A supreme being loves me

My family was different.

I didn't grow to see my father hold the door to the car for my mom to step out, I didn't run in on them holding hands, hugging, or sharing affectionate kisses like some of my aunties I had visited. I didn't see my father spend time discussing in low tones with my mom either, they didn't even share the same bedroom.

On most days, they were standing apart from each other, yelling and making wild gesticulations with their hands, each one trying to be heard above the other's loud voice.

On those days, I would go to the children's room, crawl into bed, and weep my eyes out. I didn't know why, but I almost couldn't bear the draining feeling of watching the two most important adults in my life live at loggerheads.

Somehow, I knew something was wrong. It didn't take long to find out what it was because one day when I was eight years old, my mom rolled her boxes out of my father's house and didn't return.

It took a lot of effort from my older sister to hold my siblings and I together. My father was a good man, but he was not one to know so much about raising kids so we were practically floating with the wind of life, taking whatever the circumstances threw in our faces without knowing what to do or how to handle them.

Because of this, torrents of questions began swimming in my head even as a child but there was no all-knowing being to hold the answers out on a spreadsheet for clarity.

I realized later that these occurrences in the early stage of my life contributed to the reason I shut myself out of the world, and I almost completely lost my self-confidence and my feeling of worth.

I became needy, desperate in fact for love and attention, I did not mind compromising the values and standards that had been instilled in me at home, just to get an idea of what being fussed over felt like.

By the time I was in my mid-teens, I didn't have an identity. I was whoever anyone wanted me to be.

My first encounter with God was in my final year in my senior secondary school during a Christian fellowship. Already battered emotionally, this family assisted in growing my faith, dragging me out for fellowship meetings and sharing soul-lifting messages and songs like 'You Say'.

It was during one of our youth meetings where teenagers and youths were required to share their healing experiences that I rose for the first time to share what I had been through with a group of people.

I could see hands rising to wipe tears off their faces and heads bowed to retrieve handkerchiefs from bags. The pity wasn't new to me, it was the reaction I got each time I mentioned that my parents had separated from my childhood.

My healing process took a lot of work, intentionally; waking up by 5 am to pray, study my bible, and listen to songs that uplifted my spirit.

When I collected 'You Say' from one of my fellowship members, it was on repeat for the rest of the month.

I understood the true meaning of love from God from that song and to date, each time I want to remind myself that a supreme being loves me, I play 'You Say' by Lauren Daigle.