I joined these folks on Sunday. I’m supposed to put up at least one blog post daily for the next one month. Don’t ask me how I’m going to manage that with the eppileptic internet access I have and the sometimes faltering power supply. It seems quite unrealistic but I’m going to try. Luckily, it does not have to be anything long (like this one) and thanks to wordpress I can schedule my future posts!
“Be strong. Take courage. Don’t be intimidated. Don’t give them a second thought because God, your God, is striding ahead of you. He’s right there with you. He won’t let you down; he won’t leave you.” (Deutoronomy 31:6 The Message)
This is especially apt because lately I’ve been feeling let down by people. But I need to remember that faith is not really about how I’m feeling and is mostly about what I believe; and I believe this:
He won’t let me down; He won’t leave me!
The weekend has been incredibly busy and before that it was a really frustrating week. During the week there was a storm which messed with our power and we had a 3 day long blackout. If you are in any other part of the world while you are reading this, you will probably feel acute sympathy for me. If you are in Nigeria though, you will roll your eyes and wonder ‘what’s new?’
I live in an area of Nigeria that usually has constant power supply. It’s called Plateau State and for the most part, we do not use power provided by the Federal Government owned power supply company. This one is privately owned. I think. Anyway, we have a reasonably steady power supply and outages are treated with due urgency.
Well, I had to live through a 3 day power outage when I had so many things to do – all online of course. That would not have been so bad because like good Nigerians, we 
have a stand-by generator. But guess what? The internet was also down! Probably in solidarity with the power… But I am here today to tell you that I survived. It has been proved incontrovertibly that I can go three days without the internet – 3 whole days!! (even I can’t believe it!)
Anyway, all that was topped by the crazy weekend I had. We hosted 40 guests at the Retreat Center! 40!! Or we booked down 40 and ended up with 43 adults and 3 children. Some folks were having a retreat. Now, normally I love having people over – and it’s not just because of the money they bring with them (though there’s that too). But we were filled to capacity – beyond - capacity and catering for them was quite stressful. But I had it under control, I’m good like that (quite shameless, I know).
Then on the last night the strangest thing happened. We served 46 plates of food and included 4 extra plates. We cleaned up, heaved a sigh of relief and my assistant was getting ready to go home for the night when lo and behold, a straggling group of men came at us yelling, arms waving ….OK. So that’s not totally accurate. A single representative came to inform us that the food was not enough. Wait. Did I mention that there were 43 adults and 3 children? And did I also say that we served 50 plates of food? So what was the problem?? Oh, the women ate all the food! And left 15 hungry men?? Oh dear! It was hilarious but not exactly funny because that meant we (my assistant and I) had to go into the kitchen because our cook had closed for the day. sigh.
What really amazed me was that it seemed like such a role reversal. One would expect the men to eat all the food and leave the women without, but it was the other way around. Go figure. I guess what a man can do (in this case EAT), a woman can do better indeed. Oh well, at least they left me with an amusing anecdote to relate. And I really did love having them around.
July 4 was America’s Independence Day; so to all my American friends, Happy Independence!
July 4 is also my brother’s birthday. He is a special person and I would like to wish him a very special birthday. I know that things are turning for him in the best possible way. I can feel the Lord restoring to him all the years the locusts have eaten…There is greatness in every drop of his blood and no drop will go to waste.
With all that’s in me little brother, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
I can’t explain it, I feel as though I’m losing touch with my faith. No, I still believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and I’m a born-again Christian. But I’m finding it hard to connect with God. Yeah I pray, and read my Bible. But I have felt loneliness surround me like a shroud, blocking all light and joy from my life. As I tried to explain to my fiance, it is not as though something momentous happened which has fostered this feeling of loneliness. I just don’t seem to be myself. I’m in a situation where I am questioning a lot of my beliefs and re-examining my expectations.
There are milestones in every life. Places you get to and you know a major change has taken place inside of you
. Sometimes it is associated with something huge; a tragic loss or a major catastrophe. Other times though, you do not even know when you are passing that milestone until you suddenly realize that you are a great distance from the person you were the week before and you know that you can’t go back to that person no matter how much you want to. Well, I can point almost to the hour, the exact moment when I passed that milestone.
Recently, I became an ‘adult’. Oh I’m almost 28 and most people reach adulthood in their teens. But I still had the lightheartedness of a child, and the mischief too. I never wanted to become an ‘adult’; to get to that place where things are a little grimmer. That point where one is always slightly dissatisfied with her (or his) life. However, I finally crossed the line. I faught valiantly but I had to surrender. I gave up.
I gave up when I discovered that people are never what they say they are or even what you think they are – no matter how long you’ve known them, they go up and do stuff that’s completely out of character. Or is it? That was where I had the difficulty. Then I discovered that people you respect and even honour, people who have added so much value to your life, well, they are not those people you thought they were. It’s all about how thick the smokescreens were…then I began to question those values.
OK. So now I have to ask myself if all I believe about God is as a result of what I came to discover myself or if it’s what these people I’ve modeled part of my life after have led me to believe. That is why I say I have a crisis of faith. I need to sift through and know what belief is mine and which has been handed over either from my home, my peers or my church group.
Hi,
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Cheers!
Neda Agha-Soltan: Face of the Iranian Revolution
- From Day 1, Iran’s women stood in the vanguard. Their voices from rooftops were loudest, and their defiance in the streets boldest.
By ROGER COHENPublished: June 27, 2009
I am a woman, so it would be right to say that I am affected by what is happening in Iran. This is my generation; it affects me, it affects my children.
Iran seems to be the most unlikely country to stage a Revolution, then again when you look more closely, it is the most likely. Iran has since the first revolution in 1979, run a conservative Muslim theocracy, one in which male supremacy is etched in the legal code. And yet, women were part of those who struggled for the Islamic state during that revolution. These same women were pushed aside and their rights stampeded upon.
Now the women have arisen and are demanding those rights they so fiercly fought for. It is ironic that a woman who was not even associated with the struggle, but who died because of it has become the symbol of the revolution taking place in Iran.
What these women are asking for is not unreasonable: freedom. Freedom to have their votes rightly counted; freedom to have their fundamental rights upheld; freedom to be treated with respect, as human beings. Is that too much to ask?
Today it is Iran, who knows where the bells of revolution will toll tomorrow.
The women of Iran want to know where their vote to freedom is.
For more on this unfolding story, visit
If anymore news on Iran comes up, I'll update this page. If you have any useful links about the revolution in Iran, please leave a comment.
When a man, either by hurting or by pleasing his woman, tries to control her, he is a Mama’s Boy who believes he gets his power from the women in his life.
When a woman, either by serving or dominating her man, tries to take care of him, she is a Daddy’s Girl who believes she will find fulfillment by taking care of the men in her life.
(Taken from: Getting Back to Love.com)
Michal by Jill Eileen Smith
I have not read this book yet. But it is definitely on my To Read list. Not because I love the author – I haven’t read any of her books so I can’t really say if I’ll like her or not. But because of the subject matter.
My family and I regularly read through the Bible in our Bible Devotions. Recently we came to the story of Michal and it really affected me in a way I cannot explain.
Here was this girl, the King’s daughter. A Princess. I guess she was really valuable in the eyes of her father – afterall, he offered her as a reward to a warrior. I could not get past it. Did he ask her if she wanted to be offered that way? What if she was already in love with someone else? Did he even care? She was just chattel, albeit a valuable one. But then, all women were chattel.
The she went and fell in love with her father’s chief enemy – even though it was her father who gave her to the man in the first place. But he probably thought she would be willing to kill the man fo him; he did not reckon with the fact that she could fall in love with her husband. And that’s exactly what she did. When he realised that his life was in danger, David (Michal’s husband) was forced to flee the palace. That’s when Michal’s troubles began.
Out of anger, her father took her and gifted her to another man. I kept wondering how she felt about that. Here she was, in love with her husband yet forced to ‘marry’ another man. Well, like any woman of her time (and this time too come to think of it), she settled in and came to care for her new husband. But then, things had changed in the Kingdom.
Her father, the King, was dead. There was war in the land and David, her former husband was now King. And he wanted his wife back. Even though he already had several others, Michal was his first love. The story of how Michal was practically torn from her current husband’s arms and dragged to her former husband’s was pathetic. I had tears in my eyes reading about how the Husband No.2 was wailing as he trailed afer his wife. I had many questions too:
- Did she have children with Hubby No.2?
- Was she asked if she wanted to go back to No.1?
- How could a woman be treated so abominably?
I just didn’t get it. So now, a book is out, telling us something about Michal. I am definitely going to read it if I can lay my hands on it! Will it shed more light on the biblical story? I really don’t know.
If you would like to read the story of Michal in the Bible, it’s found in 1 Samuel 18, 19, 25, 2 Samuel 3 & 6. You could check Bible Gateway.com to read it online.
Baba is what we call our fathers here in Nigeria. Of course many tribes have different versions: papa, epa, ba etc. But for the majority of us, it’s BABA. Which is why when we want to get real personal with God, we call him Baba. This connotes a closer and more intimate relationship.
Oh BTW,
Cafe Chat is now on Thursdays (although I’m a bit late). This week’s question is below
So today, I ask you what does it mean that you are able to call God your Father? Really think about this one, and then just let your words flow from your heart…
When I read the question above, this passage in John 1:12 came immediately to my head:
But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. (NLT)
Having the right to call God, the Most High Baba is a concept that makes me really emotional. It is also a concept I am just gradually coming into. I have related to God on many levels but my favourite was as my friend. But although He is constant, He is not static and His ways of relating to me constantly change. Of late, I have been enjoying His fathering. Where do I start from? A father to me, signifies the follwing:
- A provider
- An Instructor
- A Comforter
- My role model
God has been all that to me and more.
See, a good father always wants what is best for his children, even if it distresses them at the time. I remember when my dad used to spank me, he would always say that it hurt him more than it did me. I hated that phrase cos I didn’t believe him. But I think he’s got the right of it. God wants GOOD things for His children (“Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake?” Matthew 7:9&8 NIV)
That aside, with God as my father, there is nothing I need that I will not get. He did say He would supply ALL my needs according to His glorious riches (Philippians 4:19). To me, that covers everything; my spiritual needs, my emotional needs, physical needs, intellectual needs…. every sphere in which I might need something, He’s right there – at the point of need.
Sometimes I think when I have to go through some really difficult stuff, it hurts God. I know there are times He’s told me to take a road and I meet grief on that road; when that happenes, I climb unto my bed and imagine I’m climbing unto His laps and just weep. I remind Him that it’s all His fault cos He told me to take that step.
Having God as a father means that He understands me. He knows that when I start moaning and groaning about something He wants me to do it does not mean that I don’t respect Him. It just means that I’m comfortable enough with Him to be Me.
What does it mean to have the Lord of all the universe as my own personal Baba? I really can’t explain it in one blogpost. But if you have anything to add, please check in at the Cafe chat for the week.
God bless!
