2021 through the lenses of my vivid imagination

Another year has come and gone, and I feel like doing a reflection.

Yet another year has passed living here in Coronaville, and now everything just appears sort of ‘normal’. We moved into this new land on the 27th of March 2020, and I really thought that when the 27th of March 2021 came around, that there would be much more looking back and just being amazed at how we had made it, but this wasn’t the case, and right so.

How do you look back over a year and ‘celebrate’ how far we’ve come, when no end was/is in sight? So, with that said, I want to offer up all my love and condolences to you if you have loved lost ones over this period, had your life completely smashed upside down or if the loneliness of isolation and fear of the unknown has tried to cripple you, or perhaps it still haunts you, I am sorry.

My year started with greeting a great fellow colleague who packed his bags, and his wife, and relocated to the Queen’s land, this was tough, work aside, saying goodbye to people you love, friends and colleagues that become family, is hard, and this, like with many other things that we have been trying to come to grips with over these past +/- 21 months, was hard.

My country was also still deep in the throes of a lockdown that started just after Christmas 2020, which meant that church gatherings were very limited. No more than 50 people per venue, and I remember how crazy it was trying to figure this all out. I was amped to get back into live gatherings, because let’s face it, who was engaging in YouTube services anyways? If you were, and yes, I have heard that there were some, that’s awesome, but this was also hard. We were not made for isolation.

The church connect group that I help lead was also bound to go through some metamorphosis. We had been running a mini-house church for the last couple of years, and so many people (anything between 20 to 30 people) propped into someone’s lounge was just not going to work anymore, but hey, that’s fine, God is never lost without a plan. What we felt to do was to divide into 4 smaller groups and set the guys free to run and go wild after Jesus, and to be honest, it was awesome.

The feedback received of how people who were naturally more withdrawn and who now had found their voice, was great. ‘Community’ has no clearly defined shape or form and cannot subscribe to a set of rules. I think that if people are meeting and having meaningful engagements, that community can be built and that we can keep charging to further His Kingdom.

In March I had the glorious opportunity to go away to Hogsback for a long weekend and this was such a much-needed break. A break from the madness that was getting through the February financial year-end. I love the natural cycles that the world of finance goes through, as creative as I am, I must say that I really appreciate the order that exists in my work life.

Other notable highlights for me for the first half of the year was that finally I decided to start challenging myself a bit more in my CrossFit workouts, moving into the intermediate and advanced workouts phase and then somewhere in April or May, I decided to start running a bit more so as to go and run the Knysna half-marathon, my training was going okay-ish until I woke up in a cold sweat on Wednesday the 9th of June, in the wee hours of the morning.

I knew something was up. At this stage I was also trying to wrap-up a big piece of contract work that I was doing for another firm, and so at about 5am that morning I realized that I needed to finalize billing, as one does. I wrapped up everything, sent all the necessary mails, and reached out to my buddy to say that I wouldn’t see him that evening, describing my symptoms to him.

He replied and said that he had the same. Up until that point I figured I had a stomach bug as a lot of my colleagues were talking about a stomach bug in the last few weeks prior to this, but when he said he feels the same as me, knowing that I had spent the previous Saturday and Sunday night with him, I just knew, it was Covid.

By 9am that morning my doctor had sent the lab forms and I was tested before 10am that day. I started planning my life around what might happen if I get a positive result. I felt too yucky to work that day, so I just made myself as comfortable as I could at home and got to bed early. Insomnia set in again and I was up from way early, checking the lab’s WhatsApp result line every half an hour, finally at about 4 am, there in red text on the lab result it read, ‘DETECTED’, what a relief to just know.

This was now it, housebound for at least the next 10 or 14 days. I tested positive, so did my buddy and a lot of our other friends, some dotted all around the country. A lot of people that I saw that previous weekend also tested positive, and for the first time since the murmurs of a worldwide pandemic had started, the Corona virus became very real to me.

Real in terms of the fact that super spreader events aren’t confined to stadiums or public places, they can happen in homes, also real from the point of view that I was one of the many people that nonchalantly used to think that I had had the virus before, you know…’that one week in 2020 that I was sick, yep, that was it.’

My Covid journey started mild and by the Friday, another buddy had brought me a beautiful chicken wrap from Kauai, and I made some steamed butternut to go with it, life was great, I even told my mom. The next day, the Saturday, all the wheels came off and for the next couple of days I was slammed with such a heavy fatigue that I was struggling to just get out of bed by the afternoon to perhaps manage to eat an orange, just so that I could swallow some vitamins and have my animal medication, you know what I’m talking about.

This journey was rough, and I realize that I perhaps didn’t speak about it enough, but also as this journey started, I decided to log out of my social media accounts, knowing full well that I would be housebound for a while, I wanted to engage more in this journey and getting better, as opposed to just endlessly scrolling stories during my quarantine.

As a side note, I started working on a blog during this period and have yet to finish it.

Every morning started out like a ritual, checking in with all my fellow wounded soldiers. Men and woman that I knew well, and some not as much. People I loved. One by one, some of the people that I draw a lot of encouragement from, were sending me updates of despondence and defeat, and to be honest, I was also there.

I remember the real feeling of fearing going to sleep, not because I feared death, but because I had spent just a little bit of my afternoon feeling okay, and I didn’t want that ripped away from me again as the next day would start with me feeling like hell.

This carried on for an entire week and I was drained not knowing if I would ever feel 100% okay.

All the while friends and even a work client came and dropped off food and vitamins, the realness of Jesus became so evident to me during this time.

My first week post quarantine I worked half-days. Covid brain and mushy thoughts is a very real phenomenon. I didn’t have the strength or mental capacity to host our work team’s morning virtual catch-up, because I honestly couldn’t keep track of thoughts. I was a disaster in conversations and consultations, and this all caused me to withdraw a bit. Both in a good and perhaps, not so good way.

I remember a friend inviting me to a night of ministry and I was very apprehensive to go. I had developed some weird, mini fear of people. That night another friend of ours wanted to pray for me as she said she saw a kind of heaviness on me, and it broke.

I realized right then and there, and many others have confirmed this, that though Covid is physically a very real virus, yet it also attacks us emotionally and mentally. I want to urge you that when you are checking up on your loved ones, also ask how they are doing on this front. My now girlfriend used to encourage me to be kind to myself in my recovery, so please, be kind to yourself and others.

Somehow, with all the ups and downs of lockdowns this past year and having become a statistic of the third wave (delta variant), I felt like I had lost the months of June to pretty much the end of July, I will always fondly remember how I organised to get a bunch of friends together for my birthday (5 July), but unfortunately that fell apart, but let’s be honest, whom hasn’t been inconvenienced? There has been the missing out of so many incredible milestones achieved, or losses suffered that you and I just simply could not attend because of this virus, but hey, take heart, we are a resilient people, and we need to keep on bracing ourselves for our ever-changing circumstances.

In September this year my life took a glorious detour down a path that I wasn’t sure that I would ever find, so here’s a shout out to all my single friends that are hoping and praying for a miracle. I have known the most sincere and beautiful woman since 2018 but thought absolutely nothing about any prospects of liking or even dating her. Through the most tumultuous adventure that started towards the end of 2020, this amazing woman became my girlfriend towards the end of September 2021, and I am over the moon with excitement.

It is now December 2021 and the second last day of the year, a couple of hours from now people around the globe will be singing, ‘should auld acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind…’, here in South Africa it will be celebrated at home, tucked away safely in our beds as we respect the curfew, and I for one will be reminiscing once again upon the year gone by. My low moments, which will include my June covid episode and then all the glorious moments, such as this current holiday break that I am on, which has also included yet another 10-day quarantine stint, which I won’t get in to now, tsek Omicron.

Verb. tsek. to check; to mark with a checkmark… (go ahead and Google this…haha)

Naturally with the breaking dawn of a brand-new year, I will dream about and be looking forward to the epic adventures of a new year, but always with a sense of appreciation for the year gone by. In my opinion, its not worth it to write off an entire year because of low and sucky moments, but once again if you do find yourself in this boat, I want to encourage you to find something from the year gone by to remind you that life is awesome, and that you are way more than your low moments. 

In 2022 I want to be more vulnerable, and to be frank, I already feel challenged to start freeing up some of my time to enable me to start living this life of freedom and adventure to its fullest. Just like the spring clean I did of some of my cupboards about 2 months ago, I want to do the same with my time, sometimes one just needs to let go of nostalgia and habits IF it is causing clutter, but hey, this is my journey.

As for you, I trust that your 2022 dreams will be wild and will included some courageous endeavours. You are fierce and you are much loved, go and live out your wildest dreams and have some great coffee whilst you are at it.

Love, Ryan.

The Lost Years (Part 1)

Whilst going for a run along the beach yesterday, Saturday 07 August 2021, I felt the Lord’s voice speak to me loud and clear.

Loud and clear about the journey since I got born-again, and about the here and now, there’s something about coming home that always sparks some sort of down-memory-lane moments for me.

As I was collecting my thoughts on this post-covid run, walk, try not to overexert your heart rate attempt, I suddenly realized that I was on a stretch of beach that is very familiar to me, it’s between Blue Bend and Bonza Bay in Beacon Bay. I often walk or run this section as I really enjoy the ocean, and for some reason I have always been game to run on sea-sand when many have despised it, but I must add as a sub-note, I am by no means a good runner, I just really enjoy running though, but we’ll save this for a future blog entry, the rationale behind this and how it all got started.

The ocean is this wide, vast body of water and I can lose myself for hours just staring at it, how incredible that God created this masterpiece. The thing that I love about escaping to the beach, and especially in East London, is that you have a 360-degree view of nature, pure and simple, un-hindered and un-built-up nature, I get to marvel at God’s creation. This is very different to my home city, Gqeberha (formerly Port Elizabeth), as most of the city’s popular swimming beaches have no sand dunes and are marred by a landscape of sky scrapers, what a let-down when you’re swimming in the ocean and you look back and can orientate yourself by hotel instead of natural landmarks, this is no attack on architecture but rather just a comparison of how two cities are differently laid out, and I get very passionate about protecting our eco-systems.

Now that I have set the scene of my surrounds, it is very easy to understand why I hear and see our Creator so vividly in this place, and I started wondering to myself again, ‘God why do I hear you here so clearly here?’ (Almost a sense of agitation as I just want to run, but my mind is consumed by the Lord.) Then God reminded me of my early days, when I had just gotten saved, how I would devour His word, how I would feel like I wanted to internally combust because I need to share the gospel, and because I felt that I had no audience, I gladly came and preached to these sand dunes.

God was saying to me that because of the foundation that was laid in this stretch of beach, a prayer closet of sorts, that these dunes were literally reminding me and preaching back to me about my first love, Jesus Christ. I make no excuse for how deluded this may sound because I know that many of us experience God, His presence, and His voice in peculiar circumstances, and mine just happens to be at the ocean, and especially this stretch.

Friends, have you become discouraged, burnt out and feel let down? Go back to the start, you might not go a do-over, but perhaps you’ll regain perspective and find the source of forgotten joy.

God is for you. God likes you. God loves you!!

Love, Ryan

UNSUBSCRIBE

Introduction

Today was a good day, a win for my email inbox. Every so often I get fed up with receiving yet another mail from the same service provider that I take that extra few seconds to scroll to the bottom of the email, find the ‘unsubscribe’ option, wait for the browser to pop up and then to see those glorious words, ‘You have been successfully unsubscribed,’ and today I did one of these!! I did it, I won, I am winning, I am taking back my inbox and empowering my life by getting rid of inbox clutter, and I was so chuffed that I actually felt prompted to stop procrastinating, and to write a blog about the significance of the UNSUBSCRIBE.

Greetings

Well guys, its 2021, dare I say it…HAPPY NEW YEAR!! Though, most of the pleasant emails I received at the beginning of this year all started with, ‘compliments of the new season’, sure I’ve probably read this liner before, but this year it’s been hitting me, people are reluctant to wish anyone a ‘Happy New Year’ and I think it’s because we’re nervous, not entirely because we don’t believe that it can indeed be a good year or not, but because we just don’t know where people are at, in their thinking, in their emotions etc.

The simple fact is this, by this stage, most people around the globe in countries where Covid-19 had an impact, have lost a loved one. Whether it be family, a friend or an acquaintance, most of us can draw a line to a deceased person and you know what, it sucks, and so what we’re most probably trying to do is to suppress ourselves just a little bit and we’re doing this out of respect for human life and the loss thereof. This is just sort of my thinking and its cool, I love that we are so deeply concerned for each other that we would consciously change our approaches and responses, so as to serve each other in a meaningful way.

Opening the Door on a Blizzard

Friends, we find ourselves in a very peculiar place, 21-days into the new year and I’m hearing a lot of this chitter chatter of, ‘new year but feels just the same as last year’. I am also guilty of having jumped on this band wagon a bit, but I feel like I need to caution us and encourage us to continue hoping and dreaming.

I also just think that from a logical stand point that if your life goes from valley low to mountain high at midnight on the 31^st of December each year, then you need to get hold of me ASAP and tell me how you do this, but perhaps do it via a message as I need to accurately dissect the 365-day downward slope that takes place from 1 Jan to 31 Dec, each and every year, this sounds a bit like the yo-yo affect, back-and-forth, to-and-fro, no thank you.

Could someone rather hit me up with the secret to living life, consistently, this could work and I would be eager for this sort of implementation instead.

There’s a very simple children’s song that reminds us to be careful of what we see, hear, say etc., because Our Father up above is looking down with love and this should serve as a reminder for us to be mindful of what we’re engaging in.

This is true, in fact there are two passages from scripture that scare the living bejeebers out of me that speak directly towards this,

We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. 2 Corinthians 10:5 NIV

But I tell you that everyone will have to give account on the day of judgment for every empty word they have spoken. Matthew 12:36 NIV

To be deadly honest, I don’t need to go into a Word study here as its quite clear and simple for me, we are to take our thoughts captive and we are to watch what we speak, in fact the bible also teaches us that the tongue carries the power of life and death and I can give testimony that when I was going into a crazy work situation a few years back, the Lord reminded me, ‘Ryan, as long as you speak life, I will equip you for the rest.’

I took that reminder to heart and often share this testimony, because the days were I started off reminding myself to speak life and destiny into my situations, I felt the Lord carry me and lead me through those days, but the opposite was also true, when I would go for days and weeks without reminding myself to speak that life, I would find myself in a very dark place, with way more questions than answers, and more often than not those questions of uncertainty would weigh me down and would rob me of all joy. So much so that I was over my working situation and conditions, I was plotting plans to leave and surely the Lord would bless it, I thought to myself.

But rest assured, as I drew back to that place of my promised abundance, that place of being obedient to his Word and His voice, I found myself feeling empowered to be able to whether any kind of storm, as I knew that God was literally going before me and shining a light for where I was too tread.

You see, it’s very easy to become overwhelmed when we just let go of the wheel and let all the junk and garbage in, when we let all the spam mail flood the inbox of our hearts and minds, BUT we are not victims in the story of our lives here on earth, we are victors. God is calling you and I, right here, right now at the beginning of 2021, to come into agreement with his thoughts and to take up the challenge to UNSUBSCRIBE from the popular norms that are going on around us.

Friends, for me it’s to watch what comes out of my mouth, cause scripture also warns that this is a pristine indicator of the condition of our hearts, but this then begs the question, do I need to be bridled like a horse, or do I need some one-on-one heart therapy from the one whom Created me?

Mmm…I’m going to leave that thought right there.

So…2021, one thing that I am sure of for this year is that if we would just wholly and fully submit ourselves to our Maker, Christ Jesus, each and every single day, then we will start to see and live out a Miracle each day as Jesus leads. 

Closing

In the words of Buzz Lightyear, “To Infinity and Beyond”.

Love you guys, keep rocking who you are!!