GOD IS REAL, GOOD, PRESENT & WORKIN'

One day everythin’ is perfect, and the next, it's not. Life is funny like that I guess, a constant set of waves ever changin’ and constantly rolling in. Goodness and hardship. Happy then sad. Perfect and imperfect.

It's easy for me to think that I can handle everythin’ that comes my way. That I can squash the doubt and insecurities and keep movin’ forward in the struggle against the waves. But then one big wave comes in and knocks me down to my knees. It's easy when there is nothin’ to worry about. When things are so good, the only thing that worries you is change - the next wave. But I have found recently more than any other time that things cannot always be perfect. Things will not always be our idea of good. Life is sometimes messy and hard. And that's ok. Because when things ain't perfect, and you're tired and you feel like a failure and maybe even a loser, that's when grace shows up. Grace is what a loser needs most. We have got to rest in it.

For now, I will just be thankful. Thankful for this day. Thankful for my life. Thankful for my God. Thankful for my family. Thankful that I have people and things to be thankful for, which is just in a big way another reminder that life isn't always perfect, but that God is real and good and present and working. That is all that I require. I don't need to know more. That is what I will tell my heart every day. That is what I need to bloom.

"FOR I KNOW THE PLANS I HAVE FOR YOU..."

Once upon a time a few years ago, I was at Faith Clinic, the prayer meeting service of my church. I came that evening grudgingly - I didn't particularly feel close to God at the time - bad habits, a busy schedule, distractions and sin kept me at a distance from the Lord. The worst part is that I grew comfortable in my lukewarmness and didn't want a reminder that my soul was growin' cold.

I sat through most of the service with my thoughts wanderin' to everythin' but God. I tried to pray. But the words wouldn't come. Even as the people around me clearly experienced the Lord's presence, I sat numb and uncomfortable.

I don't remember what broke me. Maybe it was the preacher who said somethin' that struck a chord in my heart, but on the last prayer of the service, the walls came crumblin' down swiftly and quickly. As I bawled my eyes out and prayed incoherent words, I asked God to lead me... to tell me what He wanted from me.

"Jeremiah 29:11," I heard so audibly, I glanced up to see if someone around me had said it. But everyone was prayin' around me, not sparin' me a glance.

Now, I don't really know verses of the bible by heart, I'd always mix up the references. I may have grown up in the church and read the Bible, but I did not have Scriptures references memorized (let alone venture into the Prophets or the Old Testament often). But as I opened my Bible, tryin' to find where the book of Jeremiah was, because I was so shaken and clumsy in that moment, I read these words and they became the anthem of my heart from then on: "For I know the plans I have for you....". This was a verse I have heard recited every so often. How could I not tell that that was Jeremiah 29:11? Maybe if the voice had just reeled out the sentence, I would not have known that was the place in the bible because I would not have looked through.

I drew comfort, hope and strength from those words. They sustained me through that season and led me to the next. They were with me as I arose every morning and even now.

But those words aren't just for me or Jeremiah. They're for you too. God knows the plans He has for you, and they are good plans. Let Him lead you to where trust is without borders. There will be ups and downs, but I promise you, under His watchful care and guidance, you will flourish and bloom.

Lesson Learnt

"How do you know s/he's the one?"

That's a question most "about-to-wed"s get asked more often than they might expect. Normally, most of them would say that they “just knew”. This however, is usually not the case.

A few weeks after someone asked me that question, my first relationship fell apart. Or more accurately, the few threads I’d been desperately tryin' to hold together in the last two years of that relationship finally came unraveled. The irony!

Four years after the end of that relationship, I feel like I want to share what I learnt. And if I could give a piece of advice that will make that question less complicated, it would be to spend less time tryin' to figure out how to dress, how to act, how not to act, when to text, when not to text, who should call etc. and more time askin' the more inportant questions.

How do you feel about yourself when you're in this person’s presence? Can you tell him/her what you think—even if it will hurt his/her feelings? Are you able to let your guard down in front of him/her? Are you able to hear what s/he has to say even when it's difficult? Do you tell him/her how he/she makes you feel? Do you enjoy his/her company? Would you rather be with him/her than by yourself?

We spend so much time worryin' about how much schoolin' they've had, what kind of job they do, what kind of car they drive et al. Not that these questions are wrong; it’s just that their answers can easily be manipulated. A person can accomplish a lot without character and integrity.

Only time can provide true answers to the more important questions because those things cannot be rushed. I’m not sayin' it will take forever to get answers. What I'm sayin' is that you should cut yourself some slack. Give yourself the time you need to be clear about the relationship and how it affects the peace of your being. It will take a different amount of time for everyone, so there's no need to beat yourself up if it takes longer than others.

And yes, you’re gettin' older every day and more and more of your friends are getting engaged on social media and it feels like you are the last one and you’re goin' to be left behind. I know there's a chance that if you wait “too long”, the person you’re datin' might not stay long enough for you to decide and just walk away. But the truth is: what is for you will not pass you by. It's the rest of your life, you cannot come and go and mess it up. 😁

Findin' the “right person” is not the point of your wait. Who you are becomin' is the point. Learn to speak your truth to the one you're with, terrifyin' as it may be. We spend most of our time tryin' to veil the truth, tryin' not to say anythin' that will make us too vulnerable, or hurt anyone’s feelings, or make us seem “too forward”. What’s better than findin' a life partner is learnin' to be at home with yourself.

Back to what I've learnt from endin' a relationship! A relationship that ends is not your life's endin' nor is it a failure tag on you. Sadly, I was one to judge people for breakin' up. I didn’t know I was doin' it until I found me in the same place. It's not like I sat around thinkin' they were terrible at their relationships, but I did think that that would never happen to me. Breakin' up was not an option for me. I was strong, I told myself then. No matter what happened, I'd fight to keep my relationship goin' and I did fight. Even when it was drainin' me, I kept tellin' myself that if I could only fight harder, I could save us.

The most depressin' question as people began to know of the split was: “so you couldn’t just make it work?” As much as that made me feel like a failure, it took a while for me to realize that the outcome of that relationship does not reflect or define the resilience of my soul. Did I think I'd have a break up? No. That was not the story I asked for, nor was it what I dreamed about.

The end of a relationship, I have come to learn isn’t always the result of a lack of fighting. Sometimes the strongest thing one can do is to let go. You can do all the right things and still break up. So do not be so quick to judge your efforts by outcomes in life. I needed to learn that a broken relationship is not a failed life.

I hope you don’t have to go through a break up. Truly. But I also want you to know that even if you do go through one—or another kind of heartbreak all together—you are goin' to be okay. You are powerful and resilient and incredible and not a minute is wasted. Not your dating life, not your singlelife, not your post-breakup life.

Just know that that beautiful, totally resilient version of you is unfoldin' in full bloom.

INFLUENCE

It's not about the number of followers you have but about the influence and relationships you have with your followers. If you only have a few followers and those followers are incredibly engaged with you, then you're more influential than someone else who has a million followers but no true relationship with them.

So often we think that to have true influence, we first need a hundred thousand followers on our social media accounts, blogs, ministry or life in general; or maybe that we need a special kind of job, ministry or platform. But all we really need is to invest our time in one person. To be faithful in little things before God entrusts us with more.

Start where you are today. Put your head down and work away at what God has given you now. Even if it feels discouraging. Even if no one is reading, listenin' or watching.

And BTW, you don't need a job, a blog or a ministry to feel like you're doing your part. Your influence is in those around you. They are your followers. Engage with them first. Plant seeds in their hearts and watch them bloom.

THERE'S GOOD OUT THERE

While my life is fine; I still always find a cozy refuge every night and all's well at home, when I look around the world I feel heavy and sad.

Every trendin' topic and headline points to a world that is crumbling. Politicians seem more ruthless and self-serving than ever, criminals are destroyin' lives and victims are being doubly victimized by a joke of a judicial system, the latest disgustin' lack of regard for human life by terrorists is splashed across social media every few days and I've found myself wonderin' what kind of world I'd someday bring children into.

I've felt myself becomin' angry, bitter and withdrawn.

And then this evenin' as I was havin' dinner I was reminded of an incident that occurred durin' the day. I was in the market jugglin' a huge bag of food stuffs, my wallet and a bag of clothes and just couldn't find the shortest way out of the market. As the rain drizzled, I wiggled, tryin' to get through the little opening in the midst of the human traffic, while hopin' I hadn't drop the half a dozen eggs cradled in the thin bag now hangin' over my shoulder.

At this time, someone hit me from behind and my wallet fell. I was this close to losin' it when a young boy approached me and without saying anything, smiled and passed me my wallet from the other end, before movin' closer to readjust the bag that had been slippin' down my arm.

"Thank you." I mumbled, grateful and relieved. However, after he walked away, I felt shell shocked. Why did he help me? I checked my wallet to see if it still held my phone. Turns out the poor boy wasn't a pick-pocket afterall. He just noticed me strugglin' and helped.

But why did he? Because most people are like that.

That young boy who helped me in the rain will never trend on Facebook. His face won't be flashed across the news over and over. But his act reminded me that while the stories in our faces are usually awful, the real world; the one we interact with every day, is filled with goodness and kindness.

We shouldn't let current events and politics make us bitter. We shouldn't let the bad few rot all of mankind for us. We shouldn't allow headlines to poison our hearts against each other.

I still have hope for us and I hope you do, too . Be good, be kind, bloom!

THINGS I'M LEARNIN' TO BE OKAY WITH ON SOCIAL MEDIA

Improper grammar (case in point: the title above is prolly incorrect)

Inappropriate caption (what has a sentence like "Vengeance is of the Lord" got to do with the picture of a supermarket?)

Obscene images (not a single day goes by without a photo-epileptic sufferin' an attack)

Misleadin' info (ever seen the picture of a president at some conference or a catchphrase like "10ways to lose weight", only to click the adjoined link to see a site that talks religion?)

Undecipherable abbrievations (even when the supposed short form has the same number of alphabets, if not more)

No punctuation (more like multiple-complex-compound sentences, paragraphin' not required)

Misinterpreted words (lemme is an aberration for "let me", not "leave me)

Misattributed quotes (sorry Mugabe, you seem to have "said" so many things you're unaware of)

Perfect pictures (oh well...blame it on our phones and other mobile devices)

Self-acclaimed journalists (the media's primary function is to inform, not so? Therefore anybody online can publish news)

Flawless profiles (What people post on social media are highly curated moments, often depictin' an idea of perfection. But on the outside, we know what's up)

There's more on the list o, but the gloom it causes can slow somebody’s bloom!

HOW DO YOU IDENTIFY YOURSELF?

Who do you say you are? I'll go first.

There are many different ways I label myself. The most common labels are: female, 25 year-old, friend, sister, daughter, colleague, student, singer, youth group leader, Nigerian, etc. While these things are all true, none of them entirely describes the fullness of what really makes me tick, neither do they reflect the potentials that lie within me and all that I am capable of being.

The most important piece of my identity is my identity in Christ. I am who God is and who He made me to be; everything else that I am steams from this central identity. My identity as a child of God is the only identity that is constant. All the other identities stated at first could be taken away. For one, I could lose the people I love. The organization I work with could decide that they no longer require my services. I could lose my voice. My friends could drift away. I could even lose my home or be forced to run for my life with my family, like refugees are doin’ somewhere out there as I type these words from the comfort of my room.

Should I choose first to be identified by my role as a girlfriend, what if my significant other is no more? Would that make me any less me? If I am always so defined by my intellect, my language, my articulation and my abilities, then who will I be if I happen to suffer amnesia, Alzheimer’s disease or maybe if I am rendered handicap in some way, will I cease to be me? It just means that my whole world will come crumblin’ down if I base my identity on any of these temporary roles. As much as I may delight in these things, my role as any of these personalities is not my core identity. I am a being first, before I am anything else.

I’d like to remind you that you, dear lady reading this, are not your bra size, nor the width of your waist. You are not your skin colour, neither are you defined by the attention you get from males or anyone for that matter. You are the content of your character, you are the ambitions that drive you. You are the thoughts that you think. You are beautiful and desirable not because anyone thinks so, but for the spark of life within you that no one else can bring. You are not the shape of the vessel, you are the volume of the soul it carries.

You have only one certainty in life, only one identity that is secure: that is your identity in Christ. Conflict and death and instability and a diagnosis could take every other identity away from you in one skinny minute, but nothin’ can take away who you are in Christ. As a matter of fact, you are not your own; you are nobody outside Him! Only through Him, are any of us who we are. He is the Ultimate Identity and nothing can take that away. Not famine, not sword, neither trial nor hunger.

When you truly find your identity in Christ, you no longer feel superficial and insecurity gives way. Because at its core, insecurity is rooted in a case of mistaken identity.

Our most important identity of all is that we are God’s children. I forget that often, you too?

We have laid so much of our identity on the altar of public opinion, cultural sway, performance, status and the desire to be known. This stunts the growth of our self-worth and pushes our true identity under the pile. Let today be the day we let go of our stunted self-worth and bloom.

IT ONLY GETS BETTER

I sit down next to 21-year-old newly disengaged , undecipherable me. She has her face in her hands.

"Did I make a mistake? This is crazy. Everything you've said, your entire life...it looks impossibly different. Tell me the truth. If you could go back in time and undo it all, would you?"

I pause and then take her hand.

"You're right and wrong. It was different but apparently not impossible. More days than not as a 21yo I woke up angry, sad, tired, and scared. My head was always swirling with thoughts of what-ifs. My entire existence was questioned, I'd wake up in the night just to worry. I'd torture myself with thoughts of something happening to crush my heart.

I don't go to bed: I collapse into it and cling to the mattress like a life raft floating in the middle of a vast, churning ocean, no land in sight.

But as a 25yo now, I wouldn't trade these experiences and growth for all the gold in the world. Every day as I rise from the previous day's ashes, I'm introduced to a better version of myself. Every time I stretch my patience brittle, I deep sea dive into an ocean of self-love and come up more enthusiastic than I've ever been.

Every time I hear me laugh, see me smile, I'm bathed in a love so hot it burns. It's not the kind of love that expects Valentines or stirs butterflies, it's the kind that rises and sets with the sun faithfully.

Yes, it's been different but not impossible. And no, I'm not surviving, I've been thriving and of course, blooming.

SOCIAL MEDIA DISPLAYS

"Why don't you share your boyfriend's photos frequently?" I get asked quite often so I'll address it once and for all. Many days social media feels like the village I've always wanted. I find myself wishing we could all be in a park or sitting around chitchatting. But the reality is I don't know who everyone is, and for whatever reason, it makes me uncomfortable to put him on stage all the time.

I'm not at all biased, but I find him to be adorable and would love for you to fawn over him like I do, but I don't feel comfortable displaying him all the time.  I share his photos online with friends and family that I know personally but I don't think it's something I should do all the time.

I am a private person and that means it's easier for me to err on conservative side.   So, the short version of this answer is yes, I'd love for you guys to tell me how cute he is or how good we look together, but no...the pictures that will be posted will mostly be done once in a very long while.  Or how about a plot twist: maybe I don't have any boyfriend anymore. Maybe I'm not even straight. 💁Digest that.   Thanks for listening. Forgive the rambling.