Before anyone knew who Esther truly was,
they already had names for her.
“Stubborn.”
“Too emotional.”
“Troubled.”
“Complicated.”
People never waited to hear her story,
they just reacted to her scars and Esther,
she learned to shrink herself
so her wounds wouldn’t make anyone uncomfortable.
She learned to smile so her sadness stayed polite.
She learned to apologize for things that were never her fault.
Everywhere she turned,
someone had something to say about who they thought she was.
One evening, after another day of whispered judgments,
Esther locked herself in her small room.
She sat on the floor,
back against the bed,
feeling the weight of every label pressed against her chest.
She cried, not because the names were true,
but because she was tired of defending a story
no one cared to understand.
“I’m tired, God,” she whispered.
“I’m tired of being explained, criticized, and misunderstood.
I’m tired of carrying things You never gave me.”
And in that quiet, fragile moment,
a voice rested gently in her heart:
“I don’t call you what they call you.”
Esther froze.
The room felt different,
lighter, warmer, like a truth she had forgotten was wrapping itself around her.
That whisper broke something in her,
not her spirit,
but the weight she had mistaken for her identity.
All the labels people glued to her
started falling off one by one.
Because God wasn’t pointing at her scars,
He was pointing at her potential.
He wasn’t describing her by her past,
He was naming her by her future.
People had condemned her
without knowing the battles she survived but God…
God chose her because of those battles.
And slowly, Esther stood up, not taller, but freer.
She wiped her tears,
not because the pain was gone,
but because she finally understood:
Dear Esther’s
People may label you,
but they can’t define you.
They may condemn you,
but they can’t cancel the grace covering you.
Esther realized that God has a strange habit of using the very people the world rejects
to show what redemption really looks like.
So if they called her names, fine.
Let them talk.
Let them assume.
Let them misunderstand.
She wasn’t their opinion.
She wasn’t their gossip.
She wasn’t their label.
She was God’s masterpiece, in progress,
in process,
in grace.
And one day,
when her healing became louder than their words, even her scars stood up and said:
“I was once labelled and condemned but now, I’m called redeemed.”
This will be your testimony soon, don’t be little God and trust the process..
Temilade Alokan
Light Lamp
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