⛓️Breaking Free From Mind Slavery ⛓️

A Phase, Not a Forgetting

This write-up is not to cause violence, offend anyone, or bring down any faith. It is written to encourage anyone walking through a difficult season to understand this truth: you have not been forgotten; you are only in a phase of life.

📖 Habakkuk 2:3

“For the vision is yet for an appointed time… though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come.”

Often as Christians, we drift , not always out of rebellion, but out of pressure, fear, and the desire to survive. Scripture gently warns us:

📖 1 Corinthians 10:12

“Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.”

When Things Looked Good but Felt Empty

Immediately after leaving technical school, I opened a shop, and business was booming. Customers came in, work increased, and money flowed. Yet with growth came responsibility. People depended on me, and the pressure became heavy. Even though income increased, it never felt enough to meet all the needs staring me in the face.

That was when I listened to advice I later regretted.

Though I believed in Christ, and was an RCCG member who trusted prayer, anointing oil, and faith, I was introduced to a woman who claimed to be a prophetess. Looking back now, I realize I was slowly stepping into a place where I was trying to help God.

I went to her with one simple request:

"I needed more customers. I needed more money".

She suggested burying certain items in my shop. And immediately, my spirit was uneasy. The building was not mine, and deep down I knew this was not how I had been taught to trust God and I didn't go there for a thing like that, I only felt once she prayed ,her prayers should work like magic,  I assumed. And so I asked for a milder option. She suggested buying items , soap and oil , to mix with my body lotion, which I immediately paid for. 

So because I paid for them, I believed in them.

And at that  time, I participated in a local savings system (ajo). As long as I met my ₦10,000 monthly target, I told myself it was working. My late aunt warned me that I was deceiving myself. I didn’t fully understand her words , I used the soap,oil body lotion mix for 9 months, having the mentality that it was the stuffs that was working, until Christmas season approached.

The Christmas That Opened My Eyes

Christmas is usually the busiest season for fashion designers. Stressful, "yes ,but rewarding". Every shop around me was busy.

Except mine.

I kept saying, “My customers will come.” After all, I believed in what I was using. Then a customer returned a cloth I had sewn four months earlier. She threw it at my apprentice from outside the shop and shouted insults.

Strangely, the words didn’t hurt me. My confidence was no longer in my skill , it had shifted to my soap, oil, body lotion, cause I had so much believe in it. 

On December 23rd, only one customer came. That Christmas, I made just ₦10,000.

In previous years , even when my shop was much smaller , I had made close to a million naira during the festive period. That season became my wake-up call.

📖 Psalm 20:7

“Some trust in chariots, and some in horses; but we will remember the name of the Lord our God.”

Coming Back to the God I Know

I said to myself, “I can never go back.” And I didn’t.

I stopped everything. When the prophetess called, I didn’t answer any of her call ever again. She even sent someone to say " there was another option,” like she felt something was wrong with me not picking her call but I refused to go back to the mind slavery of not  satisfied with the money I made, and not quite long, things picked up like it was the soap, oil and body lotion that obstructed the blessings.

        The Blessings Was Now so Much L ike....... 

The next Christmas felt like heaven on earth. I made twice what I used to make.

📖 Jeremiah 17:5–7

“Cursed is the man who trusts in man…

Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and whose hope is the Lord.”

A Gentle Reminder

This is not a story of condemnation. It is a reminder.

Stick to the God you are sure of 

not a strange one you have never met.

God does not need our shortcuts.

He does not need our fear-driven solutions.

He only needs our trust.

If you are reading this and feel lost, pressured, or tempted to compromise , pause. Pray. Return.

📖 Isaiah 30:15

“In returning and rest you shall be saved;

in quietness and confidence shall be your strength.”

It may tarry.

But you have not been forgotten.

It is only a phase.

           ✍🏽 Written by Maria Jacobs

         Christian writer & faith blogger

🌿 https://mariajacobsfaith.blogspot.com

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