Becoming Well With Liz Tafadzwa

Hey, my Becoming Well Community.

I thought what better way to kickstart my blog posts than to start with the basics. I know in today’s society, “wellness” has become a buzzword. It is so easy to have a mental picture of what it looks like, but that does not mean it’s an accurate reflection of what wellness entails. I wanted this first one to unpack obvious but important questions such as what is wellness, who invented the idea of wellness and what is the starting point? Is it even Biblical or some term that will soon lose it’s flame? Is wellness an inherent desire of every human being or something that a select few realize is alluring on their journey to lifelong growth? 

As I write this and with each post I will publish, I want you to know that I am continuously working on being well too. I may only be one step ahead of you as I can’t share something I personally have not experienced. With each topic, you will also see me occasionally share a piece of my story or lived experience. After all, aren’t stories what connects us all? We relate better when we hear stories of those who reflect or validate our lived experiences-especially painful ones.

So what is wellness or health? Are they synonyms or two different yet closely related terms? WHO defines health “as the state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”  Wellness on the other end is both the process of becoming healthy and the holistic state of wellbeing across all areas of an individual. All it’s saying is health is the goal and wellness is the journey to achieve that goal. Both are important in your becoming journey. I decided to include these definitions because I think it would be irresponsible of me to talk about a concept that some of you may not have a full understanding of. Consequently, you will devalue something simply because you don’t understand it.

Wellness is a concept that was established by God right from the beginning in the book of Genesis. The first command God gave humankind is to be fruitful and multiply (Genesis 1:28). As I have read this command so many times it has never dawned on me until earlier this year in my quiet time that this verse speaks on growth. By nature God designed you and I to grow. When you are not growing, you are actually going against your inherent wiring, and prolonged stagnation in anything frustrates every human being. Be it a tree, plant, baby, business, church, etc it’s growth is determined by it’s state of wellness. When a baby is sick, malnourished, deprived of adequate and appropriate foods and needs it’s growth is stunted. We also see in 3 John 3:12 it says “ Dear friend I pray that you may prosper in every way and be in good health, just as your soul prospers.”

Growth is an innate part of every human being’s wiring.

It’s God’s desire for you to become well in all aspects of your life. When a tree is healthy and continues to be nourished in the right environment; it has no other option but to grow and not just grow, but thrive and bear fruit. That’s when you become efficient in fulfilling that first command of being fruitful and multiply, so you can dominate in the area he has given you to influence over. I intentionally used a tree as a metaphor for life/people because it is one you will see used time and time again in the Bible. God’s number one goal after you give your life to Christ is for you to grow in all aspects. You were not saved just to “take up space on earth.” You were saved so you can serve. In that service, your purpose is awakened, but you can’t function in that purpose properly if you are not well.

 In the last 3-4 years as I have been walking closely with God I have come to realize this important yet overlooked phenomenon– you can’t mature spiritually if you are sick emotionally, afflicted mentally, and relationally strained. Those areas are interconnected, and this may be a reason why some people cannot read and apply the Bible for a consistent period of time. It’s not because they are bad or evil people, but their mental, emotional, or relational sickness has tainted their perception to the point that principles in the Bible feel like personal attacks, and saying yes to being taken advantage of instead of truths that were set in motion to set them free. The day I realized this is also the day I understood why Satan loves using trauma to keep us away from knowing God’s truth. When we have been in pain for a long time, we have less capacity to consider something that may be good for us because we fear the little we have left may be used against us again. For instance, If I felt disrespected as a child, I will find it hard to respect my child because I fear they will disrespect me if I choose to respect them, which will take me back to that tormenting feeling I felt as a child. In fact, I will expect them to respect me because of my role and not because I have earned it, yet 1 Peter 2:17 commands you and I to respect everyone. That includes that 2-year-old child. There are God’s child before their my child and whenever we forget that we run the risk of abusing his children. This is what soul sickness can do to you and keep you a spiritual baby and kill your relationships.

“You can’t mature spiritually if you are sick emotionally, afflicted mentally and relationally strained”

Notice I didn’t mention financial, intellectual, and physical, because it is possible to be book smart, know all current affairs, and be financially successful, but soul sick. You may have the fittest body, and cleanest diet, yet still be stuck on that pain of your ex who betrayed you, the friend who backstabbed you, or the pedantic parent who raged through out your childhood. All this connects back down to those three areas. How can you exercise self-control( a fruit of the Spirit)  when you still have unresolved anger in your heart about your father abandoning you or your mother who invalidated you as a child? I may already be stepping on some toes, but I want to speak the truth in love so you can be freed. If you are wrestling with any of these feelings or actually experienced the pain of events I have just mentioned, I want you to know you are not alone and I assure you that your pain is recognized. I see your pain. We will unpack those suppressed wounds that have either left us stuck or sick, but right now I want you to capture what I am trying to drive home here.

How can you love your neighbor if you hate yourself? How can you endure a storm and exude joy when depression has you by the throat? Even closer to home, how can you grow in love, gentleness, or patience if you keep cutting off people in your life the moment their humanity is revealed? It may even be a trauma response, but these are real questions that you and I at different points of our lives will be confronted with and as we seek to become more like Jesus in character. I know for some people, when they hear becoming more like Christ they cringe, because they think they are supposed to be boring, a weird religious fanatic, or a phony saint of some sort. My heart breaks to see how God has been badly misrepresented and I would argue particularly in Africa that the false perception that people have of God, has kept them away from experiencing everything their heart, spirit, body, and soul truly long for. All you envision is that childhood pastor who was manipulative and threatening, with their two-faced kids or church members who spoke in tongues in the church building, but didn’t know how to speak to their spouse, children, or domestic workers. Some of us experienced terrible church hurt and vowed to ourselves that we would never be found in any church or were rejected by people that claimed to know the Lord. It may all have felt like a cult that you desperately wanted to get out of as soon as you could. We will also unpack these issues as time goes.

Okay, let’s get back to what we were talking about. Though all these things we now see today when we rhetorically think of wellness are not bad aspects, wellness is not limited to those things. It goes beyond sitting in a bathtub with scented colorful bath bombs with a wooden bathtub caddy tray; holding a book and glass of wine with a burning candle, calming music in the background, cucumbers in your eyes on the patio of a modern apartment without any noise from that annoying family member or obnoxious friend or colleague, hitting the gym at 5 am five days a week, religiously taking your supplements and eating as clean as possible. It goes beyond taking a vacation to the Turks and Caicos Islands with your girls or your man, sitting in the sauna once a week, or going for aesthetically pleasing solo or group dates. I may step on some toes here too, but a photo dump of wellness pictures or events is also not a reflection of real wellness in that individual.  Again all these things are wonderful and beneficial, but we must not confuse them as signs that we are well, but rather experiences that aid us if we apply them to get well most often certain not all areas of our lives. The truth is getting well or rather healing is messy. That’s the real sign that you are doing the work to be well. If it’s not messy, I question if you are actually healing or obsessed with the idea of healing and hoping one day your accumulated knowledge will magically do the work for you. I will be the one to burst that bubble. God will help you heal or rather expedites your healing process if you invite him, but you have a large part to play in your healing and noone can do it for you.

“Healing is messy. That’s the real sign that you are doing the work to be well”

I believe every human heart has an intrinsic desire to become well because what every human being desires most is living with a secure identity, fulfillment, significance, impact, and belonging where their authentic self is embraced within a safe community. It may be easy particularly in underdeveloped places to think that an old lady who has sold vegetables her whole life to send her kids to school and feed them has none of these desires. Placed in an environment where her basic needs and her dependents are securely provided for she will eventually switch to seeking those inherent needs. Survival mode suppresses not eliminates that strong desire to become well so you can BECOME and DO all you were created to be.

In closing, I have also found that healing is closely tied to wellness. It is impossible to become well without healing. Remember, the opposite of healing is sickness. As you heal, you inevitably become well. I pray that this blog post ignited something in you. Maybe you have desired to get well for some time now but didn’t know where to start. Maybe your culture of origin, like my own; conversations around soul wellness were not welcomed or allowed and dysfunction was the constant dance of the day. It stops with you. We cannot even begin to talk about purpose and authenticity when we are sick and deny that. Whenever a living organism is healthy, growth is a natural outcome and the same is true for you. You can’t afford to stay sick. I can’t afford to stay sick either. 

So here we are going to learn, unlearn, and sometimes relearn so we can become well. We will face our internal wounds head-on and say goodbye to running away because that is the very thing that many of us including myself have kept us sick for longer than necessary. In addition, when dysfunction preoccupies us, growth takes a back seat and purpose is framed as an impossible ask. As I have already stated, you cannot grow if you are sick. Health is a prerequisite for growth and inevitably unravels your purpose. 

“When dysfunction preoccupies us, growth takes a back seat and purpose is framed as an impossible ask “

Marinate on this first one BW community. Share it with someone so they too can join in on becoming well. The church and world will always be better off with healthier individuals.

You are loved deeply and I will see you next week.