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Oluwafunmilayo Anita Okonta

@funmithegraced

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Son of God | King & Priest | Well-Watered Garden | Multi-Expressive Storyteller
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P.S. I’m of Igbo and Yoruba descent, my dad is Igbo and my mum is Yoruba.

I always say that it would be so cool to marry a Hausa man, so my children would have Igbo, Yoruba, and Hausa ancestry 😅

🤍#FO by @funmithegraced

For if you remain completely silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”
Esther 4:14 (NKJV)

I will not be silent.
I cast off the cloak of indifference.
I tear off the blindfold of selfishness.
I reject apathy.
I embrace responsibility.

My voice will resound.
My hands will serve.
My life will count for the peace and prosperity of Nigeria and Africa.

For I was born for such a time as this.
I am an Esther in this generation.

🤍#FO by @funmithegraced

Love. This was at the heart of Christ's sacrifice on the cross and it is at the heart of His call to every one who would accept His gift of salvation.

He's paid the price for salvation already. He bought our freedom from sin and obtained mercy for us through His precious blood.

Yooo! His life! He died for us. This was the price He paid for our salvation. Then He put that salvation on offer for FREE.

Because our God made us creatures of free will, the choice will always be ours to accept this offer by accepting Jesus as our Lord and Saviour, acknowledging His person as the son of God and His sacrifice.

Indeed, "It is of the LORD's mercies that we are not consumed, Because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning: Great is thy faithfulness."
Lamentations 3:22-23 KJV

Just as it was yesterday, and will be everyday, this gift of salvation is on offer today through His son Jesus Christ.
Receive it with an open heart. If you're accepting this offer today, simple pray this simple prayer: 👇🏻 by @funmithegraced

🤍#FO by @funmithegraced

🤍#FO by @funmithegraced

For a long time, I looked to people, relationships and other things to feel good about myself, to feel a sense of self-worth.

I wanted to feel loved, chosen, secure, enough.

And because I was looking to things that could change, leave, reject or disappoint me to determine who I was, I was constantly being shaken.

But rooting my identity in Christ changed everything.

I have come to understand that I am first a child of God. My worth is not determined by who chooses me, who stays, who loves me back, or what happens around me.

My worth is fixed. I am a child of God, and that makes me worthy of love, worthy of being chosen, worthy of being seen and known.

There is a kind of liberty that comes when you stop asking creation to give you what only the Creator can give you.

That is the freedom I want for you too.

If you already know Christ, I pray that you will become deeply rooted in Him. That you will know who you are in Him and experience the freedom that comes from building your identity on something that cannot be shaken.

And if you don’t know Jesus yet, I pray that you will come to know Him. Because before you can root your identity in Him, you have to first receive Him.

You can begin with this prayer:

Lord Jesus, I believe that You are the Son of God. I believe in Your birth, death and resurrection, and I believe You died to save me from the grip of sin and its consequences. I accept this gift of salvation, and I ask that You come into my life and be my Lord and Saviour. Take away my heart of stone and give me a heart of flesh that is sensitive to Your will. Thank You, Jesus. I ask this in Your name. Amen.

If you have prayed this prayer, find a Bible-believing church with a strong community of believers. Plug yourself in and grow in the knowledge of God and His will.

May you know the freedom that comes from being rooted in Christ.

🤍#FO by @funmithegraced

🤍#FO by @funmithegraced

This, amongst others😄. Aside from the fun, creating art helps me de-stress, slow down my mind, and simply ground myself.

P.S. I never really know where I’m headed when I start creating these. Sometimes, I begin with the first line, the first spiral, and simply do whatever comes to mind, whatever my heart wants to do in that moment, and see where the journey leads.

It’s such a beautiful journey of exploration for me, where I allow myself to have no restrictions, no expectations, no need to know what the end is supposed to look like.

Sometimes, I don’t like the final piece, sometimes I do. That doesn’t really matter. What’s beautiful to me is the process itself; discovering what emerges as I go.

🤍#FO by @funmithegraced

🤍#FO by @funmithegraced

A photo I like that’s unrelated to the gist of this post 😅…Swipe for the real gist. 😘

Recently, I’ve had stories come to me that leave me in awe and deeply grateful to God that He would give me these stories to tell. That He would trust me with them.

In the past, I didn’t always take the stories that came to me as seriously as I should have. I would receive an idea, marvel at it for a while, maybe write bits and pieces, and then allow life to move on without ever doing anything with it.

When I think about that now, I’m genuinely repentant.

I’m beginning to understand that when God gives me a story, it is more than simply a gift to me. He has placed in my hands a tool that can bring about healing, redemption and transformation.

So, really, it isn’t about me. This is the most humbling part of it all. And it is also what has made me realise that the gift of stories comes with a greater responsibility to tell them well.

There will be people who encounter these stories and whose lives are changed by them. People who see themselves differently. See God differently. Find hope. Find healing.

How then can I be casual with what God has placed in my hands?

I’m learning to steward these stories differently now. To treat them as the tools of redemption and transformation that God has entrusted to me. To sharpen them through craft. To master their use. To learn to wield them with greater skill and confidence.

I pray to be, in every sense, a storyteller who stewards well the stories He gives me.

🤍#FO by @funmithegraced

Selah 🤍#FO by @funmithegraced

After working closely together as volunteers at the Awesome Treasures Foundation for over three years, without ever meeting face to face, me in Lagos, Nigeria, and her abroad, I finally got to meet Sister Moyoforeoluwa in person🥹🤍

Among the things she’ll be taking home with her is a framed acrylic artwork of Lagos on a rainy Monday, created from a picture I took and reimagined as a digital painting.

What I love most about it is that it has become more than a piece of art. It is a little keepsake. A quiet reminder of a city, and a country, she loves. A moment in Lagos she can return to whenever she’s thousands of miles away, a gentle window back to a place that will always hold a special place in her heart.

I’m glad she loved it 😊

🤍#FO by @funmithegraced