I'm doing this because I think I've missed you, because I've been busy with school related work, because I feel like telling you a true life story, because I feel so much compassion for the children hurt in bomb affected states aaaannnddd because today is the 27th.
The 27th is one special day, here's what I can remember...
27-01-2002
It was a really lovely Sunday afternoon and everyone was chilling at home. In that year, my parents and I used to live on Igidi street in Mende, Maryland. I was particularly excited about this day because it was the Sunday after my 5th birthday which was on Friday and everyone was really warm and friendly towards me from church till home. I remember that day as if it were yesterday.
I wore one of my loveliest dresses with my ball gown inner wear, it was one of a kind but what'd you expect? As per post birthday girl, my mum made me look the best even if she was Ill that day. We then went to church, a typical Sunday thing to do then we returned home sometime at mid day. We were all casually enjoying the Sunday just like everyone else before the unexpected, untypical Sunday thing happened.
The house began to vibrate and it was not normal. The glass cups and plates on the shelves began to drop one after the other, even the windows began to fall off. We were speechless. My uncle then went out to find out what may be happening. He returned with the most heart ripping news.
People were screaming, shouting, crying, running, people were everywhere. That was when we got to know about ongoing explosions at the military cantonment in Ikeja.
We stayed home for quite a while and didn't want to leave because Ikeja was not just two blocks away but the intensity of the shaking, vibration, shattering, people running and the thick smoke visible from the windows upstairs made our adrenalins kick in. People began saying "it's coming here, the fire is coming here". My mom was Ill but I'm telling you, the illness itself got scared and left her. She got up, threw on one of her bubu clothing, carried my younger sister who was just 10 months old at the time and strapped her to back. That was when our run began.
My aunty and one of my sisters, Beulah, who is soooo much like a tomboy didn't even say jack to us, before we knew it they had scaled the fence and off they went.
I was left with my mom and three of my sisters; my youngest sister Jemimah, my eldest sister Sonia and Vikki who is Sonia's immediate younger sister.
(At the time of this event, my dad and brother were in two other states).
So we got out of the house gate and ran to one place that had a hill, which was somewhere like the only way out of that arena. As young as I was, I was baffled by how something as serious as a bomb blast was happening and people had the time, strength and courage to be carrying household furniture and appliances on their heads and in their hands while running. Anyways, when we got to the hill, there was a swampy gutter there so crossing was not as easy...for my mom. The thing is, there was a plank put there but the large number of people stomping on it broke the plank. So my mom was about to cross the quite large gutter with my sister strapped to her back but guess what? She missed her step and fell in, and it was swampy so she began sinking in. My eldest sister Sonia was trying her best to pull her out and was even asking people around for help but everyone was busy saving their own lives. I stood there just watching.
My mum then told a man to cross me over the swamp but you won't believe what he did.
"Please help me cross my daughter to the other side", as simple and as clear as the English was, I guess the man did not understand. He crossed me quite alright be he took me half way up the hill and left me there. I could still see my mom and sisters from a distance but they couldn't really see me. They were distraught and I could see it.
While I was half way up the hill, I made a move to go down the hill to meet them but being the little girl I was, someone took pity on me and thought I had lost my parents and carried me and took me to the top of the hill which connects two roads. At this point, I had lost sight of my mother and sisters. Last I could think of was my mom sinking in that gutter and my sister trying to pull her out. All I could do was cry.
After I had lost sight of my mom and sisters, I remember taking a road that led left from the top of the hill, I was very confused because the person that took me to the top of the hill just abandoned me there but I kept on walking. I didn't have a watch, but what did I even need one for? I was too little to tell the time but what I wasn't too little to know was, the day began turning to night. I was just walking like the way it is in the movies and I got tired, the multitude of people I saw reduced so much, that adrenalin had dropped and everything just seemed calmer than the former. For some reason I wasn't scared, just really sad.
I took my rest on one bridge that evening, but before sleeping, I remember a young girl walked up to me an offered me an orange. I honestly don't remember of I accepted it or if I refused it but she stayed with me a while until I fell asleep. I woke up in the middle of the night only to find myself in someone's house with that young girl no where to be seen, the tears that poured from my eyes were unbelievable, all I could say was "where is my mummy?", "take me to my mummy", "I want my mummy" and I would cry more. The people around me tried to calm me down, they gave me everything possible, they gave me one tantalizing food like that but I just couldn't eat, all I wanted was my mummy then I fell asleep again.
I woke up at day break again but guess where I found myself... I found myself on the staircase to my house. I was mute. I was just staring. Then my sister came out and saw me, she was shouting, "Mummy, Mummy, Sharon is home, Mummy someone brought her to the house!!". They all rushed out. The joy and the tears...priceless.
We now waited and hoped for my aunt and my sister Beulah, to come home, which they did sometime later. Everyone thought it a miracle that I returned home because a lot of children were missing and some dead. Apparently, it was my neighbour who found me, about two days later she came home to tell my mom of how she saw me sleeping on a bridge and she carried me.
Then, I didn't see it as a miracle but now that I think of it, it actually was. God used her. We were all grateful to her for that act of compassion. Who knows where I'd have been now?
It might seem odd to some people that a 5 year old can keep such an event in her memory but you know different things leave different impacts on people. That day is one of the many days that can never leave my memory.
Imagine what such an unintended blast did to a lot of families, ones who were displaced, the ones who were lost and the ones who died. Then compare it to those intended ones in places like Baga and the likes, it's not easy. You can't really know how those people are feeling unless you've experienced something similar. All you can feel is the pain that someone was hurt because of another person's act of wickedness.
All we can do is pray for the peace of those people and those places and for the peace of Nigeria.
Have a blessed day!!
- PS - That dress circulating the internet is white and gold to me.
27 Feb 2015
12 Feb 2015
Forgiveness: Is it really that easy?
Hello guys,
Here's a story I was told a few Sundays ago in church but I never really gave it much thought until today.
It's a fictional story, an excerpt from Corrie Ten Boom's book and it's about forgiveness.
Read...and Share with someone
" Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart"
"It was in a church in Munich that I saw him—a balding, heavyset man in a gray overcoat, a brown felt hat clutched between his hands. People were filing out of the basement room where I had just spoken, moving along the rows of wooden chairs to the door at the rear. It was 1947 and I had come from Holland to defeated Germany with the message that God forgives."
“It was the truth they needed most to hear in that bitter, bombed-out land, and I gave them my favorite mental picture. Maybe because the sea is never far from a Hollander’s mind, I liked to think that that’s where forgiven sins were thrown. ‘When we confess our sins,’ I said, ‘God casts them into the deepest ocean, gone forever. …’
“The solemn faces stared back at me, not quite daring to believe. There were never questions after a talk in Germany in 1947. People stood up in silence, in silence collected their wraps, in silence left the room."
“And that’s when I saw him, working his way forward against the others. One moment I saw the overcoat and the brown hat; the next, a blue uniform and a visored cap with its skull and crossbones. It came back with a rush: the huge room with its harsh overhead lights; the pathetic pile of dresses and shoes in the center of the floor; the shame of walking naked past this man. I could see my sister’s frail form ahead of me, ribs sharp beneath the parchment skin. Betsie, how thin you were!
[Betsie and I had been arrested for concealing Jews in our home during the Nazi occupation of Holland; this man had been a guard at Ravensbruck concentration camp where we were sent.]
“Now he was in front of me, hand thrust out: ‘A fine message, Fräulein! How good it is to know that, as you say, all our sins are at the bottom of the sea!’
“And I, who had spoken so glibly of forgiveness, fumbled in my pocketbook rather than take that hand. He would not remember me, of course—how could he remember one prisoner among those thousands of women?"
“But I remembered him and the leather crop swinging from his belt. I was face-to-face with one of my captors and my blood seemed to freeze."
“ ‘You mentioned Ravensbruck in your talk,’ he was saying, ‘I was a guard there.’ No, he did not remember me."
“ ‘But since that time,’ he went on, ‘I have become a Christian. I know that God has forgiven me for the cruel things I did there, but I would like to hear it from your lips as well. Fräulein,’ again the hand came out—’will you forgive me?’
“And I stood there—I whose sins had again and again to be forgiven—and could not forgive. Betsie had died in that place—could he erase her slow terrible death simply for the asking?"
“It could not have been many seconds that he stood there—hand held out—but to me it seemed hours as I wrestled with the most difficult thing I had ever had to do.
“For I had to do it—I knew that. The message that God forgives has a prior condition: that we forgive those who have injured us. ‘If you do not forgive men their trespasses,’ Jesus says, ‘neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses.’
“I knew it not only as a commandment of God, but as a daily experience. Since the end of the war I had had a home in Holland for victims of Nazi brutality. Those who were able to forgive their former enemies were able also to return to the outside world and rebuild their lives, no matter what the physical scars. Those who nursed their bitterness remained invalids. It was as simple and as horrible as that."
“And still I stood there with the coldness clutching my heart. But forgiveness is not an emotion—I knew that too. Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart. ‘… Help!’ I prayed silently. ‘I can lift my hand. I can do that much. You supply the feeling.’
“And so woodenly, mechanically, I thrust my hand into the one stretched out to me. And as I did, an incredible thing took place. The current started in my shoulder, raced down my arm, sprang into our joined hands. And then this healing warmth seemed to flood my whole being, bringing tears to my eyes.
“ ‘I forgive you, brother!’ I cried. ‘With all my heart!’
“For a long moment we grasped each other’s hands, the former guard and the former prisoner. I had never known God’s love so intensely, as I did then”.
----------------End---------
**I would have shared my personal experience but I haven't been hurt so much in my lifetime and I hope not to be but this story just makes me see that even if I am, there's a way to give myself peace and let go.
• If you were Corrie, what would you do?
• You can also share your forgiveness story if you have one.
(excerpted from “I’m Still Learning to Forgive” by Corrie ten Boom. Reprinted by permission fromGuideposts Magazine. Copyright © 1972 by Guideposts Associates, Inc., Carmel, New York 10512>).
11 Feb 2015
9 Feb 2015
The New Week
Isn't it just funny how this life is? We just live through each day without really noticing how it just goes by us. Wasn't yesterday just the first? Now look where we are now, a new week.
The days of my last week were not all that calm and glam as I would have wanted but then, "in all things give thanks" so I won't complain. What do I expect this week? Happiness, contentment, I just want to feel good and be able to say at the end...that was a great week.
What do you expect?
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
"Be of good cheer"
The days of my last week were not all that calm and glam as I would have wanted but then, "in all things give thanks" so I won't complain. What do I expect this week? Happiness, contentment, I just want to feel good and be able to say at the end...that was a great week.
What do you expect?
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
"Be of good cheer"
2 Feb 2015
FEBRUARY
Quote Of The Week
"Let all things be done decently and in order" - 1 Corinthians 14:40
February, another month. If you're able to read this post you should be grateful because this means you're alive and well and in the month of February.
Entering a new month is a reminder of the goodness of God.
This month you have to be careful and cautious of your environment. A lot will go on as usual but most importantly, the upcoming elections. So open your eyes, open your ears, open your mouth and open your mind, do what you're told by the state authority; nobody wants to be left out.
Stay safe, stay blessed, prioritize, organize, overflow, enjoy this great month!
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