Into The Light

Dear Diary,

“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, upon them a light has shined.” – Isaiah 9:2

There are moments in life that split time in two; before and after. As I prepared to share this first public diary entry, God reminded me of two distinct seasons that did just that, seasons that transformed me from the inside out.

In July 2019, I encountered despair for the very first time. Earlier that year, I had been offered a unique internship at a nonprofit in the U.S. Not long after I started, my mentor encouraged me to consider a master’s degree. It made sense. I had just completed my undergraduate degree in Marketing and Human Resource in December 2018, and this internship focused on digital marketing. With their support, I began preparing my graduate school applications—writing personal statements, securing recommendation letters, and even rehearsing interviews.

But throughout all that, I never consulted God. I only called on Him when it was time to wait. I prayed for favor with the admissions board, and in His mercy, God granted it. I was accepted and even awarded a Graduate Assistant position that covered half of my tuition. All I needed was the rest. And just when I thought everything was falling into place, the money didn’t come through. I had to defer. And in that moment, it felt like the hand of God had left me. I felt like a failure. That’s when despair began to seep in.

Despair, by definition, is “a profound sense of hopelessness and the belief that there’s no way to improve a difficult or worrying situation.” It swallows hope whole—and without hope, faith is hard to hold onto. It felt like a prolonged season of mourning. Worse still, it felt like mourning I had caused myself, which made it even harder to believe I could turn to God.

But in His kindness, God sent someone who knew me better than I knew myself, my mother.

One morning in September, she sent me what I assumed was a routine message. “How are you?” she asked. I responded with the usual, “I’m fine,” even though I wasn’t. In reality, I was sinking deeper, letting shame and disappointment (all too familiar feelings) take root. But then she asked again: “How are you really?” And this time, I broke. I told her I wasn’t happy. That I wanted to come home. That I felt like life was moving on without me. That my sisters were growing up and we barely knew each other. That I was afraid to come back because I didn’t want to be seen as a failure.

Her response was simple, healing, and exactly what I needed: “When you left, we never said you couldn’t come back. If that’s what you need, come home.” She even offered to get me a plane ticket for the end of the month, but I wanted to honor my commitment and chose to leave at the end of the year. From then on, I moved on autopilot—counting down the days until I could go home. And finally, I did.

When I arrived, my mum looked at me and said, “I believe God brought you home in this season so I could love you and pour into you. So that your family could surround you and fill you with their love.” At the time, it sounded like a nice sentiment. But she was speaking as a mother who looked into her child’s eyes and saw no light. And she was right.

The first few weeks at home were beautiful. It was the holidays, and I cherished spending time with my family. But then January came. Everyone went back to their routines; school, work, life, and I was left behind. As someone who had always strived for excellence and productivity, the stillness felt unbearable. I had nothing to do. My parents worked. My sisters went to school. My friends had internships or jobs. And I was just… there.

That feeling of despair crept back in. In the year I’d been away, it felt like everyone else had discovered their purpose, and I was stuck. I told my mum, and she reminded me that God was intentionally slowing me down so I could rest—something I had never done.

And she was right again. I had finished high school on a Thursday and started A-Levels the following Monday. After completing my A-Levels, I jumped straight into my undergraduate program. During long holidays, I took on internships and volunteer work. After graduating, I started my U.S. internship a month later. There had never been a pause.

But instead of seeing rest as a gift, I saw it as proof that I was falling behind.

Eventually, I found something that gave me a renewed sense of purpose (because, let’s be honest, overachievers will always find something to throw themselves into). It was deeply fulfilling. I felt useful again. But then COVID hit. The world shut down—and so did that opportunity. Despair returned. And this time, I let it stay.

I began spending all day in my room with the lights off, telling myself I was creating a movie theatre vibe as I watched shows on my laptop. But the truth was that I had made darkness my companion.

Then one evening, my youngest sister, who was 8 at the time, walked in, flipped on the light, and said, “Mummy said Nakholi children are not children of the dark but of the light.” She left the light on, closed the door, and walked away.

I had a light switch next to my bed and could have turned it off. But I didn’t. I left it on. And then I started turning it on more often. I stopped hiding in the dark, physically and emotionally. That small moment sparked the beginning of healing. It reminded me that despair doesn't get the final say.

Sometimes, we walk in darkness not because we’ve been abandoned, but because we’ve forgotten that we were always made for the light.

I stopped spending all my time in my room, and allowed the family that God had sent me back to wrap their arms around me and fill me with their love. We began doing nightly family devotions and going on evening walks, and slowly, the light from their love began to dispel the darkness I was experiencing.

I know the pandemic meant different things to different people, but for me, it was the healing I didn’t know I needed, but God did. He allowed me to spend intentional time with my family, deepening my relationship with my parents and sisters. What had seemed like a failure in 2019 turned out to be God bypassing the prayers of my lips to answer the cry of my heart. He knew, even when I didn’t, that I needed my family.

Toward the end of 2020, while my mum was doing my hair, she randomly said she believed I would thrive in a career in community development. I had briefly mentioned being unhappy in my current field, and as someone who had already transitioned careers five times, she shared that whenever something no longer set her soul on fire, it was her sign to move on. That principle had guided her, and it stuck with me.

In August 2021, two years after I first experienced despair in a way I couldn’t ignore, God brought me back to the U.S. to pursue a Master's degree in a field related to community development, this time, seemingly for good.

But despair would visit me one last time, in July 2024.

It didn’t make sense. I had just moved into my first “big girl” apartment and had finally finished furnishing it. I’d completed a major work project that went exceptionally well. My nonprofit was on the verge of launching a product I had poured my heart and soul into. And yet—I felt inexplicably sad.

So, I went to therapy and described the feeling. My therapist gently pointed out that I had experienced a series of losses, key relationships I thought would last forever had ended. Although the last one had ended months earlier in February, the sadness was only hitting me now.

She explained that my natural defense system, developed since childhood, had kicked in. I had gone into survival mode, which, for me, looks like overachieving. I had thrown myself into projects to patch the pain, but now that life had slowed down, my body, because it never forgets, was bringing the pain to the surface. I had done what I always did: gone around the pain. But this time, the only way out was through.

I filed that therapy session at the back of my mind and moved on, until Sunday, July 28th, now known in my memory as Weeping Sunday.

I’m not sure what exactly triggered it. Maybe it was the sermon that morning, “Look What He Made Me Do” by Pastor AD3. His words pierced something deep inside me.

He reminded us that sometimes the miracle we’re praying for shows up disguised, as inconvenience, as interruption, as something we never would’ve chosen. And yet, it’s that very thing that becomes the doorway to our next season.

He said that some of our greatest breakthroughs won’t come because we were brave enough to step forward, but because God, in His mercy, made us move. He'll push us into what we would’ve never pursued on our own.

And then he said something that caught my attention:
“Jesus dismissed the people the disciples thought they needed.”
He didn’t just let them walk away, He sent them away. Because sometimes, in order for you to discover who God is, and who you are, there has to be a dismissal. Not a loss. A divine letting go.

And I left church with a question burning in my spirit:
What if the very thing I’ve been resenting... is the thing God is using to set me free?

After speaking to my family that evening, I wept. Not the cute, teary-eyed kind of cry, but a deep, gut-wrenching, soul-emptying cry.

I asked God why He had allowed so many people to walk away from my life in such a short time. I asked Him, if He truly loved me like His Word says, why I was in so much pain. I cried over the waiting season I was in. I asked why He had brought me this far, only to feel so abandoned. Why the promise He gave me a year ago was taking so long to manifest. Why the process had cost me so much financially, yet there had been no breakthrough.

There was no tear left unshed and no question unasked during those three hours.

Despair has a way of narrowing your vision until all you can see is darkness. That’s why I believe it’s an attack from the enemy, sent to steal your joy, kill your hope, and destroy your faith.

And after the weeping, I told God: You brought me here. You made the promise. So now, I need You to show up, because I am tired of carrying this weight alone. I wiped my tears, drove to Target, bought ice cream, chips, and Haribos, came home, ate them, and went to sleep.

And the next morning, God began to order my steps, just like He did in 2019.

He started bringing light back into my life, this time through women, some I knew, and others who were strangers. What I hadn’t realized was how much moving away from home had affected me. I’d lost the constant prophetic encouragement I used to receive from my family, especially my mum.

One trait I’m still working on is my tendency to self-isolate when I’m overwhelmed. It’s an unhealthy coping mechanism rooted in perfectionism from childhood. In 2020, the words of those who loved me brought light back into my life based on what they saw, not just what I said. But now, being far away and not having seen my family in person since early 2023, they couldn’t see the signs. And as a seasoned self-isolator, I knew how to mask the pain for the duration of a phone call.

But God knows me deeply. So He began placing me in rooms where the people He wanted to use could see the pain and speak to it.

Two weeks after Weeping Sunday, I attended the I AM Africa: Atlanta Experience for the first time. At the end of the first day, the lead facilitator asked us to do an exercise: as a specific song played, we were to find a woman, hold her hands, and look into her eyes for 30 seconds, without saying a word, as a way of saying, In my presence, you are seen, loved, valued, and appreciated.

I did the exercise with two women. Then I got to the third.

This one felt different.

We completed the 30-second connection, and as I leaned in for a goodbye hug, she whispered into my ear: "It’s time for you to step into your light." She told me I had allowed my light to be dimmed for too long. That I needed to step into it, not just for myself, but because my light would unlock something she needed. Only my light could bring it.

I cried buckets.

We did the exercise again. When I asked her afterward what made her say those words, she said she wasn’t sure, it was simply placed in her heart the moment she saw me. Her name was Elisa-Ruth, but she goes by “Phoenix.” Her name, fittingly, means renewal, rebirth, and resilience.

At the end of the weekend, we were asked to write letters to women who had impacted us. Naturally, I wrote to Phoenix. But unbeknownst to me, God wasn’t done using her yet. She left me a note in my envelope. A prophecy. Here’s an excerpt:

“Your beauty shines brightest when you embrace your true self, unafraid to step into your power. Keep moving forward with confidence, for the world needs the unique light only you can bring.”

This wasn’t the first time someone had told me I was a light. A close friend had said it to me before. But when you’ve sat in darkness long enough, when the tunnel never seems to end, it becomes hard to believe that you are the light.

One of my friends in Bible study once said, “If we don’t learn how to deal with something in one season, God will repeat the class.” At the time, I interpreted that only in the context of negative experiences. But recently, someone reframed it for me: Sometimes we feel stuck because there’s a character of God we haven’t yet understood, and He wants us to learn it.

Both perspectives are true. And in my waiting season, God did repeat a class, because I hadn’t fully internalized the lesson.

In September, I went to the Woman Evolve conference for the first time. The theme? SURRENDER.

On opening night, Sarah Jakes Roberts preached on John 11:20–28; the story of Lazarus. But she taught it through the lens of grief, and I heard it in a way I never had before. I had always associated grief with the loss of a person. That’s why I hadn’t recognized my own grief. But Sarah described Martha grieving more than Lazarus, she was also grieving a lost plan, a lost belief, a lost expectation.

She taught us that grief is not monolithic. It includes what was, what could have been, what we believed, and what will never be. She said grief is often the biggest obstacle to surrender. And that surrender is only easy when you’re on the other side of it. When you’re in it, when it’s time to lay something down, it’s grief.

She reminded us that Jesus cared enough to sit in Martha and Mary’s disappointment. That when grief won’t let go of you, you have to grieve and believe at the same time. And over time, your belief will overcome your grief.

“The first stop of surrender is grieving. Then believing. Then laying it all down.”

I was left with a question: What do I need to grieve? What do I need to believe?

Months before, my therapist had asked me something similar. But I hadn’t fully listened. So God, in His mercy, repeated the class.

This time, I allowed myself to grieve. I invited God into my pain and asked Him to teach me how to surrender, truly. And as I began laying things down one by one, the surrender started to dispel the darkness. In its place came light, and a friend I hadn’t seen in a long time: peace.

It didn’t happen overnight. But day by day, grace by grace, God began lifting the weight I thought I had to carry alone.

Grief taught me how to let go.
Despair taught me to reach out.
Surrender taught me that I am held, even when I feel like I’m falling.

And the light?
The light taught me to come home to myself. To return to the truth of who I am.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned on this journey, it’s that healing isn’t always loud. Sometimes, it sounds like whispered prayers and gentle steps forward. Sometimes, it looks like resting when you'd rather perform. Sometimes, it feels like weeping, but still hoping.

So here’s what I now know for sure:

• God is not intimidated by your grief.

• You can’t outrun pain, but you can invite God into it.

• Peace doesn’t come from pretending, peace comes from presence.

• Darkness loses its power when you stop hiding.

• And healing begins when you remember who you are.

You are not too broken to be rebuilt. You are not too lost to be found. You are not too far gone to be wrapped in light again.

To the one reading or listening to this who feels like despair is all they know, please remember:
Despair is a visitor, not your identity. Grief is a process, not your prison. The light is still yours. And so is peace. You don’t have to earn your way back into God’s presence. You only have to turn toward the light.

And let me remind you—just like my little sister reminded me, “We are not children of the dark.” 

You are a child of God. And God's children were never meant to stay in the shadows. You were made for the light.

So step forward.
Even if your knees shake.
Even if your eyes are still wet with tears.

Step into the light.
That’s where you’ve belonged all along.

From my heart to yours,

Love Nandi