There is a painful story in my heart this morning and I want to share with you.
The story of a friend who has been married for years without a child. The story of a hardworking man without a car or a house to call his own. The story of a gifted woman with nothing yet to show for it. The beautiful lady still waiting for a husband. The ambitious student who has written examination after examination without success. The man who hustles day and night and still ends up with an empty pocket.
The story of the man by the pool of Bethesda lying there for thirty-eight years, watching others receive what he desperately needed, unable to get himself in.
It is the story of everyone in the pool of expectation. Everyone who keeps trying and hoping that this will be the season they carry their baby, find a spouse, build a house, buy a car, get a job, or finally recover from their ailment.
I understand how underwhelming it can be. The long nights of staring into the empty space of your room with damp eyes. The pain. The many applications. The many doors you’ve knocked. The disappointment. The rejection. The hopeless talking stages. The heaviness. The shame.
I deeply understand. I have been in some shoes, maybe not all. But I know how most feels.
Some of you are my friends, my uncles, my aunties, my colleagues. I see through your pain every day. And I pray with my whole heart that God sees you through.
You Are in a Cell God Did Not Build
Some of you want to bury yourself when God has not buried you. You are in a prison when God has not sentenced you. And it is breaking my heart.
I see some of you enter into a bondage of isolation that is heavier, darker, tormenting than the original predicament not because of what life did to you, but because of what the culture said about you.
The culture that gives opinions without being asked. That judges without having facts. That walks over people it has never tried to understand.
Even when you are walking freely, you are confined. Isolated even in your own conversations. Muted. Withdrawn. Invisible by choice.
Do not hide yourself when God has not hidden you.
I do not care about how long you have before your break. But you deserve light. We are all facing one thing or the other. It’s the consequence of living, of trying, or desiring something better.
Do not hide your face, or mute your voice or stop showing up because you are tired of waiting. Regardless of your expectations, life reserves your space. Do not give that space to another person while you are still here.
I know about the culture that dishonors the poor. I know about the one that ridicules the unmarried. The one that excommunicates the one without a child. The one that violates the helpless. Trust me when I say I know. But do not give your space out while you are still alive. You refuse to go to parties you were invited to because you did not have what the society expects, because someone will ask for what you do not have yet. You lost your voice because you’ve disqualified yourself.
The life you refuse to live today is lost, you cannot call it back. The conversation you refuse to have is lost. The light you refuse to shine is lost. Lost and forever.
You deserve to live, smile, and enjoy before your break. I’m at parties and I can’t see some of you because you are worried about what people will say. You abandon the fora because some people know your inadequacies and they might look at you a certain way.
I am not happy because while life is leading you with one point, you have decided to hand over the second point to it.
When your break comes and you retrieve your point, what happens to the goals you concede? What happens to the happiness you decide to give away. What happens to the life you ignored.
Sadness is not a condition for overcoming your challenges. Worry will not qualify you for a win. Live. Live through your expectations. Live through your lack. Live through your stigma. Live through your pain.
Do not allow life and the people in it draw points from you. Joy is not recyclable, it is one for each day.
Worry does not speed up the process. Isolation does not make you responsible. Whatever the enemy takes from you today, is lost, you will have to wait till tomorrow. A wise person protects the points they have left, they don’t willfully release the one they have.
But that is what most people do. The devil takes their business, they give him their health. It takes their family, they give him their children, it takes their job, they give their happiness, he takes their husband, they give their mental stability. He takes their job, they give their hope.
As long as the root is in place, the plant will sprout if it smells water says the Holy book.
Do you burn a book because a page is bad? Do you sink a ship because cargo is lost? But that is what people do! I understand your pain but you are destroying what is left!
What is left can replace what is lost. But what is lost can neither be brought back nor bring back others. When you are worried, you destroy the body. When you are hopeless you destroy opportunities.
How To Overcome The Shame and Burden of Long Expectation:
Embrace life. See life as your biggest gift. It is more than everything you have lost or you don’t have. It’s bigger than the car you don’t have and the house you have not built.
Be grateful for what is left. Gratitude makes us see clearly. Ingratitude makes us focus on what we don’t have that others have. When you see what is left, you can brood over it.
Roll with those who fuel your happiness and make you forget your loss. There are many in the world. Do not isolate yourself. Refrain from words like “People are bad, no one is trustworthy” find your own people.
Nourish yourself. Do not try to heal yourself when you are not nourished. Malnourished people do not heal, they crack under the weight of healing because they are fragile. Their mind cannot bear or understand healing. Healing is strange and demanding therefore, nourish yourself.
Cycle back, heal, a step at a time. It’s a step at a time. Do not rush it. You did not break at once, you cannot heal at once. Your body did not surrender at once, it cannot recuperate at once
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Have a great weekend and breakthrough from within
©Abiola Iyiola, 2026
Image: Mary Kos
