Last Sunday, during service, my pastor preached about listening to God and allowing Him to direct our course in life.

As we bowed our heads in prayer, I suddenly remembered a song God gave me many years ago, and I found myself reflecting on it once again.

“Se bioitife ninu aye mi (Do as you please in my life)

Se bi wo loni mi (You own me)

To mo mi (you created me)

To mo mi (you know me)

Se bioitife o ninu aye mi (Do as you please in my life).”

I was 16 at the time, a new student in a beautiful secondary school. Mind you, I had already completed high school, but as a science student, I failed two major subjects. Even after attempting them again through GCE, I still did not pass. By then, I had completely given up on my dream of becoming a doctor. I had pivoted to something else. Perhaps I would have been a geographer today (a good one at that; I did so well in that subject).

Many of my friends know this story, and one day I will tell it fully (Just stick around)

A few people close to me know the many chapters of my life, but very few know that song. No one, except the Holy Spirit and myself, truly understood how I felt during that season.

I was deeply sad, yet still moving, living, breathing, and confused. The student who was once the best had suddenly become a failure. I lost my sense of identity and self-confidence, carrying shame and constantly second-guessing myself. The only place I could run to was God. That was where my journaling journey began. I poured my heart out on paper, and God used people around me to speak to me.

That morning, shortly after I turned 16, I was walking into the bathroom to start my day before leaving the hostel when God placed that song on my lips. I sang it with a heart full of uncertainty, fear, shame, and pain, but it became the song for my journey and for that season of my life.

It was a song of surrender. I allowed God to lead me and told Him to do as He pleased, because my life ultimately belonged to Him.

Gradually, I grew in my walk with God; I experienced him as a Father, and my faith grew strongly while I learned to rely on him alone. Aside from that, God gave me good friends during that season.

I remember songs from Donut Man’s club about Jeremiah at the potter’s house and also the potter and the clay song. God molds us into what He wants us to be and takes us through processes, and we come out beautiful and changed at the end. But that molding process can be tough.

“He said, “Can I not do with you, Israel, as this potter does?” declares the Lord. “Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, Israel.” Jeremiah 18:6 NIV

The years have passed, and now everything is a story we can laugh about and be happy about, but that season was a tough one. The ‘making’ process indeed. I passed my WAEC, gained admission into the university to study medicine, graduated, and became a doctor.

The journey through medical school was not all smooth, but God held me through it all. The noise came, but it was silenced. I learned to tune my ears to his voice alone, and whenever I felt overwhelmed, I remembered that song that carried me once before.

I am deeply grateful for Godly parents who allowed God to use them to direct our lives. They introduced us to God early, mentored us, and helped us grow spiritually, knowing they could not do it alone.

The ‘me’ you see now is a refined one who continues to be pruned by God into the vessel he wants me to be. When you walk with God, everything about you changes.

When you have a relationship with the God who made you, made the world, and made everything in it. Why do you fight to do things on your own? The arm of flesh will fail you. Allow Him to lead you and take you on a journey of total surrender to His will and purpose for your life.

As the psalmist says in Psalms 16:2, “I say to the Lord, ‘You are my Lord; apart from you I have no good thing.’” NIV

“I said to Yahweh, “You are my Maker and my Master. Any good thing you find in me has come from you.” TPT

Let your heart trust God; let Him have your ears.

Don’t forget to trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight (Proverbs 3:5–6).

Thank you for walking with me. You can catch up on my previous posts here

With Love

Estee

The post Let God Write Your Story appeared first on The Olive Branch.

On this particular day, my uncle was coming back from a gathering of some sort at night and was walking home, he got to this point and saw a tree which was weird because he could have sworn there was no tree at that spot beforehand. He wondered if it was a vision or if it was real, he observed it was a coconut tree and had a number of coconuts on it so to confirm it was real, he three stones at it and yes it was real. He was stunned but he left that scene as soon as he could. He rushed back home and went on as normal till his father, my grandfather sent for him on another day and scolded him for throwing stones at “some people” days ago and he was confused at first but he was warned that some women had reported him for throwing stones at them during their meeting and he had disturbed them but they were going to let it pass because of his prince privileges so he would get was a warning this time.

Let me say it again, they couldn’t and wouldn’t harm him because he was a prince and they were loyal to the king.

It then struck me at that moment. If the son of an earthly king had that privilege, how much more the son/daughter of “The heavenly king”.
I mean, God is the owner and creator of everything including that coconut tree and its members 😂
Luke 10:19 says that; “I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you.”
‭
Have you ever wondered the kind of authority you have been given and the type of authority you carry?

‘A royal priesthood, a chosen generation’ ‘Joint-heirs with Christ’ That at the mention of his name, Every knee shall bow and every tongue will confess. It’s not just about reading these words or even saying them. Do you understand it? Are you walking in that realization?

Know what you carry and walk in it.

As I write this to you, I’m filled with so much excitement because of what opened up to me at the point of remembering that story.
Imagine what we have been taking for granted for years.

Please take a moment today and just remind yourself of your identity in Christ, your place in God’s kingdom and your authority.
You are a king, a queen, an ambassador of his kingdom. You carry His presence everywhere and you have power over sin and even death. You are not bound by sin because Christ has overcome this world already. Don’t just stay at the gates of this kingdom, enter into it and enjoy all the privileges. Not some, ALL. But there is something important you must not forget. Every kingdom is governed by its own rules and that’s the same for the kingdom of God. You must obey the principles of his kingdom so that you may thrive in it.

This realization not only helps you to thrive, it also helps the people around you. They see your “new dispensation” and they want to be a part of it. Certain things will no longer affect you when you begin to walk in this light.
I hope you see it as I can. I hope you really feel what I’m feeling now and I hope you remember everyday that all you need has been given to you.

Please take a moment and bask in this.

“Eden is no more a place, I am the city of God, I bring heaven, heaven here and now”
– Dunsin Oyekan

Here’s a post for you if you are struggling with trusting God

With love
Estee

The post The Prince, The Coconut and The Women. appeared first on The Olive Branch.

It’s time for gist 🤭🤭

So get a chair, relax, add a drink and pop corn too.

First of all, My wedding was planned by many people asides me. Starting with God the father, son and Holy Spirit , friends and families on both sides. From the ending, I already told the Holy spirit that we were doing the planning together and things will work according to how he wants it.

If you know me very well, you will know that I love writing things down(planning and to-do lists) And so far, this is the biggest planning I’ve ever done.

Let me put some disclaimers.

– In as much as your parents and family say it’s what you want that matters, My dear it’s also about what they want 😂. Don’t be deceived. You will be cajoled to somehow want what they want or allow what they want. In the end, you all have to come to a compromise. But I’ll advise to choose your “battles” wisely 🤭. Choose the most important things like you and your partner’s looks(outfit, makeup, accessories) then photography, videography, decoration and any other thing that matters to you.

– Another thing you need to know is that you will receive so many calls, I repeat you will receive so many calls😂 ( I think I’m still recovering from it )

– Please delegate things. Delegate and rest. You can’t do it all alone.

Now, Let’s get into it.

-So I started doing all of the itemizing of things that needed to be done for a wedding a year before my wedding. This helped me a lot.

– My wedding was a bit unconventional. We had the traditional wedding plus reception on Friday and then the white wedding on Saturday(no reception afterwards).

– I decided on a lot of things personally: What type of wedding did I want, how many days , how many people, what’s my goal and what’s my perspective(Yeah it’s that deep)

– My friends (Ayo , Asmau ) made a group chat where the discussion took place and ideas were bounced around and implemented. We also made sure I wasn’t missing anything on the list I earlier created.

Note that this list kept getting amended as time went on.

-Remember what I said about delegation, it paid off well for me. I assigned duties to my sister, brother, cousins and friends. I made them do some survey on vendors( choosing  the best out of all we had seen considering location, skill, customer experience and of course, price).

This took a couple of months, then once we got settled we moved to finalization stage especially for the outfits.

My looks:

Shout-out to my friend and stylist @ommaya_fits_and_styling(on IG). I was happy to be the first bride to be styled by my friend. When you see your friend doing what she loves most and is also good at it, then it’s a blessing. I am truly blessed to have her in my corner.

She curated the looks from the Pre-wedding shoot, the introduction look, court look, trad wedding, white wedding, wedding robe, reception outfits. Everything!

I always knew the colour I wanted us to wear for the traditional wedding but I didn’t know choosing colours for the day, for family, friends(asoebi) would be a hassle. I was stressed especially because I was particular about having a theme that matches and not just allowing people choose random colours .

There were lots of colour suggestions before we finally settled for what was used eventually. My friends searched for the materials for the asoebi and handled the dispatching also.

Now for the vendors, I will talk about the trad and reception then white wedding.

– Once we had finalised with picking the vendors. We started making payments.

Also a big shout out to my sister in-laws who helped me with decision making especially when I was confused. Love you both❤

– I kept up with the budget, calculating and calculating, I’m still a paper and biro person but my husband was on the excel sheet level 😂 . I was also checking in to make sure the vendors showed up.

The thing is even after we were done settling certain things, something else would come up again and we would have to find a way around it especially because prices kept fluctuating because of the economy😫

At a point, I didn’t want to be carried along anymore 😂 I was tired of phone calls and talking and talking. I just wanted to sleep. I reached the state of “Jesus take the wheel” because at the end of it all, God is still the best planner.

As the wedding drew nearer, i started becoming really anxious because I didn’t want any form of issues but let me be honest with you, it’s not really avoidable. Especially in a situation where people from different backgrounds and relationship level are coming together. Understanding can’t happen in one day.

Then for the both of us( I and my husband) Our stress level was high at some point and we both just wanted to get it over with.

Getting into the looks and my vendors

For my pre-wedding shoot , I had three looks a native wear, formal and a causal one

Native Fabrics for the couple: By myself from a store

Stylist : Ommaya fits and styling

Sewing: _thetarabrand 

Bride’s Formal outfit Fabrics and sewing : madebyTawa

Photographer: Creative six

Makeup up artist and gele stylist: Niffy  beauty parlour

Friends and family were there for the behind the scenes.

Trad wedding

Bride’s outfits: Bisi idris

Grooms outfit: dope stitches

Accessories: kfashcollectionz

Fan: Amazon Geni

Gele: geleby_jbb

Aso oke: Mrs Oluwafemi

Shoe and bag: kfashcollectionz

Robe: lase__clothing

Beads: Market

Make up: mor_beauty

Decorator: The mighty hand of God

Church wedding

Bride’s Wedding gown :Bisi idris

Robe: Lase clothings

Hair: Gbemmy Hair

Hair styling: Ani royalty 

Make up: Mor Beauty

Bouquet: Amazon Geni

Couple’s Reception outfit:: dope stitches

Live band:  Living vine church choir

Bridal shower two piece: beebychristie

Cake: Royalecakes

Photographer: creative six

Videographer: jamespuk

Souvenirs (bags and purse): Ida Wears

Aso ebi: Asma’u and Ayo

These vendors  were the best of the best even though one person almost messed it up, God took control 😂.

 My make up artist was like my third friend and my husband even asked if we had met before 😂 . She did more than her job description. Thank you Mayowa.

My hair stylist too was very nice, calm and fun. She was on top of that hair matter and my general outlook, thanks or ironing the rumpled part of my gown.

Creative six and Jamespuk were so calm, they didn’t stress me out. They also made do with the location. The photographers that stopped responding to my DMs when they heard the location or the ones that simply said they couldn’t come there(I had to be realistic about where I grew up and where my parents worked). I’m thankful we finally found an amazing team that did more than I could imagine.

My personal shopper, Kemi Fash went over and beyond for me.

Amazon Geni, thanks for me thinking about me and the support.

My sisters (My Chief Bridesmaids) and brother, close friends  were doing the background work alongside my parents . For my parents , I think this is the biggest planning we’ve ever done, so it was a whole but they put their all into it.

My darling @lase clothings,  made my white wedding PJs. I wanted something also unconventional. It was a top and trouser.

Oreoluwa, Oluwaboriogun, Nifemi, Goodnews, thank you for all the planning, market runs , rants, and emotional support.

My big aunties home and abroad, thanks for all the support , advice and help.

My dear Treasure  helped with my indecision on my white wedding shoe, earrings and some little things that were stressing me out even when I knew no one would actually see it😂

To my Backdrop and Logo designer , Thanks for coming through for me in such a short notice.

My Daughters of Zion: Toni, Amoke, Gift, Funmi, Nana gave me emotional support and also surprised me with gifts.

My decor mama (The mighty hand of God), The best in carrying along ( you’re the one that will be tired 😂). She carried me along through all the details and made sure everything went well all within a reasonable budget. She has an amazing heart and puts her clients first.

My church members came through for me in so many ways. I was so surprised to see everyone with outfits specifically picked for that day, they handled the live stream for my friends and relatives that couldn’t make it physically.

My ladies, made sacrifices to come all the way from their busy schedule. My family members,  Room six ladies , WGH colleagues, ABUAD Colleagues, my In laws, my husband’s friends that brought out the extroverted side of us most especially my husband.

Thank you to everyone who made that day possible and successful.

The last thing I’ll say is that in the planning and the events, I made sure my focus was on God being revealed and glorified, people going home safely and God’s presence all through.

Perspective really matters in planning. Don’t go above your means. Your main focus should be on the marriage not the wedding day.

Don’t break your teeth trying to act out a social script(what you see on social media or someone else’s projection of a wedding day).

Learn, unlearn, forgive and build relationships. The planning phase will end and the wedding day will pass. Don’t burn bridges because of simple misunderstandings.

So thank you once again to everyone who supported us in one way or the other. We love you and we appreciate you all. we couldnt have done this without you all!

We will all have reasons to celebrate and for everyone waiting for theirs to come, i pray for you that when the time is right the Lord will do it, your testimony is coming soon in Jesus name 🙏🏽

Happy One year anniversary to us!

Love DEGeorges 💜✨

The post IT TAKES A VILLAGE TO PLAN A WEDDING appeared first on The Olive Branch.

Anyways, something happened while i rinsed them, I received a profound inspiration from the Holy Spirit.
It struck me how our creative God has orchestrated the changing seasons, each bringing its unique fruits.
I marvel at the cycle of seasons from corn to mangoes and even agbalumo (African Cherry) that we had some months ago and there are still many more fruits to come and the funny thing is we don’t get tired of it, instead we anticipate it.

For those with fruit trees in their homes, you know that the wait can be long but it starts when you see the flower buds then the little fruits start growing, then you have to wait until they become ripe enough and of course, they don’t get ripe all at once. You monitor the one that’s showing signs of being ripe and once it’s ready you’re there to pluck it and that’s if you’re lucky enough to do that before the birds take their share but then the entire process is beautiful and the reward/harvest is worth it.

What am I driving at?

God takes us through various seasons, each with a beginning and an end. Though they may seem challenging, every season holds its beauty, maximize it and with patience, hope and trust you’ll understand its purpose.
This is a reminder to embrace the season you’re in right now. Grow, develop stamina and strength, trusting that it will pass, and a new one will begin.

“Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.”
‭‭James‬ ‭1‬:‭2‬-‭4‬ ‭NLT‬‬

P.s: This is also a reminder to send me mangoes 🥹🥹🤭🤭

With love

Estée 💜✨

The post SEASONS: MAN-GOES, GOD STAYS appeared first on The Olive Branch.

Let’s just say I had a “lazy hair day.” I wasn’t prepared to go through the entire hair routine the night before work as I needed to catch up on some tasks and leave the house early. Despite having freshly washed hair put up in about seven juicy twists, I found myself contemplating how to present myself without going through the usual routine.

With thoughts about being on call for work and i was not in the mood for work but with my mantra, “Rejoice always in the Lord, again I say rejoice” I considered the necessity of putting myself together, acknowledging that we all may be pretending at times.

Facing the mirror, I pondered various options—should I wear a wig? But my twists were all in different bumps on my head. So, I decided to tie a scarf or turban, anything that could cover my hair until I had time to decide. Styling it in different ways, I sought the perfect fit for something presentable. I would have thrown on a cap, but as a doctor in scrubs, it wasn’t the ideal choice. My favorite hats wouldn’t work either for a workday. I couldn’t put on a full trad wear with a nice headtie. Thus, the scarf/turban became the go-to solution.

To the best of my ability, I styled it and went to work. My husband approved, and it felt good to me. I anticipated a different day at work because when you wear a turban or scarf, people tend to make assumptions about your religious beliefs or background.

Indeed, comments varied—some were perplexed, some asked about my church, others about my tribe, and some likely kept their thoughts to themselves but could not with their eyes. What mattered to me was doing my job and ensuring my hair remained protected and covered.

The next morning, after receiving similar comments, I combed my hair out into a nice full bun. Part of me was genuinely tired of the comments, and I wanted to see how people would react.

Surprisingly, more positive comments came my way. While heading home, I contemplated the dryness my bun might have encountered due to the weather and how I needed to put my hair into twists that evening. I realized that, despite my own concerns, I had made others happy and made myself ‘unhappy’.

My reflections led me to ponder the importance of acknowledging that it’s okay not to be strong all the time. It’s okay to have a lazy hair day, to cry, or to forgo makeup when you don’t feel like it. Confidence should not be solely determined by societal standards of beauty, and it’s crucial to accept that not every day will be picture-perfect.

In conclusion, let’s not allow societal expectations define us. What God says about us is what truly matters.

Be you!

Shout-out to the person who saw me and offered encouraging words, making my day brighter.

What are your thoughts? Have you experienced a situation like this?

Let me know in the comment section.

With Love,

Estee

The post SOCIETAL EXPECTATIONS. appeared first on The Olive Branch.

The post Esther married her King 👑 appeared first on The Olive Branch.

If you missed the first part of this post here is a link

With love,

Estée 💜✨

The post Making Gum out of a sour African cherry..part 2 appeared first on The Olive Branch.

To be continued…

The post Making gum out of a sour African cherry. appeared first on The Olive Branch.

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