IN THE WHILE

There you are;

standing in the middle of life

where you cannot tell between "forever" and "meanwhile"

There you are trying yet again to make things work.

It feels paused

it looks "un glossy" from where you stand.

You have been dreading the truth that stares right back at you,

that the tomorrow you dreamed to be alright is more or less the today you live.

It is just another day you say

another day to live through this misery

it is just another moment to hope that forever is not a lie

and lo! you stand in the middle of the chaos that life has become

You have been taught to fight on... kindly do so;

You have been told that endurance gets you there... it definitely will.

Amidst the turmoil of nothingness and quiet moments of trust

you have got to believe that the best is yet to come.

Not now but soon,

how soon? I do not know,

but you are in safe hands...in the hands of the maker;

and you are in the presence of greatness

Now still yourself to the future that will manifest

and someday, not today but someday, you will be glad,

Glad that you kept going...

WHERE FEET MAY FAIL (Trusting God)

 I have been meditating  on Hill song's "Where Feet May Fail" and I was more in thought of how many times my feet fail me and in whose hands do I anchor my life and it reminded me of the place God desires us to be.In his presence fixing our eyes on Him the perfecter and finisher of our salvation.
Between faith and trust, is Christ. You fix your eyes on Christ and the assurance that He's got your back keeps you taking on the unknown. 
I took time to think about the life of Peter, Peter who knew that the waters would sink a being, Peter who knew that the waters had claimed many lives in the past, yet this trusting disciple chose to step out in faith and trust.

" 28Peter said to Him, "Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water." 29And He said, "Come!" And Peter got out of the boat, and walked on the water and came toward Jesus. 30But seeing the wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, "Lord, save me!" MATHEW 14:28-30"

As long as Peter's eyes where on the Lord, the one He trusted to keep him afloat, Peter walked on. His faith and trust in God kept him afloat. So I started to think of the waves and the storms that take our focus off the Lord.The Lord requires that we keep our eyes fixed on him and our feet will take on anything in the unknown.
We will conquer the oceans in our lives, we only have to fix our eyes on the Lord.

"Your grace abounds in deepest waters,Your sovereign hand
Will be my guide,Where feet may fail and fear surrounds me
You've never failed and You won't start now"

 This then is our confidence, that the Lord has availed his grace and mercy to uphold us. He leads our footsteps into the unknown, ours is to trust Him and trust in his will, Ours is to fix our eyes on the Lord. Our prayer then is that the spirit of the living Lord will lead us beyond our greatest comforts, that we will choose to allow the spirit to lead us "where our trust is without borders" And to go where He calls us. Can we have the ability to trust that God has the biggest and the best plans for our lives.

The Lord desires to take us to the deepest of experiences, Peter chose to go past the ordinary into the supernatural but that took faith and trust in the Jesus.It took a constant focus on the Lord of the waters. The Lord can stretch us into the unknown but the Lord requires that we trust him, that our souls will rest in Him, that he can be Lord and Master of our Lives. Such trust he requires of us...that we will trust Him, in the waves and storms, that we will keep our eyes above the waves and onto Him.

Will you let the Lord lead you, where your feet may fail you?

THEN I WAS 23(ODD!!)

How did time go by and just like that, it is no longer 1993? Today I turned 23,an odd 23! I still dream of forever,I wear makeup...most of the time.I still wear high heels and hold on to my high standards(I've got some). I am still figuring out what life is,it seems to change as I grow. I love my sister to the moon and beyond. Then my best friend, the rest...enough not to get chocked.

I think now more than ever of settling down.(It hit me well that I have two years to yet another odd number) I have grown exceptionally from the little lass I was last April. I got over dragging crushes,lost pretentious friends,made new ones,committed to growing in Christ deeper,started to leave alone. I definitely had a roller coaster of a year! I had some constants as well,I still struggle with the "eat once starve once syndrome" My account balance,is way shabby. I am still learning skills of saving and more saving. I am still working on my loudness (gentleness is hard much more quiet speech!) But I have also concluded that if I don't do it at 23,then probably this is me. I still hate washing(hallelujah to the washing machine.) I still don't own one as yet but definitely should work towards one. And yes, am still single(and intending)

 

23 is odd,you are in the middle of nothing.Just another 20s where you hope to earn more in life. This year,I hope to do a Diploma in Law,start some serious investing in people and other ventures.I hope to grow my finances and stop my weird syndrome. At 23 I hope to write better and write more poetry(the lines still speak much),I hope to make more friends and be intentional at keeping them. The other things...will definitely evolve as the year goes on. 

Many things definitely changed. I have some solid likes, Like a good perfume,(many bottles count the more) ice cream, cake(that's a charmer) I love how in the middle of all my little not so busy life I create moments of laughter with my family, I love the way they love me. I have become an auntie, most of my friends are married women and dang I love my life one more year yet again.

Today am a stinking fabulous 23,one more year old.

 Hurt,loved,spoiled,smothered,flustered but most of all grown. And that is just about the coolest gift...to grow...bolder before life.

BEING STRONG

You probably have heard of the cliche that," You never know how strong you are until being strong is the only option you have" But then again, what if being strong is what you have been through the years. It finally dawned on me that while I still had some expectations of people and while I had somewhat a slight hope in dependence, I was also the kind to stand alone and fight. But that came at a price. I realized that I bottled up and stayed strong through the emotions and when I bust open I really did bust open, I cried, despaired and also got my bouts of depression some times all because, being strong was all I ever did or maybe even knew.

It was finally wearing me out, the brave girl suit was getting tight. Some how I have always been the strong one, the one with the answers, not always though but in the crowds I just don't remember a day that I didn't hold it together.
Habits from over time, I can only imagine what the years through taught me on being strong no matter what. Recently, I realized that as time went by,I had a pattern of breaking down as much as I had it all together. I realized being strong was not something I wanted to be always, I need to feel all the emotions, to be a damsel and a brave warrior all the same. It is surely possible to be alive, there are a lot of books on how to be in touch with one's emotions, yet I still find strength a weapon to survive through regardless of how grave the consequences are in the detox moments.

So what does one do in the face of a turn of emotions, how does one go past the strong facade that comes with learning to brush off every pain or hurt. How does one cry when they want to and laugh hard when they so desire, How does one just live life?
And that is where I am, in a place where life should not get in the way of living. The next half of my life, should be of full living, of continuous thriving. It should be something worth looking forward to you know, between the fall of tears and the sound of loud laughter, between feeling the pain and letting it go. It should be a ride of life. (It's time I guess to cut off the strings of serious surviving)

It is good to be strong, half the time being strong helped me survive the moments of great pain but it should also be okay to find pleasure in  living large and living through all the moments of life. What is there to lose if in moments of despair you did go through and came to the end having experienced all the emotions as they played out. I guess I don't have to always be strong, I guess you also don't have to always be strong, you can be in between the moments of life and feel every little bit of it. It goes like that, but we never half find ourselves in those paths, I hope I do and you as well, Go live life.
You don't have to wear the brave girl suit always.

JUST GRATEFUL

After the elections period, everyone seemed to have a need to write about the vote rigging and now we are yanked into the post election petition. The temptation to pen in that area seems great yet I choose to sit and think of the little blessings that the Lord has provided in the time past and in the little limps of hope in the disarray that life tends to be.

I had my first surgery done, the fright all washed off in the fact that to get it done was to stop all the pain that was there before and that alone was comforting in itself. So I lay myself down, stripped of all shyness to the redeeming knife of the surgeon and there I was after two hours looking at what had been causing my torment and worry, Most comforting was the fact that it was not cancerous.(I have seen what cancer can do,not something to smile about.)
But it was after this ordeal, that I realized how much easy it is to go through life thankful of every little blessing that comes forth. Sure, it might not be a lot but most important is the fact that there is something to always be thankful about in the long run. It was much more easy for me to go through the days after the surgery with the mentality that it could have been worse but I was spared that as well.

Granted that things do not look all rosy in our country now, granted that the mere sight of soldiers assembled every where is in itself frighting and worrying. Yet in the presence of sheer defeat everyone has a won battle, I have a won battle.I am not happy with the way things turned out, I cry at the demise of our land in the next few years yet I also know that to cry over split milk is to fail to rise to the occasion and find adequate solutions for the morrow. So I embrace what is left of sanity and charge yet again. I make room for more joy and more peace, I line myself in the gutters of hope so I can scoop if only one gleaming stone to what maybe of tomorrow.


I am grateful, grateful for everything in between, grateful for the nights that seemed more dark, for the rain that failed to rain, for the rain that did rain. Grateful for the surgeon that came just in time, for the learned friends that rose to the occasion, for the men brave enough to boycott work, for the soldiers ready to battle. Grateful for my boda guy, who is always just a call away.(How do people with no boda guy survive?)
I am just grateful, that I can breathe in a bountiful of air, and scream "I am alive!!"

OF HAKIIKAS, 10th ANNIVERSAY AND ABRUPT SURGERIES

Over the weekend I attended a Muslim baptism called “Hakiika” and No, I do not know what they do during a Hakiika apart from the fact that it had a duwa (prayers) before it began. I got clad in my long hijab and closed off my ears in a kakaya scarf and so did the day begin. One thing stood out, the food is ever so much and needed. There is no room for getting hungry and who doesn’t want a full stomach.

 I was caught between chunks of freshly and nicely barbecued marinated meat and chicken to an amazing buffet. Men and women clad in nice colorful attires. Men by the way are served first now for a feminist person like me, I really had a fight with that one, but since I was too full to care I let it be. And there the utter revelation that men should be given their football came to total realization. In the heat of day, in the time that we forget the children, they sat down to cartoons and low and behold the mighty men came and took the television. You know how you are hoping that they are going to show a down the memory lane of the two important people and you get the shock of your life, it was to watch a football game!  How do you beat that? 

I officially gave up my struggle with men that watch football, let them watch please my fair ladies.

And then came the greatest shock of the day, My auntie to me has been Auntie Jackie, You’ll be shocked when you hear everyone else call her Husna...aaah that made my day, my uncle is called Hussein so two cute names and I was sorted for a while. The anniversary gifts were to die for; you could not go wrong on some things and trust that the memory of the Hakiika gave me a new feel of how love and forever can be all you need to keep going. The day closed and for two days, I did not eat anything, I was sorted to the fill. Oh the day was exceptionally elated through the weekend until late in the night.

 I realized if I don’t rush into the hospital (where I work) I was going to have a seriously bad leg and butt cheek in the near future. Who would have thought what I was an injection scar was a Teratoma and it was way big and long! There I was unexpectedly laid on the theater table up for a surgery that took two hours. It was way far beyond my expected outcome.  I am ever so shy to even own a male gynae, here I was on the table and the only way help would come was if I put m butt there and have the thing cut out, oh the shame the dissolves in the face of need. But here I am, grateful that it was gotten and happy that I can move on with life.

Yes, I was surprised and Yes, about the Hakiika about my Husna (cute name) and about the surgery and about all the little things that show up in my day. But I was also beyond the shadow of doubt brought back to the place of gratitude. How can one experience all these things and stay happy? I guess it comes from a place where one can see blessings even in the pain.                                                                                 
 I still think of the fun of the Hakiika, the guy who ate to crazy! I still think of the pain of a Teratoma and the urgency of surgery. But most of all I am thankful for the blessing of family, the answered prayer of a good surgeon and a good hospital.

WHEN THE PEN JUST WON'T DO

Tell me of the need to pen
when every little line that is birthed is killed prematurely;
this jam in my head!
many ideas yet none to grow into a life ...
many echoes yet none of them own a voice.

I pen and tear out
type off the keys and yet click delete
the dilemma, the pen owner goes through
the stare of the computer to words un-birthed ..

How do you write in the presence of no expression much less impression?
how does the heart desire to pen yet the mind feels arrested to the cages of a jammed up brain
How do I pen? How do I start to write and serve?
the pen is my redemption, the pen is my saviour
Yet for days on..nothing is redeemed in me.

So I just sat there and wrote ...
about how hard it was to pen ...
Maybe, and just maybe I would find an answer in the very pain that aches deep with in my head
how do I explode these ideas without failing my very self?
how do I make sense of the thing before me without letting any letter miss the very essence of their birth ...
how do I just wake up and write?

TO TAKE OFFENSE OR NOT.

DANIEL 3:17-18"If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire; and He will deliver us out of your hand, O king. 18"But even if He does not, let it be known to you, O king, that we are not going to serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up."

Many times, we lose our patience with God and we end up in a position of irritability towards God and man.Granted that things always do not go as planned in our lives and they cause us to question not only God's protection over our lives but also God's existence in our lives. So then we become irrational in a couple of decisions we make after that, because we feel we have been offended by God.

But when you witness the confidence, brevity and faithfulness in the words of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednago in the ability of their God to deliver them and how they were ready for anything regardless of whether the Lord came to their rescue or not.

Today, my phone(my baby) gave me a feel of what it means to delight in any circumstance that the Lord presents, Yes, it was ringing and Yes, it was picked from my bed when I had taken a bathroom break from reading a book. So there I was, irritated with the fact that it could disappear in a moment's time yet still be available through the night and through the day. I was then about to find cause to blame God, but the Daniel 3:17-18 brought me back to reason, you see the word of God is capable of correcting, rebuking and admonishing us according to 2 Timothy.

So, I sat and ask the Lord, that he be my everything, granted that I was sad-mad that my phone had been stolen, I was glad that I could say, "Whether I get my phone or not, I was going to delight in the Lord." It was not a case of deliverance but a case of know my God. I was sure of who I was serving and the things that He can do to bring me to my desired end. So I was going to enjoy the flames as they burn with in me and I was not going to take offense about it.

I hope you too are enjoying the truth that the Lord has your best interests at heart and not even the flames of life's difficulties can make you hold God accountable to unfaithfulness.

GOD KNOWS: BY MINNIE LOUISE HASKINS(1875-1957)

And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: “Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.” 

And he replied:

“Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.”

So I went forth, and finding the Hand of God, trod gladly into the night. And He led me towards the hills and the breaking of day in the lone East.

So heart be still:
What need our little life
Our human life to know,
If God hath comprehension?
In all the dizzy strife
Of things both high and low,
God hideth His intention.

God knows. His will
Is best. The stretch of years
Which wind ahead, so dim
To our imperfect vision,
Are clear to God. Our fears
Are premature; In Him,
All time hath full provision.

Then rest: until
God moves to lift the veil
From our impatient eyes,
When, as the sweeter features
Of Life’s stern face we hail,
Fair beyond all surmise
God’s thought around His creatures
Our mind shall fill.

THANK GOD FOR THE PENINAHS

 This week I went for my Tuesday Zoe fellowship and Apostle Anthony shared a word that made me think twice on how I view people that have decided to be my enemies. So he shared on the life of Hannah and Peninah. How Peninah made it her business to taunt and humiliate Hannah. You see, when someone does not like you, you feel like they are wrong and need to be corrected in their thoughts about you and how they don't find you as nice as you think you are. That's their judgement over you, you cannot change it but you can learn something new in the moments of friction that come with living with people that have a problem with who you are, how much you have achieved and where you are at in life.(Those are the kind that must have missed a lot of love in their childhood and in their adulthood.)

So, Apostle Anthony had something say about the Peninahs in our lives."Thank God for the Peninahs, for they wake you up in the middle of the night to pray, thank God for the Peninahs for they make it easy for your feet to touch the ground." That beat me to a new way to look at people that will go far and beyond in making a person's life a little hell.

So I am thanking God for my Peninahs, those that have made it their business to make my life a misery. I thank God for the times that I was made a praying Hannah until God came through. It has also taught me to thank God for the storms that show up. It is always a blessing to see hope in despair. I have come to see beauty beyond now and to appreciate the hurdles that have shown up on my journey on earth.

Now I know when God says that he makes, all things for good, for them that love the Lord. Now I can learn to look at people and situations as push aheads for my greater glory. For sure they do come with pain, and bruise the heart but I have also learnt that they also come with victory over things that used to take the place of the peace that we can get in them.
They are rendered powerless because then instead of dwelling on them, you learn like Hannah to cry for the Lord and to give it to the Lord at all times.

Revenge as nice as it smell as a dish, I have learnt like Hannah that God's vengeance is the ultimate gift we can give the Peninahs in our lives. So thank God for them and thank God for the victory that will come in the end.

THE TRUTH IN KNOWING GOD

Through this year, I have a desire is to find a deeper place in Christ. And while, I did not in the offset, have an idea of what I should do,I now do have a clear picture of what the Lord intends me to do in my search for a deeper experience of Him.

It is easy to desire more of God, after you hear about men that talk and commune with God. It is also easy to have a need for more of God. That desire and need is good. It is a good place to be but it is also not enough. The more I thought of the fact that, we know God, surly we do but we actually need to "know God" The dwelling knowledge of knowing him beyond the surface look that many have of Christ.

To dwell in his presence and interact with him(deeper than the almost asleep prayers) in a greater way. "It is about increasingly feeling and knowing the security of His love and enjoying His pleasure in us.There is a beautiful confidence that comes to us as we learn to dwell and remain in Christ,as He is in us."[www.brilliantperspectives.com]
When I came to the that revelation, I then knew that there is more to knowing God, than just "Jesus loves you." There was also the depth and he wants to have an intimate relationship with you and give you a moment of habitational comfort in his presence.

So I am in the midst of entering such a place with and in Christ. When John the Revelator says: "These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God." 1 John 5:13 KJV. I know what he means,that in knowing Christ ones needs to reach a point were communion with God, is a daily experience and it is more than just momentary praying and walking away but deep inclination to stay with His presence through the day and through the hours.

And now, the journey to knowing God on a personal ground is in motion.With a lot of talk of who God is and what God is not. I desire to see him in manifest of who He says he is to me; In Romans 1:19 ^" because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them" Holding on to this word I walk into the realms of His glory and search His word and presence deeper than I have through the years.

Granted that I will stay, truth is that the Lord has called me to such a communion. There is a lot of truth in what the Lord can do and if you have a determination to know nothing but Christ is when Christ sets in and amazes you and me. So if you ever desire to be in a place of complete bliss in Christ, work on that desire that you will be able to walk deeper into the place where God's mind is your own.A place where all that you are is a reflection of all that Christ is.

2015 GOES TO FAMILY: All in a few pictures.

Me and every one. Joan, Cathy,Stella,Louis and Cake!

Me, Cathy and Buky

 You never what you have until you lose, but also you never know what you have been missing until it arrives. I always had the feeling that there was more to this life than a grumpy little girl. It was the sense that I had a loving family. Growing up, I remember memories of love, sorrow and joy but when I look back on 2015, I am glad for the role family played in keeping me sane.

My right hand lady, we got this!

All my favorite people on Stella's wedding

2015 was about finding my very amazing family, 2016 will be about sealing these friendships and bonds. I love my big big family and I think I can finally grow fully with family around.

Me and my mummies

Me and Stella at Nandos

I have had the best memories of all to keep with these many people I can call, auntie, mummy, sister, cousins and everything family. Many times I might have forgotten how blessed I have been.But not anymore. I know what has been missing and it has arrived. Family.

me and little Gracie

Me and Julie at KFC

 So here is to family, to love, to laughter,to tears, to fighting,to reunion,to family. I pray that the Lord might teach me how to love my family better every passing months this year. Here's to many years of cherishing all the many miracles that have kept me overjoyed by family. Here's to a dreamy kind of existence.(That is faith duh!) Life can be dreamy, family can be dreamy and everything between can be more than dreamy.