I would. I kept waiting for something to shift and I kept hoping I would feel it, I didn’t. I’m still in Saturday. Sitting in the stillness. Sitting in the silence of God and fighting not to interpret it as abandonment. Wondering, like the disciples must have wondered if He would rise again. Watching time tick.

But maybe some of you are here too. Maybe you’ve been too afraid to say that you’re angry out loud. That you’re tired, that the gap between what you were promised and what you’re living feels impossible to reconcile. Maybe you’ve been performing Sunday when you’re still bleeding from Friday.

I see you. I’m right there with you.

And I think that’s okay. Maybe Saturday is allowed. Maybe you don’t have to rush to the empty tomb today. Maybe He’s big enough to hold your anger, your questions, your silence, your Saturday.

I don’t have a tidy ending for you (If I did you would probably be shocked). I don’t have a bow to put on this. What I do have is honesty, and the same stubborn, inexplicable thing that won’t let me go, even when I’m not sure I want it to hold on.

I’m just not ready to celebrate yet. And that’s between me and Him.

So to the people who have figured it out, Happy Easter!

Love always,

Narin.

I didn't take my faith seriously until I turned 18. I had just finished high school a few months before my birthday, waiting to start college, broke and restless. I went on Tiktok searching for ways to make money and stumbled on a Nigerian preacher talking about prosperity. The way he spoke about wealth and success hooked me. I binge watched his sermons on YouTube until one day, he said, “The only way to access these blessings is to first be in Christ.”

So I gave my life to Christ— for what felt like the hundredth time— but this time I meant it, because I wanted something in return.

Then I found another Nigerian preacher, but this one was different. He didn't preach prosperity, he preached holiness. Except, for him, holiness wasn't about Jesus finishing the work, it was about how much you could add to what Jesus already did. Ironic.

That's where the shift began.

I cut off friends.

I judged girls who showed a little skin.

I rolled my eyes at anyone who dared to live outside the holy bubble I had built.

By the time I started college, everyone knew who I was: the girl who was always talking about God, never at parties, never hanging out. If I wasn't in class, I was in church— cleaning, serving, praying.

Then came the marriage-coded sermons.

Messages about submission, about being a “virtuous helper,” about praying for your future husband as if he were the reason you were born. I was told, “If your husband wrongs you, don't talk back. Go to God.”

And I believed it.

I became obsessed with marriage. I was 19, asking God to show me my husband. I started journaling about him, describing every detail. I even decided he couldn't be Kenyan. Kenyan men weren't “spiritual enough.” I wanted a Nigerian man, because apparently that's where “true men of God” came from.

I even believed God had led me to one— a popular Nigerian pastor. I planned to move there after school, convinced I'd marry him. The man didn't even know I existed.

That's how far religion had taken me. I wasn't pursuing God anymore. I was chasing an idea— something between delusion and devotion.

Religion had become my drug.

And I was overdosing on it.

When I turned 21, I came across a random reel online. Someone was explaining the difference between religion and the Gospel. It hit me like lightning. I realized that I had spent years trying to earn something Jesus had already given.

That was the day I finally met the Gospel— not the one that tells you to prove your holiness, but the one that says “It is finished.”

Now, I don't listen to most of those preachers anymore. I'm still figuring out what I want in life. Maybe I'll get married. Maybe not. But one thing’s for sure— Religion took three years of my life. But Jesus saved me.

Religion has a way of disguising itself as devotion. It creeps in through the same doors faith does— desire, discipline, longing— but somewhere along the way, it begins to whisper that you are the savior. That your purity, your performance, your abstinence, your “yes Lord”s are what keep God pleased.

And that's where the line blurs.

Hyper-religiosity feels holy because it imitates passion. It looks like faith, sounds like faith, it even quotes Scripture like faith— but it feeds on fear and performance, not love. It convinces you that joy is reckless, laughter is evil or costly, that grace is too easy. It isolates you in the name of consecration. It takes away your humanity and your ability to feel and calls it carnality.

Before you know it, you’ve built a God who hates everything human about you— your softness, your desires, your doubts. You no longer sit with God out of intimacy, but out of anxiety: Have I prayed enough? Have I fasted enough? Is God mad at me?

Fear replaces fellowship.

True Christianity, I've learned, is not performance— it’s participation. It’s not about how much you can do for God or give to Him, it’s about how much of you you'll let Him heal.

Nobody talks about the particular ache that comes from watching yourself become someone you don’t respect. Not the dramatic kind, not the kind with an audience, the quiet, grinding awareness that you are betraying yourself in small, daily ways, and not knowing how to throw the anchor. It’s a strange kind of self-hatred: knowing this isn’t who you are, knowing you’re capable of more, and still lacking the courage to fight for it.

In high school, I became a professional performer. I slipped into cliques I had no business being in. I laughed at jokes I did not understand, and I said yes to everything and everyone because the alternative was being alone, or having people dislike me, and neither of those where appealing to me.

I wasn’t unaware. That’s the part people miss. I knew I was becoming insufferable. I knew the laughter wasn’t mine, that the cruelty felt borrowed. But stopping meant risking rejection, and I didn’t yet have the language or the spine to survive that. I didn’t care if I liked myself. All that mattered was that other people did.

I was a people-pleaser, and it was so, so tiring. I wanted to be liked so badly that I swallowed my truth whole. People would say the nastiest things about me, and I would… laugh. It’s funny now, but it wasn’t funny then. I would literally reach out to them afterward and ask, “Why don’t you like me? Why do you treat me this way?” The humiliation of that question is one of those things that stays with you — the way I bent myself into knots trying to make someone else comfortable with me in the room.

I didn’t arrive with ease or the kind of confidence that protects you from ridicule. My life didn’t come with the glossy assurances some people wear without trying. So I compensated. I learned the right laugh, the right look, the right sharpness. If the group needed cruelty, I supplied it. If someone else was being cut down quietly, I learned how to match the rhythm, just enough to keep my place.

And of course the teachers noticed . They always do. They called my parents. “This isn’t you,” one of them said once, with the calm certainty of someone naming a fact. Like he had laid the card I needed to win on the table and all I had to do was draw it. “You’re not a follower. You have leadership in you.” He was right. But adolescence has a way of turning clarity into comedy, and I laughed it off like everything else. I think that’s how I learnt laughing at everything as my coping mechanism.

I used to be mean. I did things I’m not proud of. I said things that cut, not because I needed to cut anyone else, but because I didn’t know how else to keep from being cut. The thing about people-pleasing is that it’s a bargain with the devil: you sell your edges to avoid the bite of loneliness, and every small transaction takes you further from who you might have been.

There were consequences. Suspensions. Warnings. Small, steady punishments for a larger, more subtle surrender. They were humiliating, but they lit something stubborn in me, the faint beginning of resistance. I started to see that the cost of belonging was higher than I could afford.

The work of getting back didn’t look impressive. There was no grand confession, no redemption arc. It was made of small refusals, not laughing at a joke meant to wound, answering one question honestly when performance would have been easier. I began to protect a few things that were mine — my silence, my restraint, my refusal to perform cruelty for approval. It didn’t erase the past. I still have nights where I hear an old laugh and wonder if I’ll ever stop wanting the applause. But those little choices stacked. And slowly, I liked the sound of my own voice again. The teachers who said I had leadership in me? They weren’t wrong. It’s a bleak kind of miracle to learn you have agency after so much self-betrayal.

If you are stuck in the loop of performance, if you laugh when your body says no, if you swallow your truth to avoid being alone, this is what I wish I had known sooner: protect one small thing that is purely yours. Build your life quietly, deliberately, without spectacle. The belonging that comes from honesty is slower, warmer and far more durable than anything you can buy with self-erasure.

Talk soon, okay?😘

Love always,

Narin.

The chandelier above me is casting that soft, buttery light that makes everything look warmer than it feels. I can hear fireworks already starting outside, tiny echoes of other people’s excitement. I’m lying here under a heavy blanket, socks warming my feet, and all of it feels… unfamiliar.

I don’t think I’ve ever let a year end like this. I’ve never been this still, this quiet. I didn’t realize how loud my life had been — conversations, noise, movement, constant motion — until everything slowed down and I had no option but to sit with myself. It’s like suddenly there’s nowhere to run, not even inside my own head. And for the first time in a long time, I’m realizing that I am just one person. One heart. One mind. And everything I feel comes back to me eventually.

Being alone has a strange way of forcing honesty out of you. You notice what you’ve buried, what you’re scared to name, what you’ve been avoiding by staying busy. And maybe this moment — this quiet, warm, slightly uncomfortable moment — is its own kind of invitation. Maybe this is what returning looks like, not a loud declaration, not a dramatic rededication, just a slow softening back toward God and toward myself.

And if you’re alone tonight too —

then hey… we’re alone together.

Maybe this quiet is the door we walk through at the same time.

Happy New Year. May we both find our way back to ourselves.

Love forever and always,

Narin<3

(He did. These ones have just chosen their own path.)

But beyond that, I find myself wondering about the quiet details Scripture doesn’t spell out.

What was it like for God to be a toddler?

Did teenage Jesus ever sit with His friends, hear their unspoken thoughts, and think, “what the?????” 😂

Did He ever gently turn a woman down because He knew His life was pointed at one mission?

And since feelings are not sinful, did He ever experience the warmth of human attraction, yet hold it perfectly, without compromise?

When did His awareness of His divinity settle in?

Did He always know He was God, or did that understanding unfold as He grew, the way Luke says He “increased in wisdom and stature”?

And Joseph, we never hear of him again after Jesus’ childhood.

Did he pass away before Jesus stepped into His public ministry?

Did Jesus grieve the way we grieve, even though He came to defeat death?

Did His heart ache at a graveside the same way it did when He wept for Lazarus?

Then I think of Mary.

Did she understand Simeon’s prophecy when he told her a sword would pierce her soul?

Did she ever learn to enjoy her moments with her Son, knowing she wouldn’t have enough of them?

Did she watch Him like only mothers do, ready for scraped knees, but wholly unprepared for pierced hands and feet?

And I wonder:

Did Jesus learn the Gethsemane posture — “Let this cup pass from Me” — from watching His mother pray through her own quiet anguish?

These thoughts undo me.

Because Jesus coming as a Man wasn’t just miraculous.

It was prophetic.

It was the collision of eternity and time.

It was love embodied.

Heaven kissed earth when Jesus came.

A new kind of Eden.

God walking with humanity again.

The glory wrapped in swaddling clothes.

The Infinite touching the finite.

The Word breathing our air.

And because He came,

because He lived,

because He suffered,

because He rose…

we now know the Almighty as Abba.

What else can we do but rejoice?

It’s been ages. Have you missed me as much as I’ve missed you? (SAY YES!)

I’m sorry that I went off the radar and in a way, this apology is to myself as well. I’ve learned a few things about myself recently and one of them is that I still do not know how to regulate my emotions. I am either completely numb or I let my feelings swallow me whole. I digress.

Honestly, if you asked me what I’ve been up to, I wouldn’t even know how to respond. Life has been life-ing. Time has been moving. Fast. It almost feels like it’s leaving me behind. I have felt disconnected. From my routines. Fromm God. From my words and even from myself.

There were days I wanted to write to you and I didn’t have language. Days I had thoughts I couldn’t manage to gather or even hold still. Days I opened a blank page and couldn’t stay long enough to meet myself there.

And somehow, in all of that quiet, I went missing from you too.

I really don’t have a neat conclusion for this letter. I just didn’t want silence to be the only thing between us.

I’m finding my way back. In breath. In honesty.

I’m being reminded that God meets us in stillness. Not just when we’re impressive or have our lives together, but also when everything is quiet enough for us to finally notice Him.

If you’re here and it feels like you’re losing time, losing energy or losing bits of yourself too, I want you to know that I see you.

And I’m really glad you’re here. Talk to you soonest.

Love always,

Narin<3

Because how do I explain to you that the thing I’m most afraid of is change?

How do I explain that I don’t mind being stuck in one phase for far too long — even if it’s unhealthy, even if it doesn’t serve me — as long as it’s comfortable?

As long as I don’t have to stretch, or pull or expand beyond everything I’ve ever known.

Because growth is something I dread. Nothing ever remains the same.

How do I tell you that every time something changes, a piece of my heart feels left behind?

It’s like once you leave home, you can never walk into it again.

I remember one time, when I was in JS3, my class got changed.

I cried so much that day — because that was the only life I knew how to understand.

Maybe that’s what this all is.

Grief.

Not the kind you can explain to people, not the kind they can immediately understand, but the quiet kind — the one that conceals itself in a mask called change.

I thought about Ivan recently.

It’s like when he died, everything changed.

It was as if someone knocked down my home and built unfamiliar walls and furniture in my soul — and didn’t bother to tell me.

For the longest time after that, I quit trying.

I didn’t even want to make new friends because I didn’t know at what point I’d be required to leave that version of events behind and be tossed into another reality.

Now that I think about it, nothing is ever truly permanent.

And that should be good, right? But it’s not.

I hate that change always asks me to let go of something.

I’ve never been very good at letting go.

Change is grief.

I know I should trust God — and I do.

At least I think I do.

But when you’re sitting inside a burning house, it’s hard not to think the whole world is on fire.

Maybe that’s what this is — me trying to convince myself that I’m not burning.

That this is just smoke, and that this too shall pass.

I think about the first time I ever left home, and how nothing has been the same since then.

That’s what I hate the most about life — nothing ever actually remains the same.

I don’t have the luxury of waking up by 2 p.m. anymore, and laughing at my sister for waking up by 100 o’clock.

I don’t have the luxury of randomly sitting in my mommy’s lap again.

And this is the end of my room actually being my room — because I’ll be away more than I’ll ever be around.

It’ll just become the room I sleep in when I’m home.

I don’t have the luxury of watching my people grow up in real time — my brother especially.

It’s like every time I turn away, he gets taller, and older, and wiser, and kinder, and more responsible.

And all of this is weighing on me because I’m not witnessing it — and this is just the beginning of my non-witnessing.

People I love will change, and marry, and grow, and give birth, and I won’t be there for any of it.

Everything keeps shifting.

And I know that’s what life does — it moves you, it stretches you, it pulls you, until it feels like you’re about to snap in two. Or ten.

I want to believe that the same God who makes things new, makes things whole.

But right now, none of this feels soft.

None of this feels safe.

It feels like having to let go of something I can’t hold on to anymore.

Not even because it’s hurting — because trust me, I will hold on even when it hurts.

But of course, I can’t tell you any of this because it makes no sense.

So… aghhhhh—spiders!!!

But then the conversation shifted.

And just like that, I was reminded:

You can know me and still not see me.

You can love me and still not believe me.

You can walk beside me and still never feel the weight I carry.

Because you’re a man.

And that changes everything.

I wasn’t trying to fight. I wasn’t even trying to teach. I was just speaking plainly — about how dangerous patriarchy is, about how deeply it runs, how subtly it shapes the world.

And then… the shift. The defensiveness. The justifications.

The old “not all men” dance.

The quiet resistance.

The invisible wall.

And it hit me.

Unless I ask these questions directly, unless I poke, I may never know where they stand.

And almost — if not every time — I end up disappointed.

It breaks my heart.

Because it makes me realize that no matter how much they think they love me, or think they respect me, or think they understand me…

There is a part of me that remains invisible to them. Untouchable. Inaccessible.

And it’s not even their fault, necessarily.

I’m not here to bash them. I’m not angry at them as individuals.

But I’m grieving something real:

They can’t wear the shoe.

They can’t feel where it cuts.

Because they are not the ones it was designed to crush.

Patriarchy is not biblical.

Let me say that again: Patriarchy is not biblical.

It is not God’s design.

It is not His dream.

It is not the structure of heaven.

Patriarchy is a consequence of the Fall.

Not a reflection of Eden — but the shattering of it.

In Genesis 3:16, God says to Eve:

“Your desire will be for your husband,

and he will rule over you.”

That wasn’t a command.

It was a curse.

It was the beginning of a distortion — where love turned into control, where oneness fractured into domination /and where womanhood began to be seen as lesser.

So no, patriarchy is not holy.

It is not righteous.

It is not sacred.

It is a red-eyed beast, birthed from brokenness.

And I see it.

I hear it.

I feel it in the air.

Sometimes it’s our fathers.

Sometimes it’s our brothers.

Sometimes it’s our husbands.

Sometimes it’s our friends.

Sometimes it’s the random man on the road.

Sometimes it’s our uncles.

Sometimes it’s our pastors.

And it breaks something inside you.

Because it makes you ask:

At what point does this end?

This beast…

I see it like a towering creature —

Bloated. Greedy.

Eyes red with power.

Mouth dripping with scripture.

It never eats enough submission.

It’s never satisfied.

It’s power-drunk and fluent in theology.

It calls itself holy, but it gorges itself on silence.

And what’s worse?

We’ve been taught to wear it.

To wrap it around our bodies like a sacred garment.

To call it “femininity.”

To call it “godliness.”

To call it “love.”

But it’s not love.

It’s control dressed up as design.

It’s domination with a halo on its head.

Sometimes I feel like I’m suffocating.

Like I’m drowning in a sea of voices telling me:

You’re a rebel.

You’re too much.

You’re not holy enough.

You’re liberalizing Christianity.

You’re trying to mix the world with the Word.

And it really breaks my heart.

Like — genuinely.

I’m not even trying to be poetic right now.

It hurts.

Because I’m trying.

I know I can’t save everyone…

But God, I want to.

And sometimes it just feels like I’m shouting into nothing.

Like I’m screaming into emptiness —

And no one’s listening.

Not even the people I’m trying to fight for.

Sometimes, the women I’m fighting for are the ones turning around to fight me.

And that might be the worst part of all.

You probably don’t remember what you smelled like at that class party in JS1,

but I do.

God, I do.

You hugged me once — just once — and it felt like the moon aligned with Aswan and whispered,

“This is your first heartbreak, sweet girl. Drink deep.”

I still remember your eyes.

I used to tell you you looked Asian — and honestly, it wasn’t even funny. But you laughed. And your laugh scratched a part of my brain in a way I didn’t have language for.

My A.🥹

I remember your hug— not just the way it felt, but the way it stayed with me.

I remember your smile — because I made a habit of searching for it in every room I knew you’d be in.

I remember how my hands fit into yours like they had always been waiting.

Like we were puzzle pieces — naive, mismatched, but perfect to each other.

And yes… I remember the salt.

Salt in my wounds every time I saw you walking with Kay.

(If you ever read this I love you Kay😩🤣 We were just babies.)

But at the time? It broke me. Quietly.

Everyone knew I was obsessed with you. I made it obvious. I wrote your name in cursive like it was a signature the Holy Spirit gave me.

You were my fairytale in black socks and folded sleeves.

You were chaos and charm and cologne.

I’d beg my daddy to pick me up late — just for a chance to stand near you after school.

You didn’t even have to speak. Being around you made my whole evening feel like magic. I’d go home floating on clouds and finish my assignment on the high being near you gave me.

You were the soundtrack of my 12-year-old diary.

And when we finally became a thing?

You held my hand in front of your friends like I was yours. Fully.

They hated me 😭 But I know it was envy. They saw the vision. They saw our imaginary children😂

You made a girl believe in love.

You made me so freaking happy.

And I truly hope life is being good to you.

Even though you cheated on me.

(I didn’t know back then, but just know if I had known? I would have dealt with you accordingly.)

You were my first ache.

My first blush.

My first “what if?”

And I release you now — fully, gently, with love.

(If we ever meet again and you still smell like memories… I’ll pretend it doesn’t undo me.)

Warm regards,

Narin A.

JS2 Shiroro. Your baby girl forever.

It wouldn’t be stone.

It would be sponge.

I like to think of myself as an absorber.

Soft. Open. Soaking things in.

Sometimes I feel like I was made to hold things but never quite learned how to let them go.

My body and mind pick up on the slightest shift:

energy, tone, silence, mood.

I can’t not feel it. And it’s exhausting.

Because sometimes I just want to be.

Not the feeler. Not the processor.

Not the soft landing.

Just… be.

But I feel everything.

Everything that everybody else is feeling.

And it wears me down.

I get tired, not surface-level tired.

Deep-bone, soul-heavy, I-can’t-even-name-it tired.

And I don’t know how to undo it.

I don’t know how to rest.

This is the only version of life I’ve ever known.

And the truth?

People are drawn to me.

Not to toot my own horn or anything 😭

But I’ve been told I have a safe presence, that “angel aura” type of thing.

(I mean that’s literally what my name means, so okay😌)

People feel comfortable pouring onto me.

Dumping. Venting. Sharing.

And honestly? I love listening.

I really, really do.

I want to help in any way I can.

But sometimes… I get full.

Emotionally. Spiritually. Mentally.

And I don’t know how to pour out.

So it just keeps building and building and building, until I pack up.

I’m so tuned into everyone else’s feelings

that I’ve become untuned to my own.

I want to cater to everybody.

To show up. Be useful. Keep the peace.

Carry the weight.

But I don’t know how to cater to me.

Every time I need space, real space,

I feel selfish.

Because in my head, someone might need me right now.

What if I’m not there when they call?

What if I let them down?

And it’s not just in person.

Even online.

Even in the quiet corners of social media.

If I go silent, I panic:

What if someone needs something I’m not around to give?

So I stay. I post. I show up even when I’m empty.

Because somewhere in my mind,

being available feels like being worthy.

I want to be there. For everyone. All the time.

Maybe it’s the firstborn in me.

Maybe it’s the empath.

Maybe it’s the little girl who learned early

that love and usefulness sometimes look the same.

But I carry this pressure like it’s part of my DNA.

I already know I cannot be everything to everyone and still have anything left for myself.

And yet…

I keep trying.

Sometimes I feel the seams splitting, the ache of a heart trying to be Messiah.

I whisper, “I can’t save you. I can’t fix this.”

And it unravels me.

Because I want to be the balm.

The shelter.

The answer.

I want to be enough.

But I remind myself:

I’m not the Savior.

God is.

He’s the one who holds us all together.

So if I can’t even hold myself, arms shaking, soul slipping, surely there’s a God who holds us all.

Me, and them.

And the weight between.

That’s when I whisper,

“God, your kids are your kids.”

And I hand it over.

It’s usually subtle.

I’ll be spiraling one day, anxious, obsessed and suddenly I pause and ask,

“Wait. Why am I even panicking? What does this have to do with me?”

And then I realize:

Oh.

It has everything to do with me.

Because I’ve been quietly carrying someone else’s grief.

Someone else’s silence.

Someone else’s disappointment.

It even shows up in places as random as the comment section.

I’ll say something I meant in love, or even jokingly, and if someone misunderstands me?

I spiral.

I start explaining.

Typing paragraphs.

Clarifying tone.

Doing everything I can to make sure no one walks away feeling slighted.

Not because I need to be right, but because I need to be understood.

Because if someone walks away thinking I didn’t care,

it gnaws at me like grief with no funeral.

Honestly?

I wish rest looked like everyone else being regulated.

Everyone else being okay.

Everyone else being happy so I could finally exhale.

But that’s not how life works.

People won’t always be okay.

And I still have to learn how to rest anyway.

Sometimes I step back,

resist the urge to wade into every emotional flood.

But distance feels like betrayal.

Like love should always be drenched,

and dry feet are a sin.

There’s a part of me that thinks:

If I don’t step into their tornado,

will they even know that I care?

Will they still feel safe with me?

I confuse presence with sacrifice.

Like love means disappearing inside someone else’s storm.

But it doesn’t.

God doesn’t blur His borders to be near us.

He doesn’t burn out to prove He cares.

He rests.

On the seventh day of creation,

He rested.

And in Hebrews, we’re told:

“There remains a rest for the people of God.”

If God, in all His holiness, knows how to rest and still remain present,

why do I think I have to be exhausted to be enough?

Sometimes, I’m just tired.

Like brain-fried, can’t-pray, nothing-left-in-me tired.

The kind of tired sleep can’t touch.

The kind of tired that silences even worship.

Tired in the soul.

Like I’ve poured so long, I forgot the sound of my own name.

And in those moments, I feel guilty.

Guilty that I haven’t worshipped.

Guilty that I haven’t posted, prayed, written, or done anything that “proves” I love Him.

So I try to overcompensate.

“God, I’m so sorry! Let me make it up to You…”

But I forget, God doesn’t love me because I perform.

He isn’t waiting for my next offering.

He doesn’t need the show.

He just wants me —

bare, still, sponge-soft.

I am not salaried in His affection.

I am not on a shift.

I am held, not hired.

And slowly, slowly, I’m learning to rest like Him.

To be present without pouring myself dry.

To care without collapsing.

To stop absorbing everything.

To let go without guilt.

And to let myself, sponge heart and all —be held.

This isn’t my first time posting — I’ve had a social media presence for a while now. But somehow, every single time I post, I feel like people are laughing at me before I even get a chance to comprehend the joke. It’s like a dirty lizard crawled out of the gutter and climbed up my leg. (Why is it always a lizard?)

And no, this isn’t a pity party. I know I’m intelligent. And honestly, God did His thing with me — I know I’m a pretty girl. So it’s not insecurity about appearance or sounding foolish. It’s deeper than that.

I actually enjoy creating content. I think I’m funny. I know I’m wise — glory to God for that — but my mind still plays tricks on me. Posting is hard. Posting and not getting engagement or recognition is even harder. And I’ve learned to tell myself that everything I ever put out is for the glory of God, so if He gets the glory, He can also take the shame.

But…

I still want the applause sometimes.

Not because I need it.

But because some loud part of me has convinced me that my voice is only useful if someone’s clapping for it.

And that’s not right. I know it’s not.

So maybe I need to go back to where all this began.

When I started creating content, it was right after I rededicated my life to Christ. I had just started taking God seriously. I filmed a testimony video — about the things God saved me from — and I posted it. It got some recognition. It was supposed to be a one-time thing.

But somehow, I kept going.

One video turned into two. Two turned into ten. I found myself deep in this world of talking about God online — and at first, it was so good. People told me I was blessing them. I was getting messages that confirmed to me that truly, the hand of God was in this.

But somewhere along the way, I got tired. And I think I’ve been afraid to admit that.

I’m not saying I don’t want to talk about God anymore — He’s my life. I literally can’t separate Him from anything I create.

But I also don’t want to post out of pressure. I don’t want to keep feeding people’s expectations of me just because that’s what I’ve always done.

It’s like I’m stuck in this cycle:

I post → I get worn out

I post again → I get worn out again

Rinse, repeat.

And honestly? I don’t know what’s wrong.

Is it that I just want variety?

I don’t want to be boxed into “Bible girl” content. Not because I don’t love God — I do — but because I don’t want to pretend I’m in a spiritual place I’m not. I want to talk about God with reverence and honesty. I want to talk about Him without always feeling like I have to preach.

There’s so much depth to God. It’s exciting. It’s terrifying. It’s exhausting.

And sometimes, I feel too small for all of it.

I think I have posting anxiety.

(Also, not to be dramatic, but my phone diagnosed me with severe anxiety, so… maybe I’m not making it up?)

But God has helped me. I’ve learned to manage it.

Still, sometimes I just want to delete everything, go off the grid, and disappear.

But I can’t. Because I have to finish what I started. I’m not the kind of person who quits halfway.

So maybe this is just one of those “I’m tired” moments.

I know God will continue to equip me, if He still wants me to create for Him.

And I do want to bring people into His kingdom. But right now?

This is where I’m at.

Thanks for reading my rant.

Love youuu. Bye. 💌

These are the top most unhinged things I didn’t block him for (but should’ve).

A WHOLE feminist like me? A woman of God?? With a working brain and a working Bible???

These words were spoken to ME and instead of asking him “You dey craze???” to his face, I did it in my mind. And I stayed.

Not only that, I stayed long enough to compile a list.

I’m truly sorry I embarrassed you girls. I really am.

I must admit that I am a recovering pick-me girl.

But we move.

1. “I want kids to carry on my legacy.”

What legacy, sir??? Be serious.

Your last name has never opened a door, not even your own bank account.

You’re not a king. You’re not a dynasty.

Just loud and proud.

2. “I want more than one in case one dies.”

Like kids are iCloud.

Like souls are storage devices.

Like grief is just a problem you solve with math.

I should’ve blocked him here honestly. This was where the respect disappeared into thin air. But instead, I blinked.

3. “My uncle’s wife would’ve had fertility issues if she married at 28.”

As in: twenty. eight.

Not fifty-eight. Not sixty. Twenty. Eight.

Wait how does your uncles wife’s womb even concern you? Gosh MENNNNNN.

Anyway, apparently biology listens to vibes now.

I hope he’s reading Ecclesiastes because time isn’t his enemy, foolishness is.

4. “A woman can’t decide if she wants kids or how many kids she wants to have, only God can.”

😭😭😭This will never not be funny to me because he was actually serious. As in God entrusted a woman with a uterus, only to not allow her decide if she wants to use it or not.

He would also quote “Be fruitful and multiply” as his citation. And he’s not the only one.

Many of you do it too.

Because her uterus is a democracy?

Because he has divine veto power over her body??

Be serious, assistant Jesus.

5. “You post too much. Stop talking about men badly online.”

Me? Narin??

I should go out of my way to find good stories about men to help their image??

Am I their PR officer?? If they want good press, they should do good things.

What next?? Should I write a script and cast them as heroes?

6. “Feminism is unbiblical. My standpoint is biblical.”

I am a firm believer that if you think feminism is rebellion or evil, then you think God loves men more than women. You think women are inferior to men. And you are a big oppressor and woman hater. And that’s a very big problem. Somehow his fear-soaked, control-obsessed worldview was what?

Spirit-led? Holy?

Every time he spoke, Paul wept.

And the worst part?

I didn’t ask him if he was tapped in the head.

And I didn’t run away.

I stayed.

And now, I almost vomit every time I remember.

But at least I’m so free.

Honestly I keep thanking God because everything I go through just makes me a wiser woman.

That was the last person who ever got the watered-down version of me.

The version that stayed quiet.

The version that didn’t hold feminism like a lifeline.

She’s gone. She’s not coming back.

Signed,

The Woman Who Is No Longer Available for Nonsense.

I mean — how could He not be?

Goodness is part of who He is — even when it doesn’t look like goodness to me.

And I trust Him.

I really do.

But the truth is:

I don’t always trust what He’ll do with what I give Him.

That’s the part that scares me.

Not who He is — but what He might ask of me.

What He might take before I’m ready to let go.

What dreams He might burn down that I’ve only just built.

And I know He’s kind.

My heart believes that with all it is.

But lately, my mind has been struggling to catch up.

It’s not that I don’t want God’s will —

It’s that I brace for impact when I pray for it.

I expect pain. I expect loss.

Like surrender is a setup.

Like letting go means I’ll never get it back.

I’ve prayed for God’s will and ended up grieving.

And deep down, I’ve wondered:

How do you reconcile a good God with a broken heart?

I whisper “You’re a good Father” like a chant,

Hoping repetition will make it stick.

Hoping it’ll silence the fear that maybe—just maybe—He won’t be good to me.

Because if I really believe He’s good,

Shouldn’t I also believe He gives good gifts?

Shouldn’t I believe that whatever I lose, He can restore?

Why do I expect to bleed when I obey?

Why does surrender feel like heartbreak?

I hate when people talk about obedience like it’s soft and easy.

Like it doesn’t draw blood.

Like it doesn’t leave you crying on the bathroom floor.

Because sometimes, God’s will burns.

It takes the things we love and turns them to ash.

But even then — in the flames —

He is still a good Father.

Even when His goodness burns.

And I don’t want to live like this anymore —

Offering half-obedience and calling it faith.

Tithing my dreams but keeping the best parts hidden.

Singing “I surrender all” but crossing my fingers behind my back.

I want my mind to catch up with what my heart already knows:

That I won’t be left with empty hands forever.

That God is good — and so is His will, even when it breaks me.

Because He never breaks what He doesn’t plan to heal.

And He always honors what’s laid down on the altar.

I’m learning, slowly, that surrender isn’t a setup.

It’s a trust fall.

One that always ends in the arms of a good, good Father.

If I’m being honest I didn’t even scroll through, I just peeked at one name and it sent me spiraling. I started revisiting old classmates, old memories, old moments, old wounds, and I was that twelve year old girl again who wanted everyone to like her. I was that twelve year old girl who wasn’t even sure if she liked herself.

And if I’m being honest? She deserved better.

She deserved a hug.

She deserved the freedom to figure out who she wanted to be, not just who people said she was.

I remembered being bullied in junior secondary. It only lasted three days. But those three days lingered. And the people I saw today weren’t even involved, but somehow… I felt small again. I suddenly became conscious of myself. I started wondering if they regretted everything they said to me. If they remembered it at all. If they remember me at all.

And not in a desperate, please-notice-me way… just in a “do you even know what you did and how badly I struggled after that?” kind of way.

It’s so weird because I am over it. I’ve processed. I’ve outgrown that version of myself.

But healing is weird. Sometimes you don’t revisit stuff because the hurt still lingers quietly… And other times, you revisit it because it finally feels safe enough to look at.

But it didn’t feel safe today.

I think today was a quiet looking. A quiet remembering.

Not to re-open anything… but just to let myself say,

That happened.

It hurt.

And I lived.

Maybe that’s all healing is sometimes.

Looking at what once made you small and realizing it no longer shrinks you.

I’m not twelve anymore.

I don’t need everyone to like me.

And I like myself now.

That’s more than I had back then and it’s more than enough now.

I’m gonna wake up tomorrow, re-read this, and feel like I overshared.

But maybe that’s okay.

Maybe this is what healing looks like sometimes — deeply embarrassing and a little poetic.

Still… I’m never doing this at 4 a.m. again. Ever. 😭

Love always,

Narin.

I haven’t been trusting God.

I’ve been trusting the illusion of control—

masking it as wisdom,

dressing it in a veil of responsibility.

There are so many things I haven’t been able to let go of.

I’ve tried.

But somehow, I kept whispering:

“God, You can have everything… just not this part.”

“Help me — but I’ll handle these ones.”

And it’s been draining.

Because the truth is—

I don’t have it under control.

And holding on has only robbed me of the joy I was promised in Jesus.

I’ve withheld surrender.

I’ve sacrificed peace.

I’ve delayed obedience.

I’ve told myself,

“Not yet — not until I know what happens next.”

I’ve clutched my dreams with white knuckles,

convinced that no one—not even God—

will make them happen like I will.

I’ve given God:

half trust,

half obedience,

half surrender—

because full surrender would mean burning down the altar of control.

And control?

She looks really pretty.

She’s dressed in garments that resemble strength and discernment,

but underneath?

It’s just fear.

And unbelief.

Sometimes I picture myself holding a box—

everything I love inside it.

And I’m standing at the foot of an altar, trembling.

Not because I don’t trust God, but because I don’t trust what He’ll do with what I give Him.

But I’m learning.

I’m learning to stop bowing at the altar of control.

I’m learning to redirect my worship.

I’m learning that Someone sits on the throne—

and it isn’t me.

So I’m setting fire to the altar.

Because control was never worthy of my sacrifice.

Only God is.

Right after God, it’s my favorite thing to talk about.

Because I know grief in all its forms—

the grief of loss,

the grief of surrender,

the grief of failing at something you prayed would work.

I’ve sat with it.

I can trace its frown with my eyes closed.

Its voice echoes even when it hasn’t spoken in a while.

Grief doesn’t knock before entering.

It just sits beside you—and stays.

And death? Death sucks.

It’s one of the cruelest reminders that life is so fickle.

And I don’t think I’ll ever get used to its concept.

I used to get angry at God when people died.

I would pray hard—fervently—and still, nothing would happen.

Psalm 116:15 says,

“Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.”

But if they were really precious, wouldn’t He keep them?

Wouldn’t He stop it from happening?

Recently, after two major losses, another came.

And in that deep ache, God whispered something to me:

“Don’t build grief an altar.”

Grief, to me, is a box.

And I’m trapped in it, clawing at the sides,

my nails torn, bleeding—

convinced that if I break out, I’ll find the person I miss.

That maybe, it’ll stop hurting.

But it doesn’t.

It just bleeds differently.

Grief is a black room. Not evil—just empty.

The kind of black that makes you forget what light felt like.

A numb, silent kind of nothing.

If grief had a face, it would wear a grimace.

Not because it hates me, but because it’s tired of showing up too.

Sometimes, I picture myself sitting by the ocean.

The waves are soft, barely brushing my toes.

And in that moment, it feels like all is right with the world again.

But I look away for a second—

and a huge one crashes over me,

pulling me back to the day it happened.

The day they died.

And yet, I am comforted.

Not because I’ve figured any of this out,

but because my Father is good.

And He has never failed me.

There’s a quiet kind of peace in that—

not loud, not impressive. Just steady.

Christ in us, the hope of glory.

That’s what steadies me when the doubt creeps in—

when I wonder: What if death is really the end?

But because He lives, death holds no final say.

I cannot continue to revere death more than the One who conquered it.

I will not build it an altar.

And even if I cry today—

even if the waves drag me under again—

I still believe I’ll rejoice in eternity.

Yes, grief sits with me.

But it is not my king.

Jesus is.

I really am nothing apart from my reverence for my Father.

So when I find myself getting close to someone — I look for that mirrored.

Not perfection. But pursuit. Conviction. Substance. A heart anchored in truth.

Because if we don’t see God the same way, we won’t see life the same way — and we can’t walk in the same direction.

Let’s call him T.

T was… impressive.

The kind of person whose spiritual grounding you might envy — if you were watching from outside the fence.

Bible verse in bio. Popular church on Sunday. Conversations about theological schools of thought. Dreams of ministry.

Everything I thought I wanted.

And somehow, we got close.

At first, it was casual.

Just little questions now and then:

“How many kids do you want?”

“What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?”

And weird statements:

“The Lord told me to go ahead with you.”

None of it rubbed me the wrong way at first.

These are things people talk about when they’ve reached some intimate level of friendship, right?

So, I answered as honestly as I could.

And before I knew it, I was knee-deep in something I couldn’t quite name.

The arguments started with foundational beliefs.

Gender roles. Feminism. Biblical submission.

Now, I believe in the biblical order of things — wives, submit to your husbands — NOT WOMEN SUBMIT TO MEN!!! But this felt different.

This wasn’t loving headship. This wasn’t Christ-like leadership.

It felt like control, wearing a Bible verse as perfume.

He would say things like,

“When we get married in three years…”

Even after I said — gently and clearly — that I didn’t want to be married that soon.

We’d talk about children and I’d say,

“I don’t want kids.”

He’d respond,

“That’ll be a problem.”

If I shifted and said,

“Okay, maybe I might consider one or two,”

He’d say,

“No, three.”

And when I asked, “Do you not believe a woman has the right to decide how many kids she wants to have?”

He said, “Only the Lord can decide that.”

He said he didn’t believe in women’s rights. He believed in the Word of God —

as though those two things were mutually exclusive.

The “God told me”s became constant.

It stopped sounding like divine guidance and started feeling like pressure.

And to be clear — I love people who sit with the Lord.

I love people who hear from Him.

How could I entrust my life to someone who doesn’t?

But at some point, it became obvious:

All the “God said”s were really just he said.

Whether he’ll admit that or not is no longer my concern.

There was a time I told him how I shared the gospel with a driver, and he asked,

“Where exactly did you share the gospel? Because I don’t hear the gospel in anything you’ve said.”

He did apologize for that.

He said the Holy Spirit corrected him.

And I appreciated that.

But out of the abundance of the heart…

Still, I left it alone.

The jokes became crude.

I was visibly uncomfortable. He didn’t stop.

And the inconsistency started to show.

He’d say he would do something — buy something, call — and then vanish.

He would leave loose ends and reappear like nothing had happened.

We argued about my personality.

Not in a loving, let’s-work-through-this way —

but in a way that made me question the very core of myself.

Like I needed permission to be myself.

Again, I’m not saying I’m perfect.

Or that I don’t need growth.

But I’m deeply self-aware.

And even in moments where I’m not, I’m teachable. I’m open.

So this wasn’t correction — it was something else entirely.

And yes, I know “psychopath” is a strong word.

Maybe it’s not the right one.

Maybe it is.

But when someone turns every disagreement into warfare,

when peace leaves the room and you start to feel like you’re tiptoeing around a ticking bomb —

what else do you call it?

I remember saying clearly,

“I’m not comfortable with six kids.”

He said,

“God told me I’ll have six kids.”

I said,

“Then I’m not your person.”

And he got upset.

He said I had locked God out of my life —

Because I don’t want to procreate🤣😭

I wish I was joking.

At that point, it wasn’t even just disagreement.

It was spiritual guilt-tripping — dressed in revelation.

It was manipulation, soaked in “discernment.”

It was him — not the Holy Spirit.

And it’s not that he never showed up.

He did — sometimes.

He said the right things. He prayed. He listened.

There were moments that felt safe.

Moments that made me pause and think,

“Maybe I’m just overthinking it. Maybe I should stop joking so much. Maybe God doesn’t want me to be this vocal. Maybe this is what growth looks like. Maybe I’m the one with the issue.”

But those moments were the exception. Not the rule.

And that’s the thing about confusion — it never starts as a scream.

It whispers.

It dresses itself in just enough light to make you question the shadows.

I’m not saying he’s a bad person.

I’m saying he had a lot going on.

And so did I.

But the difference?

I know the battles I’m fighting — and I’m prayerfully working through them.

I’ve never claimed perfection. But I’ve committed to being refined.

This connection? This one had no peace.

None.

Just flickers. Just bait. Just enough light to keep me doubting my discernment.

I started walking on emotional eggshells. Afraid that I’d say or do something wrong.

And that’s the danger.

When someone starts using the voice of God to override yours —

when your spirit shrinks and your voice starts fading —

when you find yourself apologizing for the convictions God gave you —

you’re not being covered.

You’re being caged.

I’m grateful God let it crash.

I’m grateful He didn’t answer some prayers the way I wanted.

And I’m grateful He taught me this:

Just because someone talks to God doesn’t mean they walk with Him.

And just because someone says “God said,” doesn’t mean He did.

Some lessons don’t end in marriage. They end in mercy.

Love,

Narin.

And I know I’m still young, but I’ve always wanted to get married young. So if we’re being honest… time is kind of ticking.

But the gag is: there’s nobody to marry. I haven’t met a single person who’s made me feel like, “Yes. I’d be so happy to spend the rest of my life with you.” There’s no spark. Nothing. Not even a flicker. I’m deeply unimpressed.

And even the people who might be okay? I already know I’d have to enter the relationship with one eye open, a list of doubts, and an annoying voice in my head going, “Are you sure?” every other day. Then of course there are those who don’t even want commitment. They just want to sail on the clouds of their foolishness. I don’t want that. I don’t want to beg my heart to feel convinced. I want peace. Excitement. Eagerness. Joy.

But also… let’s be clear. A lukewarm Christian or non-Christian? Completely out of the question. I’m not doing that.

And while I’m not completely sold on the idea of marriage anymore, I do know one thing:

I don’t want to marry a “church man.”

As a Christian who genuinely loves and honors God, saying that out loud was… difficult. I’m at risk of being labeled lukewarm, fake, or rebellious. But I’ve sat with this, prayed about it, and realized: It’s not Jesus I’m running from. It’s the weight of tradition disguised as truth.

I’m not going to unpack all the details of how I got here, but I will say this:

Religious men are not it.

I knew it the moment I heard one say “If men weren’t the superior gender God would have made them out of Eve’s rib.” Gender equality is a very sensitive topic for me and I love that it gives me insight into how a person thinks… And half the time? I’m deeply disappointed.

I’ve seen too many of them. And I don’t even know what irks me most —

Is it the constant demeaning behavior?

The inability to see things from any other perspective because “the Bible didn’t say…”?

The spiritual and mental laziness wrapped in the cloak of “headship”?

The entitlement?

I’m a Christian woman, deeply rooted in my faith, in love with Jesus — and I don’t want to marry a church man.

At least not in the conventional sense.

There’s a difference between cultural Christianity and Christ-likeness.

Between looking holy and being holy.

When I say I don’t want a church man, I don’t mean I want someone who doesn’t love God.

Quite the opposite. I want a man who is submitted to God.

A man who listens to the Holy Spirit before he turns to tradition.

What I don’t want is the hyper-traditional, male-dominated version of Christianity that exalts patriarchy and silences women. I cannot put up with it.

I don’t want a man who thinks my value is in how much I cook, clean, or how many children I have… and calls that “biblical.”

I don’t want a man who believes my ideology is rebellion.

Or who masks control as “God’s order.”

Or who thinks submission means silence.

I’ve seen that kind of man.

The one who sees your calling and is intimidated, not inspired.

That is not Christ-like leadership.

What I want is a partnership rooted in humility and love.

I want a man who sees my calling and honors it.

Who doesn’t shrink my mind or try to clip my wings.

Who leads, but leads like Jesus, in sacrifice, not superiority.

I’ve come to understand what I want… and even more, what I don’t want.

And that clarity is a gift.

Marriage is a lifetime covenant. And I would rather wait as long as it takes than settle for someone who sees my voice as rebellion instead of purpose.

I believe in biblical order.

I believe the husband is the head of the home, like Christ is the head of the church.

But I don’t believe that means he is better, higher, or more loved by God.

It’s not about power.

It’s about love that reflects heaven.

So no, I don’t want a “church man.”

I want a Christ man.

One who carries the weight of love well.

One who leads by lowering himself.

And until then, I’ll wait. Because let’s be real, settling is absolutely not on the agenda. And may the Lord prevent me from making that mistake. again🤣. 🙏🏼!!!!

Love always,

Narin.

P.S. There might be a new 🥷🏽 in the picture. 🤭 I mean, it’s just some light attention for now, but trust me, I’m praying it into existence like it’s a whole ministry. 👀 Stay tuned… I might just let y’all know how it goes😏