Posted on by thornstocrowns · 1 Comment

L’s are for Lessons

“Lessons are blessings in disguise”
-Xholiwe

“Wait, what? I know I did not take another L!” just when life felt like it was getting better, those words have come out of my mouth. L’s by definition from the urban dictionary are loses. We usually find ourselves talking about taking L’s when in conversation with our peers and it has been common to laugh about it and go home still trying to understand why are we are taking another L. L’s being loses sometimes come from a places of regret, shame, guilt, fear and denial. Sometimes it may not be as serious because we may have lost a bet and took an L. However, when life gets real for some of you, you take huge L’s that could literally change your life if you don’t look at it differently. There are some huge L’s that if we do not have a different perspective would take you down and out;

  • Lose of a loved one through death
  • Heartbreak; break up, separation, divorce
  • Lose of a job
  • Financial loses
  • Lose of business
  • Failing in school

The L’s that are listed are a few of many, but I believe at least a handful of people have experienced one of those L’s at some stage in their lives. There also are people that have experienced all the listed L’s and some. There are also people that have not experienced these major L’s, for you I say my prayers go out to you and when the L’s do come, be strong in the Lord.

I have taken some L’s too and sometimes ask myself, did this just happen again? I have lost loved ones, I have gone through heartbreak and often times that came with pain, regret, shame, guilt and fear etc. I missed that part that most of us miss, and recently have been trying to turn my thinking around my L’s and how I handle them. I am now asking myself, what is the lesson here Lord, what should I learn? This is a tough question for me, I am guessing it would be for you too because it can be hard to see lessons in the midst of your pain. How do I take the lesson as I deal with the lose of a loved one or a major heartbreak? Well, stop for a second and put the pain aside and spend sometime in prayer asking God what you need to learn from your L. When you do this, you discover more of your character and who you are in the midst of lose. If you communicate with God enough he will reveal to you all these questions you may have regarding your L’s. When he does, please do not ignore it and turn to your own conclusion.

Lessons are a blessing in disguise! We may not see it most of the time, but they are! I believe when we learn our lessons from our loses we are less likely to make the same mistakes. Another thing we do is be mad at God for losing a loved one and I thank God I quickly realized it was pointless and foolish of me to be mad. I was mad at God because I lost a loved one and it is not fun. Being mad at God for your loses does not change the fact that he is still God, but for you on the other hand, you are continue to struggle instead of going to God and seeking comfort in his presence.

Some of the lessons we learn have put us back in alignment with God’s will. There are certain L’s we took because of our own disobedience and God had to correct us. Just like any loving parent would to his/her child, God corrects us so that we are not lead to think our L’s are the end of us. When he corrects us sometimes it is can be unpleasant, but later on we are grateful because we changed for the better. Through the process, we got to improve our characters, understand more of God and his works and understand that L’s are for lessons.


No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.
12 Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. 13 “Make level paths for your feet,”[a so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.

Hebrews 12:11-13

As a student, the thing you don’t want to be doing while the teacher is giving a lesson is being distracted, skipping class or asleep. Once you miss a fundamental step or concept, you will find it very difficult to pass the test. Same thing with God, as he is teaching us our lessons from major loses, let us not be distracted or asleep. When we do so, we set ourselves up for yet another L that may cost us more than the L we took before because we did not learn from the lesson. Learn your lesson, the future you will be grateful that you did!

Posted on by thornstocrowns

Come as you are

There is no use hiding from God, he knows every little detail about you
-Xholiwe

I would like to speak for myself, but I am pretty sure you have had the same feeling once in your life or multiple times like me. The feeling that makes you feel like you have not done enough to be qualified and hold the title of a christian. Or maybe that feeling that you are too broken for God to even take a second out of his time for you. If this sounds familiar to you, I have some good news for you! God is saying come as you are, flaws and all! There is no use hiding from God, he knows every little detail about you.

I believe society makes it harder for people to come as they are because we have set so many unreasonable standards that leave majority of the people out. Hence we live to perfect our lives on our own not realizing that we can not do this on our own, we need the help of God. The saying that says we are not perfect is true, but what is often left out is that we can be made perfect through Christ who is perfect (Matthew 5:48). Because society makes it hard for people to come as they are, people find it hard to come as they are to God. Truth is, we want to be perfect first before presenting ourselves because we fear judgement. I have heard people say that they can’t do the christian thing yet because their life is a mess, they say they will try it when they have their lives together. I get where they are coming from because I thought that too, that everything had to be perfect with me first, that I shouldn’t be dealing with shame, pain, confusion, bitterness or anger because it is not is christian thing to do, but boy was I wrong! There were so many examples of people in the bible that were not perfect and still went to God with their imperfections. King David is my primary example, as anointed as he was, he messed up, but he still ran to God even in his mess. He said he would rather be punished in the hands of God than man. He chose that option because he knew that God knew him in a way that man would never know him. So before you feel like you have messed up and feel unworthy be reminded that even mighty men and women of God have not always got it right, but they still ran to him.

I think it would be pointless for me to write this without talking about the story of the prodigal son because this will help you understand what I am trying to say to you. The story of the prodigal son is the classic Sunday school story that I really did not give much thought to as a kid because to be honest I was ready to eat some candy after the lesson. Now that I am older and have much greater sense of the word of God, this story is so profound that I could spend the whole day talking about it.

The prodigal son is clearly a “come as you are” example in all forms of context. The prodigal son thought he had his life figured out, like most of us, we think that we have things figured out and want to handle life based of our limited abilities. Also, the prodigal son prematurely received his inheritance and went as far away as he could from his father. We too have asked God for our inheritance prematurely and took matters into our own hands that evenly took us far away from God’s will over our lives. Just like the prodigal son, we made bad choices, we took for granted our inheritance, misused it and allowed the wrong people to influence us. Just like the prodigal son we were left with nothing, and were put in situations that were shameful and painful. We knew for sure that our father had wealth and that life humbled us. It humbled us enough to tell us to go back home, to go back to our father despite of our terrible mess and because we were so ashamed, we were willing to just be servants. So we head home as we are, in our rags, with our shame and our pain, and we are ready to be servants, but to our surprise we are welcomed. It is like our father has been waiting for us this whole time! Oh what joy we feel when we get back into the loving arms of our father. Luke 15:20 is a vivid picture of how God waits on us always!


So he got up and went to his father.
“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.

Luke 15:20 (NIV)

If you are waiting to get it right with God, you will always be waiting and missing out the royal treatment. You can never be ready for something, if you wait to be ready, you will never get it done. Life is too short for you to continue to live with shame, pain, anger, bitterness, worry, depression, you name it when you know God is a King. God would take all that away in an instant if you just come as you are and place it in his capable hands. No party is lit than a heavenly party when the prodigal sons make their way back home! No, you are not a slave to your past, yes you did mess up, but now that you have had enough, please pick up your crown and let us go party!