TAKE PRIDE IN STANDING ALONE
You don’t stand for something because it’s popular.
You don’t stand for something because it makes sense.
You don’t stand with someone because others do.
You don’t stand for something because it’s “good”.
You don’t stand for something because it’s possible.
You stand for something because you BELIEVE in it.
And that’s what it means to have a LIFE!
The validation of your life is not in the fact that your actions worked out as you planned, but that you TRIED and you’re still trying.
If you want to know what TRUE fulfilment is, stop following TRENDS, start following your HEART.
There was a woman named Naomi who left her country with her husband and two sons because of a severe famine. While in the foreign land, her husband died and her two sons got married to two girls (Orpah and Ruth) who were citizens of the foreign country where they migrated to.
Due to an unfortunate event, Naomi lost her two sons and became extremely sorrowful and left with her two widowed daughters-in-law. After much thoughts, she decided to return to her home country, at least to see her people before she dies. On departure, her two daughters-in-law insisted they must go with her:
Then Naomi said to them, “Go back, each of you, to your mother’s home. May the Lord show you kindness, as you have shown kindness to your dead husbands and to me. May the Lord grant that each of you will find rest in the home of another husband.” Then she kissed them goodbye and they wept aloud and said to her, “We will go back with you to your people.” But Naomi said, “Return home, my daughters. Why would you come with me? Am I going to have any more sons, who could become your husbands? Return home, my daughters; I am too old to have another husband. Even if I thought there was still hope for me—even if I had a husband tonight and then gave birth to sons— would you wait until they grew up? Would you remain unmarried for them? No, my daughters. It is more bitter for me than for you, because the Lord ’s hand has turned against me!” At this they wept aloud again. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law goodbye, but Ruth clung to her. “Look,” said Naomi, “your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her.” But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.” So the two women went on until they came to Bethlehem. Ruth later remarried in Israel and became the great-grandmother of King David, the ancestral lineage of our Lord Jesus Christ.
That is what could happen when you decide to follow your heart! That’s what happens when you refuse to give up on what you believe in! There was no sensible reason in the world for Ruth to go with Naomi, in fact, Moab, the country from which Ruth was from, and Israel were sworn enemies – she stood a very huge chance of being killed on arrival. But fear couldn’t stop her from following her heart!
You are valid. Your ideas and thoughts are valid, no matter how weird or unpopular they are. Sometimes you need to take pride in standing alone all by yourself.
On your dying bed, you’ll regret less the mistakes you made, but more of the ones you never gave yourself a chance to make.
