WHO AM I - II

And then the question continues to demand, "Who am I?"  It continues to ring demanding a response, "Who am I?" 

Am I the darkened words of a few choice strays?

Am I the hurt inflicted by a few wrong hides?

The hurt of another? The euphoria of the blind hopeful?

All these do not know me. They would all like to leave their marks- either as engravings - their pounds of flesh or their, themselves lost offerings of putrid gratitudes.

They would either like to say that they were able to afflict a mark on the granite posture of the one created to stand like the Himalayas, God made or were able to bow her head in morbid shame throwing her Himalayan peak down in torrents of molten water, if I would allow them. No way!

I have seen one who should stand, kneel in peaks of petrifying anger, seeking vengeance and demanding I crumble. I have seen the indifferent. I have seen hate. All directed at the lost. I laugh.

Would I be defined by these - a casual high, a deadly trough, eyes that have not seen me but deign to assume, nay to define.

Would I allow another lost define?

Would I allow the hurt?

Would I allow the stark raving mad?

Would I allow the deceived?

Would I allow anyone? Seeing none created me save the Almighty?

I might have hurt. I might have stabbed. I might have driven the sharp ragged edges of a steak knife down the spine of a disappointed but none so intensely and with as much concentration as through myself. 

I might have the demands of a revenge on my head. The callous call of a bemused, a wrong or a wronged. I might have a bounty upon my head.

But it's gonna be a friggin' cold day in hell before I let anyone who thinks I owe tell me who I am, the limits or the extent of the heights I have been destined to soar, the pinnacles I have been destined to scale and the zeniths I have been destined to spring off.  A friggin' cold day before I let anyone I think owes me, define the graceful planes of triumph I have been destined to glide or the depths of treasures I have been ordained to excavate that can be found only in darkness.  

I will owe you one more thing, you will owe me one more- that you give way and let the King of glory come in!

So whether you be thirsty on the dry ravines of revenge or your eyes be bloodshot on the deadly mission of ripping. Whether you be serated with the jagged edges of a butcher knife or whether you have been afflicted with the blind blows I dispensed in the mad rage of a blind, wounded, bemused and crazy bull . Whether you are the heights of a gift or the depths of a mistake, I give you only one word - 

"Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the LORD mighty in battle. Lift up your heads, O ye gates; even lift them up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The LORD of hosts, he is the King of glory. Selah"

                              - The book of Psalms Chapter 24 verses 7 to 10. 

Why do I say this? Because neither you, nor I have what it takes to give anything more than a morbid past. Because neither you nor I have what it takes to redeem from the depths of a confused being the sparkling diamonds buried deep within. Because neither you nor I have what it takes to cast me on the throes of passion in self discovery and throw me a truthful and glorious definition. 

So... make way for the King.

WHO AM I?

There is a point of reflection. A point of looking back. Of wondering, "How did I get here?". Enquiring, "What next?"

I look over the terrain of my life up till this point. Basically, you may call it my past. Strictly speaking, every moment before this is my past, anyway.

I see a terrain akin to the war-fested metallic jungle that was the battlefield in the Tom Cruise Sci-fi movie, 'Edge of Tomorrow' - metallic robots called companions, even more metal in firepower and an actor repeatedly racing against time- and death, in cycle after cycle of failed missions. Whew, the story of my life! 

Tom had found his own companion, though. Not a metallic, cold, death threat but a living breathing human of like mind and purpose. She was his helper. I don't recall that they went on to anything romantic but I digress. Their purpose was single - get him alive long enough to fulfill his mission. If I remember that movie well enough, she was experienced in what she was to see him through.

Now, in this story of my life, I am Tom. I look at my life and I wonder at the metallic companions, victims of war strewn over the landscape of my past. Practically all, were metallic and if there had been any of flesh and blood or remotely even deigning to be, I had shown them the path to metal factory where they needed to be encapsulated in cold, hard, metallic grey. 

The story of all my 'helpers'. Male or female, my relationships rarely survived the span of the initial spurts of the first kick of a manual car to life, after months of inactivity. Why? I really couldn't handle flesh and blood. The story of romance was definitely, like a friend would say, "Dead on arrival". But then again, I digress. The thing is, too bad I couldn't even answer the question of "Why their presence?" in my life. 

And how could I? I don't even know why ME?

Through the slime-pits and mud-holes I had divvied into and scurried out of, through the dark tunnels that had become my familiar and singular route, through the catalogue of unsavouries and through misguided hopes in even more unsavoury mirages, one truth stood very often dim, even more often out, now flaming bright perhaps once or twice in twenty, thirty years against the dark, putrid visage of my past, the truth of absence, the absence of me, myself. Hence, the query, "Who am I?"

The 'goods' you are not proud to claim, as you now behold them like with the eyes of a newborn babe, fluttering open now, and then shut, only to open finally to the truth of your sensibilities aghast at the choices you have made. The 'bads' you can claim but fill you with shame as you comprehend the truth about the lies you have conjured up for your own benefit. Alas! They cannot be claimed either. 

The wrong 'goods' you could or might have claimed that were never yours but you'd claimed them anyway just because you could not identify what was yours... who you are! 

The tears you cannot cry, the pain you cannot feel, the lies you can neither swallow nor spew, the truth you cannot hear, the victories you cannot celebrate, the defeats you are not certain were, the life you cannot live... All simply because you didn't take the time to know who you were... and now you must.

A Year's End!

Came across this. Memories!...

8^th of December 2012

I had been in a hurry to go meet a man I had just met. It did not occur to me that maybe he was supposed to be looking for me; flying the countless acres between Abuja and Lagos. The sign had been ignored- of a guy ready to come look for me only if I had bought a plane ticket (or even a bus ticket!). He was willing to stretch the difference in distance only when he was sure that I was ready to be had and willing to pay for it. It didn’t occur to me that madness existed in the streets outside of Yaba left but I was attracting them easier than flies to decomposing trash and faster than a weight in gravity’s free fall.

Things didn’t work out though for my sick and philandering heart. God had other plans for me…

As I hurried to pack my things eager to rush into the hands of a lover I would come to disdain and to prospective memories I would come to rue, I remembered the request of a then senior colleague. I hurried to send the mail and against all possible and probable odds scanned down my mails - despite my hurry, and found it sitting in the queue like a python coiled and ready to strike- the Lord’s move despite my inattention.

The trip to Lagos on a deprecatory rendezvous became a trip to an interview that would forever bless me. Yet, in a matter of days I went on to continue on my own merry way down the path of impending destruction. The fact that I had gotten an invitation of a life time, almost lost it on a mad trip and recovered it by divine intervention didn’t stop me from my mad rush for madder arms as all things sane were swiftly forgotten.

December 2012

A crazy frenzy of forgetting the things that really mattered and The One, occupied the rest of the month- and year!

January 2013

Entered limping, bitten several times, calling on God while reaching out to satan. Somewhere I had realized I was wrong but I was so wrong inside I couldn’t do anything about it. Not to excuse myself. Just to say I know what it felt like to be under and lost. Seemingly without help or hope because you do not know, cannot or maybe do not even want to help yourself.

January/February 2013

I was so wrong inside. Work was non-existent. Love was mad (literally and in a deprecatory way)- it was everything it shouldn’t be. Went back to Abuja and continued my torment - in the hands of the wrong person, I was a bomb waiting to explode. I was dying inside; self-destructing.

March 2013

My birthday- it was uneventful but for God’s Faithfulness. I guess that was the most important, though.

I was crazy in a wrong place, ‘problemized’, traumatized and in the wrong hands. Problem met problem. Problems were compounded. I was called pathetic by someone I should have been conducting ‘deliverance sessions’ for (pardon the insinuations but get my drift). The devil had set his eyes on me but somehow, God wouldn’t let go.

Dad wanted me back in Lagos. My last Instruction before I faded from God’s presence was to be in Abuja. I knew nothing else beyond that. I was out of sync, had lost Him but somehow I was still in His Sights. I wouldn’t leave Abuja. I didn’t know where I was supposed to be. I didn’t know where He was (more like, I didn’t know where I was) but I knew the last thing I’d heard.

April 2013

Went to make peace at home in Lagos. Then, decided to stay in Lagos. I started another business. I opened my heart to receive the alien.

Then I entered an exercise I had been ignoring. The Instruction had come to my spirit a couple of times but I had rationalized it away each time.

Aware I needed help I finally succumbed. It was like my last hope- I had nothing to lose by obeying, anyway. If nothing else happened I would have obeyed and saved myself the repetitive urge.

Then, the call came.

May 2013

I came back into Abuja. It was victory! December 8, 2012 ‘almost lost’ interview came through. I resumed at my new place (of work).

Still, I played with the devil. I got bitten. I managed to recover, somehow. Somehow, I grew up in victory, despite all. I recovered.

June/July 2013

I continued playing with the devil. Somehow my resistance was increasing. I stopped playing with him and started entertaining him instead- up today, struggling tomorrow, down the day after. I never relaxed into it but now I did not only know where I wanted to be, it was where I was steering the ship of my life towards, determinedly. I was seeing where I wanted to go, where I needed to be.

Cleared years’ worth of debts.

August/September 2013

I weeded the devil out. Then ignored him.

House issues came up.

October 2013

The devil called. I didn’t respond.  I sent a scram text.  I got a plea. Not interested. No deal.

House Hunting

November 2013

I got a bigger house. Better environs: joyous living and peace.

December 2013

I got wheedling pleas. Not interested. Old wounds were opened, temptation, siege- no deal. I can only describe it has God’s faithfulness.

December 8, 2013

I look back and realize no love lost.  No loss at all. Strength comes and after overcoming temptation comes realization that there was really nothing in it at all. It was not and never was where I want or even wanted to be.

Maybe we kill ourselves by the choices we make but… We make the choices because of who we are….

You might not like who you are, but you’ve got to go back to Where you came to change it…

The rest of the month is going to be better- nothing like last year, at all.  With overcoming temptation come strength and enlightenment. Open eyes. I know puke now when I see one.

January 2014

Looking forward to January 2014- New goals, New Life, New Dreams…

Still got a ways to go… But I’m so glad ‘cause I’m so far from whence I used to be…

Thank You, Lord Jesus!

THE PRICE OF LONELINESS OR THE PRICE FOR VISION

I wrote this about two Decembers ago. It still rings true! With about two sentences added to clarify, I present it...

Too many times I look back into my past and it’s not a pretty sight. I regret, I rue, I detest, I hate, I’m angry. But what’s the common denominator in all these feelings? The presence of one bad choice or the other. Usually and more specifically, one wrong dalliance or the other? Why? I was lonely. I had so many of these pitiful images of being shunted off by my knight in shining armour and it didn’t occur to me that I had to do much else with my life than sit down and look out for him. Of course, vision-less and sedated on the highs of romantic lies I floated from one useless relationship to another degenerate one.

Now, I wake up, a survivor. There are good girls but I wasn’t one of them. For some reason people thought I was and I don’t know why. You don’t get the number of notches I made in mistakes and still make the good girl list. I don’t think so. Mistakes in my choice of dates, mistakes in my choice to put who I was dating at any material point in time over and above my personal good and while I practically never clubbed, or crawled nights, I’m still not white so tell me how I am still a good girl?

Anyway, I am a survivor because I didn’t stay down and I didn’t stay back. Somehow God wouldn’t let me. It is Him because I can’t explain any other way, the drive I have to keep going, to keep getting better, to never give up. It’s certainly not me or I wouldn’t have made the mistakes in the first place.

I move on now. I’m looking at my future before me. For the first time it has never been more clearly defined. But my old acts rear up. It’s not going to go out quietly.  But I know it for what it is now. An enemy against all that is good and true about me. An enemy that would fight tooth and nail to make me impure and less than I truly am. I’m not going to let it get to me.  Not again.  There is a continual fight against this gravitational force. I am better than it says and it won’t have the last word. I can’t let it. I was created for infinitely so much better. I have to see that come to pass in my life.

My life is looking at me as it stands before me. I won’t sit helplessly jaded in this same old chair, eating the same old bland food. It tastes like foam, anyway! Bland, uninspiring, boring…

I don’t care how many wrongs choices I’ve made. I know there are flawless folks out there and I am not one of them. I am not bothered. God made me a survivor. And that is all that matters. I have a story to tell and to the Glory of God it is the story of victory- our (God and I’s) victory.

So what is it going to be for you? Are you going to be drawn back on the same old ropes of loneliness eating the same old fruits it gives?  Are you going to be drawn back to the same old mess? Choices you could never pick in your right senses?

Or are you going to make a choice for God? For vision? A better you? A sense retrieved.  Maybe even senses? Are you going to make a choice for a better you? A reflection of all the qualities you know you have but you have rarely if ever shone through?

Yeah, the devil is going to make a play for you. He’s got a hell of an army (and I don’t mean that just literally. Lol!) but God is better. And Mightier. And He’s got the greatest army. (I should know. I am one of them) And He’ll always be there. Long after the devil’s gone.

Are you going to pay the price of loneliness – dead end relationship after dead end relationship, or are you going to pay the price for vision- a little (or big, depending on how you look at it and where you are) discomfort every now and then but ever growing glory as you see yourself get better and better than you ever thought.

There is usually a price to pay for exhibiting goodness but you don’t ever have to look far to get it. All the good you need is already embedded deep inside of you.  God put it there. And that price you pay for exhibiting it? It’s always worth it if only you would take a closer look. So what’s it going to be?

NO GREATER LOVE (2)

Love is patient, love is kind. Love is everything that is found in 2 Corinthians 13:4-8 and if you put up anything against these and it does not stand, then it is not love. You know why? Because The One Who Is Love said so!

Idealism! Do I hear you say I am being idealistic? Do I hear you say it is not possible?

I have heard and I have read, I have watched and I have seen, scene after scene, word after word, sickness after sickness, spouting out of abused minds who think that loving is possible without Love.

You take the Manufacturer out and hope to get the machine to work. It’ll work alright but it would never work all right. I want to know what the Father had in mind when He invented love between a man and a woman (Genesis 2:24). I want to know what He had in mind when He commanded love amongst brethren (1John 3:10). I want to know what He had in mind when He directed that I love my neighbor as myself (Matthew 22:39). Above all I want to know Him, the Perfect, Utmost and Complete definition of Love (Matthew 22:36-38).

I know He woos me, loves me enough to guide me. Sometimes this love and guidance include chastisement but at the end of it is sweetness only pleasing God can give (Hebrews 12:11). I know He heals me, delivers me, saves me in ways that no man can.

I know it is a tall order for any man, for any one to satisfy another and that is why I ask - why place such a tall order on anyone, any man or woman, instead of just directing them to the One Who Can Handle it, the One with Whom we have to do (Hebrews 4:13)? Why place such a tall order on anyone in dreams you feed their future wives, husbands and friends that they can never meet up to because they were never designed to?

Why don't we direct people to God? When we direct folks to God we direct them to the Only One who can make anything meaningful, everything meaningful out of their lives- their existence and their relationships.

He can handle their excesses - mine and yours as well, their failings -mine and yours as well, their weaknesses -mine and yours as well, and not be exhausted! No, not by a jot.  He can handle it- He paid the price for it!

 Instead of feeding people lies, lies and more lies, exchanging their lives and destinies for fantasies that will never hold, why don’t we direct people to the Place and the One in whom they will never find another to surpass Him in Love because it is His Nature, it is who He is? 

Instead of telling people lies, sowing seeds of discontent and breaking homes  before they are built why don't we direct people to The One outside of whom there is No Greater Love. 

He does know the Truth about love. He is Love.

NO GREATER LOVE (1)

As I watch the lie they tell unfold, my heart breaks. Why would people tell such lies? Why would they tell what they know nothing about? Why would they speak so authoritatively about things worse than nothing! Nothing, at least would mean no harm, no worse- things worse than nothing on the other hand, will cause harm and are a need for pause.

Where would I go from the lies, the tirade of the enemy? As I guard my heart with all diligence, I know I must guard my heart (Proverbs 4:23) from these as well as from every other lie I have ever heard - dissatisfied women, pouring out their hearts in fantasies that do not exist, cannot be created and will never be. The fantasies, to use KJV English like my Pastor would tease in church, are not - they are not! At least, not without some serious orchestration, vis a vis acting or the shenanigans of the most demented of souls.

How do you tell me about love? How do you speak about One that you have neither seen nor know, however obliquely? How dare you use the dissatisfied longings, cravings of a demented soul to paint to me the portrait of the King of my heart?

How can you tell me about love when you have not met with the One whose Name is Love?

How can you tell young ones where to seek it, when you have not found Him?

How can you put pen to paper, when there is so much to be set free from?

I will tell you what I know. I don’t know much, but that which I know, I will tell you. There is so much more to tell about him, so much more to know. But that which I know, I will tell you.

I will tell you what He is not. Love is not a wild passionate tryst in silk beds strewn with satin sheets, smelling lavender or a quickie in a dim, dank bathroom at the back of a clubhouse.

Love is not a look, or a grope. It is not a drool through the depraved mind of a sex starved doll. No! It is not promises but actions, it is not groping but honour, and it is not fantasy but truth.

DELIVERANCE FROM PROSPERITY (3)

Well, I went on my merry way. And got myself scalded- royally! (Ironically, when God would save me, He did it Royally too but infinitely more so- He led me to a Church Parish called The Royal Palace. Lol!) My ‘brains’ got me into trouble. Then I remembered that I had not needed my brains to get to the best I had gotten to before I fell. God had done that not my ‘brains’.

You see, poverty is a problem. It is a threat to one’s salvation. It can bring with it a false sense of humility, spiritual pride and rarely, if ever glorifies God. It is a well-known prayer point, its deliverance.

Prosperity on the other hand is seen as an ‘arrival’. If poverty were seen as a prayer point for escape, prosperity is seen as ‘freedom’, an ‘arrival’ from escape.

The question though, is freedom from what? If it were freedom from stagnation and shame then it is most definitely, freedom.

If it is freedom from pride, arrogance, bull-headedness and the like though, then for most people these tests have only just begun or probably just got compounded.

Enlightenment is good. Promotion is great. Wisdom, knowledge, understanding are all worthy gifts we receive from God but we must remember nothing on its own can get us to where God wants us to be. ‘’So then, it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth but of God that showeth mercy. Romans 9:16. Mighty men fall, beggars are raised from dunghills. 1Samuel 2:8, Matthew 23:12.

Promotions, praises can get us into trouble. That is why we each must work out our salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12) - in poverty or in prosperity.

So what is deliverance from prosperity? It is being able to carry your prosperity, the glory of God upon your life such that you do not stumble and you do not fall. It is being delivered from prosperity in much the same way we are delivered from poverty- having it powerless over us - such that it has no power over us anymore. That is, even in wealth, even in overflowing happiness, even in human accolades and praise, one is immune; our eyes set on the One with whom we have to do (Hebrews 4:13), in whom we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28).

And I realise that my God is more than able to deliver from the sting of poverty as well as from the choke of prosperity.

Poverty is not good, but prosperity is not a guarantee of heaven either. In all things let us be moderate. Let us allow God to deliver us from prosperity as well as from poverty.

Indeed in the Kingdom of God, there is no arrival- only the saved.