marriage – Page 8 – Danita Ogandaga, MSW

16,500 downloads and counting!

01/14/2012 danitaogandaga

2012 is a year for massive emotional healing. Locating yourself and receiving God’s love are critical steps to your process. The Orphan No More Podcast was birthed 13 years ago from years of emotional trauma that prevented me from receiving God’s love. We’re shared the message of healing in 120 countries, with over 16,500 downloads! Today, I don’t know where I’d be without it….God’s love is amazing!
Click on the Orphan No More Podcast page for archived messages of hope, progress, and encouragement!

Emotional Healing, Uncategorized

Looking Inward- Orphan No More

12/01/201112/11/2011 danitaogandaga

On a given day we assess so many things, whether a report at work or the amount of apples in the refrigerator before making that stop to the grocery store. Consistently evaluating to see if our subject measures up to the stated standard of our upper’s approval.

It is so easy to see how one could then apply that mindset to the navigation tool of their own life and seek to be adopted by the standard of Mother Earth…feeling like an Orphan…separated by our once reality, the constant voice who always stabilized us in our uncertain times…thinking why like Corinne Bailey Rae, why we are not quick to let our guard down, cautious and walking on ice with every relationship that comes our way, ready to show our ID to justify our age when we know we’re over 21 and oh so grown!

A tweet here, a post there, and an entry on the blog all seem to soothe the soul because writing is what I do. Making strides to be all that God wants me to be creates a constant put on my mentals when I do not seem to identify with the traditions that history originally footprinted me into. How many people do you know seek for validation? My God, this is such an intimate and red faced topic but who gets it? Validation defined is to recognize, establish, or illustrate the worthiness or legitimacy of. I remember hearing when TD Jakes father passed, the poignant moment of his message that resonated with me was the time when he stood over his father’s grave commanding him to remind him of who he’d become and what would he be. Once a happy go lucky young boy walking it the footsteps of his father was now thinking the heavy thoughts of an orphan. Similarly, it felt as if the fabric of my identity was stripped when my parents passed away. Relationships with people and place did not appear to be the same. Interests that once captivated me did not. I remember getting in my car and running away….driving until my car was on empty unwilling to face the reality that I was going to learn to live life without them. My validity did not matter because it was swallowed up in silence and therefore so I became until God found me.

Coming out of validation addiction is like a person being weaned off of hard drug-.one step at a time, intense introspection, and the Word of God. It can be done and I am so sure of this. As a public affairs professional, servant of the Lord, doctoral student, and organizational consultant, absolutely everything that I do is heavily scrutinized by various eyes commenting and adding to or subtracting from the reality that I seek to create. As you move away from the reality of the world and into faith or from the seat of negativity to the seat of positivity, or even from the diaspora mindset to the kingdom mindset, you will not be able to allow the validation to move you. If the likers LIKE your post, it is really appreciated, if they comment, that is great too; but now more than ever, the time to be free is nigh.I am walking this out and it is liberating as you come into your Godself. When Adam and Eve were in the garden they were naked- chilling absolutely in the garden and wandering around until someone brought to their attention that they were NAKED (exposed). Their internal reality and peace had suddenly been overturned and what they believed to be true on the inside of them—the peace that passed all understanding had succumbed to the external reality around them. As a result they began to change—their clothes, their mindsets, etc.

Don’t allow the status and pictures on Facebook or other social media outlets to shake your core and make you believe that you are not valuable! Stop looking to the media to validate your existence or tell you how you can get a man in 15 days when they can’t even begin to tell you biblically how to keep him. Refrain from attempting to try social drugs at a house party or lounge because that one experience can get you hooked to a substance for life! Seen the METH billboards? Retreat to the top of your stairs or lay and stare at the ceiling and ask God to reveal himself to you and show you the plans that HE has for you! His plans and His validation are sure and trust me you will never be shaken.

I think it is time. Yes, it is time.

Relationships

The Marital Itch

10/25/201112/11/2011 danitaogandaga

The greatest ruin to the truth is by stretching it! Marriage is a beautiful union that brings two people together for the purpose of fulfilling the complete will of God for their lives. It is the greatest character development project that one can be enrolled in! 1 Corinthians 13 reflects on the be-attitudes of love and challenges us to keep it in the proper perspective for living a complete life.

When I put on that white dress and had that platinum ring slipped onto my finger, I felt like I was the safest, most guarded woman on the planet because I had a man who would shield me from all of the hurt and shame of my past. Someone who would keep me from having to deal with myself and the issues that I tend to use to hold me back from experiencing the best that life has to give. He became my key to not being an Orphan No More and all I had to do was to just show up every morning, say goodmorning, greet him with a smile and give good loving at night–cook food —breakfast, lunch, and dinner and send him on his merry way! Right? Right?

Jill Scott told them, they’re getting in the way of what she’s feeling so much to the point that truth was stretched to the point of having a ruin, a tear, going straight down the middle of my heart the day that I realized that marriage was not a shield from my not having to deal with my stuff, you know the stuff we got locked up under lock and key that we silently stuffed into the storage even though the funk of it seeps through.

Marriage is a reflection. It is a mirror. Unfulfilled with self equals unfulfillment with your mate, insecurity with your mate equals insecurity with yourself. No relationship with God, equates to a life lived in misery because you’re looking to Him or Her to be your daddy and mommy and give you your identify–only when they tell you who really resembling, you run Forest run!

Like the blind leading the blind, three blind mice—you , him, and your crew—the one you can’t seem to shake that just hangs in your corner because she or he is such a fan of your relationship…the one you all choose to tell your secrets to rather than telling each other or for the matter of fact, the Father God.

Like the reality housewives confiding in a circle filled with fire, women ablaze coveting what you have because they have no desire to be told what to do neither north or south—aspiring to run every man who ran them in the past and caused their soul to become bankrupt——adapting to love as a game like Vivica —two can play that game, baby!

I know what it feels like to be an Orphan wanting to be loved and then getting an all out access pass to experience it and then not knowing what to do when it shows up…..like an Orphan being adopted from hell to heaven seeing a clear vision of peace in view and running in the opposite direction……….your itchin for change so why do you run?…..from your healing?…..little boy or liggle girl……..ask God to help you see the truth….stop converting liggle girls to join your rebel cause and you all like Bonnie and Clyde living in the country or on the hillside buying time…….come back to your first love and allow your spirit to get adopted….the papers have already been inked in red—representing the blood of the Lamb……..

The marital itch of six years has brought Darcy and I to a level place of mutual respect and understanding for life’s process to remain in love and committed to each other and the father God…..maintain peace in our home and pray for each other on a regular basis……even when we feel unlovely, we must speak to our rusty selves and speak life in the midst of apparent defeat. Not trying to paint a perfect picture but we serve a perfect God who has access to perfection….so we wake up morning after morning for that Pretty Jesus Kool-aid and apply Calamine Lotion to our skin to calm the marital itch.

Sincerely,

Danita Ogandaga

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