Check Mate

Chapter 4 Bonds, shackles, chains and bones, weakened through torture, yet matured over time. – Check Mate _______ As a python wraps itself around its prey, time can often suffocate you with its impending reality. And in the same breath, God can isolate you in what feels like finality and a ‘no way out’ situation while environmental factors begin shutting down your mind in the background. Check. Even though you may not know it in the moment, your worst is actually your best and your end is actually your beginning because where no rational hope can be found is where real faith takes place and where glory allows itself to exist. Where you can’t see the aid and yet you trust that it’s there, where you’re struggling for air but yet you’re about to feel more alive than you ever have been before and where even though what’s facing you looks like certain death, what’s taking place is about to make you the undisputed victor of the game. ------ (Part 1 – “Even when you’re bound, you’re adorned with glory") They say that where you truly meet God is at your lowest point, at your weakest moment and at your most broken and vulnerable state because when there is nothing left of you there is more space for Him to occupy. Matthew 5:3 (MSG) : “You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and His rule.” I truly believe this because I have physically and spiritually lived in this truth. --- For a long time I felt bound, with a fire to move but with what felt like a weighted anchor on my chest preventing me from doing so. I was being suffocated by the world around me but most importantly I was being held hostage by the world within me. I kept thrashing against the shackles, day in and day out till eventually after years of strife, my struggle started to lessen and lessen, as the fire within me started to die out and as the spark that kept me alive began to fizzle out too -- I was losing my will to fight. You see, I have always been certain; certain of my path, certain of my future and especially certain of the outcome, i.e. the fruit that my life will bring forth on this earth. No other end result besides victory and success has ever even crossed my mind as a potential to be true so when faced with the ‘in between,’ what was I supposed to do? You see it’s in this season of the wilderness where God will start to reveal you to YOU and where if you’re not careful the enemy start’s to whisper so loudly that you can start to believe his words too. Somehow, even though I was so connected to my creator, I listened and listened and at some point started to believe in what he said, in what I saw, in what I felt, in what I experienced, and in what I ‘thought,’ over what I knew deep down to be true and in what was spoken into me at creation. I looked at my situation and got bound by what was and not what will eventually be and it was in this moment, at the peak of the crescendo, in what felt like the final act, in a place where I felt like I had nothing left to give that God found me. He found me and I heard Him because FINALLY, for the first time in a long time, I let go of my own will and fell into His and I relinquished my own capacity because ALL THAT WAS LEFT was HIS. I was so hollow that all I could do was let Him fill me up with His love. The pain that I experienced beforehand, now in retrospect, was like a premonition that my Saviour was on His way because it was like the demons gave me all they had before the final transfiguration took place. Somehow, through it all I held on. I held on with a gentle grasp and the only explanation that I have is ‘Grace’. There was so little of me left at the end of it all that I was able to filled with all of Him. I was finally able to listen because there was nothing left of me to hear and there was little left to distract me. I spent so many nights, breaking and crying, seeking and hiding, and after spending most of my life sure of my future and gunning towards something that now felt empty, I became a blank canvas, a beautiful blank page for Him to create with. And in the moment where I thought I lost the game, I realised God had put so many cracks in the enemy’s offense when I wasn’t paying attention, that his hold on me was vain and was about to shatter into fragmented pieces around me, I just didn’t realise it and ultimately in a moment where I was sure I had lost, I was about to leave with victory. ------ (Part 2 – It all comes full circle) This takes me back to 2008. At that time I had spent a year away from a chess board and I was about to play in a national chess competition. It was about 8/9 rounds and the winners got the opportunity to fly to Singapore for the World School Chess Championships. Once again I will say, I had not practiced or even thought about chess in a year but I showed up anyway because what God ordains no man can stand in the way of. If you know anything about chess, the ‘Fool’s Mate’ is the most embarrassing way to lose. It’s a move that every basic player should know how to avoid and it’s even more embarrassing because it happens in the span of minutes. Round 1 – I lost to a Fool’s Mate …. how? I had been away from a chessboard for so long that basic moves had evaded my memory and I was floored, I lost in minutes to someone younger than me. I completely made a fool of myself and poorly displayed my abilities. Now, I could have walked away with my tail between my legs but I had made my mind up, one Check Mate would not be my end. I decided to pull my socks up and use my intelligence to its maximum. In the next game I taught myself how to combat it because as expected, my next opponent tried to win in the same manor and in the games that followed, I not only played good chess but excellent chess and won every game, inevitably winning the tournament. This is all to say, my 12 year old self didn’t let one Check Mate determine the outcome of the entire tournament. She pulled herself up and figured it out as she went along. Not accepting her position at the bottom of the food chain but rising in rank as the games went on, and just as she didn’t give up and didn’t let one failure stand in the way of her destiny, I won’t either. A Check Mate is not the end, it’s an opportunity for a new beginning, a beginning that holds the best version of self that you can be. Yes you may be bound now, yes you may feel like a failure and yes you may truly have lost this round but all that matters is whether or not you get back up, so get back up. One thing about me is that I refuse to lose and I will prove your lowly impressions of me wrong every time and in every season. I don’t care how many times I have to dust myself off and keep going, I don’t care how many times I have to start, stop, try and fail, I WILL make it happen and I WILL come out victorious. So with that being said, it’s safe to say that I have just begun and life is not finished yet. I think our greatest failures become our greatest graces and our greatest pains truly reveal the love and hand of God in our lives. He had to stop me to speak to me, He had to break me to pull me up and even though the serpent and temptation remained ever present, through it all, all things were working for my good. So if you ever feel like giving up, recall this moment and don’t. God is working behind the scenes even when you don’t see what He’s doing. Pain is merely a small part or your testimony and your refinement is directly proportional to your capacity and spiritual weight. Never forget your grace and the Light that is within you My dearest reader, I really and truly believe in you. Sincerely, Midnight’s Muse